Cursed (22 page)

Julius touched the window, tracing his daughter’s face on top of the glass. Tenderness caressed his features as he gazed at her. Tears stung my eyes as I touched his shoulder, “She’s expecting you.”

“You didn’t tell me how you knew she was alive.”

“Victor ... did the same thing to her ... as he did to me.” Julius’s knuckles became white as he clutched the window. “We are linked by blood. All of this, all of us ... are linked. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why. She came into Victor’s mind and helped me when I needed it the most. I told her to wait for us and that you would wake her. She is free of Victor’s mind so she’ll be able to wake up.”

“That bastard,” Julius’s voice wavered, anger sounding like a steel tone beneath the words. “Did he do that to anyone else? Was anyone else in his mind?”

I didn’t sense anyone else in his mind. “I don’t think so. The blood connection could be a new thing. It was only him, Celia, and myself there. But I can’t be sure, Julius. I just don’t know.”

What could I say? What could I offer that would make any of this better? I knew what he was feeling. Victor had raped all of us at the basest of levels, physically, mentally, emotionally.

“Let’s just wake her up,” I whispered.

Julius worked at the wires that attached the capsule to the wall. It took an incomprehensibly complicated amount of steps before he’d managed to unpick each wire. One by one, the lights on the wall panel blinked out. The only light came from within the capsule itself.

I kept on looking over my shoulder at the door, expecting it to burst open, but only thick silence surrounded us. I held the gun ready, hoping that I didn’t have to use it.

“It’s ready,” Julius said.

He opened the lip, the air making a soft sucking sound as it lifted. His hand trembled as he felt his daughter’s face. “It’s been five years since I’ve touched her.” His voice held wonder. His breath caught as he traced the line of her cheek. “She looks exactly the same. She hasn’t changed.” He turned his gaze to me, stark sadness mirrored there. “I can’t believe I’m actually touching her. It’s been ... years. I’ve only been able to see her. Not touch her. Never hold her. Soothe her. Talk to her.” His voice was husky, low.

“You came to see her. She knows that.”

“She does?”

“She showed me. She loved you so much, Julius. Wake her up, Julius. It’s time,” I whispered.

He gently pulled out the numerous stints on her legs, arms, and neck. They were the only things that kept her body alive, feeding it with the nutrients she needed to keep her in suspended animation. Everything but the things she really wanted. Her Dad. Love. Touch. Interaction. To grow up. Age. A mother. Everything a little girl should have had.

“Come on, baby. Wake up. That’s a girl,” Julius crooned.

He carefully leveraged her out of the capsule, holding her limp body to his chest as he sunk to the floor. I knelt next to him, watching for signs of life from the child. Just like I had in Victor’s mind, I tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. It was so soft, like down. I choked on the tears that hurtled upward from my chest. This was so wrong. A little girl should never have been put through this.

Julius tapped her cheek. Her eyelashes were stark against her pale cheeks and threw distended shadows over her porcelain skin. There was a blueish tinge to her lips, as though there wasn’t enough blood circulating.

“Come on, Celia. Wake up.” There was an edge to his voice that set my heart racing.

I put my open palm onto her chest. “I can’t tell if she’s breathing.”

Julius tapped her cheek again, felt the carotid artery at her neck. I waited, watching, helplessness swamping me. I felt a hot tear slide down my cheek. It couldn’t end this way. Celia couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

Julius placed her on the floor, kneeing over her to provide resuscitation. A gentle sigh escaped her lips, and the eyelids fluttered.

“Celia? Celia!” Julius’s voice clogged and so did my eyes. I blinked away tears that slipped freely down my chin. I knelt over her, head to head with Julius.

“Daddy?” Her voice was soft, high-toned, questioning. “Why are you crying?”

Julius picked her up and tucked her against his chest. He held her against him, trembling arms wrapped around her tiny body. “Daddy, you’re crushing me.” Her voice was muffled.

He released her at once, holding her so that he could see her face. “I’m sorry, honey. Is this better?”

She nodded. A dimple puckered in her cheeks. She was the loveliest little girl I had ever seen. Her eyes widened. “You’re here!”

