Arianna Rose: The Arrival (Part 4) (17 page)

“Oh you beg me, do you?” He frowned exaggeratedly and mocked her with his tone of voice.  “I am going to enjoy ending your miserable little bleeding-heart existence.  You disgust me!” His final words were punctuated by his fingers sparking to life in lurid ribbons of silver and pale blue, swaying and intertwining in a dance of death. 

Arianna was rapt, transfixed by the flames that would be her demise
, when a large section of air next to her shivered iridescently before exploding in shafts of opalescent light.  The bartender and his minions shielded their eyes against the light but spun to face it just in time to see a figure step through the shimmering glow.  Tall and fit with broad shoulders and a tapered waist, the form was male and powerful looking.  His skin was a warm shade of bronze that offset luminous sea-green eyes, eyes that immediately zeroed in on the men in front of him.  He launched both hands forward and Arianna watched in awe as all except the bartender were blasted backward and crashed into far wall.  A thunderous thud shook the very foundation of the building.  The men met with the wall with such force, she could hear the snap and crunch of bones, of skulls shattering.  The bartender offered a fleeting look of surprise before he leaped toward her.  Each cell in Arianna’s body demanded that she move, but her muscles remained paralyzed.  He closed the small distance between them effortlessly.  He clutched her chin, tipping it upward.  She felt the cold steel tip of a blade puncture the soft skin of her throat.  A warm trickle began trailing down her neck.

“Make one more move, and I kill the Sola,” the bartender threatened. 

Jade eyes locked on her before disappearing entirely.  Within seconds, the point of the blade no longer pierced her flesh and a hand no longer gripped her face.  She turned her head and saw in her periphery that the bartender did not hold his weapon.  The man who’d materialized from the glittering light did.  Then with impossible speed, he slashed at the air.  Arianna gasped when she saw the bartender’s head tumble from his shoulders and land against the floor with a sickening
clunk
.  But just as blood and gore started to squirt from the ragged stump, the lithe form sent forth an inferno from his fingers so intense the bartender’s remains were reduced to a puff of smoke that disintegrated to ashes. 

“I have to get you out of here,”
he turned his chiseled jaw and seized her with his gaze.  “There could be more from the Dark Order coming.”  A rattle in the kitchen made her insides jump. 

“I am not leaving without my friends,” she said evenly.

His emerald eyes flickered with a glint of something she could not name before he replied, “Of course,” with a confident nod.  He then extended his hands to his sides, elbows tight to his waist and she watched as her friends drifted up and floated on invisible beds.  He drew them closer so that Dane, Jason and Beth were nearby.

“Arianna!” Dane spoke first, concern knitting his brows.  “You’re bleeding.  I couldn’t help you.  I couldn’t help you.”  The pain in his eyes was palpable.  She would have reach
ed out a hand and soothed him were it not for the paralysis caused by the belladonna essence, a drug made from a rare and poisonous plant, mixed with an ancient supernatural potion.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said gently. 

The mysterious man suspending her friends in midair spoke.  “We need to leave.  They are here.” He looked in the direction of the entrance of the bar.  Voices sounded from the other side.  He wrapped an arm around her waist and scooped her from the booth she sat at.  Her friends remained as they were and watched wordlessly as he held her against his steely chest.

“Who are you?” she asked him as her brain resisted an unspecified familiarity her energy sensed.

His gaze settled on her, drilling against her mind’s defenses.  “I am your destiny,” he answered as she felt her body vaporize and become one with the atmosphere. 

Chapter 12

Arianna opened her eyes and the slow, steady rhythm of her heart sprinted out of control.  She was in her cabin, in her bed, and could not recall how she’d gotten there.  She blinked several times, clearing her vision in the process, and then allowed her eyes to roam the room.  Her scurrying heart screeched to a near-halt when her gaze landed on a tall, tan figure sitting with impeccable posture in a wicker chair at her bedside.  She stifled the scream that surged and pressed against the lump of dread stuck in her throat.

