Immortality Stolen (The Mortal One Series Book 2) (8 page)

“I still have to call Nico about the change in my itinerary.”

He nodded. “I’m surprised you didn’t do it when I first told you about the change.” There was a challenge in his voice. He was testing me. He wanted to see just how close Nico and I were. It wasn’t a direct challenge, but I took enough psychology in college to know what was going on.

I reached for the phone on the desk and dialed. I glanced over at Olivier and before I could ask him to step out for some privacy, Nico answered.

“
Mia mortale
,” he said, his Italian more heavily pronounced than normal.

“Nico,” I said. The sound of his voice did strange things to my body, even over such a long distance. It was amazing that he had such an effect on me and he took advantage of it whenever he could.

“Is everything okay?”

“Ummm, well,” I said. “I’m headed to Berlin with Olivier in about thirty minutes.”

“The hell you are.”

I sighed, knowing that this wasn’t going to be easy. “There’s a necromancer in Berlin and he may be able to come into Paris to lay the zombies to rest. The zombies aren’t easy to put down and the team that Costin assembled believe that the execution of the one made it harder because they are now staying within all of the public areas. You know that’s a problem.”

“I understand why Olivier must go see the necromancer. I would like to have you come back to Florence. If there is more that Olivier would like to share with you about being a truth seeker, it can be done once there are no more zombies in the city. I would like to keep my wife safe and you make this difficult to do.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to figure out how best to deal with this. “Nico, I will be home to you soon. Olivier has promised me it will only be one night in Berlin. I trust that he will keep me safe and I would rather be with him than in Paris with these damn zombies walking around. They freak me out and I don’t want to see them again.”

Nico let out a grunt on the other end of the phone. “The positions you put me in, Dylan. Go to Berlin. Then come back to me in Florence, please. Phone me again when you are in Berlin?”

“Of course.”

“
Ti amo
.”

“I love you, too,” I said, hanging up the phone. My daze was broken with Olivier clearing his throat. I had forgotten he was in the room.

“We have about fifteen minutes.”

I nodded and went into high gear tossing things into my suitcase. All of my toiletries in the bathroom went into one bag and then all of my new purchases went into the new suitcases. I checked around the room to make sure that everything was packed and accounted for.

“Ready,” I said, as though I had just accomplished some great feat.

Olivier helped me drag everything down to the front lobby. He asked me to hold onto the one bag I was taking to Berlin. He then waved down Leuc and asked for everything else to be shipped overnight to my apartment in Florence. He reached into his wallet to cover the shipping charges and Leuc nodded with enthusiasm. My guess was that there was quite a lot more than what was required to handle shipping.

“Everything will be in Florence before you even make it there. I keep my promises.”

I nodded and wheeled my bag behind him where he already had a taxi waiting for us. He took my bag for me, opened my door and escorted me into the backseat. He told the driver to take us to the airport and then got in next to me.

“You didn’t tell me that you married him.”

Oh. We are going to have this conversation?

“Yes.”

Fuck, I really hated the mind reading.

“What do you want me to say?”

His head shook back and forth slightly as though he didn’t even know how to approach the subject further.

“You could have told me.”

“Really? Before I came to Paris to meet you, it isn’t exactly like we were on the best of terms. I didn’t know what the hell to expect when you brought me here.”

“You came anyway.”

“Yes.”

“Even though I scared you?” He asked.

I nodded.

“But that is not how you feel any more.”

He said it in such a matter-of-fact way that it caught me by surprise. He shifted in the backseat and moved so close to me that the whiskers of his beard scratched against my cheek. “I see how your body reacts to me,” he whispered.

My heart raced, betraying my interest on the spot. “What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.” He didn’t back up when he said it. His stare was so intense that it was unnerving. My mouth grew dry as I tried to put into words what was on my mind.

I was saved by the taxi coming to a stop and the taxi driver getting out to open my door. He gave me a quick glance before heading to the trunk to get our bags. We were at the airport.

“This conversation isn’t over,” Olivier said nonchalantly as he tipped the driver and brought his bag and mine into the airport with me racing to catch up to him.

Chapter 9

OLIVIER WAS ABLE to get us through check-in and security relatively quickly. Whether he used mind control or we just hit everything at the right time, I didn’t ask. Actually, I was doing everything I could not to talk to him until enough time passed from whatever the hell that was inside the taxi. We were carrying our bags onto the plane to avoid the hassle with collecting bags in Berlin so that we could go meet with Christoph and the necromancer who he had found.

As we approached our departure gate, they called to begin boarding the plane. That allowed us to get on immediately to avoid small talk as we waited. We had first class seats, so I was thankful that we had the room and the privacy away from some of the other travelers.