“I told you I would be,” I said.

Celia nodded. “Has the bad man gone away? I don’t like him.”

It was my turn to nod. “Yes. He’s gone, and he’s never, ever coming back.” I crossed my fingers, hoping like hell I was right. “And you know what? I don’t like him either.”

Julius’s hand wound around my nape. His heated eyes gleamed, face strained with harsh lines. But beneath the tension, there was relief and something wholly indefinable that wound its way into my heart and stirred latent feelings to life. Emotions washed through me, so many that they hurricane-swirled inside of me, blending, merging. There were so many that I couldn’t identify just one. I only knew that if going through what I just had, having the life I had survived, led me right here to this one place, this one pinpoint in time—it was all worth it.

“Thank you, Katia. Thank you. From the depths of my soul. Thank you.”

Julius leaned over and pressed his lips to mine, holding me to him with his mouth and the hand at my nape. His lips trembled, as did mine, and as he softly moved his lips, mine sparkled to life. My hand slipped to his shoulder, anchoring me against him, and I tilted my head so that we could deepen the kiss. His tongue slid against my bottom lip, and I let him sweep inside my mouth, stroking, caressing, contact and emotion igniting as one.

I had never felt this way before. I only knew that this was where I wanted to be. That this was good. This was right. This was what I’d fought for all of those long, lonely years. So that I might feel even a second of what I did now. I didn’t have to grapple for an emotion I couldn’t name. Didn’t have to fight to feel something I didn’t even know was missing. Now I knew what cascaded through me head to toe, inside and out. I was ...
loved
. The knowledge had me gasping, quaking from head to toe. I was loved. And I loved back.

“Ewww. That’s ’gusting,” a little voice piped up between us.

We broke the kiss, and I looked down at Celia. My heart broke for the second time in as many seconds. I had everything I had always craved. It was almost too much for me to comprehend. I bent down and pressed my lips to her forehead. “And I thank you, too, Celia, for helping me.”

Celia yawned. Only I knew how exhausted she really was. Even though she’d been asleep, the assault on her body was monumental, and like me, she had a long way to recover. “Can we go home now?”

“Good idea,” Julius said.

Julius stood and bent to help me to my feet. He turned a concerned gaze toward me as I struggled onto wobbly legs. “Lean on me, I know a back way out of here. There’ll be a car we can take. Ready to leave?”

“More than you’ll ever know.”

“Where are we going?” I’d fallen asleep as soon as the car we’d stolen from the parking bays turned onto the main road. We’d escaped, almost too easily, the building and surrounding areas bereft of any movement, any sign there had been life. It was as though the remaining soldiers had melted into the ether.

I squirmed into a more upright position in the car, rubbing my eyes to alleviate the urge to close them again. Flat countryside rolled past, paddocks of varying hues of grass separated by long wire fences as far as I could see.

“We can’t go back to the city. They know where I live. I have a house in the country. My mother’s sister-in-law’s house. No one can connect it to me. We’ll be safe there. I promise.”

Safe
. It sounded like such a nice word. A state of being I dreamed about and was nearly going to be able to define. Excitement flurried through me at the prospect. Julius looked worn out. I didn’t even know how long he’d been driving. His jaw was darkened by scratchy stubble, and there were smudges of shadow beneath his eyes. His bloodied clothes were wrinkled beyond repair, and his shoulders were hunched as though the weight of the world pressed down on them. “You look as though you could sleep the sleep of a thousand deaths,” I remarked.

“I feel it.”

I glanced into the back seat. Celia was stretched out, on her side, facing us. “She’s beautiful.”

Julius ran fingers through his hair, leaving it all spiked up in its wake. “I can’t believe I have her back.”

“She should never have been taken ...” I bit my lip before asking, “How long was she gone?”

His mouth tensed into a straight line. “Five years.”

The breath whooshed out of my mouth. He’d been blackmailed by Victor for five years, knowing his daughter could be killed on a whim. I wanted to say something to make it all up, something that would take the heartache away, but words were not enough. Would never be enough.

“You made it,” I said, lame as it was.