“Arianna, you’re awake,” the figure said in a gravelly voice.  He leaned forward, his face closer to hers.  Shimmering eyes in an ethereal hue of green she’d never seen before were dressed in a fringe of black and seemed to glow against the backdrop of toasted almond colored skin.  A stranger was with her.  And he was watching her intently. 

She stared at his features for a moment.  Recognition sputtered in her mind’s eye.  Pieces of a nebulous puzzle began drifting into place but had yet to form a complete picture. 

“Who are you and where are my friends?” she asked as a stream of memories eddied around her brain, carrying images of Beth, Dane and Jason, and violence.  She sat up, too soon apparently, as a stab of pain shot through her skull.  Her hands went to her temples, her fingertips rubbing in small circles.  But she did not let the stranger out of her sight.

“You friends are fine,” he assured her in a voice as warm and rich as his skin tone.  “I put each of them in their bed.”

She turned her head to face him.  Her brain felt as if it wobbled and rattled inside her skull like a bowl of gelatin cubes.  “You still did not answer my question.”  She pronounced each word clearly and slowly.  “Who are you?”

He leaned back in his seat and Arianna noticed how small the wicker chair looked with him in it.  He bowed his head as if embarrassed.  “I am Darius of Gehenna.  I have been waiting to meet you for five centuries.  I cannot believe the time is at last upon me, that I finally have you.” He looked up at her, his eyes almost pleading, but for what she hadn’t the slightest clue.  Still, a quality he possessed, something inherent in this Darius person, sang inside her. 

Arianna looked away, the movement painful, but less so than before.  Her eyes darted around the small space, searching in time with her brain.  Darius had waited for her for five centuries.  His claim seemed as absurd as so many other aspects of her life did, yet all were real.  All were true. 

The room seemed to transform suddenly into a vacuum, devoid of all light and sound.  Air exited her lungs and a violent shudder racked her body.  Everything she’d been told gelled at once.

She whipped her head to look at him, understanding hitting her with the force of a sledgehammer.  “You’re the one,” she said in a hoarse whisper.  “You are the man Agnon spoke of, the one who was coming for me.”

Darius scrubbed the short black hairs on his scalp.  His lips hooked upward into a small, tight smile.  He nodded almost imperceptibly.  “What else did Agnon say?” he asked and she could hear the tremendous restraint he exercised to keep the irritation from his voice.

Arianna squirmed a bit beneath the comforter on her lap before answering.  She felt her cheeks heat but tipped her chin in defiance of it and spoke with clarity and confidence she did not quite feel.  “He told Desmond you are supposed to be my husband.  He said we were destined to marry.”  She trained her sharpest gaze on him.  “I am not destined to marry anyone.  I choose my own path.”

Darius held his hands at chest-height, his palms facing her in surrender.  “As you should, no one determines another’s path for her.  What you’ve heard is a distortion of the truth.”  His irises undulated like tall grass swaying in a breeze, reflecting lush, varying shades of green.  “I have not waited centuries to marry you against your will.  The privilege of serving you will suffice.”

“Serving me?” she asked and did not mask her incredulity. 

“I am your loyal servant.” He dipped his head reverently.  I am here to protect you.” 

“O
kay
, you and everyone else,” she said cynically.  “The truth would be nice for once.  Please, enough with the declarations of loyalty and all the rigmarole.  Everyone tells me the same thing.”

“I am not like anyone else,” he said firmly.  “I have traveled through time and space from
Gehenna, a vile realm of fire and destruction, of complete chaos and waste, where I was sentenced to stay for much of my existence.  Asus and Agnon cast me there because I did not share their view of the future, of what would become of humanity.”

At mention of Agnon, Arianna’s ears pricked at attention.  She found herself awaiting his next words with bated breath.  He paused for several tortured beats of her splintered heart.  His slid his tongue over his plump lips with deliberateness that bordered on attempted seduction.  She did not know why, but the small act irked her.  “That’s the truth? What does that have to do with me?” she asked and hoped it would prompt him to elaborate. 

