Deadly Beasts (The Curse of the Rose Book 1)

by T. M. Watkins

  “Now for your birthday, what do you want to do? A party, invite some friends maybe?”

  “No thanks. I don't really have friends. The people I worked with maybe but my boss was the lycan that tried to kill me, so maybe not. I don't keep in contact with anyone from orphanage because they all hated the fact that they had to go to court to testify against Adrian. They didn't really blame me for it but you know.” I shrugged.

  My mother calmly put the cup in her hands down and looked at me. I could see the frown deepening. “Is this the horrid past Eliria, what happened?”

  “Okay, so you are going to have to keep your cool, we are in a public place.”

  Her lips pursed together tightly as she leaned back, gripping the table. “Alright, calm and cool, no anger.”

  “Adrian was the director of the orphanage from when I was fourteen until I was kicked out at eighteen. He raped me constantly.”

  The anger that she said wasn't there was long gone as fury ripped through her.

  “Calm down please.” I whispered as my eyes darted around the dark room. “I got my revenge. I am at peace with it, please let it go.”

  She closed her eyes as she gripped the table hard. Tears seeped through the lashes and onto her cheeks.

  “Please mother, do not make a scene.”

  I reached across the table holding my hand out to her. She opened her tear filled eyes and took my hand. “Oh my sweet angel, can you ever forgive my poor decision?”

  “It was forgiven a long time ago. You need to let it go, like I have.”

  She nodded and wiped the tears, squeezing my hand with the other. “A brighter future.”

  Breakfast arrived a few minutes later, we had both ordered a stack of pancakes. Well I had ordered and my mother asked what they were, upon hearing the description she declared to the mystified waitress that she would like to try these panned cakes. It was a three stack with cream and strawberries, my mother looked at the plate with curiosity, turning it and studying it.

  “What are these red things?”

  “Strawberries.”

  Warily she speared one with her fork and looked at me as I began to eat. They were sweet and I couldn't get enough of them. She put it into her mouth and it was like she was in the middle of her own gastronomic orgasm. It was gross but it was true, groaning at the taste and repeatedly telling me about how good they were. She also stated that if I didn't want mine, she would happily eat them for me. Apparently she had tasted cream when she came here to have me and already knew that it was reasonable. And then it was time to taste the pancakes, she cut herself a section and tasted it. She nodded with a grin and hummed that it was a mighty fine meal for a breakfast. I grinned as she cut through the three stack, taking the pieces in their entirety.

  “I would still like to do something for your birthday Eliria.”

  I nodded reluctantly knowing there was no escape. She had missed out on nineteen birthdays, I could give her this much.

  “You never know, maybe we could even go into our home world for it.”

  “Really?” I gasped.

  She shrugged as she wiped her mouth, the pancakes were gone and there wasn't a single strawberry left on the plate. “Your father will bring word of how things are progressing, by tonight we will know if it is safe for you. Would you like to have it in our world?”

  “I don't know. I mean, I would like for Marty and Nick to come because they have been good friends but I don't think William will let them. Aside from them there is no one else that I think would want to come.”

  She reached across the table and patted my hand with motherly love.

  “We will see what your father says tonight, until then we shall spend a great day together.”

  Because my room had been fitted with the essentials, I had to fill it with things that I liked. The first store that we had come across was a place that sold all that sort of nonsense. Previously I had been given a box of things when the social worker found me the apartment. It had a blanket in it and a few other bits of linen that were all second hand and mismatched. Now I had selected the brightest bed cover with matching pillows, my own towels because I had a bathroom all to myself, a rug for the floor, more pillows for the chaise lounge and the softest throw rug I had ever felt. Because according to the sales woman, there was nothing better than to curl up in front of the fire on a cold winters day while reading a book with a rug over your knees. I looked at my mother who was getting into the trinkets, she looked up with a crazy grin, holding a wind chime. It was a pretty little thing, birds and leaves hung on the strands. When it moved it looked like the birds were flying through the leaves. There was no discussing it, I had to have it according to my mother. It wasn't until we were out of the store that she told me that Eliria was the fae word for a little bird that was the prettiest creature and had the most incredible song.

  Next door to the home wares store was a music shop, my mother was curious to the world of recorded music. In her world music was always in live form, always in a setting that would resemble the glittering balls of this world. She said that it would be something that I would have to get used to, as the daughter of the elven prince, I would be expected to attend such events. That is of course, if their union and their bastard child that is me, is accepted into their world. We walked through the aisles, looking at the different types of music and artists. Then she found the listening station and wanted desperately to give it a go. She looked at the headphones, unable to comprehend what to do with them. With a little chuckle, I put them on her head and turned the music up gently. Her eyes came alive with the sound, a smile erupted as she listened.

