Medusa's Heart: A Contemporary Paranormal Erotic Romance Novel

by Joey W. Hill

  Her gaze moved back to Maddock. “MyTech is one of those lost in the fog. Maddock…is not. His original vision, why John was sent to you, had to do with his romantic soul, his desire to right wrongs done to individual hearts, in order to help heal that collective energy. It is an ambitious and nebulous idea that most people think is hopelessly idealistic. I am one of those. But it does not mean I don’t wish him to prove me wrong.”

  Surprise flashed across Maddock’s face, followed by an emotion he quickly masked. He inclined his head to her. “Thank you, Lady Yvette.”

  In his serious expression, Medusa thought she glimpsed the range of capabilities that he possessed. They were far deeper, more convoluted and dark than his casual demeanor indicated. But beyond Yvette’s opinion and Medusa’s own impressions, she knew John Pierce trusted this male with her life. And she thought she now understood John’s heart enough to realize his trust on that point was not so easily won.

  “Very well,” Medusa said to Maddock. “I trust my wellbeing to your care.”

  Maddock cleared his throat and looked toward John. “I’m starting to get why you like this girl so much.”

  “She’s an incomparable woman,” John said softly. “And I love her.”

  Medusa met his gaze. When he held out his hand, she came to him. She sank to her knees at his feet, leaving her hand knotted with his on his thigh as she looked up at him. “I told you the same in my dream, John Pierce,” she whispered. “If you did not hear me say it with my lips, I said it with my heart.”

  His jaw flexed as he cupped her face and stroked her hair away from it. She saw those shadows come back into his eyes and wondered if he doubted her. Doubted that she knew her own mind, because of all those few choices he felt she had had. She opened her mouth, then closed it, knowing it was the wrong moment for the discussion.

  “Our timing sucks,” he murmured. “Let’s remember this conversation when we’re done here, okay?”

  She agreed, and stayed where she was, shifting so she was leaning against John’s legs and facing Maddock. “What is it you suggest we do for the foreseeable future?” she asked the wizard.

  “Stay with the Circus,” Maddock said, his expression suggesting John’s admission had stirred him in some indefinable way. Medusa wondered if he knew his hand had fallen upon Charlie’s shoulder, his fingers stroking her collarbone where her scooped neck top provided that access. She was certain Charlie was aware of it. “I hope making that a permanent residence will be a choice for you to discuss with Yvette in the future, rather than your only option, but for now it’s your safest one.”

  Charlie finished tidying up her first aid kit and closed it. Maddock leaned forward to rest his elbow on his knee and feathered his knuckles along her cheek. “Thank you for the care,” he said.

  She nodded, a quick jerk, and returned to Yvette’s side, kneeling at the vampire’s booted feet. Maddock and Yvette’s gazes met and Medusa sensed a current of tension pass between them.

  “Do you have any theories as to why my body has altered twice since I have been here?” Medusa asked, hoping to head off another fire fight inside the confines of the tent. Glancing up at John Pierce, she saw he’d deciphered her intent and found it amusing. She would have pinched him, but Maddock answered her question.

  “I believe JP’s on the right path with that. Ukrit’s attack created a deep wound in your soul.” She saw sparks in Maddock’s eyes like she saw in John’s whenever the subject was raised. This was another man who felt nothing but abhorrence and cold anger toward what Ukrit had done to her.

  “For a long time, you could rely on no one but yourself,” Maddock continued. “Each time you take a pivotal step toward trusting John and trusting yourself, your feelings for him and about your path, I think it weakens the spell. It’s also possible being here, so far from your time and world, could be a factor. If we’re right about any of that, that’s good news on several fronts.”

  His gaze shifted and held with John’s. John made a noncommittal noise, as if discouraging him from going more in-depth into what he was implying. Maddock sighed and muttered something about stubbornness. “The really good news is, if the spell fully lifts at any point, MyTech has no reason to be interested in you any longer. Unless one of their kids needs a firsthand interview source for a report on ancient Greek history.”

