“Elysia?” Declan’s voice sounded breathless and confused.
She looked at him. Her fingers had rumpled his raven hair. His white shirt hung open, showing his heaving chest. His mouth was moist from her kisses. His amber eyes with the elongated pupils glowed like flames, their expression one of barely leashed desire. His cock strained at the front of his jeans… tempting her… She took a deep breath and the scent of his blood filled her nostrils…
She shook her head, panic setting in. “I can’t do this, Declan,” she said hoarsely as fear rose in her. “I… I… work here!” she stammered, grasping at straws.
His expression turned gentle. “Baby, it’s okay. I understand,” he murmured. He set his clothes to rights then leaned toward her to brush a kiss over her lips. At the last moment, she turned her head to the side and his mouth brushed her cheek.
He straightened, giving her a narrow eyed look. “Elysia? Is everything okay?” he asked cautiously.
She shook her head again. “No. It’s not,” she choked out, wanting to run away and hide in her bed and cry. “I really can’t do this, Declan.”
He straightened to his full six foot five, towering over her. “Do what, Elysia?” he asked in a low voice, his amber eyes clouding. “Us? Is that what you mean?”
She nodded. “I… I… Oh, gods. It’s not you, Declan. It’s me. I can’t handle this,” she croaked, her voice rough with suppressed emotion. “I thought I could, but I can’t.”
His expression turned to stone before her eyes. “So this is about Austin.”
“No. No! It’s not about him! It’s about me! I can’t trust myself anymore. I don’t know what I want, let alone what I feel,” she burst out, frustrated and feeling so much emotion coming to life inside her that it scared her spit less. “I don’t understand this thing between us and it frightens me!”
Anger flickered in his eyes. “What is there that you don’t understand, Elysia? You want me. I want you. This is more than just momentary lust. That would have been satisfied last night. But neither of us is satisfied. We’re just as hot for each other today as we were last night. In fact, we’re hungrier for each other,” he said in a rough voice. “It’s all I can do to keep my dragon under control. He’s aching for you, Elysia. He keeps demanding that I bathe you in my dragonfire and mate you. That’s never happened to me before!”
Instead of his words calming her, they had the opposite affect. Her panic took flight. “Oh, no! I’m not your mate! I’m no one’s mate!” she exclaimed, her fear running rampant now.
Declan reached for her, but she twisted out of his reach. “Elysia! Baby, calm down. You’re blowing this all out of proportion. You’re letting your fears and what happened with Austin cloud your common sense,” he soothed.
She faced him grimly, her self-preservation in full force as she realized she needed to get away from him. “I can’t deal with this now, Declan. I can’t deal with you. I don’t know if I will ever be able to.” She stepped away from him, toward the door. “You need to leave. And you need to leave me alone. I’m not your mate. I don’t want to be your mate. I just want you to go.”
Emotions warred across his face. Finally, the stony expression returned and he walked toward the door. “This isn’t over, Elysia,” he warned her.
She shook her head emphatically, her fear driving her to face him with an icy cold demeanor. “It is Declan. Don’t call me.”
He stared at her for a long moment. When her cold expression didn’t change, he shook his head as if to clear it. Then he said softly, “You’re wrong, Lys. We belong together. In your heart, you know it. You want to bite me. You want to bond with me. You want me to mate you. You’re just afraid and in denial. I’m not afraid, Lys. I’m in love with you. I know what I feel is right and true and it’s not ever going away even if you send me away.”
He drew a long shaky breath that expanded his broad chest. She swallowed hard, retaining her cold expression, refusing to answer him. He turned away, walking to the door of the crematory. He looked back, and she could see a bruised expression in his golden eyes. “You can make me leave, but you can’t change how I feel,” he whispered in an emotion-ravaged voice. “I love you, Elysia, but because it’s what you want, I won’t bother you again.”
She hardened her expression more, despite the fact that his words were like razors, shredding her heart. Then he was gone. Elysia walked slowly back to the desk. Out the window, she saw a huge black dragon sweep across the sky and her heart clenched painfully.
