Eternal Blood - Books 1-3 Wolf Shield, Sword of the Blood, Vampire Bride

by Maria Isabel Pita

  Audrey hadn’t realized how old-fashioned she was until she watched a handsome young man grab one of her mother’s wrists and raise it fervently to his lips. All this time she had thought there was another, older man hiding in the wings—the wealthy laird Wilona had left her family for all those years ago—but apparently the situation wasn’t so conventional. She found herself torn between pride and distaste watching Wilona close her eyes and toss her head back with a soft, submissive cry. It was a new and exciting world where a fifty-something woman (who didn’t look a day over thirty) could captivate a man at least fifteen years her junior.

  But she was siding with her brain again instead of listening to the intelligence of her heart, she realized abruptly as shock branded the moment into her soul.

  Moaning, Wilona sank to her knees, her left arm raised stiffly above her as Falkon kept hold of her wrist, only he wasn’t kissing it, he was sucking on it.

  “What are you doing to my mother?” Her voice emerged as such a pathetic little whisper even she didn’t feel it merited a response. She added more loudly, “Stop! This game isn’t funny anymore!”

  “It’s all right, my baby.” Wilona’s eyes opened but her pupils were so dilated she looked blind. “Don’t you see?”

  Falkon dropped her wrist and turned.

  Audrey took a step back before she felt the force of his willpower grip her skeleton and root her to the spot… where she felt she had been standing forever, her bones stalactites shaped by unimaginable expanses of time drip by drip, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, century by century… no one would ever see her again because she was deep underground in absolute darkness, her organs hardening into rocks, her hair drying out into moss… before long her sense of self would be as distinct and yet as hopelessly faint as a primordial fossil…

  “Don’t fight him, Audrey! He wants to love you! Let him love you!”

  Her mother’s voice sounded as though it was coming from the opposite end of a long tunnel while a bass-like thrumming all around her was growing louder…

  Something icy cold slapped one of her cheeks and just like that she was back in a sunlit room where nothing out of the ordinary appeared to have happened. Wilona was on her feet and smiling at her from where she stood bent over the tray pouring a cup of tea.

  She looked around her. They were alone again.

  “Come and eat, sweet,” her mother urged even as she herself moved away from the food.

  “What,” she gasped, “just happened? Falkon was here and he bit you! I saw him sucking your blood!”

  Wilona held out her hands. Her wrists were pale and smooth, apparently untouched. “You upset him, Audrey.” A bemused pride filtered through the controlled anger in her voice.

  “I upset him?” She laughed. It was all too much. The food smelled delicious but she couldn’t stomach the scene. She walked back to the couch where she had left her purse.

  “I’m getting out of here,” she announced. “I should never have come! You should never have written me! I was happier when I thought you were dead!”

  “I’m never going to die.”

  “Where’s the door?” She refused to respond to such an absurd statement. “I don’t see any doors anywhere. Show me the way out, please!”

  “Calm down, Audrey. You won’t find any doors because there aren’t any at the moment. Sit down and have your lunch. You’ve come this far. At least listen to what I have to say. You’re safe here.”

  “I’m trapped here, you mean! He took my phone! Are you here against your will as well? And how in bloody hell have you managed to stay looking so young? What’s going on, mother?!”

  “I refuse to speak to you while you’re stomping your foot and having a tantrum. Sit down and eat your lunch like a good girl and then I’ll answer your questions.”

  Wilona’s stern parental tone abruptly made her feel like a child again, which abruptly led her to wonder if she was overreacting, perhaps even imagining things because the experience of being reunited with her long lost mother was causing her to become emotionally unhinged. The door probably blended with the wall; she would find one if she looked hard enough, but perhaps it might be better to sit down and eat and discover out what she had come to learn—the truth. It was much easier to doubt herself than to accept what she believed she had seen. It was much less frightening to think she might need a therapist.

  “Very well,” she said, “I’ll stay for lunch because I’m famished, but I want my phone back.”

  “You won’t get a signal out here.”

  “That’s not the point and surely you know it.” The distressing possibility her mother might be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and was enamored of her kidnapper took the wind out of her indignation. She spoke more calmly, “But never mind that. You said in your letter you would explain everything, mommy…”

  “Oh sweet!” Wilona hurried over to her and they hugged as they had earlier, a surge of emotion imbuing their arms with supernatural strength—their embrace felt like the whole world and everything was all right because it was all about love and everything else was a meaningless illusion.

  ⊕

  From where she sat on the other side of the large black coffee table, Wilona said, “Do you eat like this all the time?” her expression a study in envy and distaste.

