The Heart of Arima. Read online

  “You cannot see me, my love, because you refuse to remember me. You need only let yourself remember and things will be as they should be.”

  I felt a stab of fear at his words but swallowed it down. “Then I will never let myself remember. I don’t belong to you. I don’t want you. I want Corvus.”

  “If that is true why are you going to have another’s child?”

  Well crap, did everyone know about my love life?

  “What do you know of the child?”

  There was a pause. “I know only that you will do anything for him and that neither your beloved vampire nor the Prince of Alfheim will be able to stand in the way of your love for him. No one will.” There was a bitterness to the voice but I was feeling too bitter myself to pay it any mind.

  “Then Corin really is the father?” I felt my last ray of hope flicker and die. I had clung on to the hope that it was a mistake. It just felt so wrong but obviously fate had decided this was my path.

  “Yes, you will have a child with the Prince. Your time is running out, Jéhenne. If you want the child you must act. I will wait until he is born but then ... Then, I will wait no more. I will come for you and the child, and you will be back where you belong.”

  “And what about the key? I have to return the key to Hekatê! I can’t enter the underworld without Corvus, we’re bonded now.”

  There was a dismissive laugh as if this was a trifling matter. “You need not worry about Hekatê. You belong to me and no one is going to interfere with that fact ever again.”

  “I don’t belong to anybody!” I screamed into the darkness and simply heard his laughter in return.

  “Oh little one, you are so wrong.” The scent of wine and spices wrapped around me, trailing over my skin with his words, intoxicating my mind until I felt my body go limp and I collapsed. “I have endured your infatuation for the vampire and I will let you have your son with the prince, but after that I will claim what is mine, what has been mine since the beginning.” I was enveloped as arms went around my waist and I felt the heat of his mouth against the curve of my neck. “And I will never let you go again.”

  I screamed and awoke to find myself in my bed with Cain shaking me furiously by the shoulders.

  “Jéhenne! Wake up.”

  He continued to shake me hard. “OK, OK, I’m awake!” I yelped as my teeth began to rattle in my head.

  “You were screaming.”

  I lay back against the pillows, willing my heart to try and slow to a gallop. “Yeah I got that,” I muttered. Cain turned on the light and I blinked at him wearily. “Thanks.”

  He shrugged. “No problem, I was asleep in the chair downstairs, you were keeping me awake.”

  Oh.

  “Bad dream?” he ventured.

  “Not exactly, at least, yes it was bad but not a dream.”

  He frowned at me and so I told him everything I could remember, every detail. He was utterly still and I wondered momentarily if he’d dozed off with his eyes open. I looked at him critically. He would have been a handsome man once but he didn’t have a vampire’s healing powers and he was almost as old as Corvus. From the stories and rumours I’d heard about him it was clear he had led a violent and dangerous life and it had taken its toll. A ragged scar marred his face, drawn from his temple, across his eye and down to his cheek. It pulled the eye downwards giving him a wicked, slightly piratical, appearance.

  “This is it.” I spoke so quietly I doubted he even knew I was there, he seemed lost in his own thoughts. “This is what it’s all been for.” He looked at me then, green eyes piercing in the dim lamp light. “All these years, Jéhenne, I’ve been waiting for centuries to fulfill the Sybil’s prophecy and now it’s here.”

  I felt chilled and drew the covers tighter around me. I hated it when anyone spoke like this about me. Remé and Corin had both speculated about my destiny before and the fact that the moonstone ring had come to me instead of Inés. All of it made them think I was destined for some great purpose, that the gods had me in their sights, that they had plans for me. It scared the crap out of me. What the hell could I do that the gods would be interested in? It made no bloody sense.

  “What do you mean?”

  He sat up then and really looked at me, like he’d woken up. “I need time to think, Jéhenne. I’ll leave you now, get some sleep.”

  “Sleep! Are you out of your mind? As if I’m going to sleep now? Not to mention the fact some weirdo is stalking me in my dreams!” A look crossed his face, so fleeting I almost missed it. “You know!”

