“
Instead? We have witches,
demons. Angels –“
“
You said there aren’t any
gods, though,” she said, face scrunching up. What he said made
sense – probably because her subconscious was trying to tell her
that she had known this all her life.
“
There are none, dear.
Others may tell you there are, but anyone like us should know that
there is not. Angels are the counterpart of demons. I do not mean
like an angel of god, or the good to the evil,” he tittered,
laughing delicately. Vladimir reached behind and pulled out a
hankie, twirling it between his hands.
“
Then what do you
mean?”
“
Demons and angels are
counterparts. They must come together, but only when they know they
have found the right one. Think of you and Talon. You care for him,
are probably coming to love him. These feelings are natural, and
even though you may not believe in true love, or even love at first
site… I can see that you are in love with him,” he said softly,
like he was remembering something sad, or something…painful. Jamie
flushed and looked away.
But she didn’t deny anything he
said.
“
Demons are evil. To a
point. The earth needs grace and purity to survive, and it would
not start its own death by tainting the very things it needs to
survive. So the witches made demons. Created them. Yet, they
controlled them.”
A smile flitted around the edge of his
pink-with-lip-gloss lips. “Until a law was passed by the
king.”
“
King?” she asked. Like,
King Arthur? Jamie wondered if the rules of the world she knew
still applied to the rules of the world she was learning. Would she
have to live under a monarchy now? Her stomach turned. It hadn’t
hit her until now how much her life was really going to
change
.
“
Yes, we have a king. But
he is missing,” he said sadly. “Lucian and Talon have taken over
for the time being, but it has been so long… Jamie, our people are
broken. We may seem like working people, high-tech people,
modern
people, but we are
still as old-fashioned as we used to be. The warriors that protect
us – Talon is one of them, or used to be. Such high powering people
are not meant to be fighting. He gave up so much for our
world.”
Jamie swallowed, biting her lip. Talon
was the equivalent of a king, then. Her stomach turned.
“
How did he get taken,
then? He was put through so much!” she said angrily, fisting her
hands in her lap. “Why did no one go after him?”
“
No one knew that he had
been taken. It had been his vacation, and he had requested that no
one hound him or bother him.”
Jamie barely kept her tongue as she
stared across the room in a stony silence.
“
It is good that you are
angry on his behalf,” he commented, looking at her with a faraway
look. She clenched her hands in her lap and forced herself to stay
calm.
“
What was the king like?”
she asked as a distraction.
Sorrow flashed through his
sparkling eyes. “The king was...great. Mighty. Magnificent. Have
you ever heard of that series,
Narnia
?” he asked, twisting the
hankie even more.
Jamie nodded, thinking of the giant
lion that the movie had so revolved around. Her head hurt from all
the thinking it was doing. She couldn’t honestly believe all of
this, could she? Jamie rubbed her shoulder slowly, struggling to
get her head around everything.
“
Well, our king is much
like that lion. But not an animal,” he said, tittering. “I don’t
know about you, but when I think ‘king’, I think England, or
monarchy. Either way, though, our king is nothing like those frilly
wearing kinds that we see in old-time movies. He wore leathers,
weapons, had hair that I would
die
to possess --”
“
You knew him personally?”
Jamie interrupted, not wanting to listen to him rave over another
man. The guy sounded...other-worldly. A king who wore leathers? She
tried picturing Talon in a leather jacket and pants, and the image
was too implausible for her.
Vladimir nodded, a proud look entering
his eyes. “I was his personal consultant,” he said. The
condescending tone wasn’t lost on her.
“
I was not there when the
kidnapping happened -- well, we are not too sure that he just
didn’t disappear. As king, he was put under much stress and I think
he could feel, much as I could, that our earth was dying. Still is,
in fact.”
“
So the 2012 stuff is
real?” she asked dubiously, face screwing up. Jamie had never
personally believed in the Mayan prediction, but now that she
knew
for sure
that
there were things other than humans... Her skin crawled.
“
Silly human, of course it
isn’t. That calendar was made to instill fear into the minds of the
lessers and plus, with all of the leap years, their predictions are
inaccurate. Do not believe in things you see in the
movies.”
“
Vampires,” she said,
crossing her arms over her chest. “What about those?”
“
My, my, you are a curious
one. Vampires, unfortunately, do exist. Yet they are close to
extinct,” he said sadly, hands stilling their twisting. When he
spoke, the grief in his voice reached her. “I am but the last of
our once proud and thriving race.”
Awkward and shifting her legs so that
one crossed over the other, Jamie rubbed a hand over her cheek.
“I’m so sorry...you never know, though. What about Talon? He showed
me how...strong he was. It isn’t possible for a...a human to
survive what he did and still have enough sanity to go through the
day. And his eyes...” Her voice trailed off.
“
Talon is an anomaly. He
does not know what is within him, yet Lucian and I knew from the
beginning. I cannot tell you anything except that he is an
Immortal.”
“
Why can’t you tell me what
he is? Don’t you think he has a right to know?” she demanded
angrily on his behalf.
“
Jamie, if I were to tell
you what he is, what he was made for, you would die tomorrow.
There
is
a reason
that he has had such a rough time. Meeting you was just the
catalytic push he needed to awaken into his powers. Sooner or
later, he’s going to start feeling it.”
Fury flashed through her and she
barely stopped from jumping to her feet and slapping him. “This
morning...” She struggled to talk calmly. Vladimir acted like he
knew everything, and while she might want to tear every sparkle
from his skin piece by piece, she had to get answers. “Before this
morning, he didn’t remember a thing. I don’t even think he knew
what color his eyes were.”