  Her mouth full, Audrey nodded, ignoring the look on her mother’s face; she was enjoying her food too much to let anything get in the way. The cold roast chicken Falkon had offered her last night had been divine and at the moment she was almost inclined to forgive him for stealing her cell phone. In her heart (and with her tongue and her stomach) she would always be loyal to Consuelo, whose ability to whip up healthy comfort food was surely unequaled in all of Britain. Nevertheless, there was much to be said for the castle’s resident chef. Instead of chunks of chicken, her Caesar salad—composed of baby greens and herbs in addition to the requisite Romaine lettuce—was garnished by a whole de-boned and succulently grilled Cornish Hen. She also definitely tasted raw egg yolks in the dressing, thank God. A fabulous so-called Peasant Soup accompanied the salad, a traditional pairing that might have been trite if it hadn’t been so delicious. The flavorful, undoubtedly home-made stock was thickened by a lavish amount of Gruyere cheese and the bread at the bottom of the bowl was saturated with all this goodness. She really didn’t need the slice of blueberry tart which constituted the dessert but she ate it, of course. The Greek Yogurt it was topped with was the creamiest she had ever tasted and blended splendidly with the pecan-crusted berries and whole-wheat crust.

  Finally, she was done, and her glass of red wine drunk. After wiping her fingertips clean on the white cloth napkin, she opened the dark-green bottle of Perrier. “Did you know water crystals respond to words and the tone in which they’re spoken?” she remarked, reluctant to leave the stimulating zone of the lunch tray and return her full attention to the oddly sterile room.

  “Yes, I did,” Wilona surprised her by replying. “I live that fact every day.”

  “I suppose we all do.” She set the bottle down, kicked off her shoes and crossed her legs beneath her on the couch. She needed to be comfortable for a conversation which, at the very least, threatened to interfere with her normally excellent digestion. Taking a slow breath she sent her stomach reassuring thoughts before meeting her mother’s waiting eyes again. “After all, our bodies are mostly water.”

  Wilona sat as though enthroned, her hands curled around the ends of the chair, her white open-toe high-heels planted side-by-side revealing her flawless red toenails. Her beauty was a presence in itself, and how old she was only made it more commanding. She asked casually, as if the question cropped up in conversations all the time, “Have you heard of telomeres, Audrey?”

  “Telomeres? No, I can’t say I have. But I thought we were going to discuss how you came to be living in a castle with a man who steals cell phones. Falkon couldn’t possibly be the reason you left us, he’s much too young. Did you-”

>   “Audrey, I’m trying to explain, but it’s not easy since you’re doing your best not to understand. We’ve tried to break it to you gently, given you increasingly obvious clues, but you insist on being obtuse. You remind me of Stuart. He spends his life living in other times and places where magic was a part of everyday life, a reality, and yet he would never even consider the possibility anything out of the ordinary could ever happen in Ashbury.”

  Audrey wanted to protest, to come to her father’s defense by mentioning the scarab he had given her believing it would protect her from evil forces, but she stopped herself. The amulet was resting very close to her heart now and she resisted the impulse to reach up and grasp it for reassurance. She didn’t want to call attention to it. She really believed it was protecting her, if only because of the love she felt for the person who had given it to her and the love he felt for her.

  “Telomeres are those nasty little bits of DNA on the ends of our chromosomes,” Wilona explained. “I never paid attention in Biology class. I wish I had, but it doesn’t matter now. I found a much more interesting teacher who made me realize how relevant the subject truly is. Or rather, he found me.”

  “Falkon?”

  “Yes.”

  “But he couldn’t have been more than fifteen-years-old when you left us… unless, like you, he only looks young.”

  Wilona smiled. “I am young, Audrey. That’s the whole point. Every time our telomores divide they get just a tiny bit shorter, until the inevitable happens and they become too small for our cells to continue dividing, which is the beginning of the end. Many of the cells in our bodies are constantly being replaced, you know. We’re perpetually recreating ourselves. Telomores are one of the principal reasons we age and, eventually, die.”

  “Okay, yes, I have heard about that. But what has all this to do with-?”

  “Stop interrupting me, Audrey.”

  “Sorry.” Funny how she had forgotten that hard, imperious tone. Memory was indeed selective; for years she had recalled only her mother’s loving smiles.

  “When our cells can no longer regenerate and repair the damage caused by environmental toxins, both internal and external, our bodies produce less proteins, which damages the ones we already possess. The inevitable sad result is degeneration and death.”

  “Lovely. Is that why you don’t eat much? I saw the way you were looking at my food, almost as though it disgusted you. I read somewhere that reducing your calorie intake can help you live longer, a few more years maybe. So what? It wouldn’t be worth it, in my opinion. It’s all about enjoying life not spending all your time trying to make it go on forever simply because you’re afraid of dying. What a miserable existence that would be.”

  Wilona whispered, “Audrey, be quiet,” her expression desperate as she stood abruptly. “I’m doing my best to explain things in a way that won’t frighten you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated and bending her legs hugged herself. Resting her chin on her knees, she was reminded of the block statues wealthy ancient Egyptians had placed of themselves in temple offering courts so they would always be in the Divine presence no matter where their bodies journeyed. The thought comforted her, probably because it made her think of her father, although it was also possible there was more to it than that. “I promise I won’t interrupt you again but I really do wish you’d get to the point, Mother.”

  Wilona sat down so quickly that for an uncanny instant it appeared as though her bones had dissolved and could no longer support the flesh clinging to them. “It’s no use. My lord is right.” She gripped the white chair’s leather arms with such force all the tendons in her hands were visible; her skin took on the semblance of a finely carved marble. “You’ll keep refusing to believe until you’re forced to.”

