A woman appeared there.
Valentine's mouth dropped open.
The visitor from the open wall panel stepped down and floated over to the desk.
Valentine swallowed heavily and stared at her. The gliding woman had the brightest light blue eyes she‘d ever seen.
Her mesmerizing gaze remained fixed on Valentine. “Malias, why is she here?” Her melodic voice held a British lilt.
He stepped close. “She’s, um...”
Her startled gaze swung over to him. “Oh my,” she gasped loudly. “Oh no, Malias how could you take a...?”
“A what?” His eyes narrowed at her.
Her expression looked intense as she reached over, grasped Valentine’s hand and closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she let go. “Oh, I see.” She moved back with an alarmed expression.
Victor stared at her while glints of light sparked from his eyes. “You’d better tell me, Penelope.”
She visibly shivered. “Well, this will surely change things, all right.”
He looked confused.
She extended her hand to Valentine. “Malias may have shown human, but it seems he’ll never learn proper manners, my dear.”
Valentine stared at her hand and slowly reached out to grasp it. “Manners?” she gulped, remembering the lessons he gave her on manners as heat swept along her cheeks.
“I take exception to that remark, Pen.” He laughed with humor while he fondly gazed at Valentine and crossed his arms over his chest.
The woman shook Valentine’s hand. “I’m Penelope Rayne and you are Serena Nicolette Ballatori.”
Valentine blinked at her. “Um...no I’m—”
“Are you out of your fucking skull?” He glared at Penelope.
“Now, Malias, you’re aware that we Mesmers know absolutely everything,” she sighed. “I assume it’s the very reason you sent for me.”
With a shocked expression, he stepped to a chair and dropped into it.
Pen’s face paled. “Oh, you didn’t know she was Merger?” She reached a gentle hand out toward him. “Of course you didn't, or you would not have—”
Victor bolted from the chair. “Stay the fuck back!” He grew in size and marbled while his eyes sparked with gold light. “Don't Mesmer me, Penelope.” His warning echoed out and the walls rattled violently with the tone.
Valentine gasped and stared as he grew in size and his skin changed tones. The room rattled from all around, as even the heavy desk tapped along the smooth floor with the shaking.
Penelope reached out, snatched Valentine by the arm and drew her back.
“Payne?” Valentine called to him.
He swung his cold eyes over to her.
“You’re staying with me for awhile, my dear.” Penelope moved her back.
“No!” he growled and the room lit up with a blinding light.
Pen floated them swiftly over toward the glass walls, pushing Valentine through the opening and it closed behind them.
Valentine could hear the horrifying howls through the glass wall and she heard the crackling crashing sound of glass breaking. A horrendous rumbling roared from behind it as though an earthquake had struck. A moment of darkness loomed from around them while the woman gripped her hand. A blinding bright light hit her gaze as Penelope pulled her through into a sun-filled room.
“Alexander?” Penelope called with an alarmed tone.
An older man with salt and pepper hair sat at an oak and brass desk. He appeared to be reading something he held in his hands, as his kindly gaze rose to them. “What in blazes?” He abruptly stood from his leather chair.
“We have an incident on our hands, Alexander,” Penelope announced.
Valentine stared at the older man and looked back over to Penelope. “Can anyone tell me what the hell is going on? He changed and he...” Tears broke through her voice.
Alexander stared. “You mean Malias took a Merger?”
“No, Alexander, he really didn't know.”
Alexander sighed with blissful relief and calmly placed his palms on the desk. “Good, and the Mergers must never know—” he halted and stared at Valentine. “Oh no, tell me, he didn’t.” He shook his head with emphatic denial. “They didn't!”
Penelope continued to hold Valentine’s hand and slowly nodded her auburn crowned head. “Yes, apparently, it’s all been done and washed under the bridge already.”
Alexander Rayne held onto the edge of his desk, his deep green eyes rounded as he plopped back down to his chair. “War.” He blinked rapidly while he gazed all around as though he were lost. “A five hundred year old truce.” He stared up at Valentine. “Gone.”
Valentine listened with total incomprehension as she stood absolutely still. Tears streamed along her cheeks. “Someone please tell me, please?” Her eyes rolled up and she collapsed to the floor.
~* * * *~
Lycian Keep, King’s Library
“No!” Victor shouted as he systematically tore the room apart, throwing furniture against the monstrous glass walls. His beastly howls echoed through the castle while he shattered every wall and window in the library. The three hundred pound mahogany desk tilted askew, split in half as hate and rage boiled inside him. “She’s a blood-Merger?”
He fought for control; control he’d held in check for the last hundred years. He closed his glowing eyes, calmed himself and let his arms drop down. “I can’t be with her.” Lost and disorientated, he turned toward his desk. “If I stay with her?” He clenched his hands into fists. “So many will die.” He remembered himself as King Malias, criticizing his brother Jack about loyalty and sacrifice for the clan when Jack left over Bella.
Victor stood like a statue as he released a long, slow breath and his eyes grew dark again, his skin turning to flesh. “I love her?” he whispered aloud. The sudden realization seemed to crawl up from underneath his skin like a living thing and it grew to a miserable pain clawing at his chest. He reached up to feel his heart pound. “Oh man, a heartbeat?” He turned all around, his eyes stopping at the door.
