“This place is amazing,” she whispered as they approached the desk.
“Hi,” the woman behind the counter smiled.
“Hi, we are looking for a room.” Lucca smiled at her and pulled Tempest closer.
“I have one room available.”
He took care of all the arrangements as she looked around some more. In the corner of the living room sat a dream catcher. It was out of place in this home that looked like it could be in a magazine of collectibles. Her feet moved across the room. She needed to get a closer look at it. The palms of her hand itched with the desire to touch it even as she knew she shouldn’t.
“Menace?” She heard Lucca’s softly asked question but was unable to stop moving.
“She doesn’t want to touch that.”
The woman was wrong she wanted to touch it. The dream catcher wasn’t ordinary instead of feathers, there were small glowing rocks on it. They called her name beckoned her to come forward faster. They wanted to be stroked. There was a story locked within them, and they wanted to share it.
She touched the rock that was screaming her name just as Lucca curled his arm around her waist. Together they plunged into a dark void.
Great, she did it again. She touched the wrong thing, spoke to the wrong person and ended up some place she didn’t want to be. When would she ever learn? Obviously, not today.
“Are you alright?” She nodded her head before she realized it was probably too dark for him to see her.
“I’m fine, you?”
“I’m in one piece. Where did you take us?”
“I didn’t take us anywhere it was that rocks fault.”
“Let me get this right. We were in a nice bed-and-breakfast with a king-size bed waiting for us to plop down on it. Now we’re on the ground, and you're blaming it on a rock?” He frowned to keep from laughing.
“Yeah, I knew you would understand.”
“Alright menace where did the rock take us?”
“I don’t know.”
He stood and pulled her up after him.
“Can you see?”
“I can.” She nodded her head before gripping his hand tighter.
They walked until a small speck of light punched a hole into the darkness. Raising a hand, she touched rock.
“Are we in a cave?”
“Looks that way.” They walked until finally, they were standing at the mouth of the cave. The sun was rising allowing rays of light to penetrate the cave behind them.
“I want to go on record as saying I officially hate caves and hope to never see another one.”
“You can’t hate caves; you'll miss all the good things like spelunking, stalactites, and stalagmites.” He kept up a ready roll of banter keeping her from focusing on her surroundings until they were on flat land.
“Lucca, can a rock take us back in time?”
He knelt down and touched the land. It had never been walked on by man. The trees, the air even the few creatures that were in the sky told a story of life, death, and extinction. Everything around them proudly proclaimed they had lived once upon a time.
“It looks that way.”
“Why are we here? Didn’t we get to the cave fast enough?”
“Why go to the cave when you can come see me here?”
She shivered at the sound of that voice. It was the shadow that continued to hunt her. How had it known where she was while having enough power to pull her back in time?
“I wasn’t expecting a guardian; this is a surprise.”
She turned around in a circle looking for the voice, but the sun had dispelled all the shadows.
Lucca raised his hands.
“Sorry, not this time.”
She felt a force grab her by the arm and star. Lucca grabbed her other arm pulling in the opposite direction.
That evil laugh that she hated bounced over the tree tops and made the grass underneath her feet wilt.
“Keep pulling guardian, we will tear her in half. How marvelous.”
They were going to tear her in half because Lucca wasn’t letting go. Death had come for her much more quickly than she anticipated. She turned her head to look at Lucca, she wanted him to know he made the last days of her life worthwhile.
“You don’t get to die on me menace.” He let her go.
Everything in him screamed out in pain as he watched her being dragged away from him. Whatever evil that surrounded her was right. If one of them didn’t give, she would be torn asunder. Forcing himself not to go after her almost killed him. Instead, he sat on the ground and closed his eyes. He crossed his legs paying respect to the strong article that brought them here.
Looking inside himself was as attractive as poking his eye out, but he would do it for Tempest.
He followed the wisp of thought that was roaming around his head. The sky overhead became lavender, and his surroundings were barren, not lush with life.
“The Scientists chose well when they chose the beast to place within me.” His voice was so young it astounded him.
“Why do you say that?”
Dante was leaning back on his arms looking up at the sky.
The two of them were spending time together. Something his older brother constantly did, taking one of them and going for a walk, so they could talk.
“It’s a bruiser it lives to kill. He was so happy when we fought and killed the invader.”
“You think your beast doesn’t know family?”
“We’re not talking about family. You’re talking about mates, and we both know there are none of those in our future. The answer to your question is no. My beast will never mate; he has no desire to.”
“Everyone desires a mate. They don’t all admit it though. Remember you have more than one beast in you. When you find your mate, there will be a spark, and that spark will always connect you. That’s how you will always be able to find her.”
He opened his eyes. How had he forgotten that conversation? Right, he lived so long that he had forgotten more than most would ever know.
