Aleksei. He was heartrendingly lovely. Six foot seven inches of sculpted muscular perfection. Raven black wavy hair past his shoulders, ice gray eyes, elegant brows and features and that sensual, kissable, perfect mouth.
Goddammit.
Just looking at him made her feel all gooey and tingly. Tanis was no less gorgeous. Black hair, a little longer and straighter than his brother’s, golden eyes, six foot six inches of hot Vampire male, shimmering with power. She missed both of them and their easy camaraderie. Tanis was squarely in her corner in the situation they were in, but he didn’t want to alienate his brother; Aleksei being a Vampire Lord of a Line, like Osiris and Dionysus. They needed him. Hell, they needed all of them.
Gill stopped in her tracks as they came toward her. Shit, damn, hell, she was trapped. Going back into the library was out; she needed to finish her errand in order to help Moose. Forward was bad because it went straight to Aleksei, who was staring at her, silvery eyes smoldering with some emotion. She didn’t want to think about it.
Tanis saved the day. “Buona sera, piccola sorella.” “Little sister.” Good to know some people still thought of her as belonging here.
He moved away from Aleksei and offered Gillian a kiss on the cheek. “How are you? You have been noticeably absent from the library and the gymnasium of late. I take it your patients are doing well?”
“Yes, thanks. I appreciate being able to see them here, instead of traveling all over. Aleksei is very generous to allow it.” She didn’t look at the Vampire in question, who had halted and was hanging back, away from her and his brother.
“Yes, he is,” Tanis agreed, winking at her.
“Would you mind going into the library and waiting with Moose? I’m trying to track down Trocar, Aisling or one of the Fey to translate for her. I have an idea that might get to the bottom of the curse.”
Gillian and Helmut had made Aleksei’s family castle into a therapeutic residence for Paramortal clientele. Aleksei had agreed instantly. Anything to keep Gillian there, where he could keep an eye on her. He hated the new aspect of her job, but he didn’t want to lose her either. Everyone staying had to sign a confidentiality statement, and all the new patients had agreed to sign waivers and releases of information so that any and all possible sources of knowledge, as in Moose’s case, could be utilized without a confidentiality breach.
Between Perrin, Samuel and Moose, Gillian’s time had been tied up for the past few days. Perrin was making progress, getting used to talking to another living person nightly, getting comfortable with someone looking directly at him. And Moose, well, Moose was a special case that took a lot of time to decipher.
Samuel, the creature created by a proverbial mad scientist, was doing well. He was even venturing out to mingle with the other residents, taking walks to the nearby village and doing a lot of reading of the classics. There was nothing to be done for his appearance, but he wasn’t abhorred. Some of the Sluagh had taken an interest in him, as had some of the townsfolk, and he was actually making friends, much to his delighted surprise.
The other client, the mystery Vampire, had been gone from the Inn every time Gillian had gone to meet with him. She had left word each visit that she would arrive about an hour after sunset to give him time to feed but he was still absent. It was beginning to annoy her but Helmut pointed out that he was there on his own nickel, and if he didn’t avail himself of her skill and expertise, then it wasn’t her fault.
Group therapy had been interesting. Moose and Samuel showed up constantly and were able to bond a little. The Vampire wasn’t there, of course, and Perrin was simply too agoraphobic and anthropophobic yet to set foot outside the guesthouse, let alone subject himself to the myriad of beings living at the castle or group therapy. A Sluagh and a Dark Court Sidhe had signed on as clients as well, to Helmut’s delight. Word was spreading about the Institute and he was getting phone calls daily, asking about therapeutic availability. Everything was actually going a little too smoothly and Gillian was suspicious that some giant shoe was going to fall out of the sky on all their heads.
“If the young lady will allow it, perhaps I can help with your translation problem.”
Gill’s head jerked toward the voice. Aleksei was looking at her instead of through her. It wasn’t exactly a friendly look but he wasn’t being hostile.
“Like how?” she said bluntly, not giving him even a hint of a smile or reminding him that Moose was at least a thousand years older than he was, and he was referring to her as a “young lady.”
“Mind-to-mind contact. I might be able to access the source of her knowledge faster and with less stress for her.” Aleksei paused a moment and something flickered across the perfect features—pain perhaps? “As I did for you once, if you remember.”
He was referring to back when they had first met, almost two years before, and he had shared his knowledge with her quickly and efficiently. Yeah. She remembered. She remembered a lot of things, like them not fighting and making love all night. Too bad he’d fucked all that up. Oh well, she had a job to do.
“Let’s ask her,” Gillian remarked and turned back to the library without waiting for an affirmative. She was relieved when he followed her in and stopped just behind her, in front of the cursed Sidhe.
“Tuuli, this is Aleksei, remember? He owns this castle and is letting us stay here.”
The sad eyes blinked and she nodded.
“What Aleksei would like to try, with your permission, is to enter your mind to help bring what you know out to me. It would be faster than you trying to type with a pen in your teeth, then having one of the others translate.”
Gillian continued to explain gently. “Tuuli, he will have to touch your face since there is no blood bond between you. Is that all right?”
