Reawakening (5 page)

When Romaric made no movement, Makare said, “Kill her and you shall see your mother.” The female lay whimpering on the cold floor, clearly trying to muffle her cries.

Aaaaand
there it was. This was the other reason that he’d left and not returned. His own father regularly broke the no-kill law. He wasn’t on Xavier’s level of depravity, but he was pretty fucking close. If he thought he could kill Makare without killing himself in the process, he would. But that would also kill his mother, which was why he’d never attempted it. Maybe she’d be better off dead rather than with him as a mate. He’d never understood how the bond between a vampire and mate could be as fucked up as it was with his parents.

But now he had Sarah, his Moira, to think about. He’d been foolish to come here, for he knew in his heart that she was his. The how and the why were irrelevant. He’d wasted too much time already. This venture had taken an entire extra day away from her and now possibly a very dangerous turn. His father didn’t like to be told no.

Makare stood to his full imposing six foot seven inch frame, a spiteful smile spreading across his handsome face. A face much like his own. It was a dynamic Romaric could never work out.

“Kill her or die. A simple choice, really,” Makare demanded.

To many vampires, it would have been. Their lives or a human female, who could easily be replaced by millions of other human females, but to Romaric, human life was sacred. As sacred as a vampire’s life and he would not take hers. Makare knew this. Besides, how could he ever look upon Sarah’s exquisite face again if he did? He’d be no better than the monster he stood before. But if he didn’t, he may never be
able
to look upon her face again.

Whether it was luck or the Fates intervening, he wouldn’t have to make that choice tonight. At the risk of their own life, one of Makare’s servants interrupted them.

The young vampire prostrated himself in front of Makare before speaking in Romanian, “Forgive me Oh Great One, Master Taiven has been gravely injured.”

Taiven. His younger,
favored
brother to whom he also hadn’t spoken to since he left. And that was by design, because in Taiven’s case, the apple doth not fall far from the tree.

They exchanged glances and Makare smirked, knowing he would always choose Taiven over Romaric.

“Until we meet again, Romaric.” Then Makare was gone.

He should have left, but instead he tended to the injured female and, as if in answer to his prayers, she told him where in the castle he could find his mother.

The fact that Raina, his mother, lived in the oubliette now made his gut churn with unbridled anger. In the medieval days, this is where they left prisoners to die. But that’s what his mother was, was she not? A prisoner locked into a loveless bond with a ruthless Vampire Czar for all of eternity.

“Mother,” he breathed after finally reaching her small cage through the maze of underground tunnels. He flashed into her cell and pulled her slight, filthy frame into his larger one and she clung to him like a child.

“Romaric. Romaric, is it really you, my son?” Tears drenched his lightweight shirt in a matter of seconds as she openly wept at their reunion. As much as he ached to catch up, time was not his friend. Once Taiven stabilized, his father would be down, checking on his prize mare to be sure she hadn’t been spirited away. Romaric wouldn’t, but only because his mother forbade it.

“Mother, I’m so sorry, but we don’t have much time.”

She nodded, knowing all too well the wrath they each faced should Makare catch him here. He quickly spent the next several minutes telling her about Seraphina and Sarah.

“So you never bonded with her? Seraphina?”

“No.”

She smiled and that one simple gesture lifted the heaviest of weights from his heart. He felt like he could take a full breath for the first time in centuries.

“I have heard of this. One other time before.”

His mother didn’t have the specifics, but it mattered not. What mattered was that Sarah was his and he intended to claim her as soon as he could. He would accept no excuses this time around.

It was a bittersweet goodbye and he vowed to continue trying to find a way to break the mating bond so he could free her. He kissed her and flashed back to his home in Washington to shower and change before his meeting this evening with the other lords. And unbeknownst to Sarah, with her.

At over eight hundred years old, his mother was the oldest living vampire mate he knew of that still lived. And regardless of the fact that she now lived in a cage in the dungeon of a two thousand year old castle, she knew amazing things. Things no one else would know. If anyone had heard of such a thing before, it would be her.

