Immortal Heat (The Guardians of Dacia Book 1) (10 page)

Waking up in the same place twice lately had become a luxury. Marilyn fought to remember where she was and couldn't. She didn't remember a damn thing about the room she was in or whose bed for that matter.

Lifting her head, she raised up on her elbows. Nope, didn't help matters at all. She looked down at her sleeping clothes. Someone had dressed her in a linen nightgown that looked more like it belonged on a colonial bride than it did on her. The elegant embroidered stitching and simple tied bow was too old fashioned for her likes.

"Good morning, Miss," a cheerful, British laced voice called out as sunlight poured into the room.

Marilyn screamed but she wasn't sure for what purpose. Was it because of the strange man in a bedroom she wasn't familiar with or the sudden bright light threatening to melt her retinas? She buried herself in the thick down comforters.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." The muffled apology drifted to her as a hand lifted the blankets from her head. "You look like a ragamuffin all tousled and frizzed. Come, I have a nice breakfast all set out on the patio. I'll draw your bath and have fresh clothing for you momentarily."

"Oh dear." He looked aghast. "I'm such a nit! We haven't been formerly introduced. You were under the weather I'm afraid when Draylon brought you onto his jet. I'm Draylon's assistant, Donovan."

Other than seeing a middle aged Brit with a balding head of hair in formal butler garb, she assumed he was an extra on Downton Abbey. He did mention Draylon though, so he must be around here somewhere.

The man held out a thick, spa-like robe for her, but she wasn't awake enough to be sure about anything right now.

"Draylon doesn't have any women staff, just me." Donovan smiled to try to ease her. "It's all right. I had two daughters of my own I had to dress when they were younger. You will not come to harm in this household. If anyone tries, I assure you I will come to your aid."

Marilyn tried not to smile. It would be rude. What could a pencil thin man of his age do to protect her from the kinds of creatures she'd been running from? He didn't look like he could handle a normal attacker much less ones with deadly fangs.

Making her way to the edge of the bed, she noticed how large it was for the first time. Fine damask drapes were tied back to an elegant, antique canopy. Sheets of fine cotton hugged the mattress as jewel toned duvets and matching shams covered the large down filled comforters and pillows that she'd cocooned herself into during the night.

Donovan held out his hand, helping her to stand and slid the heavy robe over her arms and up her shoulders. He was modest and yet precise in his movements. Marilyn couldn't feel safer and yet she didn't even know the man.

"Thank you, Donovan," she whispered, gathering her hair from beneath the collar and letting it fall down her back.

"My pleasure, Miss." He motioned to a small, femininely padded stool at a mirrored vanity. "Please sit. I will attend to your hair."

She wanted to argue but her brain didn't respond. Was he trying to manipulate her? Lately, she wouldn't put it past anyone she met. She sat as he gathered an ornate hairbrush from the table top.

Her shoulders bunched as he slowly untangled her hair with gentle tugs and small strokes. Soon she relaxed as the man stroked the brush through her tangle free hair. She closed her eyes, luxuriating in the steady massage of the weight of the bristles dragging though the mass she'd had to deal with daily.

Upon opening her eyes she gasped. Had he done that? Her hair, normally a non-descript reddish brown was ablaze in a deep auburn, almost burgundy curtain of shiny waves that framed her face.

She peered closer into the mirror. Her face had changed too from the last time she remembered seeing its reflection. Her skin was porcelain. Her natural freckles across her nose were gone. Her cheekbones appeared defined, the arch of her brow more pronounced, the natural coloring of her lips replaced by a deep blood red permanent tint.

Marilyn stood up, knocking over the chair and backing away from Donovan. "What the hell happened to me? Who did this?"

Donovan looked puzzled, his hands dropping to his sides. "I don't understand, Miss. What seems to be wrong?"

"My hair…my face. It's me but not me."

"You don't appear any differently than when Draylon brought you here a week ago?"

"A week? I've been here a week!" She looked around, trying to find a way out other than the opened French-style doors leading out onto a balcony overlooking…a very steep Alpine valley a good thousand or two feet below.

Hot panic poured through her veins. She could feel it like boiling water coursing through her. Burning up, on the verge of combustion, she screamed as pain merged into a pleasurable transformation, but the scream only echoed in her head like an animalistic growl.

She dropped to her hands and knees, the sound of fabric ripping around her. Her body seized.

A door opened and she took off as fast as she could. With no thought or knowledge of what she was doing or where she was going, she just ran.

Someone chased her. She could hear footsteps pounding down the hallways behind her. The warm scent of musk had her turning on the runner. She hunkered down, exposing her snarling lip and that damn raspy growl until it erupted into a full out howl that echoed around them in the cavernous hallway.

Draylon stood still, anticipating her next move. She didn't smell fear on him though.
Why the hell would she be able to smell fear?
No, what she sensed were his natural pheromones setting her glands into overdrive.

She growled at him…he growled back, dominantly. Draylon squatted down to her level, patting his inner thigh. Marilyn took a tentative step towards him and another. He held out his hand. She came closer and sniffed. He didn't try to capture her but instead let her come to him. Closer and closer she moved until she placed her nose along his thigh. His hands cupped her face. Stroking her hair, he smiled at her.

"I'll be damned," his voice fell out in a breathless rush. "Rick's not going to believe this."

#

"What do you mean she's a wolf?" Rick Delvante bellowed into the hands free phone, missing his practice shot on the billiard table in his den. The sudden shock of news had him scratching. He threw the cue stick on the table, sending the remaining balls to scatter.

"She's a gorgeous auburn haired bitch."

