“No,” I told her, pulling her down to me and kissing her cheek. “And I am thankful you’re all right now. I almost lost you.”
“You’re sure I’m not sick anymore?”
“Yes. You had a sort of virus and we killed it.”
“How long ago . . . was our dance, when we were engaged?” she asked.
“Two days.”
Softly, she said, “And I can’t remember anything after telling you I wanted you teach me everything in bed that night.” She shivered.
“Nothing can happen to you now,” I said. “I swear to you.”
“I believe you, darling.” She hugged me fiercely. “I know I should be scared, but being engaged to you makes me happier than I’ve ever been in my life.”
I squeezed her, light-headed with relief and happiness. I began kissing her face. She gave a giggle that descended to a groan as I continued, pressing my lips softly to her eyelids, temples, chin, the tip of her nose. When I skimmed my lips above hers, we sighed, creating a sound of shared contentment.
She wrapped a smooth leg around mine. “I want you so much, Sebastian,” she breathed in my ear. Her hands wandered.
“Aliena,” I said, pushing her onto her back, “dear, sweet Aliena.”
“Yes, oh yes.”
Over the next four days, the events involving the Apollo Ring caught up to Aliena, though her memories were fragmentary because of her lapses of consciousness. Marcus came to see us the second night. Aliena stared at me, lips parted, while he told her of my stewardship of the Apollo Ring and my efforts to extract the ghost from inside her. Other than that brief visit, Aliena and I remained entwined from sunset to sunrise. Tears overwhelmed us a couple of times, when the battering flow of haunting visions was too great to be borne silently. By the time the storm had passed, our passion for each other had reached precipitous heights, soaring in the ether.
We married in Tarragona a week later, a twilight ceremony, and occupied the main house on my vineyard estate for two months. We spent every night indoors during that time, unable to let go of each other, needing one another, never able to get enough, not thinking we had centuries together, but only these constantly flowing moments. We talked in low voices, nearly continuously entangled, petting, squeezing, and kissing, deliriously happy.
Love is the dream within the dream of life. And I knew this time, with Aliena, the dream could go on forever.
Sebastian Montero
Malibu, California
To all my readers: Thank you for following Sebastian’s adventures. I appreciate all the time you have devoted to the Immortal Montero series, and hope I have given you a few hours of entertainment escape in return. Your support makes all the long hours of writing well worth the time. Posting a review of this book is dearly appreciated. Thank you.
Acknowledgements
I’d like to thank the editors at Kindle Press, who have given the first two books in the Immortal Montero series a wonderful presence on Amazon. Without their continuous marketing efforts, very few people would know who Sebastian Montero was.
Thanks most of all to you, my loyal readers, for following Sebastian’s adventures with such dedication. Writers are only as successful as readers make them, and my fans are the best.
Thank you, as always, to my daughter Lauren for her inspiration, and my parents Leo and Barbara, who gave me the opportunity to write my stories.
Ghosts of Atlantis (Immortal Montero Book 3) Page 36