Oh, gods. What have I done? she thought numbly and sank onto the office chair.
Chapter Six
The golf cart rolled up to the ninth tee and Marius Granville got out. His two golfing partners waited there for him. Both men eyed him angrily.
“Your sister has totally emasculated my brother!” Sean Antaeus spat out. “He’s worthless. He can’t work. He can’t do anything. I’ve had to move all his projects to other managers and give him time off. She’s killing him!”
Alfred Stone frowned at Marius. “It wasn’t supposed to shake out like this, Marius,” he said accusingly. “You said she was ready to move on with her life. She’s not. Look what she’s done to Declan.”
Marius pulled off his gloves and shoved them into his pockets. They weren’t going to play this hole anyway. “Yeah, well, you can both stop being angry. Elysia is a fucking mess,” he grumbled. “The Accounting manager had to do the financials this month. The only thing she seems able to work on is her computers. She won’t talk to me. She barely speaks to Colin. If either of us brings up Declan’s name, her eyes fill with tears; she gets pissed off, goes in her office and locks the door.”
He ran a restless hand through his dark blonde hair, ruffling the expensively cut waves. “She’s miserable and she knows that no one can fix this but her. I don’t understand why she thinks Declan is not her bloodmate. All the signs are there!” he said in exasperation.
Alfred looked thoughtful, rubbing his chin. Sean looked like Marius felt. Tired and frustrated. He knew what it had been like dealing with Elysia for the past two weeks. He imagined that it was the same, if not worse, for Sean.
“I think this happened because of Austin,” Alfred said slowly. “Elysia doesn’t trust herself anymore, doesn’t trust her instincts, because they let her down with Austin.”
“That makes sense,” Sean allowed with a nod of his dark head.
Marius believed Alfred had hit the nail on the head. His sister could be stubborn and recalcitrant, but this didn’t seem to be about her contrariness. There was a marked dip in her self-esteem these days. Her self-confidence as a professional had never wavered when Austin dumped her. Her break up with Declan had left her personally shattered in such a way that she either had no interest in work or couldn’t concentrate on it. To Marius and Colin, it was as if a part of their sister had died.
“We have to throw them together somehow,” Alfred said. “They need to work this out. It’s obvious to everyone who knows them that they love each other.”
“Declan swims in the cove every sundown,” Sean said thoughtfully. “I have a key to his car. While he’s swimming, I’ll hijack his car, stranding him there.”
The two men looked at Marius questioningly. He rubbed his forehead wearily. “I’ll think of something,” he muttered. “I’ll get her there and make sure she’s stranded too.”
“Declan could fly home, but he would never leave her stranded,” Sean pointed out.
“That’s perfect then,” Alfred said rubbing his hands together. “I can’t believe this has become so complicated. We were all so sure it would be over by now and that the two of them would be bonded.”
Marius made a rude sound. “We’re talking love here, Al. Nothing ever goes smoothly when you’re dealing with people in love,” he replied gruffly.
Sean patted him on the shoulder in a sympathetic manner. “Just because things didn’t work out for you doesn’t mean they can’t work out for your sister and my broth
er.”
“I know,” Marius sighed. “Look, I’ll talk to Colin about getting Elysia down to the cove. What day do you want to do this?”
Sean looked at Alfred who shrugged. His eyes traveled back to Marius. “Tomorrow?” he asked.
“Sure,” Marius sighed. “Can we get some lunch now? I’m starving and I need a really stiff drink.”
His friends laughed and got in their golf cart. “Race you to the clubhouse, brother!” Sean teased him.
Marius shook his head. “And I thought being related to the Antaeus family would be a good thing for me,” he grumbled as he got in his golf cart and followed the speeding Sean toward the clubhouse.
Chapter Seven
The next afternoon, Colin invaded his sister’s office, despite the fact that she’d told Marnie not to let him in. Even the snarky receptionist couldn’t resist his charm all the time.
“Colin, I don’t want to have dinner with you,” Elysia protested.