Spark? He smiled, but it wasn’t happy. The spark was a cord as fragile as the wind. The connection was almost invisible. He could only see it if he looked sideways, but as long as it was there, he had a way to find her.
He stood and disappeared moving through the area until he landed, and then he followed the spark again as far as he could see. It would take longer to get to her, but it was faster than walking. He could just materialize by her side, but he couldn’t see the surrounding area and becoming part of a wall was ill advised.
*~*~*~*
Whatever had her, and she didn’t know what it was, planned to get rid of her quickly.
“Have you ever wondered how to get rid of the very air around you? Do you create a vacuum?”
There was a hum around her. It felt gleeful, yet the gleefulness of it was evil. She was spread eagle in the air which he was using to keep her in place. The bonds holding her were so tight she couldn’t move.
Not able to defend herself; she tried to remember a time before she was pressed into service as one of the daughters of the Earth. She quickly abandoned that thought. She would rather spend her final minutes thinking of Lucca. The smile that he wore teased her. Most times she thought it was involuntary. He didn’t know he was smiling, he just didn’t seem to be able to help himself when he was around her. Of course, he frowned a lot as well.
His laughter went through her head as she thought of him. Then there was the way he said menace. It was with a caress as if the word itself was something that tasted just right. Oh hell, his fingers on her and in her. There could never be a life with him, even if she was free, but right now as she was saying goodbye to everything at least she could dream.
“That’s it; I'll place you in a vacuum. Not only will you not be able to breathe, but the wind the very thing that keeps you strong will be not be able to help you.”
“Why?”
“You feed my enemy.”
It was just her luck
to be captured by a deranged evil shadow.
“Let’s make a deal. I’ll stop feeding your enemy, and you let me live. That should work out for all parties involved.”
“You have no idea, how long I attacked that cave waiting for you to wake up so that I could kill you. As long as you were in there, you were safe. Finally, you’re out. There will be no deal. You should have never let him violate you.”
There’s that word again. “What are you talking about? Who are you talking about?”
“Shh,” maniacal laughter surrounded her touching her body physically as if it had hands.
Each touch burned her skin preparing her for death. Her eyes closed as the burns came faster. There was no need to look for them because she couldn’t see where the next touch would come from.
She choked on the desire to scream even as she felt an object being placed over her mouth hindering both her breathing and her voice.
Death was coming for her, and all she could do was go gracefully. There was no more fight inside of her.
Chapter Eight
She hadn’t expected the blindness, but there was no doubt that something was now covering her eyes. It didn’t affect her that much since closing her eyes only made sense. It was the loss of the wind that finally made this real.
It had been caressing her skin gently, but now it was cut off from her, and she felt like she was missing a limb. Sure, she needed air to breath, and the wind was air moving, but there was a subtle difference between them. She would prefer to breathe the wind any day and go without air than to breathe air and never feel the caress of the wind again.
Whatever was holding her was beginning to shrink. She could feel it coming closer to her body. The air around her became thin as if it were being sucked away.
The desire to take a deep breath had her almost choking. Not being able to use her mouth was hindering her. She couldn’t breathe deep enough just using her nose. Red spots began to appear behind her eyelids as she felt herself start to black out. She screamed at herself to stay awake.
Her heart started slowing down as she tried to smile. A picture of Lucca flashed before her.
“Hold on menace.”
She felt her cheeks try to lift in joy as she heard his voice. Who knew she could remember it down to the way he wrapped the word menace around his tongue?
There was a screech that brought her out of her fantasy. What was happening? It was hard to concentrate as the air was sucked out. There was a true vacuum occurring around her. Life had been hard, but she was sorry to be giving it up.
She was falling. A pair of arms caught her as she heard a tearing sound, air and wind rushed at her. The object over her mouth was pulled away, and she took big breaths.
“Lucca?” Her voice was high and reedy, but there was hope ringing in it.
“Menace.” His voice caressed her as he took the blindfold off.
Her body trembled as she turned her head to look at him. She sniffed refusing to cry as her arms went around his neck.
“One demon down,” he whispered into her ear. His arms tightened around her.
“Demon?” She turned her head to look in the direction he was looking. It looked like a demon one of the classical ones with horns and hooves.
“How? Why?”
“There’s a theory that long before humans walked the Earth, there were demons, the things that people only see in nightmares. I never gave it much thought but that,” he nodded toward the demon, “may give that theory a lot of credence.”
She nodded her head against his shoulder. If this was going to become a thing, him carrying her, she was going to get adjusted to it.
“Can we go back?”
“That depends on you. Did you happen to grab that rock you touched?”
She looked up and rolled her eyes at him. How was she supposed to… her hand went into her bra where she felt an object with sharp edges sticking into her breasts. There was a rock, not the one she touched this one looked like an emerald. She held it up for him to see.
