Seduced by Lies (13 page)

"Hey, Dean, Tammy, you live nearby, don't you? And you're both wolf shifters, if I'm not mistaken?"

My body tensed and Dean and Tammy paled.

"We had nothing to do with this," Tammy said.

"We'll see," Agent White said. "We'll see. But right now—"

"Right now," I said, interrupting him as I looked at my friends, "you're his top suspects."

This is the very ecstasy of love.

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

TRAVELING VIA JET
was an addicting experience. Commercial flying would likely never live up after this. It would have been perfect had my husband been speaking more than monosyllabic words to me.

Despite his bad mood, as we drove through the streets of Rome on our way to Vatican City, I couldn't suppress a shiver of excitement. I was in Rome! And I was about to sleep at the Vatican.

That unnerved me a bit, and I forced Derek to hold my hand as I stared out the car window. Streets older than my country wound through colorful buildings as children played ball and adults shopped for fresh produce at the open market.

According to some quick research on my phone's internet, the Vatican City was actually a sovereign city-state consisting of a walled enclave within the city of Rome. At 110 acres with only 840 citizens, it was the smallest recognized independent state in the world in both size and population. Despite its size, it hosted some of the most famous art in the world, including St. Peter's Basilica and the Sistine Chapel.

If Sam hadn't been so worried about Drake, she'd have been jealous we were coming to Rome. Though I doubted we'd have time to do much sightseeing.

We entered the enclave and I soaked up the local culture as it flew by me. Before too long we were pulling up to a side entrance to the Vatican.

I wasn't religious, and certainly not Catholic, but the majesty of this place took my breath away, and I had to resist the urge to supplicate myself and beg forgiveness for my sins. To think that area was considered sacred even before the Catholic Church built the Vatican here. I could almost feel the magic humming in the earth, something ancient and powerful, something I suspected the Church had been feeding off for a long time to secure their own position of power.

Bishop Alaric escorted us through the Vatican as if we weren't standing on holy ground. Since he lived here, I guessed it was just another day at home, or work, for him. Gold and jewels, paintings and sculptures, elaborate wall hangings and rugs, all spiraled into heaven along intricate staircases. That's what I remembered of that walk to our room.

Guards carried our bags and as we reached a deeper part of the building, up several flights of stairs, I stiffened. A stronger magic attacked me, burning through my body.

Derek gripped my hand, his eyes concerned. "What's happening?"

"There's power here. Great power. It's… testing me, I think."

Derek turned on Alaric. "What are you doing to her?"

"I'm not doing anything to her." He stepped closer and placed a hand on my shoulder, eyes falling closed. Shuddering, he pulled his hand away and the power left me, without so much as a whisper of it remaining. I almost thought I'd imagined it.

"The guards will escort you to your room." His eyes shifted nervously around the room. "I need to meet with the Lycan council to arrange for Ryder's trial."

Derek growled. "What was that?"

Alaric looked down, fidgeting with his cross. "Perhaps, maybe—you see, we weren't the first ones to use this land. Rose's power may have tapped into something… deeper. Something we don't ever talk about here, and I suggest you don't either."

With that enigmatic proclamation, he turned on his heel and disappeared down the hall.

The guards led us to a large bedroom with a sitting room, fireplace and private bathroom. A serving girl was airing out pillows and scurried off when we arrived muttering something about bringing us food. I felt a little like royalty, but in a scary we-might-be-assassinated kind of way.

Derek asked again about what happened in the hallway, but I had nothing more to tell him. I didn't know, and it probably didn't mean anything. Just a magical vibe that swept through me and left.

He didn't seem satisfied with that answer, but left me to my unpacking while he took a shower.

I sat on the bed, listening to the water, thinking about my sexy naked husband, and knew I couldn't let this tension between us continue.

Dropping my bag on the floor, I pulled off my clothes and slipped into the bathroom.

Derek looked up in surprise when I pulled back the curtain. "Rose, what are you doing?"

