The Return (11 page)

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I always assumed it was part of the ruse."

"Have you ever asked him if he likes it?"

"No. I'm selfish like that."

"Maybe you should."

"Why?"

"Because it's nice."

"Why do I need to be nice?"

"Because he's your brother?" Morgan rolled her eyes at him. "C'mon. Let's go back." She offered a hand to him and he took it reluctantly. Sitting in a chair next to Sam, he ignored the all to familiar worried look his little brother was used to wearing.

When the girls moved off towards the bar with empty glasses he turned to Sam, thinking about what Morgan had said to him. "Why do you work in the gardens?" he asked awkwardly.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Morgan is trying to make me a better person."

"Just be who you are."

"An asshole?"

"Yeah. An asshole."

"I don't know what to do, Sam. About any of it," he said quietly, conscious of Morgan, who was busy chatting with Gabby and Liz.

"I don't think it's about being a better person," Sam frowned. "You've been through a hell of a lot. It'll just take time. Just give it time."

Zac grunted and downed the rest of his drink. Time was all he had left.

"I'm going to stay at Liz's tonight," Sam said, looking over his shoulder towards Morgan. "Will you be okay?"

Zac groaned, catching his brother's glance. "It's not like that, Sam. Aya has been gone a week. I'm an ass, but even I'm not that heartless."

"Sorry, I just..."

"I'll never love anyone else," he whispered, looking away. "That's the last I want to hear about it."

Sam thumped him on the shoulder, making him look back up. "I know. Later, bro."

"Later."

The night was clear and bright, the moon full when Zac left the bar and it reminded him of her. He'd followed her that first night wanting answers, instead he almost found his death. This time he was alone, the stars she seemed to love shining endlessly above him. He'd do anything to see her again.
To touch her.
To feel her lips against his.

The sound of the door closing behind him snapped him out of his memory and Morgan was beside him, smiling.

"Come for a walk?" she asked.

Zac wasn't ready to go back to the manor yet. It would be dark and empty. Ironically, that was exactly how he felt. He nodded and Morgan took his arm, leading him across the street and into the gardens.

"I can understand why Sam likes this place," she was saying. "It's really pretty here. The gardens."

"Yeah," he tried to sound upbeat about it, but he didn't really care.

"Your friends seem really lovely."

"They're okay."

"Zac," Morgan scolded him. "They've got your back. You're really lucky."

"I know," he said, looking up at the sky again.

S
he elbowed him, bringing him back to earth. "You really scared me yesterday."

"I didn't mean to," he shrugged. "I wasn't thinking."

She stopped underneath a low hanging willow and he jerked away slightly as she placed a hand on his face. He stared at her as she traced the edge of his jaw with her
finger tips
, the expression on her face undecipherable. He didn't dare move for fear of doing the wrong thing, watching her eyes take him in. They seemed to become closer, the world disappearing around them. Zac pushed his troubled thoughts to the back of his mind.

Morgan was pressed up against him, her familiar form comforting, and as she brushed her lips against his, he let out a shaky breath. Her arms snaked around his neck and pulled his body hard into hers. He was frozen to the spot, unable to turn away, even though he knew it was wrong. Then her lips were against his, fingers wound into his messy hair and his longing came back. But, it was a longing for another woman. Groaning deep in his chest, he felt himself kissing her back, her tongue melding with his. As he ran his hands down her back, her breath hitched in her throat and it was enough to snap him out of it. Tearing away from her, he gasped for air, blinking hard.

Zac didn't dare look Morgan in the eye. He knew exactly what he would find. He'd done it again, but this time he knew that she had feelings for him. He was an asshole and this time he was sorry. It was a goddamn miracle he cared at all.

When he didn't move, Morgan sat heavily on the bench. He wanted to die this morning and now here Morgan was kissing him. He was on an emotional roller coaster of the worst kind.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, knowing that she could hear him even with his back turned. "I can't."