“You have finally crossed the human divide.” Alexander announced from the doorway and gazed around at the utter destruction. “I would sit, but apparently all the chairs are now kindling?”
Victor shook his head as he ignored the chair barb. “I became human long ago.”
Alexander stepped closer. “No, you showed human and maybe even took on human emotions, but this is the point where you’ve actually become human.”
“What can be done?” Victor asked.
Alexander looked away. “Mesmer wipe.” He pursed his lips.
“No!” Payne shouted. “She’s mine!”
“She’s a Merger and by blood.” Alexander folded his hands in front of him. “By all that’s holy Malias, you must know she’s Giovanni's sister!”
Victor’s hateful gaze glowed brightly at the old Mesmer and he emitted a low growl.
“Careful now, careful.” Alexander raised his hands with supplication.
He blinked and released a calming breath.
Alexander took a cautious step closer. “I’m sorry, Malias, I really am.”
“So, you’ll retrieve her memories?”
Alexander stared at the gargoyle king. “We don't know why she was wiped yet, or if it was her choice or not.”
Victor looked around at his ruined library. “To live a thousand years as one of the most feared beasts walking the Earth, eternally free from emotion and miserable injury and I’ve always been lucky to have escaped the human pain trap for all this time.” He grew in size as the shattered walls rattled and crackled.
Alexander looked terrified and stepped back.
“Then to turn and find yourself caught in the soft, alluring baited trap of the heart. Humanness wins in the end.” He shook his head with the irony and returned to human form. “Some joke, eh?” He glanced over at the silent man. “It's deserved justice, I suppose.”
Alexander gazed back while wearing a sympathetic expr
ession. “So, what will you do?”
“In a thousand years I’ve never had a wipe, Alexander. I always felt it was cowardice, even when my brother chose it.” He remembered the misery his brother suffered when he thought he’d lost Constance. “Now, I can see why he would wish to leave it and wipe it all away.”
Alexander sighed while he listened.
“I’ve been king for a millennium. I’ve seen the entire world change over many, many times and I still bear the burdens of immortality and I never before wanted to lose all the history of our clan.” He released a sorrowful sigh. “First, I wish to wait and see what happens with her and make sure she’s...”
Alexander tilted his head at him.
“Happy?” The word dropped from his lips like a pall.
“You cannot see her, though. Not at all, Malias.”
“I know. Just come back when it's done.”
“In the meantime, what will you do?” Alexander patted him on the back.
Victor gazed around at the example of the destruction of an entire existence. “Find my wild brothers and let them know the king is abdicating.” He smirked with self-depreciation. “And I’ll need to come up with a new life. I wonder if Jack has some interesting careers to suggest?” He gazed up to see that Alexander was gone already.
“Call to order!” Malias, the king of beasts, called out through the castle and it echoed like a thousand snakes reverberating through every room.
Running footsteps pelted through the halls.
A new existence for everyone. He thought of all those who’d relied on the Lycian way of life. A careful set of instructions would have to be given to all of them for their survival.
“Love ends a thousand years of the most powerful dynasty in all of history?” He mused aloud as he remembered Alexander's words from long ago, words he’d scorned at the time. “Love is a powerful force.” I believed it was a stupid and weak statement at the time.
He lowered his head while he heard them all gather into the library. And it can defeat all other intentions. Alexander’s words resounded from his vast memory. “And, so it has,” Victor whispered and turned to face the men and women of the clan, as they waited for his orders.
~* * * *~
Rayne Estate, San Francisco
Valentine laid in the bed and puzzled at the strange, unfamiliar ceiling. She sat straight up and gazed around.
The woman she met in the library before sat by the bed. “Better?” she asked.
“Where am I?” She blinked.
“At the Rayne Estate in San Francisco.”
“And where is he?” Valentine released a breath.
Penelope gazed steadily back at her. “You can't see him anymore.”
“The fuck I can't!”
The woman sighed. “If you persist and try to see him again? We will all die and it will be a blood bath.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Penelope stood up. “These two clans are the last of an ancient past and they warred for at least five hundred years.” She folded her hands in front of her. “To near extinction.”
“So?”
“There’s been peace for hundreds of years now and a lot of humans have lived out their lives without fear, since the truce.” Penelope sat down on the bed. “A lot of Mesmers and Gargoyles too.”
“I don't understand.”
“You’re a Blood Merger and Payne is of the Lycian Clan. They’ve been killing and hating each other for a thousand years or more!”
Valentine stilled. “We’re enemies?” She remembered Payne's cold eyes staring at her back at the library.
She nodded.
“I can't see him, ever?” Valentine gasped.
Pen shook her head and tightened her grip. “Never.”
Valentine yanked her hand away. “No!” She got up from the bed. “To hell with them!”
“It cannot happen, Serena. It would mean death for Payne. Your family would slaughter him,” Penelope sighed heavily.
Valentine stared at her. “But he’s immortal and nothing can kill him!”
“A chimera can receive death from only one source...another chimera.”