“Fuck you, Lys. You’re going to dinner with me and that’s that. I haven’t seen you eat jack shit in the past two weeks. You’re thin as a rail. If you want me to leave you alone, then you’d better go to dinner with me,” Colin insisted, his voice implacable. “Once I see you eat a good meal, I’ll leave you alone for another two weeks.”
“Fine.” Elysia slammed the binder in her hands onto her desk. “I’ll go with you. But after this, you better promise to leave me the hell alone.”
“Two weeks. I’ll leave you alone for another two weeks,” he said. “Not forever, Lys, because this issue isn’t dead.”
“I’m not talking to you about Declan Antaeus, Colin. Not now. Not ever.” The resolution in her tone hadn’t changed over the past two weeks and wouldn’t ever change. She couldn’t talk to anyone about Declan. What had happened with him was a bruise on her heart that just refused to heal.
Her brother’s jaw tightened. His midnight blue eyes held a fierceness that looked an awful lot like the expression Marius used when strong-arming someone. In fact, ever since she’d broken things off with Declan, Colin had pretty much been Marius’ twin. Both of her brothers had been vocal in their disapproval of how she’d handled Declan. Oddly, both of them thought she should have given him a chance.
“You can’t keep this up, Elysia. Your work, your health, your piece of mind is all suffering for it. You need to sit down and reevaluate your feelings for him,” Colin told her in a stern voice very unlike his usual carefree playboy persona. “Is this really how you want to spend the rest of your life? Feeling like there’s a big gaping hole inside you?”
Elysia turned away. She couldn’t look Colin in the eye any longer. When she’d first broken things off with Declan and watched his dragon form take flight away from her, she’d returned to her office and collapsed in tears. Colin had found her there an hour later, shaking with reaction and nearly incoherent with fear, pain, and confusion. That’s when she’d told him it felt like a great gaping hole had opened up inside her where her heart used to be. Now she regretted ever saying anything to him because he threw those words at her daily, and every time he did, she felt anew how true they were.
“Colin, I said I’d go to dinner with you. It wasn’t a tacit agreement to psychoanalyze me. Now, if you want me to go with you, I need to finish this work.” She gestured toward the binder without meeting his eyes.
She heard him walk toward her office door. “I’ll be back to get you in an hour, Elysia. Then we’re leaving whether you’re done or not,” he declared.
Once he’d gone, Elysia sank into her chair and buried her face in her hands. Every day became worse than the last. Numb with pain, it hadn’t taken her more than five days to realize that sending Declan away had been the wrong thing to do. Every day without him made her feel more ill and wretched. On the sixth day, she acknowledged to herself that she had fallen in love with him. She told herself that if he loved her as he said he did, he would probably give her time to sort out her feelings and then contact her. After all, even though she had told him to go, he had said that it wasn’t over.
When a week passed without any word from Declan, she began to think the worst. In those seven days, her rationalizations had gone through so many stages, and veered from hopeful to despondent so frequently, that she didn’t know what to think or believe anymore. Declan’s silence was the only thing she could believe in. If she was Declan’s mate, wouldn’t he try to work things out with her even though she’d sent him away? He must have realized that he was wrong when he said he’d fallen in love with her. And that one thought ripped her soul to shreds. When she looked in the mirror, she saw a shell that only looked like Elysia Granville. Her heart and soul resided in the hands of Declan Antaeus, and apparently, he didn’t want her after all.
A tear streaked down her cheek and angrily she brushed it away. She had work to do or Colin would be breathing down her neck. For the next hour, she rushed through her paperwork so she would be ready when her brother returned. She didn’t need or want any more lectures from either of her siblings. Her emotions were just too raw and close to the surface. Her composure hung by a very fragile thread.
She turned off her desktop computer when Colin appeared, holding her jacket. “Let’s go,” he said grimly, as if expecting her to argue with him.
Silently, she got up and let Colin help her into her coat. Once in his Lexus, she automatically turned down his rock music and he chuckled.