Without speaking, I stepped into the large shower and knelt.

"Rose, not right now."

His protests, weak as they were, did not dissuade my intent.

And I filled my mouth with his cock, sucking and stroking until he moaned and tangled his fingers in my hair.

As he stiffened, hardening and lengthening in my mouth, I sucked harder, licking the head and sliding my tongue down his shaft, cupping his balls in my mouth as I stroked him faster and harder.

I wanted him to come in my mouth, to taste him as he released into me, but he grew impatient and instead pulled me up, pushing his hard body against me as he kissed me deeply, biting at my lip as his hands explored my curves and fingers dipped into my wet center.

It was my turn to moan, and he thrust two fingers into me while rubbing a rough thumb against my swollen clit.

As the pressure built, my muscles clenching, he turned me around and spread my legs with his, angling his cock until he could shove it into my aching pussy. We found a rhythm and fucked against the bathroom wall in the Vatican. While priests prayed, we worshiped in our own way. With our bodies. With our love.

Water streamed down my back, his teeth biting into my shoulder as we both came, releasing ourselves into the wild ecstasy that rode us with each orgasmic shudder.

Making love to him was like falling into infinity—losing myself, only to find that I am more than I even thought I was.

We didn't use words, just looks and kisses and gentle touches as we toweled off and crawled into bed naked together.

I was nodding to sleep when he broke the silence with a question that no longer held accusation, just genuine desire to understand. "Why do you want Ryder to face trial?"

Shifting so I could see his face, with my chin resting on my hands over his chest, I answered as best I could, sorting through my feelings as I spoke. "What looks black and white and easy to judge isn't always the case. My mother convinced me you and your family were evil, that you were attacking us, threatening us and our way of life. I believed her, because I didn't take the time to investigate the truth for myself, to see all of the angles."

"But we saw Ryder attack Drake," he said.

"Yes, we did. But I also saw, or thought I saw, Dean attack my mother." I shuddered, remembering that awful day. I'd nearly killed Dean, and thought I had. He'd gone through literal hell because of me.

Derek saw the darkness in my eyes and kissed my forehead. "No one blames you for that. Not him, not me, not anyone in my family."

"I know. But I blame me. I can't help it, and I don't ever want to rush to conclusions again. I want to find out why he did what he did. I want the whole story, and right now, this trial is the only way."

Derek stared at something unseen, his thoughts lost to me. "I understand better why you wanted to come. I'm not sure I agree, but I do understand. And I love you."

I sighed, sinking back into his arms. "I love you, too."

A knock at the door woke me, though I hadn't realized I'd fallen back asleep. Derek pulled away from me and pulled his jeans and a shirt on to answer it.

I heard the bishop speaking. "It’s time for the trial. We need you."

And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man

— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

I COULDN'T HAVE
gotten back to our room if I'd tried. We turned so many corners, walked through so many halls, climbed down so many staircases, that even with wolf senses I was lost. Plus, everything smelled like incense and it made my nose tickle so much that I probably looked a
Bewitched
character, crinkling my nose to work spells.

The deeper into the heart of the Vatican we went, the stronger the power beneath it thrummed through me. Also, I started to feel a little bit like I was in a movie that involved demon possession and crazy priests and maybe the anti-Christ. It had that vibe.

The final staircase we climbed down spiraled like a child's toy, round and round until we stood in front of large, intricately carved arched double doors with a series of custom bolts and locks holding them closed.

The carvings depicted wolves battling demons and reminded me of a cross between ancient cave drawings of hunting parties and Rodin's “Gates of Hell.”

Bishop Alaric pulled out a key the size of his hand, old and rusted from years of use, and pushed it into the lock. As he turned, the door unlocked itself from the middle, top and bottom, with clicks and the sound of metal shifting.

In the center of a circular, windowless room lay Ryder, chained hand and foot to the floor like a sacrifice as he faced the steeple ceiling that pointed to heaven. Looking more closely I realized his body conformed to the shape of the pentagram carved in gold on the ground below him. His feet, hands and head rested on each of the five points of the star.