"I shouldn't have left you that day in Calais." She was looking at her hands and he tried to ignore the fact that she was humiliated.

"Morgan," he began, sitting next to her.

"It's the truth. I just let you go and it's what, been seventy years? I'm not stupid to think that you hadn't moved on or weren't even there in the first place."

Zac took her hands and she became still. He stared at her hands in his for ages, trying to think of something to say.
The right thing to say.
Her eyes were burning into him and he couldn't bring himself to look up.

He'd been trying to avoid it ever since she had found him by the cave. The day he left her in Calais in 1945, he knew that he'd overstepped a boundary by the way she shoved him onto that ship. She had begun to develop feelings for him and he'd handled it in a less than gentlemanly way. Hell, he'd just sailed away into the sunset never to see her again. After all she had done for him.

Now, she sat next to him sixty-eight years later and he suspected that time had done nothing to alter her perspective. He hoped to god that she hadn't held a flame for him all that time. He couldn't give her what she wanted. Aya was dead, but his heart would be forever hers.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For leaving so soon after..."

"Forget it, Zac. It's been a long time."

"I feel like I used you."

"Yeah, you did." When he finally looked up at her, his expression surprised, she said, "But you needed to. It was a survival thing. I get it."

"I still feel shit about it."

"Don't." Morgan stood abruptly, looking across the garden.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop being sorry for god's sake," she snapped. He watched her as she wrestled with her thoughts, her teeth grinding. Would she forgive him in time? Or was that it? He stood and took a step towards her, but she jerked away. "Goodnight, Zac."

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but she'd already disappeared into the night.

Z
ac found himself outside, but the air was full of a different kind of moisture. It had been raining, the air crisp and cold, full of fog, not the mists of the swamp. The dirt track he stood on was slick with mud and slush, dirty snow that had begun to melt lay in patches amongst the grass and trees on either side. Wherever he was, it was a long way from home.

The muffled sound of an approaching horse broke the silence and he stood to the side of the track and waited its approach. When it finally came into sight he gasped in surprise as he recognized the woman who rode it. Aya was a small figure compared to the huge black horse on which she sat, but it couldn't be anyone else. Not with those otherworldly blue eyes.

The horse snorted, gusts of vapor clouding from its nostrils, hanging in the still morning air. As she stopped beneath a tree, she took out a heavy length of rope and fastened it to a thick branch that hung low across the track. He took a few steps towards her, realizing what she was about to do, but either she was ignoring him or was oblivious to his presence.

The noose firmly around her neck, she turned and slapped the horse hard on the rump. It shrieked and bolted forward in surprise. Wrenched from the saddle by the noose, he heard the snap as her neck partially broke, her eyes wide as she gasped for air.

He ran forward with a cry of horror and tried to clutch her legs and lift her up to stop the noose from strangling her. But, his arms passed through air.

"No!" he cried in frustration.

He had to sit there and watch her choke to death as her body swung gently from side to side, the rope creaking against the branch, tears streaking his face. He didn't dare look to see if she still lived.

It seemed like an age passed until she suddenly gasped for air, her neck having healed and fused at an odd angle. The rasp of air was a sign that her windpipe wasn't healing properly. Her hands grasped at the noose above her as she lifted herself up to create slack in the rope to gulp in enough air to think clearly. It seemed she realized that this tactic wasn't working as she clawed her way up to the branch and tore the rope free. Landing heavily on the ground, she tossed the rope to one side. It was useless.

Suddenly, there was a sharp scream from behind him that broke the heavy silence. Turning sharply, he found himself in the center of a small village. The dream had shifted to another time. He looked around, trying to find where she would appear, but there was chaos all around and no one paid him any attention.

The village was under attack. The screams of women and children pierced the air as they ran from an unknown enemy assaulting the hamlet from the north, the clash of steel mingling with their terror as whoever was trying to protect them fought back. Flaming projectiles pierced thatched roofs and burst into flame, smoke clogging the air so it was hard to see, even for his vampire eyes.

