Mack (King #4) (16 page)

I am too stunned to move. I have never been with anyone.

“Why do I have memories of you?” I finally ask.

He steps towards me and places his hands on my shoulders. “Because you and I are connected. Until our last breaths, in this life and the next.” He bends slowly and presses his lips to mine. More memories flood in. I see faces of people with dark skin and black hair gathered around a fire. I think I loved them once, but they made me very unhappy. They wouldn’t let me love someone.

“I do not understand,” I say, pulling away.

“You don’t have to. Simply listen to your heart.”

Once again he takes my hand and leads me up a long marble staircase into his bedchamber where another warm fire fights the chill of the winter night outside. If there are servants in this home, I haven’t seen one yet, and for this I feel relieved.

He closes the door and locks it behind us. And somewhere, a part of my brain is telling me this is madness to walk out of a ball with a man I have never met, to go to his home unaccompanied, to give myself to him. Yet the other part of my mind tells me that I have been waiting for this my entire life.

He rushes to me and kisses me hard, his strong hands cupping the back of my head to bring me closer. His lips are soft, and he tastes like liquor. His wickedly skilled tongue slides against mine, and he enters my mouth, exploring and tasting me, breathing into me.

Before I know what’s happening, he pushes me back onto his large four-post bed, lifting up my skirts.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot wait.” He lies over me, and I see his hand moving to unbutton the front of his black breeches.

I can barely stand the anticipation, and when his warm strong hands find my wet and ready entrance, he wastes little time to position his cock.

I hold my breath and wait for him to enter. I’ve heard so many unpleasant things about what it feels like to lie with a man, but now my memories are urging me to do this. I know how good he will make me feel.

“I love you. You know that, don’t you?” he says as he stares into my eyes. I suddenly see colors bursting all around him. Yellows and whites veined with black and red.

I can’t speak as he drives into me, pushing through the barrier with his large cock. It feels like I might break, but as he slides in deeper and stops, the sting begins to subside.

I release my breath, knowing the worst is over.

“Ready for more?” he says in that deep hypnotic voice.

“Yes. More.”

He pulls out and drives in again. This time it feels good. So, so good. I raise my hips to get more of him.

As he begins pumping into me, he works my breasts free from the top of my dress and bends his body to take my nipple in his mouth. The sensation sparks a delicious contraction deep in my belly.

Oh, God. Where has this man been all my life?
I throw my head back, moaning in ecstasy. I know that from this moment on, there will never be another.

Macarius’s pace begins to quicken, and he returns to my lips, kissing me deeply, panting in time to my own quick breaths. We touch, we pant, we move like hungry animals, and all the while I see more images of him and me. We are in different places and times, yet he always looks at me the same way. So much love and sorrow in those eyes.

Before I realize it, the sweet, sweet pressure builds and then…I explode. My body lights up with sinful contractions as he presses the weight of his long frame into my juncture, spilling his warm seed inside me. I grab fistfuls of soft sheets as the wave of pleasure racks my body until I’m left a quivering heap.

He collapses on top of me, and I can hardly breathe, but I don’t care. Feeling him inside me, our bodies together, is like no other sensation I’ve ever experienced.

“God, I missed you,” he whispers into my hair. “I can’t believe I found you.”

“You came to the ball looking for me?” I murmur.

“No. I was there to kill a woman. A very bad woman who murdered her husband for his fortune. I was taking my leave when I spotted you across the room.”

I freeze in shock.

“What? Have you forgotten that part, too?” he asks.

I blink up at the white ceiling dancing with licks of orange from the fireplace. “Yes.”

He sighs and withdraws, rolling over onto his back beside me. “Well, let me remind you, then. I was cursed by your father, who killed you because we made love and he believed it would displease the gods. He sentenced me to an eternity of reliving his torment. Giving in to the curse—killing—is the only thing that provides me a moment of peace from the darkness gnawing at my soul.”

As Macarius speaks, my own mind shows me the horrific memories. It is frightening and amazing all at once.