And he was naked.

I turned away from him and studied the men—I assumed men, though I couldn't be sure of sex—who formed a half-circle across from us. They each stood at a podium and wore long red robes that masked their faces in shadows.

There were no chairs in the room, and so we stood, waiting for whatever was to happen next. Bishop Alaric walked to an empty podium that faced the men standing in judgment and introduced us. "These two bore witness to Ryder's attack on the Nephilim, Drake Davis, and are here to testify against him."

Derek was called up first, and I shifted from foot to foot for two hours as my husband told them everything that had happened. He glossed over my shift into a bear, just saying that I 'shifted' and stopped the attack. I wondered if I should also avoid mentioning the animal I shifted into. Could I get into trouble for being able to do that when no one else could?

When it was my turn to approach the podium, my hands shook with nerves and my tongue felt dry and swollen. Derek had been so passionate, so sure of his position in all of this. He spoke confidently that Ryder had killed those other kids and should be punished for his crimes. He said I was witness to Ryder attacking Curtis. I would have believed him, had I been one of those thirteen standing judgment, but I couldn't see their faces, couldn't gauge how they were responding to his words.

And there I stood, underdressed (or overdressed, depending on who you were looking at), nervous and completely out of place in this horror movie-like setting. I'd been to demon dimensions and fought a demon dragon. I'd fought my own mother to save the lives of my friends and family. I could handle this, I kept telling myself, hoping I'd believe it.

I stood at the podium, which wasn't as directly facing the judges as I'd thought. From this angle I could see all thirteen judges, Bishop Alaric and Derek, who both stood to the side, and Ryder, who stared into the infinite ceiling, not moving or making a sound as we decided his fate. What was his story? What were his motives? Could I really convict someone without knowing, after what I'd done to Dean?

My voice shook as I took them through my story.

"Did you see Ryder attack Mr. Davis?" a male voice asked.

"I saw him in wolf form attack Drake, yes. And then I saw him shift from wolf back to human."

"You saw him shift, or you saw him after his shift?" another voice, also male, asked.

I thought back to that night. "Well, I had shifted to stop him from attacking Drake, and we'd both gotten knocked down. When I shifted back to human form, I looked around and saw Ryder lying naked where the wolf had been. No one else was out there, and I didn't lose consciousness, so while I didn't see him actually shift, all evidence would suggest it was he who shifted. He also confessed and admitted to attacking Drake."

"And did you see Ryder attack this other boy as well? Curtis?"

I knew how Derek would want me to answer. He'd want me to be definitive, to leave no room for doubt, but I couldn't. "I saw a wolf who looked similar to Ryder's wolf attack Curtis."

"But you are not sure if it was actually Ryder?"

A trickle of sweat tickled my cheek as it ran down my face. My palms left sweaty prints on the light wood of the podium as I gripped it tighter. "I… I think it was him. I'm pretty sure. It looked like him."

"But you're not positive? You did not see him shift, or see him there in human form after shifting?"

My head fell forward. "No."

"And he did not confess to those attacks?"

"No, he did not."

"Thank you, Mrs. O'Conner. You may step down."

With hidden faces and macabre voices, these men made the whole proceeding feel ominous. I stepped over to Derek, who held my hand.

One of the judges raised an arm, and a guard dressed in black stepped out of the shadows from somewhere unseen and unlocked Ryder, then gave him a red cloak and ushered him to the podium after binding his hands in chains again.

I looked around, sniffed, and met Derek's eyes. "Did you know he was there?"

Derek shook his head, and I knew why I couldn't smell the man. Another werewolf. This whole room was filled with werewolves, their scents lost to us like magic. I shivered, thinking about what they could do to us if they wanted to.

"Ryder, you've heard the allegations against you. How plead you?"

Ryder looked at each of them as if he could see into their eyes, into their souls. "I do not deny attacking the Nephilim."

"Did you have permission from this council?"

