Ritual Magic (33 page)

"Celeste," Solomon looked up at me through
his luxuriously long lashes with his glowing pearly white eyes, "I
think that we need to talk."

My stomach began to pulse frantically and I
could feel the spasm push down through my gut. I was panicked at
what we were going to have to eventually talk about. The spasm
began to cramp and I shifted in the bed, with Solomon leaning on
the comforter.

"Okay." I sighed.
Good, you got that much
out. Now, let him do the talking. Just listen.
I released a
cleansing breath as I leaned forward in the bed. I just couldn't
get comfortable.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" He locked
eyes with me and a chill ran down my spine as my body began to heat
up.

"Avoiding you? I don't feel that I've been
avoiding you. Whatever gave you that idea?"
Besides everything
that I have done for the past five months to keep us from having a
serious conversation about our love life.

"Well, I may just be reading too much into
it, but, you have been going to bed extra early and skipping our
evening sessions where I get to play for you and the baby." He
reached up and rubbed the back of his neck with his huge, strong
hand. "And then there was the time that I accidentally walked in on
you in the shower and you freaked out like I had never seen you
naked."

He paused just long enough for my gut to
begin freaking out again. I felt like all of this talk was making
me feel like I was being beaten up. It's nothing like when you get
the butterflies in your stomach and you fight to keep them in. This
was as if I was trying to keep from hurling, but the pain was just
a bit too extreme to keep it from happening. I shifted again on the
bed, huffing as I fought desperately to find a comfortable
position.

"Are you uncomfortable?" Solomon turned his
whole body towards me and assessed me from head to toe. "You look a
bit...sweaty."

Uncomfortable? Why should I be
uncomfortable? We're just approaching the topic of conversation
that I have been avoiding for months.

"Look Solomon, I'm fine. It's just a little
hot in here." I was lying...big time. Solomon's head turned towards
the raging fire in the fireplace and turned back to eye me. He knew
better. "Please," I shifted again in the bed. "Continue."

Solomon sighed and reached over for my hand,
stretching over his guitar to do so. I allowed him the opportunity
to do whatever he wanted to do with my hands because I owed him
that much. I had been mistreating him by giving him the cold
shoulder during the last five months, but I just didn't know what
to do.

"I love you Celeste," he looked down at our
hands, "and I want to be with you always...but not if it makes you
miserable. Not if it makes you unhappy." His voice gave everything
away—his deep sadness and depression, his fear, his self-loathing
for anything that he may have done to me that would cause my
helpless reactions. Every insecure emotion you would never want a
man like Solomon to experience was coming to the foreground, and it
was obviously all because of me.

"No, that's not it, Solomon." I threw my
other hand over his and held his hand tightly between mine. His
temperature had been warming to my own during the time that he was
holding my hand. I felt the warmth in the hand below and the cool
underneath the hand above—it was a miracle that was all Solomon. I
sighed as I shook my head. "I guess I should have told you already.
It's not fair that I haven't told you this." I clamped my eyes shut
as tears began to well up in the corners of my eyes.
You will
not CRY! This is stupid!

"Celeste, please don't cry." Solomon reached
up and rubbed the tears that were streaming down my face with his
free hand. "Please, tell me what I can do to fix this. Anything."
He looked resolute and ready to face my demons. But was I?

The pain came again in my gut as I realized
that I had so much to share that I had been keeping from him. I
cleared my mind and tried to put everything into one short thought.
"Okay, let me see how to phrase this."

Silence hung in the air for a second and
then Solomon huffed loudly as he shifted in his spot, sharing his
impatience. I held my finger up for him and he quieted back
down.

"Just one more minute, please." I sang as I
continued to put my thoughts in order. Finally, finally, when I
suddenly felt ready to fill Solomon in, my gut relaxed and I felt
relieved.
This is the right thing to do.