"Don't call her that, Draylon," Rick instructed. Yeah, that is what they were known as, but they hadn't had a female of their kind in centuries. She didn't deserve what most commoners would consider a derogatory name.

"What do you know about her that you're not telling me, Rick?"

Too much and not enough.
That's what he knew about Marilyn Reddlin. For the first time—no second time in his long, long life—he didn't have a fucking clue what to do. He should've known something like this might happen, and yet he didn't want to accept it.

"I think I should bring her up to the Dacian Compound—"

"No," Rick growled at his friend. That's the last thing he needed.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He wasn't ready for this. "Do you know what the clan would do to her if they got a hold of her?"

"And you're entrusting her to me? What makes me so different?"

"Because I know you are the one man I can trust. I've trusted you for over a millennium, Draylon, and I know you won't let me down now when I need you the most. This is it man. You wanted to know how you could pay me back. Well
this
is it. I need you to protect her with all you have. Guide her through the transition until I let you know what we need to do."

"You better make it quick, Old Man because she's carrying some heavy pheromones that I'm having a tough time with. I'm not a god, Rick."

"No, but you're the next best thing," Rick said. He rubbed his shadow of beard. "Just take care of her, teach her the ways, and for the sake of the gods, whatever you do, don't change around her."

"Which formation?"

"Either—she won't understand. And I don't want her to find out."

"Well, I have a feeling Marilyn might be more like her mother if we don't get her questions answered in a timely manner."

"Yeah. That's another thing I have to fear. Just keep her safe and let me know how things progress."

Rick hung up before Draylon could ask any more questions. He could field his calls the rest of the day but he knew his buddy—he could either be your best friend for life or turn you into ash if you pissed him off. There were those you wanted to keep as your friend for the rest of eternity, and Draylon was much better on his side as his friend.

#

Draylon had trusted Rick implicitly for more than a millennium. Now a shutter of doubt closed over their once forthright friendship. He'd noticed it deteriorate over the past half century or so. By the 1980's, when Rick set up Livedel in the United States, his trips there had become more frequent and longer. When he'd been questioned he would get defensive. Then the trips stopped as abruptly as they started and Rick settled in Dacia, taking on the duties as leader like he had in the past. But he wasn't the same Rick Draylon had known for centuries.

Perhaps their occupation with their individual companies, Livedel and Eskardel, had taken away their casual time together. Even after the merger of the companies back in the sixties, Draylon had taken more time with pharmaceutical research. He found himself more engrossed in the changes in medicine, especially those that helped during wartime efforts.

Rick's focus, in the last decade of the twentieth century had turned entirely on the running of Livedel. Even from Dacia he'd buried himself in keeping close tabs on the Maryland headquarters and its people. He'd been obsessed.

Draylon wondered if it could have been because of him. He'd buried himself in the knowledge and in procuring the pharmaceuticals to help out those who'd suffered at the hands of Vamier on the battlefields. The few who'd found their way to a safe transition, like Ballue, needed medical, psychological and environmental health and he was happy to help them.

One of his greatest accomplishments of late, his discoveries to produce medicines and techniques to help soldiers and veterans deal with PTSD. He'd started working with his friend Mike Linder back when they'd found him in Vietnam and the horrible memories he still faced. It never went away, but learning how to deal with the past and move on to the future was a big part of recovery. The difficult part of being immortal—you never forgot and age never changed to let you forget. Had his and Rick's individual fixations on their own companies created the slow moving rift between them? They were still friends but the difference in their unique relationship had definitely changed.

Donovan entered his office, and Draylon looked up from the paperwork he was attempting to catch up on.

"How is she?"

"Sleeping again." Donovan set down the tray with the decanter of wine. He lifted the stopper and poured a glass. "You can't keep her in a drug induced fog forever, Draylon. You of all people should know that. Isn't it you who tells your patients to 'face your fears and move on'?"

"This is different, Donovan." He swirled the wine in his goblet. "I don't think she's been properly prepared for what she's going through, and there is no one who can help her. We haven't had a female shifter since the curse. I don't know where she came from. How do I explain something I don't understand myself?"

"So what do you intend to do in the meantime?"

"My only two options? Keep her human as long as possible and make sure she doesn't change, at least until Rick figures out what to do. Or," Draylon paused, curling his face in frustration.

"Or?"

"Keep Sleeping Beauty asleep as long as I can."

Chapter Seven

Pacing the confines of her rooms, Marilyn felt like a caged animal. She wanted out but had nowhere to go. She'd been given every courtesy by Donovan, yet it seemed like days since she'd seen Draylon. Donovan informed her that he had business to catch up on and for her to rest and relax.

Relax? She couldn't relax. She paced to the open living space decorated in simplistic yet elegantly detailed furniture and fixtures. The Tudor-style windows looked out onto Austrian mountains and sharp jagged cliff edges, a clear sign that she couldn't escape.

"Would you care for a selection of movies or books? Draylon's procured quite a collection over the years."

"No," Marilyn growled. She sighed. Poor Donovan didn't need to take the brunt of her foul mood. "No…thank you, Donovan," she gentled her voice.

He didn't take offense. "A game of backgammon or cribbage perhaps? Or would you prefer a game of chess? I could use a good challenger."

She'd learned how to play chess from Francis, her old nanny. The woman had been a blessing for her and her mother. Growing up, Marilyn learned so many skills from her, cooking, baking, domestic skills and reading, writing, not to mention chess, rummy and the occasional poker game for spiced gumdrops. Years later, Marilyn taught Tina how to play chess, and at times, when nothing else appealed to them for entertainment, they'd enjoyed a good, strategic game while indulging in gumdrops.

Marilyn shrugged her shoulders. "Sure. I'll play chess."