  She blinked, and he waved away the attempt at humor. “If I can learn more about the specifics of the ritual, I could study it more closely. If you like.”

  She thought of when John Pierce had first suggested it, back on her island. She’d immediately been suspicious of the wizard’s motives. Now she was surprised to see it was John who looked resistant to the idea, if the sudden tightness of his jaw and the look he pinned on Maddock were indicators. It didn’t matter, though.

  “I remember so little of it, I cannot help with that,” she admitted.

  “While I’m here today, I could use a technique called hypnotherapy to bring some of the memories to the forefront, if they’re there to call,” Maddock said. “I just need your willingness to try.”

  His words provoked hope, anxiety, and an unsettled weight on her stomach.

  “Don’t do that,” John said sharply. “Don’t guilt her.”

  Maddock shot him a look. “I assume she wants to know if the spell can be reversed.”

  “It’s too soon.” John said. “She just got dragged down into her memories and held prisoner there. You may not be taking her back to the actual event, but it’s still too close to it. She’s too fragile.”

  “Perhaps you should ask her what she thinks,” Yvette interjected. “Unless some kind of temporal rift has occurred in my tent and we are back in the time of Neanderthal cavemen.”

  John scowled. “I’m not overriding her wishes. I’m just trying to protect her.”

  “You are being a hardheaded male and protective Dom,” Yvette said with deceptive agreeability. “But I want to hear her thoughts on her own state of mind.”

  “Like you can’t be overprotective.” Maddock glanced pointedly at Charlie. Yvette’s predatory gaze locked with his.

  “Do you really wish to discuss why I am so protective of what is mine and not yours, Mad Merlin?”

  Maddock’s expression shuttered, but his eyes glinted dangerously.

  “I can do this.” Medusa laid her hand on John’s knee. “I must have whatever control over my fate I can. What happened earlier…I would have been far more fragile if you had not stepped into the nightmare and helped me fight my way out of it. You reminded me of my strength and my own will. I can do this. Please. Be with me on this.”

  “I’m with you on everything, snake-girl,” he said, covering her fingers and clasping them firmly. “But if he starts being a bully, you just say the word and I’ll knock him on his ass.”

  “Yeah, like that’s ever going to happen,” Maddock said.

  “It would if you wouldn’t use magic to protect your scrawny butt,” John retorted.

  Maddock ignored that. As he looked toward Charlie, his expression was hooded. “If you’ll let me take you to lunch another day…”

  “No,” Medusa said. “I mean, yes, I am willing to try what you suggested. But may we do it after lunch? John Pierce and I can eat here while you and Charlie go…eat Italian food. When you return, I will be fed and well-rested. I feel like I need some time to get accustomed to the idea.”

  Charlie’s cheeks had tinged that light pink again. While nothing about Yvette’s expression had discernibly changed, Medusa sensed she’d earned a good mark in the vampire’s book, not allowing Maddock to back away from his obvious feelings for the healer. Though Medusa was curious about how Charlie’s service to the vampire would work if Maddock did openly pursue the relationship. It was clear if Maddock wanted a woman, he wasn’t going to be kindly disposed to sharing her.

  John Pierce rose, drawing her to her feet with him. “Sounds good,” he said. “Because we have an errand to do at lunch.”

 
She glanced up at him quizzically, but he offered her only an enigmatic wink and smile. There was still a tightness about his mouth that told her he wasn’t entirely happy about her decision to work with Maddock, but he would support her in it. That was all that mattered.

  Yvette spoke quietly to Charlie and then she rose. “If you need my quarters for your questions, you are welcome to use them after lunch. I will be with Gundar most of the afternoon, working with the other performers. Marcellus will be told what was said here, to keep him in the loop.”

  She pivoted and left them, something Medusa was beginning to realize characterized the vampire’s communication. She said what she needed or wished to say, then absented herself from further human interaction. It made her think of what Clara had said about vampires being very “clique-y”. She wondered how the vampire passed leisure time, or with whom she chose to spend her relaxed moments. Cai perhaps?