The only thing that mattered now was that he’d been given another chance at true happiness. At love. There was no way he would let his Moira slip through his fingers again and, like it or not, Sarah would be in his home, by his side this evening. He would not make that same mistake twice.

He only hoped that his heart hadn’t fossilized so hard that it would now be impenetrable.

Chapter 5

Sarah

She was back in the main house library again tonight perusing books and it definitely had
nothing
to do with the fact that Romaric Dietrich was going to be here for a meeting.

Nope.

Nothing. At. All.

Sarah had arranged a meeting with her parents for the day after tomorrow and Thane graciously agreed to accompany her. Of course, they were completely oblivious to the danger they were in, but she was all too aware. Once again she had to put her acting skills to the test, convincing them to meet anywhere but her childhood home in Merrill, Wisconsin, so they agreed to Slade’s Lake Mohawksin Bar and Grill, right outside of Tomahawk. It was a favorite place of Sarah’s as a child. Many people in Wisconsin had cabins and boats and spent their weekends on the lake. Her family was no exception and she had great memories from those days. Until Jack had gotten sick and they couldn’t go anymore.

It was near eleven p.m. and she didn’t know what time the meeting between the lords was to take place, and wasn’t about to ask Kate or Analise, because then it would appear she was interested. And she most certainly was not.

She could picture Analise’s raised eyebrows, silently challenging her—
liar, liar, pants on fire.

Well … maybe she was a teeny tiny bit interested.

Tsk, tsk, Sarah. You’re about as subtle as a bull in a china shop.

Fiiiiine … she was a
LOT
interested.

Who wouldn’t be? He was the finest specimen of manliness she’d ever seen. Dev and Damian were undeniably gorgeous but, to her, neither held a candle to Romaric. Just thinking of the all-consuming way he’d focused on her was intoxicating. His obvious palpable need had stripped her sexually raw. She was now a tightly wound bundle of want and need and only he could assuage the fevered desire that burned hot and fierce between her thighs. She’d tried to take the edge off herself.

Epic fail.

All she managed to accomplish was to intensify the aching emptiness in her core.

Pandora’s Box had been opened and Rom was the Greek God who’d lifted the lid. He was Eros—Greek God of attraction, love and sexuality. He’d brought out a passionate longing in her that she didn’t know existed, but couldn’t be shoved back in that dark, isolated hole.

Maybe she should switch from romance to history. Clearly the salacious novels had rubbed off on her and only served to fan the flames of her out of control libido. A mind numbing read about the civil war would squash her uncontrollable fantasies for sure.

She
obsessively
thought about him and wasn’t that just the shits, because it couldn’t be clearer he wasn’t interested. If he was, he would have been in contact or back to see her before now. Didn’t it figure she’d have to majorly crush on someone who didn’t reciprocate?

Her mind played a never-ending game of sabotage between what she’d come to refer to as her Rosie and Nancy alter egos.

Rosie, ever the optimistic rainbow and baby kitty lover, was positive, naïve and idealistic.

Nancy, the sky is falling ho from the wrong side of the tracks, was cynical, distrusting and surly. For the past several days, the conversation between the two had gone something like this:

Rosie: He’s a lord. He’s probably very busy.

Nancy: Not too ‘busy’ to satisfy his carnal needs with another bitch’s body.

Rosie: But didn’t you see the way he stared at me?

Nancy: Duh. You have a beating heart and a pussy. His only two requirements.

Rosie: He looked at me like I was
his
.

Nancy: Yes, you stupid girl. His next meal.

Rosie: It’s
only
been a week.

Nancy: It’s
been
a week. Time to put on your ‘big girl’ pants, Sarah. You’re just another nameless, faceless piece of ass with all the right proportions, but he’s simply not interested.

She wanted to stab Nancy repeatedly with a dull butter knife, but at the same time put a cattle prod to Rosie. Both were extremists and the truth probably fell somewhere in the middle. At the end of the day, she was making excuses for him and like her dad always said,
“Excuses are like assholes. Everyone’s got one.”

Ugh
. She was acting like a rookie stalker and just needed to go to bed.