  “I can give you something to help you sleep, something that will keep him out.”

  I grabbed hold of his arm. “Stop trying to change the subject, you know who it is, don’t you!”

  “Jéhenne, I…” He sighed. “Yes I think so.”

  “Shit.”

  I stared at him in horror. I wasn’t sure if this was good news or really, really bad.

  “Tell me.”

  He shook his head. “No, Jéhenne, I will tell you everything I know as soon as I can but I need a little time to figure out exactly what is going on and what to do about it.”

  He got up off the bed and walked to the door and I scrambled to my knees on the mattress.

  “Cain don’t you dare leave without telling me who it is!”

  He shook his head, his expression implacable. “I will leave, Jéhenne, and you will have to wait.”

  “You miserable git, you just want me to suffer don’t you.”

  He turned around with a look of such fury on his face that I fought the urge to hide under the bed covers.

  “You spoilt brat! Do you have any idea of what I’ve been through, the things I have done just to be here for you? I may have inherited your power, Jéhenne, but I didn’t inherit immortality. I have stayed alive with magic and you know what kind of magic would do that, don’t you? I’ve kept myself alive for centuries, done things I can’t bear to remember and you can’t wait a few bloody hours!”

  He stormed out of the room slamming the door so hard that I was afraid it would come off its hinges. I sat shivering under the covers. He was right, I was a spoilt brat. I hadn’t stopped to consider for a moment what he had done for me. I had done nothing but moan and bitch at him. It hadn’t entered my head that the reason he was so hard and unfeeling at times was because of everything he had suffered just to be here. He was right about something else too. I did know what kind of magic would keep him alive. Dark magic. I knew as well, just how bad that was. Not because I had experience of it but because even Inés wouldn’t touch it. If she would have nothing to do with something that could give her immense power … Well, it had to be seriously bad news.

  Chapter 19

  The luminous hands on the clock beside my bed glowed in the fractured moonlight that slipped through the crack in my curtains. I groaned and gave the clock a firm shake to check it was working. It still showed ten to five so I chucked it back on the chest of drawers in disgust.

  Dammit, if I hadn’t pissed Cain off I could have been asleep and not tossing and turning, worrying about all the crap that seemed to be raining down on my head on a daily basis at the moment. I closed my eyes and tried to sense Corvus, hoping against hope that maybe he would let me in. I was so desperate to see him but there was nothing; he had done something to sever our connection. Depression settled like a heavy weight in my bones and I glanced at the clock again. Nine minutes to five.

  I flung the covers off the bed and peered through the curtains. There was an enormous full moon casting a soft white light over the landscape. A breeze rustled through the bare trees and made bizarre shadows dance in the garden. It was beautiful and peaceful and as my head ached and felt fuzzy from lack of sleep I decided it might do me good to go and have a quiet walk and get some fresh air.

  I pulled on some jeans and a jumper over my pyjamas and padded softly downstairs. The aroma of coffee filled the kitchen, overlaying the lingering smells of the meal we’d eaten earlier and I
guessed Inés was already up and about. She had always kept weird hours. I grabbed her old gardening coat on my way through, which she’d left by the front door, it wasn’t stylish but it was warm and it wasn’t as if I was expecting to see anyone.

  The door grated on the stone floor the same as always. Cain had promised to fix it but he hadn’t got round to it yet. Shutting the door behind me I took a deep breath and the icy night air filled my lungs. It almost hurt it was so cold but it felt good too, cleansing somehow.

  I wandered aimlessly around in the garden and then made my way to a bench that sat at the farthest corner from the cottage, on the edge of the woodland that bordered the property. I shoved my hands into the deep pockets of the coat to keep warm, discovering bits of string and secateurs in the process, and just enjoyed the peace. An owl on the hunt shrieked overhead, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and some night creature rustled the leaves in the woods behind me. Other than that it was silent.