We took a seat and immediately, one of the flight attendants asked if she could get anything. Olivier ordered a glass of wine for me and declined anything for himself.

“Thank you,” I said and started to look out the window.

He placed his hand on my knee, causing me to look right at him. “You’re welcome.”

I continued to stare at him. I didn’t want to create a scene on the plane by asking him to remove his hand. He knew I wouldn’t and it gave him power and entitlement. It was written across his face as clear as day.
Please
.

He removed his hand.

“I want to ask you some more questions about what we were talking about earlier.” Before he could change the topic or go to one of his preferred discussions from earlier, I clarified. “About the blood lines.”

“Okay.”

“What are the five blood lines? How do you know about them?”

“Henri was very forthcoming with the information when I asked. He knew that I was a truth seeker and was happy to talk to me about them. He was the one that warned to stay clear of the Arctic blood line and that I probably wanted nothing to do with the Caribbean line as well.”

Growing up in Florida, the Caribbean was too close to home for comfort. “What’s wrong with the Caribbean line?”

“The vampires are created using a form of black magic. The voodoo reeks of death. It was originally used as a form of necromancy and when the black magic and witchcraft was combined, it created a vampire that was more like a zombie that could walk and talk, but did not act human in any capacity.”

I shivered. “Yes, let’s stay away from that one.”

He placed his hand on my arm. “They are very rare. It has been said that the original within the Imperial Five is the last of his kind. The witches that knew how to do those spells are long gone and there is no written record of how to perform them.”

“You know a lot about these things.”

“I have done a considerable amount of research. You are not ignorant to them, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have taken courses on vampire origins.”

How the hell did he know about these things? “Yes, but they were just belief systems from different cultures.”

“You know as well as I do that most myths are based on truth. There is more truth in what you read than you may have thought. I have read the same texts as you. Believe me, they are very accurate.”

“So you said you don’t want the Arctic or the Caribbean blood lines. What ones do you have and what one are you still after?”

He smiled and patted my hand. “I was wondering when you were going to ask about that. I have the Western European bloodline in me. That is the one that made me a vampire. The Asian bloodline was collected with the help of the zombies the second time around. It is now the Celtic that I would like to obtain, but that’s going to have to wait, for obvious reasons.”

The flight attendants made a few announcements and we started to move down the runway. I held onto the arms of my chair a little tighter as the plane started to shake in anticipation of the ascent. This was always the worst part of the flight for me.

“Are you okay?” Olivier asked.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Just give me a minute.”

He placed his hand over mine and stroked my cheek with the other one. “It’s going to be just fine.”

“You’re not helping,” I said, my eyes still shut as I waited for the plane to level out.

“I thought it would help,” he said, removing his hand from my cheek, but the other hand remained on top of mine.

I let out a shaky breath and opened my eyes once the plane was under control. “Okay,” I said, pulling my hand out from under his.

“Are you okay now?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m good.”             

“Good. So is there anything else that you want to ask about?”

I gave him a sideways glance. “There’s always things that I want to know. But no, right now I’m good.”

“When we get off the plane, we’re going to meet up with Christoph at Charlie’s Beach. We’ll take a taxi to our hotel and then walk over to the beach from there,” he explained.

“Beach? Berlin’s not coastal.” I wondered what kind of trap was being set up for us.

He laughed. “I forgot that you haven’t been to Berlin. It’s over near Checkpoint Charlie. It’s a tourist attraction, but it’s closed and it’s surrounded by a privacy fence, which is exactly what we need.”

“Oh.”

“It’s okay. I promise to keep you safe as long as you’re at my side.”

I blushed. “Thanks.”

We chatted about various things throughout the hour and a half flight and when we landed, we were laughing and carrying on as though we had known each other for years.

Olivier had a limo waiting to take us to
Friedrichstrasse
, where our hotel was located.

It was a quick check-in at the hotel so that we could meet Christoph at a quarter til midnight as we had agreed upon. We had rooms right next to each other. I was thankful that Olivier had enough tact to get us separate rooms.

“Let’s get these upstairs and then we’ll go out,” Olivier said.

I nodded grabbing the handle of my luggage.

We got in the elevator and there was that awkward silence between us again. It happened periodically and there was no explaining it.

“I’m going to change shirts, too, so I’ll be right out,” I said and popped into my hotel room. What I really wanted was a shower after dealing with the airport and all of that. While first class was nicer than the economy that I was used to, it still left me feeling a little dirty. I splashed some water on my face, ran eyeliner under my blue eyes and changed my shirt into something warmer. It was chillier in Berlin than it was in Paris, so I traded my windbreaker in for a jacket.