  The portal Maddock suggested for exiting the Circus and taking Charlie to lunch was near the cook house, so the four of them walked toward it. The men were a few feet ahead, talking about other things, so Medusa slowed her steps, anticipating Charlie companionably matching her pace.

  “So what’s that about?” she asked in a low voice.

  “What?” Charlie asked. She was clicking her middle finger and thumb nails together, a nervous twitch.

  “You and Maddock?”

  “I haven’t known him very long. And he doesn’t…he’s never approached me that way. Not exactly.”

  “Is it because you’re already spoken for? With Lady Yvette.”

  “No. Not like that. I mean, yes, Yvette takes me to her bed, but that’s a vampire thing. They don’t really bond with humans…like it is between you and John.”

  “So she’d be okay with you being with Maddock if you wanted to be?”

  At Charlie’s silence, Medusa bit her lip. She barely knew this woman, and Charlie barely knew her. Charlie was not Clara, who talked with such chatty girlish comfort, the way Callidora had. Dear Callidora…maybe John was right. Maybe she didn’t want to remember, to go back… It filled her with unease, as she thought about her friend.

  “Oh, no. You don’t have to be sorry.” Charlie touched her arm, showing she’d picked up Medusa’s distress. “I understand.”

  “I still apologize,” Medusa said. “I know I’m being too forward. It’s just been so long since I’ve been able to talk to other…women about things that matter to us. I mean, I’m sure John Pierce would have his theories if I ask him, but…”

  “But men talk about feelings and relationships differently. Very minimalist. ‘Yeah, he seems to like her.’ Grunt.” Charlie attempted a smile. “I hope I’m not that bad, but I’m just not good at this kind of talking.”

  “I do not believe that. Your touch and presence are so welcome and soothing.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean it quite like that. It’s not about being socially awkward. It’s…seeing the things I can see, I have to translate everything three times. Through the auras I see, through the words you say, and then there’s the current.”

  “Current?”

  Charlie’s clouded eyes seemed to stare over Maddock’s head as if she were focused on the sky, or some type of energy swirling above him. “There’s a current that runs through everything. It’s part of us, part of the earth, part of the universe. It has its place in every conversation, whether we know it or not, weaving us with other potential threads…so I have to put the three together. I can’t take anything on face value, because I have to balance all the energy that flows toward me when someone is talking to me.”

  It sounded like a fragile mortal had been burdened with the omniscience of a goddess, something that would be continually overwhelming. Charlie seemed to channel it effectively for her healing role, though. Medusa considered the attraction between her and Maddock, the strong energy layers around the wizard.

  “What happens when Maddock talks to you? Does he know all this?”

  “He knows some of it. It gets…quieter, when he talks to me. In a certain way. Somewhat like Yvette, but different.”

  “Like when you were kneeling at his feet.” Medusa studied the set of Maddock’s shoulders, the tilt of his head as he spoke to John, his quick male smile. Yes, she could see it there. There was that similarity to the two men, the sexual Dominance, the protective nature, the single-mindedness when each man knew what he wanted from a woman.

  She suspected he had ways to help cushion the effect of Charlie’s form of communication, to simplify it with his own shielding. So what was keeping Maddock from reaching out?

  It was likely the same thing that always held a person from committing to another when life was excessively complicated. Wasn’t that the unresolved matter between her and John Pierce, one that kept raising its head? Though interestingly, when those moments reached a certain intensity, it didn’t seem unresolved at all.

  “Yes. It quiets when I treat him…as a Master.” Charlie’s voice dropped to a whisper and the petite woman seemed to draw in on herself, like she might narrow and disappear through a rift in the very air around her. “He touched me and…the colors, between our skin, it was…”

  She stopped. In the healer’s face, Medusa saw the same discomfort she might feel if she thought she were saying too much to a relative stranger.

  “You honor me with your confidence,” she said formally, touching the woman’s arm. “It has been a long, long time since another woman has spoken to me of things of the heart. It is a gift, and I will not treat it carelessly.”

