I remain still and let his fingers soothe me. I know I still care for him, maybe even love him. Really love him. Maybe it will be easy to forget that he has lied to me for so long. I am good at pushing out the bad. Eventually, the hurt will lessen and I can move on. But, I know too much and have seen too much darkness.
“I think, if we go too long without speaking of them, we lose sight of what they were,” he says.
“You have no idea what she was, Henri. She was nothing she seemed to be.”
“You still don’t remember that night do you?” He asks.
I shake my head and look away. I can’t talk of her, of that night. I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“It is good you don’t,” he says. “I couldn’t stand the thought that you would have to live with remembering.”
My heart almost tears in my chest. Please don’t say these things.
He shifts his weight and pulls himself on top of me. His arms rest on either side of my head, his face close. I can feel his warm breath and smell his earthy scent. His thigh pushes between my legs forcing them apart, pressing himself to me.
“Let’s not talk of her then.” His mouth presses over mine, hard, surprising. His tongue flickers out over my lips.
I shove him back, and he breaks the kiss. “I can’t do this, Henri.”
He rolls over and sits up, running his fingers through his hair. I have hurt him, not that I wanted to. “I’m sorry.”
“All of this is too much.” I stand. “We aren’t eighteen any more. The Henri I thought I knew would never have brought me here or lied to me our entire lives.”
“Do you really think I wanted this?” He asks, angrily. “Do you really think I wanted to lie to you? I had no choice. This is my life, Charlotte. This is your life.”
“I don’t want this life!” I yell. “Did you really think you could bring me here, show me my mother and I would just forget all the years you both were gone?”
“We are your family, this is your life. There is no other choice.”
“Yes there is! My life is back in Florida.” How can he not see this? How can he really think I'd be so accepting? Did he think I would fall into his arms?
“Your life there was over the moment you found out about Abigail.” Henri presses his fingers to his eyes, irritation rolls off of him into the air around us. “You think you can just go back to ignoring life around you? Pretend none of us exist? Go back to having Lucius follow you quietly?”
“No.”
“Then what? What do you want?”
Something normal. Something real. Something that isn’t shrouded in darkness and deception. “I don’t know.”
Henri stands, and grabs my hands in his. His face is solemn, the beautiful light in his eyes has darkened. “Here. France. Me. This life is your life.”
We stand in silence. “I have a say in this, Henri.”
“No, Charlotte, you don’t.”
----------
The ride back to the chateau is tense to say the least. Lance feels it, and he seems on edge at the wheel. Then again, I’d be pretty pissed if some jerk made me drive him on a picnic and I had to wait by the car. I hope he had his book.
Once we arrive, I leave Henri in the foyer and hide in my room. I don’t want to see anyone, but force myself down to the dining room for dinner. I sit at my usual spot next to Henri, but refuse to look at him, and pick at the food on my plate. I don’t know why they insist on this nightly ritual. They don’t even eat.
My stomach is in knots, nausea has it in a vice grip and my head pulses. The worst case of nerves and regret. I try to focus on my plate. I know I need more food, but it is useless, I crave the safety of my bed.
Aydin appears, dapper as ever, and sits directly across from me. He looks different, colder, and more controlled. Even the air around him is different, charged and challenging. I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t look up, keeping my own down to the table. Images of him play in my thoughts. His lips, his smile. If I look at him, he will see everything. My humiliation and my attraction.
I really hope no one knows what I am thinking.
“It seems as if our, little Charlotte has a thing for Aydin,” Claudette laughs.
My head shoots up to look at her. She has to know my thoughts. I want to slither under the table and disappear into the carpeting. It is made worse that they can feel my embarrassment. I hope she can feel how much I hate her. Her silky, bitch smile tells me she does. So much for our friendship.
“Why would you say such things?” Henri looks disgusted, his eyes moving from Claudette’s to try to find mine. I stare at Claudette, avoiding him.
“Charlotte was taking a swim last night and Aydin was keeping her company. Seems she’s taken a liking to you, Aydin.” She almost bats her eyelashes. I’d like to slap her senseless.