"No." His answers came short and with no remorse.

"Then how could you do this?"

"Drake has a child… one with his Nephilim blood."

For the first time that day I saw a reaction in the council. Though I could still not see their faces, their bodies stiffened, shock in their stances, murmurs between them. What could possibly be so alarming about Ana?

The one in center spoke. "We understand your choices, Son, but that does not excuse the way you went about them. Why did you not seek permission through the proper channels? Why—"

"Drake and his child are unknown to the Great Families," he said, interrupting the council. "Killing them would not have resulted in any retaliation from them."

My mind tucked 'Great Families' away for later study and locked on to one word. 'Them.' He'd planned on killing Ana too? She was just a baby. How could he? Regret gnawed at me. Did his story matter now? Would there be any justification for planning to take the life of an innocent child? Should I have lied, been more confident to assure his conviction?

"You were knocked out and chained," the middle council member reminded him.

He shrugged. "I had an opportunity I couldn't pass by. With a Beast killing paranormals, I could have avoided any blame, if I acted quickly."

"Yet you failed."

"To escape," said Ryder. "The Nephilim still may die."

They each nodded at his words and filed out through a hidden door buried in shadows on the far slope of the wall.

I guess that meant break time.

Ryder was once again chained to the ground, something I didn't feel so badly for now that I knew his true intentions.

Bishop Alaric lead us out of the room, down a hall to a bathroom to relieve ourselves while we waited. When we met back in the hall, I turned to Alaric. "Why did the council seem so shocked that Drake has a baby? And what was that about us not being known by the Great Families?"

My legs ached from standing so long, so it was with great relief that Alaric walked us to a room with chairs. Grand, uncomfortable high back chairs that were designed to torture people into proper posture, but better than standing. I cursed Ocean for making me bring these heels and cursed myself for not sticking to my guns and wearing sneakers.

Once we sat, Alaric handed us glasses of water and settled in himself. "Nephilim are, generally, composed of Great Families that have managed to keep their bloodlines going. In many ways, these families are independent factions. However, they all bow to the Twilight Queen who is deemed the strongest of them. We hunt Nephilim, but a long time ago we learned to avoid the Great Families. Provoking their wrath started a war that the Church could not handle. Now, we hunt the Nephilim that are outcasts or alone."

I shifted in my seat, stretching my back. "And the Nephilim don't stop you?"

"They encourage it," said Alaric. "The Great Families appreciate when we eliminate their enemies, or those who have broken their rules."

"So you work together?" How could the Nephilim work with people who hunted their kind?

The bishop crossed his legs, his long black cloak draping to the side. "Pretend we are gardeners, charged with tending the land. We cut out the weeds, trim the edges. We do this for years, for our garden is vast. Eventually, we find that some of the weeds escaped our sight. And by the time we have returned to them, they have grown. They are no longer weeds, but trees, great oaks that make homes for birds and squirrels and insects. To cut one down is to change the very nature of the garden, to disturb the balance that life has created. The consequences will be great and hard to predict. Perhaps all the animals will die. Perhaps another plant will take over."

He paused.

"So you see, killing a Great Family would be far too significant a shift, the consequences too drastic. There may come a time when the Church is ready to make that shift, but it is not yet."

"But Drake isn't part of a Great Family," I said.

"No, not of the Nephilim. Yet, if they knew he could have children, they would seek him out, they would use him. Whichever family gained Drake's gifts would rise in power. That too could make a great shift, and one that we could easily avoid if we simply…"

"Kill Drake," I finished.

"Before the Great Families discover him," Alaric said. "However, Ryder should have thought longer on his actions, for he
has
upset a great family."

"Which one?" Derek asked, speaking for the first time.

"Yours," the bishop said. "The family that lives in Elysium."

So, in the Church's mind, we had become a Great Family. That kind of made sense. After all, weren't witches and paranormals related to Nephilim?

"Now," the bishop said, standing, "the council must decide, should they kill Ryder for his deed, or free him and risk your wrath?"