"Okay." I sat up in the bed and began to pat
the area next to me. Solomon's eyes lit up as he eyed my hand
suspiciously. He slowly reached down and placed his guitar on the
floor, finally standing up and walking to the other side of the bed
to take the spot beside me. I allowed him to sit directly next to
me and I leaned against him as I spoke to the air in front of us.
"This is going to sound weird." I smelled his gorgeous scent
wafting into the space surrounding us as I closed my eyes and
sighed. "I met my father a while back."

"Are you speaking of the ocean god, Lir?"
Solomon was shocking me with this sudden revelation of knowledge
that I had no idea he had access to.

"I don't remember telling you anything about
him. Have I been talking in my sleep again?" I turned my head
towards him and looked up at him seriously. My words were in jest,
but my body language warned him that I was worried about the
topic.

"Well, Gabriel had shared some information
about Lir." Solomon shrugged.

"Yes, well, he likes to go by Dylan now. He
mostly wants me to refer to him as Dad, or possibly Your Holiness,
although he really never asked for the last one. He is quite a
card, though." I shook my head as I thought about Dylan and his
Jersey Shore accent. He was a true bona fide dad, grade-A pain in
the butt.

"He's a mighty god. He deserves whatever
respect he requests of you." Solomon winked at me as if he
understood that Dylan wanted respect, and the fact that Solomon
wanted me to just hand it up to him on a silver platter just
rankled my hide a bit too much.

"Yeah, yeah, well, he's a pain in my
backside."

"He's your father."

Simple enough answer. I figured that was
enough to keep the conversation afloat for now without a fight.

"Okay, well..." I looked away at the fire
and I could feel my gut seize up again.
Get it out in the open
now before you implode, woman.
"H
e
doesn't like you. He
doesn't want me anywhere near you, especially after Cora is born."
I turned to see the expression on Solomon's face, but it was a
mask—emotionless. "He's afraid that, because I love you, that we
will have a child. He refuses to accept that a grandchild of his
would be part vampire, besides Cora of course. She's a 'child of
legend'." I made the air quotes especially obnoxious again. "So
he's just fine with her." I sighed.

Solomon didn't miss a beat. "There was
something else. I would like to hear it all, if you wouldn't mind."
Solomon reached over and put his arm around me, pulling me into his
chest and allowing me to take comfort in his delicious scent as
well as his masculine perfection.
YIKES!

"Yes, well, my future self wasn't very happy
with you either. She kind of agreed with Dylan." I spoke directly
into his chest, but I knew that he could hear me so it didn't
bother me as I closed my eyes and just
listened
to the air
fill and vacate his lungs. Solomon breathed from habit—he liked the
scents and the movement more than the desire to breathe. He could
have gone forever without breathing, but he needed to taste the air
to ensure his senses didn't feel deprived.

"Why would that be the case? I'm sorry, I'm
struggling to understand." Solomon honestly sounded shocked that my
future self would have disliked him.

"I believe that you had broken my heart...in
the future. You left me for another woman." I sighed deeply as I
concentrated on the movement of his chest to keep my mind off of
other things. "At least, that is what the future
me
said—that you were not trustworthy."

I pushed back from him as I looked him
squarely in the eyes. "I honestly don't believe that you would do
that to me. I just can't believe it." I shivered and shifted in my
seat.
Why can't I just get comfortable? Here I have an amazingly
hot guy dying to wrap his arms around me, even when I'm giving him
bad news...and I can't sit still. What the HECK?

"OUCH!" I sat up straight like someone had
just punched me in the gut.

Solomon instantly went tense and held me out
at arm's length as he assessed my pain level and appearance just
from how I looked. He knew me a little too well if he was able to
tell that much just by looking at me.

"You're in pain." Solomon pushed up from the
bed and I immediately felt remorse that he was leaving me
alone.

"Please..." I huffed as the pain in my gut
began to tighten into a ball. "Don't leave me." I felt so
vulnerable that I began to shake with fear.

Solomon turned to me as he pulled out his
cell phone and tapped in a number. "Never." His eyes glowed as he
held the phone to his ear.

My heart sputtered at his reaction.
SHEESH he's sexy when he's so adamant.