“Lucky Emerald.”
She blushed and ducked her head. There was no comeback, almost dying seemed to have calmed her down for a while.
“Will this get us back?”
“Let’s see.”
He wrapped his hand around hers.
“Close your eyes and think of home.”
She smiled and closed her eyes.
His booming laughter made her open her eyes. They were standing in the foyer of his house.
“I didn’t mean that literally, menace.”
She blushed but ignored him. She’d rather be there than heading for that cave. Now that they had gone back to the beginning of the world maybe he would forget the cave.
He put her down, and she moved away about to come at him with a snappy retort when her eyes grew big, and she clutched her stomach.
“Run.” She choked on the word as she fell to the ground. She flipped to her stomach trying to crawl away.
“Run, Lucca. Save yourself.”
He was kneeling at her side trying to figure out what was happening when her body stretched and tore. A creature had taken over her body distorting it until she couldn’t be seen inside of it.
“Tempest!” He looked around the room, but he couldn’t find her, there was only an animal standing on two legs.
It roared and came for him. He prepared himself to sever its head from its shoulders. He pulled his symphor and ran at it. A hand pulled him backward. What the hell?
“That creature is Tempest. You kill it; you kill her.”
He ducked and rolled as the creature tried to step on him. Considering it was over ten feet tall and had feet the size of a tiny village, being stepped on would have hurt. Where was his mate? Why couldn’t he see her inside of the creature? He got a little closer.
The creature caught him by his ankle. It twirled him in the air and threw him at the far wall. The sickening sound of his body hitting made him want to curl up in a ball and nurse his wounds. Instead, he jumped up because the creature was determined to kill him. He was on the defense running and hiding to stay away as he tried to come up with a plan to subdue the creature without killing it.
“Come on you ugly son of a… I shouldn’t talk about your mom that way, but if she’s as ugly as you.” He shivered and jumped over the couch. They were now in the large room he had for when the whole family was together.
“Say something. I want my menace back. You don’t get to keep her. Are you mute or are you just not from this planet?”
It reached out and slapped him upside the head. He felt dizzy and was unable to see for a minute. At this rate, he was going to be the one dying. He had a plan, but he didn’t like it.
“I’m sorry menace, I never wanted to hurt you.”
The creature sprung at him knocking him down on his back. When it leaned over him, he pulled his symphor and stabbed it in the abdomen. It reared back and hit the floor. He pulled out three ties of slim gold rope. He tied his feet and hands using the last one to connect his feet and hands then he sat back on his knees trying to catch his breath.
His door flew open banging against the wall. He turned his head. Yep, it was his brothers.
“Lucca! You prepared my favorite food. All is forgiven.”
He turned his head from Mick to the creature lying on the floor. A look of horror was trying to take over its face. Mick slowly changed into a more primitive beast. It rubbed its stomach as its teeth descended.
The creature was thrashing around.
“That’s my brother. He says he hasn’t eaten one of your kind in centuries. He thought you were all dead he is happy I went out of my way to prepare for him a gourmet meal.
He stood up and backed away. “He’s all yours brother.”
The creature made a noise that felt like a plea for help. His body started to change disengaging from Tempest. Lucca pulled his symphor out, and it left Tempest lying broken on the floor.
Mick took a step towards it. Th
e creature flew up into the air before finding a way out the house. “My brother says if he catches you anywhere on the Earth, he will eat you,” Lucca screamed after it making it move faster.
Damon rushed to Tempest trying to save her life. Lucca fell to his knees by her side taking off the ties that held her. Mick reclaimed his body. There was an air of silence they all knew she wouldn’t make it.
Dante strode in and looked at his brothers. They moved back to give him room to work. His hands went over her pressing into the wound. A white light came from them and made its way into her body. When he moved back her eyes were open.
“What happened?”
Lucca’s shoulders collapsed in relief. “You are a magnet for trouble.”
“Not me, someone tell him.” Her eyes closed. “I’m so tired.”
He picked her up and looked at Dante.
“She won’t die today, but she still has evil inside of her. She will die if that isn’t taken care off.”
“Can I take her to bed?”
He nodded. “Lucca, you need to eat. She needs your energy to fight. If you don’t eat, then neither of you will make it.”
He disappeared taking Mick and Damon with him.
“Where are you going?”
“To take you to bed.”
“Someone doesn’t listen. You need to eat.”
“You’re tired.”
“I’d rather be tired and alive than weak and dead.”
“I don’t think that last part is possible.” He took her into the kitchen as much as he hated to admit it, he hadn’t eaten in a while.
“What are you making?”
“Breakfast.”
“Why?”
“Because you need soft foods.”
“You need protein.”
“Did I forget to mention the sixteen-ounce porterhouse I was making too?”
Lucca (The A'rouk Brothers Book 3) Page 5