  Charlie’s face cleared. “I know. You have spoken of your love for John, but it is still a new thing, isn’t it? So many unknowns, so many things to explore. It’s a wonderful feeling, but a frightening one, when so many things can go wrong. And he fears obligating your heart to him.”

  “Yes.” Medusa walked silently for another few minutes. The cook house was ahead. “But John taught me, and I have learned myself, that often it’s about taking one moment at a time. Today that moment is lunch. Italian lunch.”

  Charlie smiled at the phrasing, though her expression was shadowed. Hoping to help ease her tension, Medusa nudged her playfully. “Maybe he will kiss you. Or maybe you will kiss him. He looks like he needs you to kiss him.”

  “Oh, I…” Charlie spluttered. “I can’t. I just couldn’t.”

  At the young woman’s genuine distress, Medusa immediately realized her mistake. Chagrined, she slid an arm around Charlie’s narrow shoulders. “You do not have to. I did not mean to upset you. I was just doing girl talk, as Clara calls it. I am obviously not very good at it, either.”

  “No. It’s not that.” Charlie’s deceptively blind eyes locked onto Medusa’s face with fierce purpose. “I’ll see things if I kiss him. Energy trails, intent, fate, a whole lot of possibilities that, with his life, are going to be scary and terrible, making me think I could lose him before I ever have him. I’d rather just have him at a distance. Where I can dream about him and never worry that that image will change in my head. That even if something destroyed him tomorrow, that part would stay the same, untainted. I don’t even really want to go to lunch with him, but Yvette said I must.”

  Since the woman now seemed tense under the shelter of her arm, Medusa drew back, but she stopped and faced her, knowing Charlie could see the lights of her emotions, what she sincerely hoped would be true for the blind healer. “I do not want to cause you further distress, but I think you’ll be glad you did go with him.”

  She couldn’t see how Charlie refusing to be with Maddock when she so obviously wanted to be was better, no matter how short a time the relationship might work.

  Maybe she needed to tell John Pierce something like that, to ease his doubts about her frame of mind. When merely seeing his quick smile filled her with a simple happiness, it had to mean something. Especially when that happiness seemed surrounded by an even easier feeling of Yes, he’s mine. I want that. Him.

  She’d disturbed Charlie enough w
ith things that she couldn’t even answer for herself. Tactfully, she changed the subject to ask her about some of the costumes she’d seen piled up in a corner of Yvette’s large tent. She wasn’t sure if the shift would work, but Charlie jumped on those questions with obvious relief.

  They caught up to Maddock and John at the cook house. Maddock extended a hand to Charlie. “Ready to do this? You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Don’t join me for lunch because Yvette told you to do it. That would piss me off.”

  Medusa held her breath, since Charlie had said that was exactly why she was doing this. Now, though, the healer’s face was as placid and readable as the face of a lake. She laid her hand in Maddock’s.

  “I like Italian food,” she said.

  “Don’t let him stick you with the check, Charlie,” John advised. “He’s been known to do that. The old ‘I left my wallet at home’ ploy.”

  “I don’t handle money,” she said serenely. “So if that is the case, we will be washing many dishes.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Medusa shifted to John’s side, brushing against him as they watched the two move away and abruptly vanish, smoothly as if they’d stepped through a door.

  “Show off,” John said. “Trying to impress a girl.”

  “I’m impressed,” Medusa admitted, then smiled as he slid an arm around her and turned her so she was fully against his chest, his hand sliding down into her jeans pocket. His intent to tease her seemed to slide away as he studied her face. “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am.” She gazed up at him. “I like your face, John Pierce. I am glad it was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes.”

  She wasn’t sure if she meant when she came out of the nightmare, or if she meant the first time she looked upon him on the island, or if it had an even deeper meaning, but he seemed to absorb all possible nuances of it, because it made his eyes become an even deeper gray. There was a dark ring of black around the iris that made his eyes even more appealing, more capable of holding her caught in their spell. When he leaned down to kiss her, she leaned fully into it, a long moment where things became quiet, tender and yearning all at once.