  “Wow.” She grinned as she pulled them off her head. “We have to get some of these music things. What do we need?”

  “Uh, well some of the music things.” I grinned. “Or as the locals call them CD's.”

  She nodded and started collecting various discs, not really paying attention to what she was picking up.

  “Uh, I don't think you will want to listen to a children's disc mother.”

  “Why not?” She frowned.

  “It's nursery rhymes and probably set to really annoying music. Trust me, put it back.”

  My mother rolled her eyes and put it back on the shelf, moving along to the next row.

  “Mary?”

  I spun around to see Tim's associate, the driver. Damn it, I still couldn't remember his name.

  “Eliria.” I said quietly. “Mary was the name that the orphanage gave me.”

  “Oh okay, sorry.” He smiled softly.

  His eyes looked up as the shadow of my mother loomed behind me.

  “Uh, hi. I'm James Weston, are you Eliria's mother?”

  “I am, Alvarie Dieltra. You were at the house yesterday with the detective, are you one of them too?”

  He nodded and looked around, ensuring that there wasn't anyone listening. “I am, I work for the same department as Tim.”

  “You seemed rather uneasy around the resident and his friends.”

  James shuffled his feet, looking down at the ground momentarily. “Not really a fan of their kind but they do us a service by protecting the innocent so I accept them for that.”

  “A noble gesture, I am sure.”

  He shrugged and looked at me with a crooked smile, then to my mother who was watching him with a stoic gaze. “Well, I guess I'll let you get on with your day. Nice to meet you.” He smiled at my mother who softened just a fraction to return the smile. “It was good to see you again… Eliria.”

  “You too.” I murmured uneasily.

  My mother chuckled as she watched his fleeing figure.

  “What?”

  “He has it bad.”

  She turned and walked down the aisle, leaving me rather stunned at her statement. I turned to chase after her, wanting to know what she meant.

  “Has what bad?”

  “You darling. He wants you.” She tilted her head at me. “Can you not see it Eliria, do you not see how y
ou turn heads?”

  I shook my head completely stunned.

  “I've watched it all morning, I had to give the death stare to a few creeps but aside from that you've had a few handsome fellows cast a lingering eye over you. A police officer, not bad. At least he has a job unlike the former who sat around on his arse all day.”

  “He didn't need to work, he has money. And besides, what work could he do?”

  She waved her hand and turned back to continue her path down the aisle.

  “It does not matter darling, my point is that the opportunity to move on is right in front of you and you do not see it. You still yearn for the former and I understand that, it is normal. After all, it only ended yesterday. But when you remember how much you loved him, remember how cruel he was to you.”

  “When he remembered me it was good, did you not see the love we had?”

  My mother nodded sadly, her hand rubbed my arm. “Had, darling, just as you said. In the past. Time to move on.”

  Caught by my own word, how I had failed myself. I quickly flicked away the tears, not wanting to be in the music store crying. My mother had made her way to the counter and was asking the young man of the contraption to play these CD things that she had. He looked at me with a slight frown, wondering what crazy land my mother was from.

  “She wants a CD player. She used to have a record player and I've convinced her to upgrade.”

  “Oh.” He grinned with a nod. “I'll find you something small, okay?”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  He scampered off around the counter and into the depths of the store. My mother leaned to me to whisper. “What is a record player?”

  “It's a music player but an older version and the discs are bigger and black. He can see that you are my mother and in order to not make it obvious that you aren't exactly from around here, I had to ensure that you seemed a little… antiquated.”

  Her eyebrows raised at me as her back arched her back a little.

  “Look, you can't go around saying things like that, calling them contraptions. He was looking at you like you were crazy and if you keep going, you'll end up with a line of shopkeepers calling the nut house on you.”

  “What's a nut house?”

  I sighed, weary of this day already. “Insane asylum. Look, I'm not trying to offend you or change who you are, just be mindful of this world. They don't even know of William's kind.”

  “I found this one, what do you think?”

  Turning to the guy, I could see a face that was far too eager to impress. My mother's words about lingering eyes and turning heads was ringing through my mind. Was it always like this?

  “It's just a CD player so if you want to convert the records into something more modern I'll have to find something different. Did you want to do that? We've got a turntable that can convert to a memory stick, I can go and get it for you, quick as.”

  My mother smiled at me, smug as she listened to the young man and his verbal onslaught.

  “For now this will be fine.”

  “Sure.” He grinned as he rung it up on the register.

  My mother handed over the payment to the grinning man and returned her smug gaze to me.

  The man handed over the large bag with another over the top smile. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  I tried to ignore my mother as she laughed her way into the next store, finding the whole thing amusing but it was difficult. Her amusement was annoying.