A hint of a smile curved his generous mouth, and I felt mine tilt to match. “So did you.”

We had survived, but still so many things were left unanswered, raw open nerves that we just couldn’t close. “But what about the soldiers? Victor. Seth. We didn’t see anyone when we left. Don’t you think that was strange?” We’d escaped, but almost too easily. As though we were—forgotten.

Julius sighed. “I agree. I hate to say this, Katia, but I don’t think this is the end.”

I watched the land slip past. It all looked so pure out there, untouched by a century, but the evil I knew existed underlay its rugged beauty. I hated to agree, but deep down, I knew Julius was right. It wasn’t the end. Would never be until Victor lay dead at my feet. Or it ended with my death.

But now I had something worth fighting for. A family of my own. And there was no way Victor was going to take that away from me.

“When I was in his mind ... he told me that ... I was his true daughter. His flesh and blood.”

Julius linked his fingers through mine. There was strength in his grasp, “You are nothing like him.”

“He told me he needed my DNA to make sure his experiments would work on his body. Think about it, Julius, why else would he have gone to such lengths to find me when he had so many willing subjects?”

Julius shook his head, “I don’t know. But we’ll find out, Katia. That I promise. And what I do know is even if you are his daughter, you are nothing like him. You are strong, compassionate, beautiful ...” He leaned toward me and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, leaving a tingly trail where he touched my skin. “And even after everything you’ve been through, you can still care about a little girl.”

“And you, Julius. I care about you,” I whispered. A tranquil smile curved his mouth, and a peace I had never known washed through me. It was a smile that said no matter how hard it got, that we would face it together.

“Don’t worry, Katia. We have each other now. We’ll go to the authorities for help. We have damaged Victor’s operation, taken away its head. We have time to recover. And if we have to fight—
when
we have to fight—we’ll be ready.”

Things had irrevocably changed for me. Although my future was now my present, there was more future here than I ever had. I didn’t have to fight on my own anymore. I had someone who knew me. Who understood and, most importantly, who believed that we had something worth fighting for. My gift had changed, become stronger. I had done things I never knew could be achieved. Who knew what more I could do? This time, I wouldn’t let it lie in latency. I would make it work harder; I would become stronger;, I would push myself. I would practice. Whatever the future had in store for me, I was ready to face it headlong. I would have a fighting chance.

I leaned over and pressed my palm to his cheek. “Thank you, Julius. You healed my body, but you healed my soul as well.”

He took my hand, pressing his lips against my fingertips. A delicious swirl started in the pit of my stomach as his eyes darkened into something deeper, something that made me forget all about Victor and my gift. I was just a woman who looked forward to making love with the man she loved for the first time. And finally, I was happy.

Charmaine has published two previous novels with Crimson Romance,
Daman’s Angel
and
Paradise Island
. She is also the author of
Wild at Heart
,
Double Exposure
,
Makeover Miracle
, and
Four-Leaf Clover
.

Charmaine’s first foray into romance was as a fourteen-year-old where she fell hopelessly and eternally in love with her hero as only a teenager can. Instead of watching movies and staying up late, she would go to bed at eight thirty and continue her very romantic, very safe, love affair.

Since then, she has fallen in love with many heroes, some less safe than what her teenage brain could possibly imagine. After earning a fine arts degree, a diploma of secondary education, and a diploma of marketing, she worked as a graphic designer in various advertising agencies as well as at in-house marketing roles, and is currently involved with digital marketing and everything web in her current position. But she always returns to writing.

Although she has traveled, she remains a resident of her hometown of Melbourne and lives with her husband, two children, and two cats in the ferny greens of the Dandenongs. If she’s not working on her latest romance and falling in love with yet another hero, you’ll find her reading, watching, and basically indulging in her addiction to any story on any media type she can get her fingers on.

If you’d like to know more about Charmaine’s books, or to read excerpts or connect with her online, you can visit her webpage
http://www.charmaineross.com
, follow her on Twitter
twitter.com/CharmaineRossAu
, or like her Facebook page
facebook.com/charmaine.ross.01
. You can also read
The Red Garnet
, a contemporary romance novella, for free on her website.