The pitiful creature looked up at the tall Vampire, measuring him up as a potential threat, then nodded slowly.
“He won’t hurt you at all. I promise he is completely trustworthy and you won’t feel a thing.” Gillian sat closely to Moose, giving Aleksei room to pull a chair over and sit directly in front of them. She wouldn’t look directly at him, but focused on Moose, pen and pad in hand to write everything down.
“You understand also that he will have access to all of your memories, good and bad. There may be some things you don’t want known and he may find those. Is it still all right?”
She nodded again. She understood and they had consent.
Aleksei watched her tending to her patient. The wretched creature was shy and trembling, and he felt a surge of pity for what it was going through. No one would ever love her or want her in this state. She had been alone for over a thousand years, an outcast, unable to even communicate with her own kind. He remembered being alone, before Gillian came into his life. The emptiness. The void with no feeling. Gillian had given him back so much. He felt a twist in his heart. Everything she had given him might now be gone forever, all due to his thoughtless and selfish remarks. He might again be as lonely and unfilled as he once was, and Gillian just might go on with her life without him.
Perhaps that other male, the patient in the guesthouse, had felt the same way. Lonely, forgotten, hated. That one had never even known what real love was; the joy of making love to a partner who was everything to him; of having someone to share everything with. Aleksei forced that thought right out before it fully formed, or at least assigned it to the back of his mind. He’d offered to help here. Not there. Gillian and another male together was not a subject he wanted to acknowledge.
Slowly he reached toward the creature’s face. “Just be very still and let me touch you. I will do all the work. You must relax and not fight me when I enter your mind. Do you understand?”
Moose nodded and sighed. She would cooperate.
Strong, elegant hands touched the long, grotesque face and she fell into immediate rapport with the Vampire. Aleksei pushed inward gently. He didn’t want to go too fast and frighten her. A probe this deep would hurt her if she fought him.
Smoothly he reached into her memories and found the information they were looking for.
“It is a curse put upon her by one of the Court of Light,” he said softly, his voice still as magical and beautiful as always. “It will be lifted when she is loved by one lesser than herself and returns that love to its originator.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Gillian whispered.
“How should I know?” Aleksei said. “I am only repeating what I have found in her mind. They are ritual words for a ritual curse.”
Moose tensed with the voices being spoken somewhat harshly near her and Aleksei backed off as quickly as he dared. She nodded enthusiastically at them both and honked.
“You understood what he said?” Gillian watched her closely. The whole demeanor of the grotesque body had changed. Moose even felt different. She wasn’t a whirling maelstrom of misery.
Again came the enthusiastic nod and she rose, waving a hoof at them both before hurrying out of the library and down the hallway, honking to herself. That left Gillian and Aleksei both in the same room with the last person on earth they each wanted to be with.
“Er . . . um . . . thanks, Aleksei. That was very generous of you to offer to help her.” There. Polite couldn’t hurt. Besides, he really had helped.
“It was nothing. The creature suffers. You had to know how to help her; it was a little enough thing to do for you.”
He stood and walked away without another glance in her direction. Gillian might have yelled or thrown something but she didn’t. She squelched every negative emotion. She still had a job to do and being a wounded puppy herself was not going to help those who were depending on her. Now at least they had somewhere to go with Moose, and it was time to visit Perrin.
As she walked up to the porch of the guesthouse, she could hear sorrowful music coming from the piano they’d brought in for Perrin to play. Music was all he’d had for so many years that to be without his familiar surroundings and his beloved music was part of his original trauma when he arrived. Gillian had spoken to Tanis, and the Vampire had immediately taken Jenna and Trocar to Brasov to purchase a baby grand for Perrin to use while he stayed there. It would remain in the house after he left, but there was plenty of room for it and it could be used anywhere on the estate.
She knocked on the door softly, shaking off the sad feeling the music was generating in her. Perrin was an agoraphobic and intensely shy. Add to that the post-traumatic stress from his childhood, his alienation from every living thing as an adult, his suicidal ideation from not wanting to live as a circus freak or a vengeful Ghost, his anxiety about being rejected yet again, his desire and fear about sex, and Perrin was a psychologist’s dream come true.
Gillian mused about what he might have been like if he’d been raised in a loving environment with people who supported him, didn’t judge him. He was intelligent, with a genius-level IQ; he composed soulful, breathtaking music, was as sensitive as anyone could be and was extraordinarily handsome on the undamaged side of his face. Perrin had all the components to be a whole person; he just didn’t know how to put them together.
When he answered the door, she was ready with a handshake and a smile. They were moving excruciatingly slowly, but it was exactly what he needed. He was beginning to trust her and believe in her ability to help him climb out of the hell he’d been living in for over a century.
He looked better today, she thought. The mask was firmly in place; she was betting he even slept in it. He was wearing a soft cream-colored linen shirt with a loose, open neckline and a double line of ruffled cloth from the collar to his chest. The shirt had ties down the front but he’d left it open for comfort. Chocolate brown, tight velvet pants molded around his lower body. They were of the style he was used to, the waist high and tight, almost like a dancer’s costume. The legs disappeared into a pair of shiny black leather knee-length boots that were so polished that they gleamed. Today his hands were bare for a change. Progress? Too soon to tell. Gillian noticed they were the hands of an artist or a musician—strong, slender, perfectly manicured. He had very nice hands.