  “Two in one morning that have been brave enough to speak to you. I think I like the humans, they are almost fearless.”

  I scoffed, hoping to ignore her. My heart still yearned for William, I know it will be a long time before I could even contemplate another man. If I were to search my thoughts, I know that I would find the small amount of hope that he would remember me and seek me out to beg for forgiveness. But I would be a fool if I were to hold hope for it to happen. Too much time had passed before he was put into the memory pool, he refused to stay in it and he refused to go back. And I was right about what he would have been thinking, having already been in that situation, I knew how it worked. He would know there was a reason for me being there, even without seeing the cuffs. He would feel a strong tie to me, like I had with him. When I looked at William when I was in the memory pool, I knew he was important to me, that he meant something in my life. I didn't know who he was or why he was so important but I knew that I had to find out, I wanted to find out. And to know that William would have those thoughts and not want to find out, well, that hurt.

  By the time we stopped for lunch, we had already returned to the apartment to leave the many bags of things we had bought. I now had my linen, music for us to listen to, far too much frilly underwear, more shoes than I cared for and a picture for one of the walls. It was a painting of a butterfly, my mother liked it because she thought it represented me, breaking free of the past and waking to the better future. I thought she was being far too heavy for that hour of the morning. Lunch wasn't as eventful as breakfast, my mother had selected something that was similar to the food of her own world. She chuckled with amusement as the waiter offered a free bottle of wine with our lunch.

  “It's the fae!” I whispered a little too angrily.

  “No darling, being fae or elf has nothing to do with it.”

  She began to pick through the salad on her plate, looking up at me with a grin. “You are intoxicating to them my darling child, they look at you and they see one pretty young woman. She's rather oblivious but pretty nonetheless.”

  I ignored her and decided to change the subject. “Do I have to know anything or do anything special when I meet my father this afternoon?”

  “Say hello, that might be nice.”

  The waiter appeared at the table, showing off the wine bottle in a grand gesture. My mother kicked me under the table, I narrowed my eyes at her and then turned to the waiter, smiling at him.

  “Thank you, that is kind of you but you do not need to offer it for free.”

  “Nonsense, I insist.”

  He poured a small sample into the glass for us to try, I didn't drink aside from the few times William had set a glass out for me at the dinner table. It was a bitter sweet memory as I took a delicate sip of it. I gave the waiter an appreciative smile, hoping that the façade didn't break. There were so many memories that could be found in the simplest of things. The knife on the table was similar to the one I almost stabbed him with at the diner. A man at the table beside us was wearing a dark suit similar to William's. Crazily he even had a red tie, just like the one William was wearing the day I arrived at his house. The woman on the other side of us had her hair up in to a messy bun, a rose clip was nestled into the side of it. I looked down at the steak in front of me, the scent of the pooling blood around it rose to me. Tears welled in my eyes as I looked at the blood. This world was trying to send me crazy, I was sure of it.

  “Eliria, are you alright?”

  I nodded and wiped the tears.

  “You don't look well, are you sure?”

  “I'm fine.” I whispered. “I'm just going to freshen up. I won't be long.”

  She smiled at me sympathetically as I got up from the table.

  Chapter Sixty-five

  The bathroom was plush, the stalls were wide and in the most pristine condition I had ever seen. And considering I hated public toilets, it was saying something. I sat on the toilet and cried, looking at my wrists I wished that the dragons were still there so that he would know how much pain he was causing. But then there was the flip side of it, I would know what he was doing and how he was feeling and I don't think I could handle it if it was bad. As I sat there, I wondered what he was doing, if he was suffering as much as I was. I cried until there was no tears left and when I didn't think that there was anything left in me, a rising tide of new suffering was unleashed on me. My mother was leaning on the vanity when I ventured from the stall, saying nothing as I rinsed my mouth out and wash
ed my face.

  “You are so worked up that you managed to make yourself sick. Please Eliria, let him go. If he remembers you, he will come and find you, there will be nothing that will stop him. But until that day comes, there is nothing you can do about it. All you are doing is making yourself an emotional wreck. He wouldn't want you to be like this, would he?”

  I shook my head as she pulled me into her arms. I had to give up otherwise I would spend my days like this, crying in a public bathroom while my lunch goes cold. I had to let William go.

  “I'll be out in a minute.”

  My mother nodded at me and left me in the bathroom alone, when the door was closed I rummaged through my bag and pulled out my phone. There was a text from Marty saying that she missed me, a text from Nick that said me too. I crinkled a tear filled smile and tapped out a response, telling each of them that I missed them too. Almost instantly Marty replied, it was crazy but I feared to open the text.

  World not good. William is in a terrible mood. Nick hasn't been able to get into study, William is watching us all the time. The elders are still here, won't leave until his memory has returned. How's things for you?