Eyes look at me. Some shocked, others grinning, like Lucius. Henri’s angry. No. Infuriated.
If the world ends, and the Earth opens up, swallowing me whole, I’ll be OK with this. Really.
“Can you blame her? What mere mortal could resist his charms?” Lucius asks. The silence is broken, but the elephant still lingers, large and obvious.
“You made a pass at, Aydin?” Henri’s tone is incredulous. He isn’t letting this go.
Someone, please kill me.
“She had too much to drink.” Aydin waves his hand, brushing away Claudette’s words, as if my intoxicated state were the explanation. The only explanation. Not exactly disproving that I made a pass at him. “You shouldn’t make assumptions, Claudette.”
“So, you made a pass at her.” Henri’s face contorts with rage, he looks almost as scary as Aydin. Almost, but not quite.
“Calm down, boy,” Aydin sneers. “No one it is going to touch your precious, Charlotte. It’s your job to remove the stain of countless others.”
WHAT?
I glare at Aydin. Countless others? Countless?
“There is nothing to worry about, Henri,” I smile nastily at Aydin. “I don’t exactly have a ‘Nosferatu’ fetish.”
Aydin’s face remains stoic, but I can see the corner of his mouth turndown, hiding his smile. Creep. I want to reach out and remove the smirk from his face.
“Well, doesn’t she have a nasty little mouth.” Aydin’s eyes gleam dangerously.
“Doesn’t seem to keep you from wanting it,” I snap.
Ashur slams his hands on the table with such force, glasses fall over and shatter. The elephant disappears, running away in fear.
“This has been very enlightening,” Ashur says, his black eyes scanning the room. “If you will excuse us, I have to speak with Aydin and Henri in private.”
My mother ushers me from the room, practically carrying me out. Instead of taking me to the parlor, she shoves me down the hallway toward the back of the castle. My arm aches as she pulls me down the red corridor. Once at my room she slams the door with such force I wonder how it didn’t splinter.
“What are you doing?” She asks. Her voice is low, a growl.
“Nothing.” My hands tremble. Her eyes flash in rage. She is scarier now than she was when I was eight. By a lot. By a thousand degrees.
“You are not to talk to Aydin. You stay away from him!” She yells. “He has been hurt enough!”
What?
My mother isn’t angry that I have jeopardized my relationship with Henri. Its obvious everyone wants me to be with him. But, after discovering his lies, I have decided this is not what I want. Not ever. It has only been confirmed after seeing his dark streak. No, my mother isn’t upset that I made a pass at Aydin. My mother is upset over Aydin’s feelings.
His feelings.
“He’s been hurt?” I ask, incredulously. “He just basically called me a whore!”
“Just stay away from him. You could get him hurt, Charlotte. Or worse. You don’t understand what is happening.”
“Then tell me! I’m so tired of lies!” I scream, loud and desperate in my own ears.
/>
Abigail’s hands smooth down her dress. I have no idea what she is thinking. I can no longer feel her. Her sweetness, her kindness. They are lost to me.
“Aydin was your Guardian,” she says, finally. “Ashur assigned him to protect you and Emily the day you were born.”
I let that sink in. For a long time, I sit mute.
It had been revealed from the moment I saw him, but my mind had tried to keep it from me. He had always been there. I had felt him my entire life. He is charged and it reverberated throughout my home, throughout my life.
Tears burn behind my eyes. His steel eyes watching, always on me. Studying. I have refused to see it. I know the soft caress of his hands on my face. I remember the way he traced my lip, his gray eyes, rescuing me, like they always have from my nightmares. He knows my secrets. He knows Emily’s as well.
“You said was.” I fight the nausea in my belly and the tears that try to force their way out.
Another piece of my mother breaks. Her heart shattering.
“He protected you and Emily, every day. Until one day, he failed.”