  Audrey hugged herself more tightly, helplessly frightened now. She couldn’t fight it anymore. The truth wasn’t a beautiful smiling woman with a feather tucked into her hair-band. The truth was a huge black bear with sharp teeth and claws lumbering toward her intent on tearing her heart out of her chest and devouring her positive beliefs as casually as bird seed.

  “Mommy,” she gazed across the room and out the window, focusing on mountains as far away from there as she longed to be, “are you a vampire?”

  “No.”

  Her relief lasted a mere instant before it was consumed by disbelief that circumstances had prompted her to ask such a totally ridiculous question.

  “Not in the sense you might imagine, Audrey.”

  She dropped her forehead onto her knees again and closed her eyes. This isn’t happening! This isn’t happening. It’s not happening!

  “I didn’t realize until it was too late,” Wilona went on, the remorse in her voice fighting another even more powerful emotion, “that it wasn’t me he was after, not ultimately. Of course, there was no way for me to know since he didn’t know it himself at the time. You see, the receptors in my blood weren’t a perfect match for hers, but he believes yours will be. He’s convinced of it, Audrey.”

  She raised her head without opening her eyes. “What are you talking about?” she asked stubbornly. It was like taking one last normal, rational breath before finally allowing comprehension to flood her. She knew what her mother was talking about; she understood perfectly well. Oxygen was like the truth, life-sustaining no matter how you accessed it, and her intuition was privy to mysterious gills. She was surprised to feel a great pressure lifted from her. She had not only survived the destruction of the world as she knew it by a completely unexpected paranormal tsunami, it was a relief to at long last surrender to more profound currents of comprehension than those accessible on the surface of things where her brain existed.

  Suddenly, she heard the cry of a raptor, the unmistakable shrieking of a large bird of prey.

  She leapt off the couch and stood staring outside, so awestruck that she forgot her mother. The largest falcon she had ever seen was flying straight toward her, and the window between them.

  “Oh my God, it can’t see the glass! It’s going to crash right into it!” She looked back to where her mother had been sitting but the chair was empty.

  Running to the window, she began waving her arms wildly back and forth hoping the magnificent bird would register her threatening motion and change course.

  A raven twice the size of any she had ever seen appeared abruptly and dove straight toward the falcon.

  “Oh my God!” She couldn’t believe the exquisitely violent mid-air battle she was witnessing. The falcon turned into the aggressor, chasing the raven as it flew back and forth.

  She murmured, “Horus!” and clutched her scarab amulet with both hands.

  The raven surrendered, plunging down into the trees. The hawk followed it but almost immediately reappeared and headed for the window again.

  Holding her breath, she prayed it would veer away from the glass at the last moment or that the impact wouldn’t hurt it too terribly. It flew straight toward her but she didn’t move. Part of her wanted it to come closer so she could get an even better look at it.

  Without thinking about why she was doing it, she stretched her right arm out to one side, her mind blank and her heart possessed by a respect and admiration rapidly intensifying into a longing she couldn’t define but which simply had to be satisfied. She refused to let her eyes close squeamishly in the instant the great bird should have hit the glass. The only sound she heard was the rustling of wings as it dropped down to perch on her wrist, one of its keen eyes meeting hers.

  Confronted by a miracle, she didn’t notice at first where she was. The window, which really hadn’t been there at all, and the room it appeared to contain, had vanished when she blinked as though her eyelashes had simply brushed it away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Audrey looked around her. A delicate icy rain was falling and a soft mist enveloped her where she stood with a wild falcon perched docilely on her wrist. Glancing up, she could just make out fire-blackened arches open to the sky. She
seemed to be in the ruined church where she had played and endlessly daydreamed as a child.

  The bird abruptly spread its wings and took flight.

  “Wait!” she cried, and then clamped both hands over her ears; her voice sounded as loud as though she was standing in a bell tower at the striking of the hour.

  A man’s figure approached her through the mist yet she didn’t dare address it for fear she might go deaf. Lowering her hands she noted with relief that her purse was lying on the rocky ground at her feet. But glad as she was to see it, the joy that abruptly surged through her eclipsed all other emotions. It was Jonathan!

  Grasping both her hands in his, he pressed her palms against his chest. His lips didn’t move but she clearly heard him speak. Feel my heartbeat!

  She was getting used to this. What surprised her was how strong his heart was; even through his coat she could feel his slow, steady pulse… and hear it… that deep bass-like thrumming that seemed to come from everywhere at once…

  It stopped drizzling and the sun’s rays began penetrating the cold mist. She knew the sudden change in the weather had something, everything, to do with how staring up into Jonathan’s eyes made her feel. She saw no restless torches burning in his pupils only a steady blue-white pinpoint of light she realized, as the fog lifted completely, was a reflection of earth’s life-giving star.

  There was no doubt about it, they were inside the ruined church near her house in Ashbury even though only minutes ago she had been far away in Scotland, or so she had believed…

  “That’s right.” Jonathan spoke out loud and she realized the fog’s strangely powerful acoustics had dissipated. “It was a shadow castle, real only for as long as you believed it was.”