Authors: Heather Killough-Walden
Roman waited a moment. And then he shook his head. “I don’t believe you really are, Evie.” He paused. “
Human
.”
“You’re insane,” she said suddenly. Roman might not have been able to delve into her mind, but his hearing was still top rate, so he caught the sound when her pulse quickened and began to race. “You’re one of those crazy guys who gets fang implants, aren’t you. I don’t know how you managed to mess with my mind – hypnotism? Or did you just knock me out with some kind of drug?” She exhaled shakily and shook her head. “Oh man, I almost believed you – Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? I must still be drugged up. I almost fell for your bullshit. But you messed up here,
Roman
.” She said his name with clear distaste and anger. “When you suggested I was anything but human. Because if I were Superwoman, I sure as hell wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Evie –”
“No!” she yelled, holding up her hand as if to stop him. “My name is
Evelynne
,” she said. She swallowed, her eyes went to his mouth, where he’d hidden his fangs behind his lips. Then their beautiful gold skirted to his shoulders – broad and possibly frightening to her. She shifted from one foot to the other. “Evelynne,” she repeated.
And then she blinked. Her gaze narrowed again and flew back up to his eyes. “Wait. How did you know people call me Evie?”
Roman swore internally. This wasn’t going well at all. He was going to have to nip this deteriorating exchange in the bud.
She wanted proof?
Fine. He would give it to her.
With all of the speed his supernatural form was capable of producing, Roman shot forward, wrapped his arms around Evie, and spoke the word that would transport them out of the room. It happened so fast, Evie didn’t fully realize what he had done until they were re-materializing at his destination, and he was letting her go.
She stumbled for a moment, her breath catching, her heart hiccupping with shock, and then stared at him with wide eyes. “What… Oh my God, what did you just do?”
“This is the transportation spell I was telling you about.”
Evie’s eyes remained wide and her breathing fast. She turned in an unsteady circle to survey their surroundings.
Roman watched her small, shaking form take it all in, and then his own gaze skirted to the world around him. It was one of his favorite places in the world. It encompassed everything he loved about life, and nothing he didn’t. He had created it himself – and no one else on the planet knew it existed.
The cavern was enormous, stretching the length of two football fields, its ceiling so high up, it was barely visible. Bioluminescent mushrooms, algae, and even flower blooms that had yet to be named by science carpeted the ceiling and part of the walls, shedding enough light to mimic the sun just before twilight. A waterfall against one wall poured fresh, clean drinking water into a river that ran through the center of the cavern. That crystal clear river divided the cave’s ground into what appeared to be islands. Each rounded island was connected by small wooden bridges.
The bridges were intricately carved as if by expert hand. Some possessed ropes of flowers twined around their railings. Others were graced with gas lights that flickered invitingly. Each separate island possessed a single tree growing from its thick bed of shamrocks or moss. The branches of these trees stretched over their islands like Banyan tree benches, waiting to be climbed and rested upon. The buds on these branches were brightly colored, and some contained sweet, refreshing fruit that Roman knew no human had ever tasted. As a vampire, he didn’t need to eat such things, but a part of him had always enjoyed the flavors of the mortal world. These were his own creation, a combination of his favorite fruits in one.
The air in the cavern was the perfect temperature, not too hot, not too cold. The waterfall provided a far-off static, the rivers babbled and flowed at a constant, calming pace, but most inviting of all was the small thatch-roofed cottage that rested upon the biggest island. It was impossible to tell from the outside, but Roman knew that it was two-story. A tiny kitchen, dining set, and rocking chairs occupied the first floor. A winding wooden staircase led to a loft, and in that loft was Roman’s sleeping place.
There were two fire places in the cottage, one on the first floor and one on the far wall of the loft. Smoke curled from the single chimney, in the cottage’s roof, but the air in the vast cavern remained magically pure and fresh.
All along the walls, crystals of various colors and size grew and glimmered, dressing the cave in what looked like gemstones. Some of them
were
gemstones, both precious and semi-precious.
It was a magical place, to say the least. It was born of magic, of spell upon spell upon spell, layered over the course of thousands of years. It had taken Roman countless lifetimes to create the place he stood in at that moment. And never, not in all of that time, had he even considered bringing another being into it with him.
Not until now.
He turned his gaze from the cavern he’d hidden from the world, and looked down at the woman he’d finally shared it with. She had gone very still, her breath barely audible over the babbling of the various brooks and the distant roar of the falls. She was turned away from him at the moment, but very slowly, she came full circle – and finally looked up at him.
“Where are we?”
“This is my home,” he told her. “My
real
home.”
She glanced around again, her gold-touched eyes still wide with awe. Her mouth was open, her expression bewildered. She shook her head a little. “I’ve never….” She stopped, swallowed, and then did the most wonderful thing Roman had ever seen. She smiled. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life,” she whispered, looking back up at him once more.
Roman exhaled, only then realizing that he’d been holding his breath since they’d rematerialized in the cavern. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that.”
She waited, gazing up at him, her lovely features filled with child-like fascination.
“Because I’ve never shared it with anyone before,” he told her. “You’re the first.”
She turned a full circle in place, clearly overwhelmed by what she was seeing. And then she shook her head. “The first?”
“In the thousands of years I have existed, Evelynne, I have never felt about a woman what I feel for you. And that’s why you’re here.”
Chapter Ten
Evie hugged the steaming cup between her hands and watched the vapor rise from the hot tea inside. The fire in the small fire place crackled merrily. The air was just as perfect in here as it had been outside in the cavern, but it was scented like cinnamon and cloves and fresh baked bread.
She felt calm.
It made very little sense. She knew she should have been crying hysterically or maybe jabbering like a hyena and rocking back and forth on the ground. She’d fallen down a freaking rabbit hole. The cavern outside was literal proof.