AYDIN
Chapter Twenty-three
There are things the mind captures and saves, etching the horror behind the lids, and in the hollows of your ears. If you look just right, you can see the faces. If you sit too quiet, you can hear the screams. They can never be unseen or unheard. You can push them back, refuse to look where the images lay, but they are there. Always. They become a part of you, sinking deeper into the center, to the heart of who you are. No matter how you try to change your past, it lays just behind you, tickling the back of your neck, a constant reminder of what you really are.
My entire existence was dependent upon two little girls. I had been created, for the sole purpose of being a Guardian. The stories around my birth were written in blood. In the desperation of my mother’s screams as she gave her life to bring me into this world.
I protected my family, my father, my brother. The fragile human lives of small girls and boys that had been cursed and born into this evil life of blood and depravity. Of darkness and demons. I was a brave, and unrelenting force that would tear limbs from bodies, and drink the blood of my enemies. My strength and brutality kept them safe, kept them caged. I know cages and I know chains.
I was born into slavery. The Emperor Commodus had taken full reign. All of Rome was sickened by his greed, trapped in his dark world. His desire to be grand fed his insanity, as it does every being who walks this Earth.
The story of my birth is buried in myths and legend. But, I could see through the layers of deception. My mother was a slave. She was given as a gift to the doctore for his years of loyalty and service in the House of Antonius. The doctore, it was said, had loved her with every part of his soul. He had treated her kindly and never touched her out of greed.
Lydia was my mother’s name, and she held the rare beauty of the women from her home country. Her hair was black as night, her eyes clear as the day. The tales say that her skin was smooth and warm, light caramel and she smelled of the hot sand that lay along the sea. And, she was fierce. Some say she was stolen from the last living Amazon women that lived hidden, in the steppes of her homeland. Her strength alone is what created the legend.
My father was unknown. The old woman who cared for me told me the terrible stories of my conception. An act of rebellion against the Doctore. A handful of men, gladiators known for their brutality, forced themselves upon my mother. Each one took their turn, their hate for the ludus, and the life they had been fighting, bled into her. The men, no longer brothers in the ludus, were put to death. They had disgraced the House, their doctore, their lanista and the brotherhood that bound them together.
Lydia had fought each of the men, the other women had hid in fear, but they told the story of how she had slashed at them, tore the flesh from their bodies with her teeth. Clawed at each men’s faces and screamed such ferocious howls, it was said a demon must have entered her soul from the evil they laid upon her. But my mother had refused to be broken.
It was her ferocious manner that gave birth to the stories. The will for revenge had sparked a fire inside her belly. Her rage and taste for blood had fanned the flame of its seed. From her power, it was said, I was created. Not from the depravity and hatred that she had endured, but of her strength alone. Some say the gods had placed the child in her womb, but the old woman told me the truth. My mother’s will had placed me there. Her desire to keep other girls safe from the evil that lay in the hearts of men.
She gave her life to give me breath. My mother had kissed my mouth, releasing her last breath into the child that would grow into a fierce fighter. A man cast from savagery. A man created to protect the innocent and strike down the wicked.
Augustus Antonius, my creator, was called then, had been known for his cruelty. He kept me at the ludus as a young boy, to feed and cleanup after the gladiators and later to tend to the weapons. My human life had been brutal and only spared because the doctore had loved my mother, who the lanista respected and treated well for his years of loyal service.
I grew into a formidable presence, my body large, my legs long and agile. My mother’s features showed in my face. Her soft warm skin was my own, her onyx black hair and bright gray eyes. I was created by her, held her soul in mine. She walked along side me, giving me strength, and the will to survive.
Lucius and I became close as boys, we grew together, worked together. Even endured the vicious lashes of punishment, holding each others eyes, the sting of the whip making us strong. He was only a few years older than I, almost as big, and just as loyal.
Others thought me fierce, and I was often found bloodied and bruised after sparring with my fellow slaves. Augustus saw in me a fighter, so brutal and seemingly unconcerned with my own life, he began to train me, seeing what he hoped would one day be a great Gladiator. What he didn’t know was it was my drive to protect that kept me alive. Lucius’ angelic face often brought unwanted attention, revealing our brother slaves true nature. He, along with the young girls that worked the kitchens, was always on the twisted minds of the men of the ludus, who touched them in ways that brought out my inner beast and need to protect.