“I can't be without...” Tears spilled out of her eyes. “I just found him, we just became...” She dropped to the bed and wept.
Penelope patted her on the back. “There, there my dear. I am so sorry.”
The weeping sound grew loud in the room.
~* * * *~
“We can't do it.” Penelope stood in Alexander’s study. “It was a Merger Black and self-done, no less!”
Alexander sat very still at his desk. “She wiped herself?”
Pen nodded. “Some of the Mergers have the ability, but it's painful and like a great big void takes over.”
“Did you find out why?”
Pen lowered her head. “Some of it and she can never go back to that clan. With this kind of wipe, she wouldn’t remember them in any case.”
Alex released a heavy sigh. “He’s waiting for this and he won't Mesmer until he knows she’s settled.”
Pen shook her head. “It's a first, I’ll admit. Usually, we can find the memory and replace it, but in this case, it’s just not there anymore. What do we do? If we try and wipe her, it may not take for long.”
“And if we don't wipe her, he’ll remain in...” His voice trailed away.
“In what, Alexander?”
“Absolute misery.” His eyes met hers. “He loves her.”
“The Gargoyle King?” Her eyes rounded at him. “In love?” Penelope sat in the chair with a stunned gasp. “And it just had to be a Merger. Fate is so cruel sometimes.” She gazed down at her folded hands. “What if we put them somewhere?”
“No, you know that won’t work.” He shook his head.
“It's all so unfair,” she sighed.
“Death for all would be unfair, Pen.”
“Maybe they think she’s dead already?”
“No, I spoke with Malias and he says she has a twin who knew she was alive.” He nodded his gray head.
“Yes; Sabrina.” Penelope stared at his worried face.
“I remember the Giovanni twins now. It’s been a long time since we met with Mergers.”
“We need help with this, Alexander.”
“We don't need him.” He glared at her.
“He could—”
He stood up. “No, Penelope!”
“I just don't know what to do.” She studied her hands again.
“We go ahead and try to give her a new life.”
“She needs to be a law officer of some kind,” she offered.
Alexander looked distracted. “Payne was one too, so we cannot allow him to be one or at least, not in the same country.”
“So, when?”
“When I come back.”
~* * * *~
Valentine stepped away from the study door. She hadn’t understood a lot of what she just heard, but she’d understood that they planned to wipe her memory. Her eyes filled with tears. Payne loves me? Her hands shook. I won't be shipped back to those evil gargoyles. She heard movement close to the door and moved away. I’d better find a way out of here. She moved quietly down the hall.
~* * * *~
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Victor shouted.
“She left.” Alexander released a breath.
“So, what did Penelope find?”
The old Mesmer gazed at him. “Apparently, she received a trauma so horrific she wiped herself.”
“What?” Victor stared at him with surprise.
He nodded. “Merger Black and it is rare, but it’s also hard to reverse.”
“So, she cannot be placed.” Dark, cold eyes gazed at him.
“We just don't know, but it's a moot point now.” He shrugged.
“She can't go back to LA.” Victor shook his head as he thought of where she could’ve gone.
Alexander sighed. “I could see what developed from Pen's last session with h
er?”
“Yes, and I will see about tracking her.” Victor rippled with the thought of seeing her again.
Alexander stood up. “No, you cannot go near her!”
His gold eyes swung over. “I can do what is needed.”
Alexander sighed with worry. “They could kill you.”
“They could have at any time, you know?” He gave a cold smile. “Besides, she won't be anywhere near them.”
~* * * *~
Valentine House, Grass Valley, California
The house seemed eerily quiet, as the sun came streaming in through the high arched windows and gleamed light onto the bare wood floors. The main room looked starkly empty, no furniture, and no sign anyone lived here at all.
Victor gazed around and he did feel her; his sense of her picked up as soon as he landed in the city. He floated from the floor and over the spiral staircase. He’d found out by researching everything about her life that Truman Valentine built it for Marla Rose several years ago. He noted the unusual, but classy designs of the oval windows and the enormous skylight above the foyer. Her father sure outdid himself with this house.
He landed in front of the first door in the hall and turned the knob. Locked? This is where she is. He stepped back and kicked it open.
“Freeze!” A voice called out.
He scanned the darkened room to spot Valentine crouched down next to the window. A glint of steel caught his eyes. “Are you gonna shoot me?”
“Payne?” she gasped.
“I see you’re paying attention today,” he teased.
Valentine was already up on him and wrapped her legs around his waist. She held his face in her hands, showering him with hot fevered kisses across his cheeks, forehead and neck. “Oh, I thought...” She lowered her lips, forced his mouth open, and kissed him with all her might.
Victor rippled with beast as he fought the urge to rip her clothes from her shapely form and take her right here. He embraced her lovely body and kissed her back. He loved the sweet flavor of her mouth. Her soft lips pushed against his and he grew hard with an immediate erection. Their tongues met with an eager force and their hard breathing echoed out into the empty room. He set her away from him to study her flushed face.
She smiled. “I'd hoped you would come for me.”
At the brilliant smile, an odd tugging pulled at his chest.
Voracious Vixens, 13 Novels of Sexy Horror and Hot Paranormal Romance Page 200