He continues, “But we were in love, so before you died, you used your gifts to bind your soul to mine. You said that you would find me and free me.”

Gifts. Yes, I have gifts.
I can heal broken bones and take away sickness. My people thought I was some manner of demigod.

I sit up and gasp. “I remember now. I remember everything.”

“Good. Because I need you to free me from this curse, Evelyn. I cannot stand it any longer.”

Oh Lord
. It all hits me in one fell swoop. The suffering he has endured over thousands of years, my search for him over many lifetimes.

“I am not sure I know how.” I only recall that moment of my death and wanting to save him with all my soul.

He grabs me and pulls me down to his lips. “You simply need a little more reminding.” He kisses me again, and I feel my body giving in to my need for him. We spend the night making up for lost time, and I can only think of how happy I am. I must find a way to save this beautiful man.

At first light, I dress and slip out of his home while he remains asleep, a vision of male perfection. It is a long walk back to my house on the other side of town, but I am fortunate enough to see a cab passing. The driver takes one look at me and shakes his head. He thinks I’m a whore of some sort, but money is money, so he brings me home.

I slip in through the servants’ entrance in the back of our respectable Victorian-style house, ignoring the whispers and giggles of the staff. I couldn’t care less.

“Tell the footman to ready the carriage,” I bark out in a hurry.

Our maid, Bessy, gives me a look, and I know what she is thinking. It’s early in the morning, and I have no chaperone. I am up to no good.

She’s right.

I go up to my room, throw on my daily outing dress—blue with white trim—my heavy black wool coat, and a black hat. I don’t want to be noticed on the street.

I grab the bit of gold coins I have hidden underneath my chest of drawers, knowing that what I am about to do is insane. I am about to make a deal with the devil, but there is nothing I won’t do to save Macarius.

I rush out of the house and into the awaiting carriage. I slide open the little window to speak to my driver. “Take me to the dark house.”

Everyone who lives in San Francisco knows this home that sits high on a hill overlooking the mouth of the bay, constantly covered in a sheet of fog no matter the time of year. The servants believe it is haunted by a ghost. The local merchants say that the man who lives there is mad, but pays a fair price for anything they procure for him. The gentlemen of society say that this man is dangerous, but that he can find anything or anyone. For a price.

The carriage stops in front of the three-story house with dark blue paint and large white shutters. The unkempt front yard, full of leaves and overgrown vegetation poking through the wrought-iron gate, gives the place a foreboding look. But now I know who and what I am. I remember everything. This place is full of power. And if anyone can help me find what I am searching for, it is him.

I tell the driver to wait and let myself inside the gate. As I get closer to the multicolored stained-glass door, goose bumps explode all over my body. The air is filled with energy. Bad energy. I can actually see it seeping from the ground and the woodwork.

I knock, but no one answers.
Lord. He has to be in there
. I can feel him watching me, reading me. Finally, the door pops and swings open with a loud creak.

“Hello?” It’s dark inside, and I can see colors—imprints, if you will—of those who’ve entered before me. Some have met their fates in this house. I might meet mine, too. But helping Macarius is all that matters.

I enter the dark foyer, sensing that something is near.

“Come into the sitting room,” says an ominous voice that suddenly makes me wish I hadn’t come.

I cautiously enter and see the dark form of a man sitting in the corner. He’s barely visible to me.

“What do you want, woman?”

I clear my throat. “Sir, I am told that you locate objects for people.”

“And what is it you wish to locate? A husband? A lost slipper?” There’s amusement in his tone, but I ignore it.

“I wish to break a curse. I have gold if you wish to see it.”

“What kind of curse?” he says, his interest sounding piqued.

“The kind that was made by an angry father.”

The man chuckles under his breath, and it sends sharp painful tingles down my spine. “Let me guess. This father is displeased by your romantic choices.”

I nod. “More or less.”

“Well, you best be on your way, little girl. I do not find that which has been lost up one’s asshole such as your father’s patience. But I assure you, his disapproval is not a curse; it is merely an inconvenience. Please show yourself out.”