“Now, that’s my Lys.” He shot her an amused grin.
A reluctant smile twitched her lips. “Yeah, well, you play your music way too loud.”
“If it’s too loud, you’re too old,” he quipped, as he backed out of his parking space.
“I am old,” she grumbled, huddling in her coat. Colin liked the temperature in his car at the freezing level.
“Are not,” he replied. “We’re both still young vamps.”
Elysia didn’t respond. She didn’t feel young. She felt old and ready to die, as if her whole life was behind her rather than in front of her. Funny what despair did to you, she thought acidly.
Colin kept up a mindless patter of random industry gossip as they drove down the coast highway. Her mind wandered and her brother’s voice faded to a background hum as she looked at the grey waves hitting the shoreline. Something about the ocean soothed her…
THUD.
Blinking, Elysia surfaced from her self-induced trance to find her brother cursing. He pulled the Lexus off the highway onto an access road, stopping the car in a tiny parking lot by a secluded cove.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as Colin got out of the car, leaving it running.
“I ran over something metal on the road. I couldn’t avoid it because there was a truck coming toward me,” he complained as he looked under the car. “I think it might have hit something vital. I think it’s leaking fluid.”
Elysia got out of the car and bent over, looking underneath from her side. “I don’t see anything dripping.”
“Check the rear and I’ll check the front,” Colin told her.
She moved around to the rear of the car and bent to look at the undercarriage. As she did so, she heard a car door slam. She straightened; about to ask Colin what he was doing, when the Lexus rolled away from her, speeding down the access road. It turned onto the highway and disappeared, leaving her standing in the small parking lot with her mouth open in shock.
What the fuck was wrong with Colin? Why the hell had he left her stranded in this remote place?
She turned, looking around her. There were no cars, no people. She looked out at the ocean. The waves were gray, gilded slightly by the rays of the fast setting sun. There was no one on the cove’s small beach. However, her sharp vampire eyes picked out a head bobbing in the surf. Elysia pulled off her shoes and socks, leaving them on the curb as she stepped onto the sand. Her toes squished the damp grains as she walked to the waterline.
For a moment, she stood with her eyes closed, feeling the caress of the ocean breeze on her
skin. Her life had changed dramatically in the weeks since she’d attended the Undertaker’s Ball. The winds of her life had shifted, bringing her love and pain and a whole host of emotions she hadn’t ever felt before. In the past, being alone had never bothered her. But now, those shifting winds were about to carry her into a future that frightened her by its very solitude.
She opened her eyes, looking at the swimmer. His torso became visible as powerful strokes carried him toward the cove. Elysia’s eyes widened in shock as she made out the curve of his muscular shoulders, one of them covered with the black ink of a tribal tattoo. Declan.
Heart pounding, she waited on the shore as he drew nearer. When he stood up, shaking water from his hair, her eyes greedily devoured his almost nude body. He wore swim shorts that bared his muscular thighs and outlined his impressive manhood. Water ran in rivulets down his washboard abs and broad chest. She shuddered, remembering what it felt like to touch every inch of him.
Declan raised his head, slicking back his wet hair. His eyes met hers and narrowed instantly, his expression becoming guarded. He walked slowly toward her and Elysia’s stomach clenched, nausea rising inside her.
Oh, gods. I can’t throw up now, she thought wildly.
“What are you doing here?” he asked stiffly, stopping just out of her reach.
“I… I…” She broke off, shaking her head. She swallowed hard, trying once more to speak. “Colin left me here. There was something wrong with his car… we got out to look… and he drove away,” she said in a voice choked with emotion.
Tears rose inside her. Her heart thundered in her ears. She began to shake as the desire to throw herself at Declan’s feet and beg him to love her overwhelmed her.
His amber eyes shifted from her to the parking lot. He cursed. “My car is gone.” His eyes shifted back to her. “It appears that someone, or rather several someones, think we should talk.” He gestured toward the parking lot. “The only one with a key to my car is Sean.”
Shifting Winds Page 6