He nodded, urging her to continue.
“This morning, well.... Something weird happened. Like he got
possessed or something,” she said thinly, rubbing a hand over her
eyes, remembering how black it had gotten. She explained the
glaring light, the complete darkness, and the way he had spoken to
her -- how demonic his voice had been. Jamie also told him of the
time Talon had almost killed her at Auro’s mansion.
The whole time she spoke, it got
harder and harder for her to keep from crying. Just thinking of
Talon in a situation, remembering it, was horrible. He had been put
through so much, yet he still kept her with him.
By the time she was done talking, a
pondering silence had entered the room.
“
I will talk this over with
Lucian,” he finally said, once again twisting the
hankie.
Jamie took a shaky breath and nodded,
relaxing back into the chair. She hadn’t realized that she was
almost at the edge, about to fall off.
“
Now, back to our earlier
conversation. We have shifters -- you might think of them as
werewolves, but they can turn into so much more than that. I once
knew a man who
could turn into a spider. Creepy
thing, but he was amazingly flexible...” A smirk came over his face
as he talked.
“
A couple of rules you
might want to consider. If you ever seen one of our kind fighting?
I would request, for the sake of Talon
not
going apeshit on everyone, that
you do not enter it or try to interfere. We have a council for
that.”
“
A council?”
“
Surely you did not think
our world has survived without advisors,” he laughed, waving the
hankie as he did so. “You will meet the council soon enough. Our
oldest living creatures consist of the council, and they are rarely
considerate in their decisions. If they want to behead you, they
will. But, without the king’s okay -- and since Lucian and Talon
are the rulers right now, I doubt he would go along with any of it
-- they cannot touch you.
“
When you meet with them,
you must not speak directly to any of them. It is the greatest
insult you could ever show them, and even Talon won’t be able to
help you if you do such a grave misdoing. I am wondering why you
are even welcomed to this world,” he commented slowly, stroking the
hankie like he would a cat. Her chest tightened, offended. He shot
her a look and laughed softly. “Not like that. I’m just saying that
you and Talon are so different, and you have no becoming qualities
besides your beauty. I cannot sense anything other than human
within you.”
Jamie thought back to the men in
black, when she was just a kid. Her mother taking her away, trying
to hide her from things. That near miss when everything had fallen
around her. As she mulled over what he had said, she couldn’t help
the errant, horrible thought that she had used to force out of her
mind.
It was too painful. To
dangerous. It was something she had
never
thought about, as bad as things
had gotten.
He had said that she would die the
next day if she knew anything about Talon.
What would it matter if
she died a second time?
“
I must warn you, Jamie.
The witches...they are after Talon. They want him dead, but more
than anything they want him to suffer. They are going to use you to
do it.”
Her blood froze in her veins, becoming
icy as fear coursed through her. “How do I know when I’ve...seen a
witch?” she asked, hands turning numb.
“
You will know. Their eyes
are soulless. Centuries of being connected to the earth, living the
horrors and damage that had come to it, has made them heartless and
emotionless. They have as much warmth as a serial
killer.”
“
And they are...after
Talon. Why?” she demanded.
“
You might want to ask him
about an ‘Amena’,” he said, standing to his feet and putting the
hanky in his back pocket with a grace it seemed only he could
perfect.
“
Why? I have more
questions...”
“
I have introduced you into
our world. Talon will do the rest for you. If you need anything
from me, you may ask Talon or Lucian for my cell.
With that, he left the room in a
whisper of sound. Jamie stared at the empty space, not even
surprised. Jamie leaned into the chair, mind whirling.
“
Jamie?”
The voice had her startling, jerking
to her feet. Talon was in the doorway, watching her and waiting.
She cleared her throat awkwardly, then wiped her hands on her
pants.
She was going to ask him about this
“Amena” person as soon as they were alone.
Chapter 13
Everything that happened after the
meeting was pretty much a blur to Jamie. The second they left the
room, Talon was bombarded with people and she was pushed to the
back.
That was how it was for the next
week.
Talon got so caught up with calls and
papers and meetings, that it seemed like there was no time for her.
She was left in her room, bored off her ass and so brain dead she
almost forgot about asking about Amena. When he came back to their
room, he was so tired that the second he sat down in the chair to
take off his shoes, he passed straight out.
Resolute, she would get up and drag
him to the bed, all the while thinking that this was so much more
different than it had been with Chris. When she had had to drag his
drunk body to the couch, her skin hadn’t gotten hotter with just
the touch. But while she took Talon? She swore the room was a sauna
and she wanted nothing but to strip him naked and wake him up with
her hands...or her mouth...or her body.
For the most part, she felt like a
pervert. But she shrugged it off and took her time caring for him.
It was normally midnight by the time he got to their room, and she
was so bored that she couldn’t sleep. So she would put him in the
bed after maybe ten minutes of trying to get him to cooperate, and
then get a damp cloth and clean his face.
Jamie was slowly realizing that she
could spend her life taking care of him. Sitting and watching him,
trailing her fingers over his jaw and temples. Sometimes he would
grunt -- it was the cutest thing she had ever heard in her life.
She was no longer scared that he would wake up and try to kill her
-- they had gotten past that part.
Instead, it got to the point where she
would suddenly be jerked to his body and cuddled to death. Vladimir
had been considerate enough to send her more sweatpants and
comfortable clothing, but the whole time he tsked at her, saying
she needed to dress like a woman.