"Gabriel, there's something wrong with
Celeste. Please come with Mortisha as quickly as you can." He
nodded in response to something that was being said. "Yes, now." He
nodded again. "Quite, yes. I'll see you in a few minutes."

Solomon ended the call and began to pace the
room. I was relieved when the dull pain in my gut subsided, but he
was still pacing around the room like a caged animal when he
finally burst towards me in a rush, yanking me into his powerful
arms.

"I would
never
leave you if I could
help it. I would
never
leave you for another woman
ever
." His eyes burned like white hot flames as he took my
face in his hands. "And I would never stop loving you for the
entirety of my existence. You are all I have ever wanted, and you
are all I will
ever
want. You are it for me, Celeste. There
is no other woman in this world that could even
try
to
compare to you. I can't even
see
other women in this world
when you are here, filling my every thought. Dammit, Celeste, you
even invade my dreams. I can't even get away from the
thought
of you—it consumes me. How could I leave you, hurt
you, deny you anything? How?" His voice shook as he reached down
and laid a cool, but consuming kiss on my burning lips.

My body became putty, and the only thing
that brought me back to earth was the renewed pain in my gut.

Just then Gabriel and Mortisha rushed
through the door, both looking determined and as businesslike as
two medical professionals.

"Describe the pains." Gabriel instantly
noted that I was grabbing my stomach area below my baby.

"Dull, aching." I breathed out as I closed
my eyes. Solomon had released me and set me on the bed so that I
could face Gabriel. He still kept his arm around me, ensuring that
I wouldn't fall over if I became incapacitated with pain.

"How long do they last?" Gabriel ticked off
the questions.

"A couple of minutes."

"I am assuming that the pains are recurring.
How long between pains?" Gabriel looked into my eyes with a
penlight before reaching down to feel my belly, pushing firmly
against the skin. What he was feeling for was beyond me, but I knew
that he was to be trusted.

"Umm, about eight minutes." I heaved a sigh
of relief as the pain subsided again.

Gabriel turned his eyes to Mortisha just as
a huge crash sounded just outside the window of my bedroom.

Releasing me gently, Solomon raced to the
window in a flash and threw it open to peer down below. Smoke
drifted up through the opening as Solomon hissed through his teeth
and yanked the panes closed, pulling the curtains shut over the
window as well. He rushed towards the door in a blur and stopped
abruptly in the shadowed hallway.

"I must go. The castle is under attack and
we must protect our perimeter. It appears that there was a deep
breach, and it must be addressed
now
." He paused and looked
at me as if he were in pain, flinching as if he had been stabbed.
He clearly didn't want to leave. Turning towards Gabriel, he
ordered, "You take care of Celeste, do you hear me? Not one hair on
her head will be harmed. Do you understand?"

Gabriel leaned back as he fidgeted with the
pen in his hand, a strained look in his black eyes. He almost
looked
like a demon, but his eyes were obsidian black
instead of scorching red. "She's in labor, Solomon. The baby's
going to be born prematurely."

Solomon's back went rigid as he took one
step towards us, his hands trembling at his sides as he fought his
inner emotions and sense of immense duty.

"Solomon, you must protect the castle."
Mortisha's voice rang through the room like a command. "We will
protect Celeste and the baby. Celeste will be safe. The baby will
be safe." Her words washed over all of us and I immediately felt a
blanket of peace settle over me. THIS is what I would have liked to
feel when I spoke to Solomon of the future.

"AHHH!" My pain was back now and it was a
bit more uncomfortable than before. I began huffing and puffing
like I had learned in my Lamaze class as I waved at Solomon in the
doorway. I had learned some concentration and relaxation
techniques, but it wasn't like I was planning on delivering
naturally anyway.
Give me drugs and give me drugs NOW!
But
Solomon had to leave. He had to get his mind off of me and the baby
if he was going to head into a battle, as well as stay alive.

"Make those pains every
four
minutes." I released a deep breath as I sighed, bracing myself on
the bed.