It was customary for the House of Antonius to hold fights on dark nights, at a high fee. These were grand spectacles of brutality. The tall flickers of the flames licked at the stone walls. The many faces of the audience, shone with lust, revealing their depravity. Blood flowed, spilling into the small ring of the ludus, forever staining the sands a dark red.
Lucius and I were the stars. We fought with such savagery, Ashur’s spectators would ask for us to fight together, slaying men, our swords forced by their coin. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. Fiercely, even if it meant through violence and blood.
In the ring, I held power. I was honored, no longer looked upon as lowly. Spectators enjoyed the monstrous rage that spilled out. They cheered as I slashed my opponents bodies. Their eyes shone evil, their desire for blood forcing me to take a life. I never enjoyed the kill, it was the fight that drove me. I looked into my fellow slaves eyes and forced myself to remember their faces. Their lives held meaning. There were men and woman they had loved, children they had given seed to. I dreamed at night that they saw in me, not the face of death, but an angel of mercy, relinquishing their soul, taking their fear and life and casting it in the steel behind my eyes. They would never be forgotten. Their sacrifice gave me strength to move forward, in what I knew one day would be my mother's fight. A story, written in the last breaths of her life. A fight for the innocent.
At a young age, I recognized Ashur was unlike the other Romans that visited his house. He was dark, his ancestry visible in his distinct features and long black hair. He was often challenged, but having many friends that held high seats in the Senate, their coin lining his pockets, the threats were quickly dispensed of. Soon, no one questioned his ludus. Or his honor.
I quickly rose to fame in the small circle that visited the
private fights. Ashur would often force me to fight several men or beasts to prove my strength and valor. More times than not, Lucius would be at my side. My body would be battered, sharp swords tearing at the flesh, but I would always stand victorious, and would later be tended to by Ashur himself, healing me with ancient potions that mended the skin quickly, preparing me for yet another battle.
For years, I existed in the brutal life of a gladiator. Many times fighting in the stadium, proving my worth and heightening the name of the House of Antonius. I was the pride of the ludus and sought after by the women of high ranking homes.
At the height of the house, Ashur came to me and instructed that I lose the battle in the next night’s fight. By then, I knew my master lived in the night, his blood holding the power of the gods to heal me. I had grown to care for Ashur, wanting to bring honor to the Famila Antonius. Ashur promised freedom from slavery, to continue on as his son, walking along side him as an equal. His blood of the gods would heal me and my life as a gladiator would be over. I would carry his family name and he would reveal his true life.
During the fight the following night, I followed my master’s instructions and left myself open to my opponent, pretending to be filled with arrogance and pride. It was a grand show, though I knew, my heart had become blackened by it. As the blade cut through my skin, I fell, knowing it would be my last in the small, cruel ring. It felt glorious. I was leaving behind the brutal life I lived in, for far too long. My hands would no longer be forced, my body would be mine alone.
The cut was deep, my life spilled out, a thick dark red, running down my thighs, pooling at my knees. I remember looking up to see Lucius. His eyes held such pain, I thought my heart would be cleaved in two. My last memory; hands dragging me into darkness, my brother’s face behind my eyes.
I woke a night later with agonizing screams filling the dark dungeon where I was held. They echoed in the hallowed chamber, off the stained stone walls and crashed into my ears. In the ring the wounds had been a source of pride, showing the spectators my strength and endurance. But this, this was a power I had never encountered. My body rocked as a powerful force overcame me. It coursed through my veins, my body changed, my senses opened. I screamed for the gods to have mercy, never had I experienced such suffering. I was paying for my sins. For the many lives, I had taken. I prayed the gods would release me, forgive me, for I still had a battle to fight. The one that was written in my mother’s blood.
In the Shadow of Angels: The Guardian Series 1 Page 19