How dare he
. “I am not some naïve little girl seeking a charm to gain my father’s approval. And if you are as powerful as everyone says, you would know that.”

I’m wasting my time here, and I turn to leave, wondering how I’ll ever fix the man I care for more than life itself.

“Wait,” the man says as I step toward the front door. “Come back here.”

I return to the room, where he’s no longer sitting in the shadows but is standing in the soft light filtering through a gap in the drawn curtains.

Good Lord
. I know him. He looks like Macarius once did. More memories pop into my head—of this man hunting me down with his sword, of me begging for my life. I realize this man is his twin brother. He is vicious and cruel. He has no light inside him despite his utter masculine beauty and fine clothes.

This is some sick turn of fate.

And he is a ghost,
I realize. A soul who out of sheer spite for this world has refused to go. He clings to this world so fiercely, he appears real to the naked eye. To my eyes, however, I see right through him. Literally and figuratively.

I instinctively shut it all out. I’ve made a grave mistake coming here.
Oh God, this man will kill me if he realizes who I am.

“I, uhhh…I have changed my mind.” I turn to leave.

“How unfortunate,” he says, “because I have the answer to your question.”

I stop just short of the front door, feeling torn between saving myself and saving Macarius. Logic would tell me that his own brother would have helped him by now if he’d had the means.
Unless…I am the key as Macarius says.

I turn and face the towering figure who is a mere five feet away. I know it’s only a question of moments before he recognizes me.

“What’s the price?” I ask, trying not to sound nervous.

“This one is on the house, because you will find the answer very disagreeable.”

I am not encouraged by this, as to be expected.

He continues, “Death is the only way to truly end a curse such as that.”

“And if the soul has been cursed?”

“Then the soul must die, too—it must move on from this world, detach from anything that doesn’t truly belong to it. But you know that already, don’t you, Óolal?”

Balls. He knows
.

Before another word leaves my mouth, the man evaporates right before my eyes and reappears behind me, snapping my neck. And all I can think of in that split second is that I didn’t kiss Macarius goodbye.

Will I see him again in my next life?

~~~

“Fuck!” I sat up, clawing at my neck, realizing that I was back in that strange cabin in the desert.

It’s just a dream. Just a dream
. But goddammit, it wasn’t. I was there, in the moment, living every breath and emotion. Each second had felt just as real as the throbbing in my skull.

I grabbed the sides of my head, grasping how the rest of my body felt. Perfect. I ran my hands over my torso.
Whatthehell?

While I’d been away, I had healed.

I can heal!
That was what I had said during my “dream.”

Slowly, I got to my feet, noticing the pools of sticky-looking blood on the floor where Mack’s and that woman’s body had been. King and Mia had taken them. To where? Who knew? All that mattered was Mack was dead and I killed him. Killed him. Yes, it was an accident, but that didn’t make it any less painful or horrific. To add frosting on my shitty cake, I then killed a second person. I’d had cause, but once again, what did it matter? Two deaths by my hand. Me. Theodora Valentine.

But you’re going to fix this
. At least, I’d fix one of the deaths. I wasn’t ready to let Mack go three thousand years ago, and I wasn’t ready to let him go now.

So how would I get him back? That chalice seemed like my only hope. Of course, King was already looking for it, and I had no doubt he would find it. But here was the thing: Mack was dead, and if his soul had crossed over to this other side King mentioned, Mack was now free from my father’s poison. However, if King brought him back, Mack would still be tormented. That had been Mack’s point all along. He didn’t want to live with the pain and guilt of his memories.

But I can heal him
. It was my gift. It always had been. Now I just needed to convince that dark, evil sonofabitch King that just bringing Mack back wasn’t enough. He needed
me.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

San Francisco. 8:45 p.m.

With very little effort, I found that foggy hill overlooking the Golden Gate from my dreams. And though the old dark house had been leveled long ago—a crisp-white, modern-day palace with floor-to-ceiling windows sitting in its place—it was that same dreary old home with that ominous vibe.