Then he saw her. The battle raged all around as she stood completely still, waiting. The apparent enemy, their faces painted with a kind of natural blue paint, fought against the inhabitants of the village, who he recognized as Romans. This must be what Arturius called the frontier lands.
Britain, two thousand years ago.

He knew that he wasn't really there, but he began to move forward regardless, eyes wide. She couldn't be serious? They would cut her down in cold blood. One of the blue painted men suddenly seemed to realize she was standing in his path and ran towards her, a blood curdling scream tearing apart the air as his sword came down, tearing her chest open.

As she fell, time seemed to slow down and Zac's heart stopped. The man's crude sword followed her and as her body collided with the ground, he impaled her through the stomach. The cruelest wound anyone could inflict on another. But, he pulled it out and slit her throat for good measure, revealing his true disposition. This wild man deserved to die and he did moments later when a Roman soldier cut him down with a swift, clean stab to the heart. A more efficient death than he deserved.

She never made a sound as she was murdered; no scream or sob escaped her. Just the bubbling of blood as her body reflexively tried to draw in air through a torn trachea. Kneeling down next to her, as the battle kept raging about them, he fought back his emotions as the ground stained darker and darker with the growing pool of her blood. He knew the exact moment she had died, but as with before, her body didn't desiccate.

The battle simmered down around him as he waited for her to wake, the only sound remaining was the crackling of flame as the houses around burnt to the ground. When night fell, she sat up, gasping, eyes wide. The air smelt of charred wood and blood and she dropped her head into her hands and sobbed.

When she began to dissolve, he knew the dream was taking him somewhere else. The putrid stench of burning flesh made him gag and he placed an arm across his nose and mouth to block the overwhelming scent. Knowing what he would see when he turned around didn't stop him from doing it anyway. She was lashed to a pyre that was well and truly
alight
, her flesh already cooking and charring.
A mob had gathered around and were
yelling things in an unknown language. From their demeanor he assumed they were less than pleased with her. She had been accused of being a witch, demon or evil spirit, but it didn't really matter. She
wanted
to die. So far, she hadn't been able to.

When the flames finally died down, a few men who had been with the mob took down her charred, disfigured body and dumped it into a ditch at the edge of the small village. They left, not bothering to bury her, content to let her corpse be desecrated further by any wild animals
who
were hungry enough.

Vampires couldn't survive fire. He always knew she was more, but not this much more.

He sat on the edge of the ditch and tried his best not to look at what was left of her. It was well within her power to escape such a fate, so why did she feel she had to let them do this to her? She would come back, her body would heal itself, but perhaps she didn't understand. As far as he knew, she was one of the first turned vampires. This must be a time where she was very new in all senses of the word. How would she know the mechanics of being a vampire? She was on her own.

His heart broke all over again when she opened her eyes, still horribly burnt and disfigured. The pain she would be in… But, she made no sound at all, the disappointment in her eyes crystal clear.

When the dream shifted again, he did all he could to will himself awake.
He couldn't see another
,
it was too much
. He felt like he was going mad. Was he being punished? What kind of cruel joke was this? He couldn't fathom how many times she must have tried and failed.

He was in a dark barn of some sort, or a stable, the sound of a struggle pulling his attention to the darkest corner. She had a man up against the wall, the coppery tang of blood thick on the air. She pulled back, gasping, the man pleading for his life in some unknown language.

Her hands were covered in blood and it ran from her mouth, staining the front of her dress. The man stumbled backwards at the sight of her, eyes wide with fear. He was yelling a word at her that sounded a lot like vampire. She was yelling back at him, goading him on, and pointing at her chest. Was she asking him to
stake
her?

She picked up the crude hoe the man had dropped and snapped the end off with ease. Thrusting the jagged piece of wood at him she said something again that he didn't understand. The man nodded and grasped the makeshift stake in shaking hands.