“Yes, that is the truth,” he stared into an unseen oblivion pensively.  “I needed to find you.  You are my destiny.  I had been searching for you since escaping from Gehenna without luck, until tonight.”

His words rang with sincerity.  Arianna’s bones vibrated with their echo.  She did not doubt he had searched for her, but why?  The question at the forefront of her thoughts remained.  And if she asked him, would he answer truthfully?  Would she believe him regardless?  The days of trusting mysterious men who emerged from the shadows and posed as her savior had effectively ended.  No one was her guardian.  Only she held that charge.  Alone always, and loathing what that ultimately boiled down to, Arianna realized that her place in the world, her role as Sola, had been forced upon her against her will, a birthright wov
en into the fabric of her DNA from which there was neither an escape nor an end in sight.  She needed to steel herself, harden her heart to stone.  She needed to safeguard herself against everyone, for everyone was a potential threat.  Desmond was living proof of that. 

Before becoming aware of her powers, before her function had manifested itself, she thought she’d known what true challenges were, what terror was.  She’d thought staring in
to the many eyes of a fuzzy spider in whatever godforsaken trailer she lived in with her mother was frightening.  Now she knew otherwise.  She knew her life teetered on the fine tip of an enormous barb, where standing still was every bit as painful as falling off.  She refused to do either.  She would not accept remaining stationary and she would not allow herself to fall. 

“Arianna, are you okay?” he asked, his voice silken but concerned. 

“How did you find me?” she asked and did not surrender to his lilt. 

“Earlier tonight, I was struck by a feeling of impending doom so powerful, it staggered me.”  His hand pressed the center of his muscular chest.  Whether he’d done it for dramatic effect or genuinely, she did not know and would not know.  She did not intend to allow him close enough to her to find out. 

“Oh yeah?” she commented with disinterest. 

“I knew that if I didn’t find you, you would perish.  Thankfully, I was drawn to you just in time to save you and your friends.”

“Not all of my friends were saved,” she snapped and reminded him of Lance, Ewan and Clint.  “Three were killed.”

Darius lowered his eyes to his feet.  “I am sorry I was too late to save them all.  It was your brush with death that led me to you.”

“So, what, to hell with the others, they were collateral damage?” she asked bitterly. 

“No! Not at all,” he replied quickly and reached out a hand.  He placed it lightly on her forearm.  His touch was as heated as a ray of direct sunlight in summer.  She looked to where their skin contacted then to his face.  He withdrew hi
s hand and shifted uncomfortably.  “But my primary concern was and is you.”

His words quivered in the air, pulling her with unseen magnetic force.  She opposed the pull and said, “That’s all well and good as long as you’re not here to marry me in some ancient warlock version of an arranged marriage.”

“No,” he chuckled softly.  “No ancient arranged marriages, I promise.”  He stood and stretched, towering over her.  Cords of sinewy muscles entwined and rippled down the length of his arms.  He hadn’t looked dangerous before, but he did now.

Arianna scuttled to the foot of the bed then sprang from it and tried to gather her wits.  She was alone with a powerful being.  She did not know who this Darius was, did not know if he was who he claimed to be.  Friend or foe, she was not about to find out too late.  Her fingertips tingled with power, coiled and ready to strike. 

“What’s wrong?” Darius asked and his sun-kissed forehead wrinkled. 

“You stood so I stood,” she said warily.

“Arianna, you don’t need to be afraid of me.  I’m not going to hurt you,” he promised and splayed his hands in front of him, each word was a velvet caress.  He seated himself in the wicker chair once again.  “I know you’ve been hurt.  I know of your heartache,” he stunned her by saying.

“What?” she asked in a strangled whisper.

Seething anger cropped up unexpectedly.  Arianna felt her insides heat.  Tiny beads of sweat broke out all over her body and scorching flames licked beneath the surface of her skin.  As if the supernatural reactions storming inside her were not enough, a very human one had decided to tag along.  Hot tears burned behind her eyelids.  She was actually going to cry for the first time since the she’d caught Desmond bedding Amitt, and in front of a complete stranger whose intentions were as yet unknown, no less.