Settling on a Harlan Coben novel about a man’s missing wife who is really alive, she turned back around to exit the library, but was startled to see Giselle standing in the doorway, watching her. She jumped slightly and didn’t miss the slight smirk that had turned up one side of her mouth.
Sour
was the first word that came to mind. Maybe Kate wasn’t too off the mark after all.

“Shit, Giselle,” she gasped, grabbing her chest. “Announce yourself next time for Christ’s sake.” And did Giselle’s presence mean the meeting was over or hadn’t begun yet?

Giselle sauntered into the library, glancing at the book Sarah now held in her hand. “Like a good mystery, do you?”

What. The. Hell?

Giselle had never initiated conversation with Sarah before, choosing to pretend she didn’t exist instead. And tonight she was in no mood to play cat and mouse with the ice queen, as Kate so ‘lovingly’ referred to her. Sarah knew which character she played and wasn’t about to be lured into Giselle’s trap with sweet smelling, innocuous peanut butter. Which was where this discussion was headed.

“What do you want, Giselle?”

“It’s not what
I
want, but
you
want, Sarah.”

When she was growing up, her family loved games. Cards, chess, board games. You name it, they played it, and so the one thing she’d mastered was the poker face. One summer she’d won fifteen dollars and eighty-three cents from her friends playing poker.

Hey, she was eleven … that was a lot of money to an eleven year old.

Giselle was dangling something in front of her, but she couldn’t figure out what that ‘something’ was. One thing she did know was that she needed to maintain the upper hand and was suddenly thankful for having such great parents that’d taught her valuable life lessons, whether they’d intended to or not.

“And what do I want?” she asked with contrived interest.

“Information.”

“About?”

“Short term memory problems, Sarah?”

Sarah stood silently. Talking in circles was something Giselle was exceptionally talented at. Guess she’d had a lot of years to polish that skill to shiny perfection.

Sarah moved to make her way around Giselle. She wasn’t playing her fucking head games tonight. She was halfway to the door when Giselle spoke behind her.

“Have you forgotten our conversation from yesterday already?”

Her heritage. Nope, she hadn’t forgotten.

“Why?” she asked as she turned back around.

“Why, what?” Giselle quipped.

Jesus, she was a goddamned infuriating person. She’d love to chip away at that outer layer to see if blood really flowed beneath her flesh or if it was a slushy frosty mixture that fueled her constant rage instead.

“Why are you willing to help me now?”

“Let’s just say it’s mutually beneficial and leave it at that,” she said, turning to leave.

“How is this beneficial for you, Giselle? I have nothing to give you,” she called after her. If she thought Sarah would pay her back with something, she was sorely mistaken. She didn’t have a penny to her name or anything else of value to barter with.

Giselle stopped and turned back around. “Do you want my help or not?”

“Yes.” But at what cost, was the burning question.

“Then you should just say thank you,” she replied, eyes singeing her in unspoken challenge.

“Thank you.”

And with that, Giselle turned once again and strode out, leaving Sarah to wonder what in the hell just happened and how Giselle had gained the upper hand so damn fast.

As far as Sarah knew, Giselle didn’t do anything for
you
; she did it for
herself
. So Giselle’s sudden interest in helping Sarah had her wondering. How exactly did this benefit Giselle? Sarah was quite sure the ice queen wasn’t doing this for anyone but herself.

Chapter 6

Rom

This was the longest meeting he’d ever been party to. Since Rom had been the one to interrogate Geoffrey, due to Damian’s propensity to burn his captives alive if he didn’t care for their answer, and Dev’s desire to torture Geoffrey indefinitely, he was the only one now privy to the facts. And the facts certainly led one to believe that Geoffrey was not exactly the traitorous vampire they’d all suspected him to be.

Instead of sitting here, discussing what to do with Geoffrey and Xavier, the only thing Rom wanted to do was claim his mate, return to his home and spend the next month fucking her in every position, in every room, in every way. His sexual appetite had returned with a vengeance the moment he’d laid eyes on Sarah and it hadn’t subsided one iota in a week.