He realized then that she had asked the farmer to free her.

When the man drove the stake into her heart, she gasped and fell backwards into the hay. He stood over her as the man backed away, leaving the stable, seemingly content to come back during the day. Her eyes had glazed over the moment the life left her, but he knew she would come back from this too. Sam had staked Caius and he had desiccated and still revived. She didn't change at all.

Zac jolted awake, gasping for breath. Sam stood above him, shaking his shoulder.

"Zac, what the hell?" He sounded panicked.

"What?" he grimaced, rubbing his eyes, he'd fallen asleep on the sofa, the morning sun flooding through the windows.

"You were yelling in your sleep." His little brother was prodding him for more information.

Sitting up, Zac held his head in his hands and drew in a sharp breath, thrown off by the latest set of dreams. It was like a cruel joke that he had to sit by and watch as she tried to end herself over and over.
Powerless to save her again and again.
He wanted to protect her, but when it mattered, he couldn't.

"It's nothing," he whispered.

Sam frowned at his brother, "Something’s bothering you." It was a statement.

Zac ran his fingers over the stubble on his chin and sighed. There was no use hiding it from him any longer. "I've been dreaming."

"Dreaming?" Sam's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Since when?"

"Since..." his voice caught in his throat. "Her blood."

Sam didn't say anything for a while, waiting for him to pull himself together. Zac'd fallen apart so much over the past week, more than he should have ever let himself.

Drawing a deep breath, he began to tell his brother about the dreams Aya's blood had given him.
The horrible insight to her painful beginnings.
He told him about the creature she'd been before; silver haired and beautiful, at home in the forest. The day she'd been abducted by the Roman, Regulus, and delivered to Katrin. How Arturius manipulated and turned her into the thing she'd hated the most. Her escape from the prison the Romans had made for her and their subsequent murder of her entire family. Then the horrible ways she had tried to end her life.

Sam remained silent throughout, allowing him to let it all out.

"Things that should end a vampire for good... She came back from so many."

"A heart?" Sam was suddenly panicked. "Do you think?"

"How could she come back from a torn out heart? From what I saw she never tried that." He was tired from the massive info dump that the dreams had placed on him. Emotionally drained beyond belief. "Vampires still need a heart to move blood around. No moving blood means no healing. She's not a founder. She was turned."

Sam looked doubtful, but nodded his agreement. "All the dreams were about her?"

"Yes," he sighed, his head in his hands again. "They were like memories. Vivid memories."

Sam was silent, not knowing what to say.

"I don't even think most of them were real," Zac frowned.

"What makes you say that?" Sam asked, confused. They sounded real enough to him.

"After thousands of years, memories would twist. Even memories after a hundred years fade," Zac said wryly. "I can attest to that."

"You do have a point, but this might be useful in dealing with Arturius," he said. "Do you remember anything that might help?"

"No," Zac sighed. "She used her ability the same way she used it on Caius. There was nothing different."

Zac had been a shadow of himself the past two weeks. After seeing her die over and over, something had changed in him. Brought him back. Even when he was on the edge, he never backed down from a fight. What the hell had he been thinking? He was a class
A
jerk, but what else was new?

"We need to work together," Sam said, picking up on his internal turmoil. "All of us. It's the only way we can fend him off and end him for good."

"I know, brother," he grimaced.

"Can we count on you, Zac?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," he looked up at his little brother. "You can."

Her world was falling into pieces around her, but Gabby still went into work. It seemed to be the only thing in her life she had control over and right now, she needed it like she needed to breathe. She'd kept a tight reign over her magic, bottling it deep inside herself, too afraid to tap into it. Not even to meditate or light a measly candle. The moment she loosened her grip, was the moment it would all crumble down around her.

"Have you thought about my offer, Gabrielle?" 

She jumped, her heart skipping a beat. Her hand came up to her chest and she scowled at Arturius, who had appeared beside her out of thin air. "What the hell."