Perrin watched her as she breezed past him into the living area and sat down so she could watch if he chose to play the piano or sit near her on the couch. She bewildered him and frightened him a little with her candidness and warmth. With no real, open experience with adult, sexually mature women, he had nothing to compare her to. The girls who were the cause of a great deal of his misery had been young—under the age of twenty-five—and in the tradition of the era, easy to guide and control. Gillian made it clear that this was a professional relationship of equals. He found the concept intriguing and exciting but still daunting.
She watched him as he walked closer after closing the door. It gave him a chance to observe her too. He was taller by over a foot but she radiated strength and presence, not intimidated at all by him or his masked face.
He loved her hair, he thought as he closed the gap between them. Golden as the candelabras in his home beneath the streets, it looked soft as silk though he hadn’t yet mustered the courage to touch it. Lovely eyes; shining green and clear, they showed her every emotion freely. Gillian seemed to hide behind nothing. He admired her a great deal.
Curled up on the couch in her modern dress of jeans, boots and a T-shirt, she still looked feminine and lovely. She was his therapist, but the fact that a lovely woman wanted to give him back his masculinity and pride shook him to his foundations.
The hand he had grasped when she came in was strong yet small in his palm. It was the first time he had removed his gloves before her visit, the first time he had let his flesh touch that of another since the last girl, sending an unexpected heat racing through his veins.
Gillian had told him about being a soldier, an officer even. He had been incredulous until she showed him a gunshot scar on her shoulder and a machete scar down her arm. The world had changed above him, but Perrin was still very much a nineteenth-century man. It was hard for him to imagine anyone allowing such a pretty woman to be in any danger. Gillian had made sure he understood that women made their own damn decisions, thank you very much, and she was proud of her choices.
Moving to the piano, he sat, hands poised on the keys. “Do you sing, Gillian?”
She laughed and he ducked his head away. “No, Perrin, I’m not laughing at the question. I’m laughing because yes I do sing, but I also really suck at it.”
Rising, she went to stand by him and ventured a hand on his shoulder. Instantly the muscles beneath her palm tightened. Time to share some of her own vulnerability.
“Perrin, I’m just standing here next to you. Please stop behaving as though I were a venomous snake that is going to suddenly bite you.”
He turned his head and found her eyes warm and gentle. She was smiling and it took his breath away. The muscles relaxed a bit, but she didn’t remove her hand. Abruptly, he began to play and she listened, watching him deftly cover the keys with his artistic hands. The music was beautiful but melancholy. Inexplicably it fostered strong feelings of loss and emptiness within her. Since she didn’t recognize the song, she gathered it was his own composition. When it was over, he turned back to her. “I also take requests.”
It took her a moment to realize that he’d made a joke and she laughed again. “Okay, hotshot, let’s hear . . . Do you know any Beatles songs?”
Perrin shook his head. “No, I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, we’re just examining the possibilities. How about Three Dog Night?”
“Non.”
“Shania Twain?”
“Non.”
“Madonna?” Now he looked confused, but still shook his head negatively.
“Non.”
She named several other groups and songs. Nope, not any of those either.
“Gillian, I can follow you if you can carry a tune.” He was smiling when he said it, and she forgave him for being a smart-ass. He didn’t have enough practice at it yet, but he showed promise.
; “Okay, fine, but remember you asked for it, so if I horrify your perfect-pitch sensibilities, you have only yourself to thank.” She hummed a few bars of “Let It Be,” which was the only damn song she could think of that she might remember all the words to on short notice, and Perrin picked it right up.
She started to sing, instantly became self-conscious and stumbled over a verse. Laughing at her own ineptitude, she doggedly kept going, mangling lyrics and melody in equal proportions. Allowing him to see her ineptitude would offer him an opportunity to instruct her, level out the playing field as it were. Bolstering his confidence was one of her many tasks with the remarkable masked man.
He didn’t know all the bridges between the lyrics, but he did well enough at following her with the tune. She’d bring him some CDs. Yeah. That would help.
When he stopped, she couldn’t help herself. “Well, how was that?” she asked, with a gleam in her eye.
Perrin’s mouth twitched and he smiled. Really smiled. Gods above, he had spectacular teeth too. It figured.
“That was . . .” he began, “possibly the most awful thing I have ever heard. I am sorry, Gillian, but it was truly terrible. You have pitch and your voice is good, but you need training, badly.” The smile vanished as he waited for her reaction, unsure once more.
To his surprise, she cracked up laughing. “I told you I was bad, but did you listen? No. This is your fault that your ears have been assaulted. If you have been retraumatized by this incident, it is completely your fault.” She poked him in the shoulder, giggling.
Her laughter was infectious, and he caught the backwash from her humor, powered by her own empathy. A grin split his face, then he chuckled. And finally, for the first time in his entire life, Perrin, the former Ghost of the Opera House, laughed out loud with another living being.
Key to Redemption Page 7