  I thought about what the voice had said to me, that nothing would be more important to me than my son. He had sounded angry about that. I wished I could make sense of it. Why was it so crucial that I had this baby, and why now, why was the timing so important? The man had said I was his, that I belonged to him. If that was true why was he so keen for me to bear another man’s child? It made no sense. There had to be something I wasn’t seeing.

  A slight breeze sent leaves skittering playfully across the grass in front of me and brought with it the scent of something honey sweet. I turned in the direction of the scent and saw a pale glow just inside the border of the woodland. Curiosity got the better of me and I climbed over the fence and walked a few feet into the woods to investigate. I felt the edge of the ward we had set shiver against my skin as I crossed the boundary and looked around warily.

  Climbing up and over a fallen oak tree was a plant. It had thick, fleshy stems and large white trumpet shaped flowers that glowed brightly, their faces all turned up to the moon. The scent from here was exquisite and as I stepped closer I could see large fruits hanging from the branches. They were heavy and ripe, the shape of large aubergines but white in colour. I fished around in the coat pocket and drew out the secateurs, thinking that I’d take one back to the house to show Inés. I held one of the fruits and drew it towards me so I could cut it off. The moment the secateurs started to cut into the thick stems I was ripped from the ground and found myself hanging upside down, suspended amongst the blooms with the stems of the plant wound tightly around my ankles and waist. Crap.

  In the shock I’d dropped the secateurs and I watched them pass in and out of my line of sight as I swayed gently in the breeze. I decided some action was needed and called fire, blasting the plant in the hope it would let me go. Unfortunately it just seemed to aggravate the situation and far from letting me go the plant grabbed one of my wrists, pinning my arm to my body. Shit! I was so fed up with this supernatural crap, where the hell had the bloody thing come from anyway? If Inés had planted it and not told me, we were going to be having serious words.

  “Well, well,” said a voice in the darkness. “Poor little witch seems to have gotten herself in a bit of a bind!”

  Oh shit. Just when you think the universe has had its fill of dropping you in it, it digs a bigger hole. Lucas strode out of the darkness with a smirk on his face that didn’t bode well for my life expectancy.

  “Lucas, don’t even think about it.” I tried my hardest to sound calm, though my heart was beating like jungle drums as Lucas would have been well aware.

  I heard a wicked chuckle. “Oh I’m afraid it’s far too late, I already did.” He tilted his head to one side regarding me like hawk watching a mouse, waiting for movement.

  “Lucas, if Corvus finds out you hurt me you’ll be dead for real.”

  He walked slowly around me. “Ah that’s the thing though isn’t it, Jéhenne… If he finds out.”

  “You know as well as I do that Corvus has forbidden you to hurt me, Lucas, so either cut the crap and help, or go away!”

  Lucas smiled and the sight of it made my stomach clench with fear, he looked way too pleased with himself.

  “The thing is, Jéhenne, I’m a thousand years old and whilst I can’t directly disobey Corvus, I can find ...ways around his commands, if I try hard enough. You see he said, ‘I cannot harm you’ that’s very specific. That plant that has you so tightly bound is elvish. It was protecting itself when you tried to cut it by the way, a silly thing to do, you know. You really should educate yourself better on magical plant life, a bit late now though.” He chuckled and tipped his head to look at me upside down and I wracked my brain for some way out of the mess I was in. “The plant reacts to emotions you see and my emotions towards you, dear little witch, are very clear.” The closer he got, the tighter the plant wound itself around me. I was beginning to choke and struggled frantically to get free. “It saw you as the danger and now it feels my hatred. It is clever, as plants go, but not quite clever enough to figure out that the hatred is coming from another source, such a pity- for you. So you see I won’t actually be harming you at all, now will I?”

  I couldn’t breathe! The plant had bound me too tight to struggle, my throat was closing up and the binding around my chest and waist was crushing me. I had neither the power nor the concentration to take Lucas out or stop him getting closer, so I did the only thing I could think of. There was the sweet scent of magic as the power left my fingertips and a brief flash of white light. I saw the spell hit him but before I could see if it had taken, the world blurred and I lost my hold on consciousness.