But despite conventional psychology, the truth was, after Roman had brought her to the cave and showed her that what he claimed was actually fact… Evie’s heart rate began to slow. She felt her lungs opening up a little more. Her mind stopped spinning.
For lack of a better description, it felt like something inside of Evie began to slide into place. And now as she sat at the small polished wooden dining table and Roman served her hot tea and bread with butter, she was hearing it
click
.
It felt almost like a high. It was similar to the way it felt when you’d suffered a vast amount of pain and suddenly the pain killers kicked in and the pain was gone and you were tired and thankful and filled with peace.
That was how she felt, despite everything he’d told her over the last hour or so. He’d told her that he’d been dreaming about her, that a very old and respectable witch had foretold her existence, and that there was something… different about Evie. He couldn’t tell her exactly what that different thing was, but it set her as apart from other humans as his own “difference” did him.
Evie was dubious about that. Roman D’Angelo was a freaking vampire. How much more different could you get?
“Evie,” Roman said softly. Just as it had every time he’d spoken, his incredible voice gave her an almost physical feeling of sexual pleasure.
She steeled herself, turned slightly on the wooden bench, and looked up at him.
Christ
, she thought witlessly. It didn’t get any better the more times she looked at him. Roman was quite literally the most handsome man she had ever seen.
That gaze,
she thought
. It’s Michael Fassbender plus Richard Armitage times a bazillion
. He’d taken off his sports jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-up shirt. The effect was mind-blowing.
“May I join you?” he asked. Evie hesitated. It was the same thing he’d asked her at the coffee shop… where the Hunters had attacked.
The Hunters
, she thought, her brow furrowing. The memory of the shots fired and the windows shattering was enough to take her mind temporarily off of Roman’s incredible good looks.
Temporarily.
“I might not be reading your mind,” Roman told her, “but I’ve lived a long time.” He smiled a damnably beautiful smile and Evie melted there on the bench. “I can tell what you’re thinking all the same.” He paused, allowing the double entendre to simmer – not that it had to. “There is much we need to discuss, not the least of which is the Hunters.”
Evie swallowed, cleared her throat, and said “It’s your house.” She nodded toward the bench opposite her own.
Roman sat down. She watched him over the rim of her mug while trying her best to hide her blush behind it. It didn’t work, of course, and the effort of trying to digest the current mind-boggling situation, not go whacko, and play it somewhat cool around the first member of the undead she’d ever met was giving Evie the beginnings of a migraine.
“Your head hurts.”
Evie blinked. “You
are
reading my mind.”
He laughed, the sound so fucking delicious, she almost put down her mug to enjoy it. But somehow she managed to remain absolutely still.
“I promise I’m not,” he insisted softly. “I told you that I couldn’t. It’s one of the reasons I know you are different, Evie.” He paused, looked down at the table, and placed his hands atop it to casually lace his fingers together. He leaned in, causing his forearms to bulge with powerful muscle, and Evie’s throat went dry. He was so much
bigger
than her.
He was still looking down when we went on. “You’re an author, so I know that you spend a lot of time noticing things.” He looked up then, pinning her with a look that speared her to the core. “And I know it must have occurred to you that you notice more now than you did when you were twenty. Or when you were ten.” He paused then and must have suddenly experienced something akin to nervousness, because he looked back down at the table top, and Evie saw his fingers flex where they held each other. “Imagine how much more you would notice after a hundred years. Or five hundred.”
He stopped again, the air grew thick with words waiting to be born, and Evie absolutely
knew
what he was going to say next.
“Or a thousand,” he said, proving her right.
Even though she’d been expecting it, the admission took the wind from her sails. She froze there on the bench, unable to speak and not knowing what she would say if she could.
“So I can tell when you have a headache, Evie,” he said, looking up at her once again. Amusement touched the corners of his eyes, causing the stars in their depths to sparkle.
God, he’s beautiful.
“And if you’d like, I can take it away from you.”
It was a while before Evie could form words. When she finally did, she had to clear her throat twice. “I’m… I'm fine. It’s not that bad, really.”
Roman watched her carefully, his eyes burning through her as if she had past lives and he wanted to read each and every one of them. Finally, he cocked his head slightly to one side and took a deep breath, smiling a little. “Then let’s talk about the Hunters.”
*****
Roman would have given just about anything in that moment to be able to read Evie’s mind again. He felt like a fish out of water, completely unable to head off her fears or concerns, unable to get a head start on their communication. It was brand new territory for him and exceedingly uncomfortable. Despite all of the restraint he’d practiced and learned over the centuries, it was making him edgy.
In filling her in on their situation, he’d started from the beginning, not only for her sake but for the relative ease that chronology afforded his explanation. It was just simpler to begin at the start. He’d told her that as far as people were concerned, the world consisted of both humans and non-humans, but as she’d plainly observed for the majority of her life, the non-humans remained hidden.
He explained why, more or less sticking to the same notion authors and screenwriters had always put forth – that humans weren’t given the truth because, quite frankly, they couldn’t handle it. The color in Evie’s cheeks had darkened as he’d admitted this, and he knew she was thinking of the way she herself had reacted when confronted with the truth. A human would feel it was natural to react this way. And that was the problem. No mortal in their right mind could really, truly fathom that there were more things in the world than what they were already aware of. It was like a fish trying to imagine a bird.
Still, he had to admit that she was handling it better than most people would. She seemed to have accepted the proof he’d presented to her so far and was now re-ordering things inside her mind. He was impressed with how she’d gradually steadied her nerves, forced herself to calm down, and was willing to hear him out. He wouldn’t deny that some humans possessed the ability to see reason this way, but he did have a feeling that in this case, it was at least in part due to the fact that she was
different
.