As I opened my door, Olivier was standing there with his arm up getting ready to knock. He stumbled and I took a step forward instead of back. We bumped together and there was a spark followed by more awkwardness.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t apologize for that,” Olivier said.

I looked away.

“I wish you had told me.”

“Huh?”

He grabbed my left hand and fingered the diamond on my ring finger.

“It wasn’t something planned.” I regretted admitting that the moment it came out of my mouth.

“Was it a nice wedding?”

What wedding?
The thought popped into my head before I could correct it.

“What do you mean no wedding?” He was upset on my behalf and it was touching.

“It’s nothing. We have to meet Christoph, right?”

He looked at his watch. “We have time. What do you mean there was no wedding? How did the two of you get married if there was no wedding?”

I let out a sigh. I was still a little pissed about it myself and didn’t really want to get into it. “It was done on paper,” I said, trying to make it seem as though it didn’t bother me so that he would move onto another topic.

“Paper?”

“Yes.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Did you even agree to it before the marriage was legalized?”

I hesitated longer than I should have.

“That son of a bitch. He forced you into marriage?”

I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“Then explain it to me.”

I closed the hotel room door behind me and started down the hall.

Olivier caught up to me, grabbed my hand, and spun me around to face him. “Dylan.”

I searched his deep brown eyes. “What?” I was close to sobbing and didn’t want to deal with this right now.

“Tell me.”

“He needed to make me legal in Italy and wanted to make sure my name was changed so that people from my old life in Florida couldn’t find me. So he created marriage documents.”

He stood there shaking his head. “There were other ways that he could have changed your name and legalized you as a citizen in Italy without forcing you into marriage.”

“Maybe. But that’s what was done. I’m fine with it.”

“I’m not.”

“Sorry,” I said. “But it’s really not your call.”

His posture was stiff and he marched down the hall, barely saying anything more to me as we got into the elevator.

“How far is Charlie’s Beach?” I asked as we walked into the lobby.

“Keep your voice down,” he snapped. “It’s less than a five minute walk from here.”

Fine
. I fell into step with him, walking out of the hotel room and taking a left.

We walked in silence, and as Olivier had promised, it was only a few minutes away. At this time of night, the vendor booths were closed down. Only a few people wandered around, coming out from the U-bahn stations in the middle of the road.

Charlie’s Beach was nothing more than a tourist trap across from the famous Checkpoint Charlie. A vibrant sign hung above a white fence with a yellow cartoon sun with the words: Charlie’s Beach. It was closed for the night, so the gates were closed. Olivier casually leaned against the gate and signaled for me to do the same. He knocked on the gate lightly and someone from behind opened it for us.

The beach was more just a small area with sand and lawn chairs. There were more vendor booths along the side, along with a souvenir shop, but they were closed as well. I didn’t see who was responsible for opening the gate, so I clung close to Olivier.

The gate closed as quickly as they had been opened. Once closed, a tall blonde-haired man stood in front of it. He had wide shoulders and a wicked scar down the side of his right cheek. If he was going for intimidation, it worked. I took another step closer to Olivier. He reached out and took my hand to settle my nerves, which I was thankful for.

“Olivier, welcome to Berlin,” the man spoke.

“Thank you. Christoph, this is Dylan,” Olivier said. He made some basic introductions and we walked over to one of the wooden picnic benches to have a seat.

“Gregorio is going to join us in a few minutes. He should be here momentarily,” Christoph said, talking to Olivier but staring at me.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know if I should or what should be said. To avoid complicating matters, I just kept my mouth shut.

“Gregorio is the necromancer, right?” Olivier asked.

Christoph nodded. “You’re mortal,” he then announced.

My eyes widened and I nodded.

“And she is under my protection,” Olivier added before he got any ideas.

“I wasn’t implying anything. She isn’t marked by you, though.”

“No. She is marked by another.”

“Does he know that she is with you?”

“He does.”

I took a deep breath. I hated when conversations were being had about me when I was sitting in front of them.

They must have taken note of my uneasiness because Olivier apologized and Christoph began asking me questions about who marked me and how I met Olivier.

Olivier gave me a quick warning look, which I took as a cue for me not to share too much.

I waved my hand and announced that I had met Olivier when I was in Paris and that the person who marked me was the second in charge for the sovereign over Paris and Florence. I didn’t mention any names and wouldn’t unless Olivier told me to. I didn’t know this Christoph at all and while Olivier did, he didn’t seem to trust him and that was good enough for me.