  I woke gasping and coughing as my lungs grabbed for as much oxygen as they could fill themselves with. When I finally focused, I froze in horror as I realised where I was.

  Big brown eyes looked down at me anxiously and I was amazed to see tears overflow and stream down the face that was just inches from mine.

  “I’m so sorry, Jéhenne, please forgive me.” Lucas held me against him and rocked me back and forth, stroking my hair tenderly. “I’m so sorry, so sorry,” he repeated over and over whilst hugging me ever tighter.

  Umm, well I guess the spell worked then. “Lucas… Can’t breathe!” I mumbled into his chest. He let me go and set me down carefully, looking utterly miserable. I didn’t really have a lot of choice in the matter and I couldn’t have done anything more effective but it didn’t really help me with the present situation, the present situation being a love sick vampire. Actually I was quite impressed with myself, I’d only read the love spell in one of Inés’ books a few weeks ago and never expected to have a use for it. You never can tell.

  Lucas was watching me carefully, a mixture of fear and adoration on his face. To be honest, I was OK with the fear. Lucas had scared the crap out of me regularly ever since I’d met him, so fair’s fair. The adoration was a different matter. It was downright disturbing to have him look at me like I was his reason for living when I knew in reality he hated me.

  I stumbled to my feet and away from Lucas, rubbing my sore throat. My ribs ached and I felt bruised all over but thankfully that seemed to be the worst of it.

  “Now what?” I wondered out loud. Lucas got to his feet carefully, watching me like I was some kind of wild animal that would bolt if he made any sudden moves. I turned and began walking back towards the cottage in the hope the problem would disappear and take care of itself. Yeah right.

  “Jéhenne, please don’t leave me here.”

  I turned impatiently. “I’m not leaving you anywhere. You can go where you want.”

  “I want to go with you …please.”

  Oh nuts.

  I turned and the usually proud and terrifying figure of Lucas was currently looking more like a lamb that had been left out for the wolves. Ugh.

  “Oh, well I suppose I can’t leave you like this, Corvus will eat you for breakfast.” A look of terror crossed his face and I quickly wished I’d kept my mouth shut. “Come on then, I need to figure out how to reverse the
spell before we both get into trouble.”

  Lucas walked obediently beside me and, apart from trying to hold my hand, we arrived back at the cottage without incident. I invited him in as the sun would be coming up shortly. I wondered what the hell I was going to do with a bespelled vampire for the day while I tried to find a way to reverse it. The thought of sending him out in the sun had a certain appeal but in his current state it would be like drowning a kitten. I didn’t have it in me.

  He looked around the cottage with interest and was about to take a tour of Gran’s herb room. I shook my head and pointed at the kitchen table. “Sit.” He did as he was told and I ran up to my room to grab my mobile phone.

  Sitting on the bed, I drummed my fingers on the bedside table while the phone rang. Eventually a very grumpy voice answered.

  “Hi, Rodney.”

  “Bleedin hell, Jéhenne, I’ve been in bed precisely five minutes!”

  “I’m sorry, Rodney, really. I wouldn’t have phoned but …”

  “But you’re in trouble,” he finished for me and I felt my heart sink. He was angry with me.

  “How did you know?”

  “You’re awake aren’t you?”

  I felt a lump in my throat.Was I going to lose my friend as well as Corvus? “This isn’t funny, Rodney,” I said quietly.

  “Believe me, luv, if there’s anyone who knows you bein’ in trouble isn’t funny, it’s me!”

  “Oh, Rodney, there’s no need to rub it in.”

  There was a pause and I heard a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, lovely, pay me no mind. I’m just cranky that’s all. Himself isn’t in the finest of moods right now.”

  “I’m sorry; I know it’s all my fault.”

  “Yeah, well, least said soonest mended, I guess.” He sighed again. “Right, out with it then, what you done now?”

  I filled him in on my bespelled vamp problem and heard nothing on the end of the line except a low moaning sound.

  “Rodney, are you OK?”

  “Not really, no. You’re really going out all guns blazin’ aint you, luv?”