Soul-Mate (Immortal Love 1) (29 page)

I stopped my thoughts and gazed at my uncle. Eric had cleared his throat and gave me a boyish grin when he got my attention. His eyes sparkled every time he smiled. He was really handsome and seemed more like my brother than my uncle. We looked as though we were the same age. For a two-hundred-year-old vamp, he had a really harmless presence and nice manners. It was as if his title and social position hadn’t affected his personality at all. He also radiated confidence in the way he spoke and tilted his head to look down at me. He was really tall!

“What?” he asked, intrigued as to why I was staring at him. He leaned his face closer to mine, and I giggled at the face he made when he furrowed his eyebrows and pursed his lips in a brooding stare. “Why do you stare at me as though you are seeing someone else?”

“You really look a lot like Dad,” I confessed. He moved his lips, pouting a bit, like he doubted it.

“I’m so much more handsome than George,” he added, making me laugh. “I’m joking. I know we are similar. I don’t mind. Do you mind?”

“Not at all.”

“Good! Now, the king is waiting for us inside. We shouldn’t make him wait. Shane can join us after he takes cares of whatever is happening in town.” I nodded, agreeing. I was a big girl; I could handle the meeting with the king, who was also my grandfather. “When you see him, you can call him grandpa. He will like that.”

“Do you and Dad look like Grandfather?” I asked. I wanted to be prepared this time.
Just imagine if my grandpa was the spitting image of that monster Alaric? I would freak out again!

“I guess,” he answered.

I frowned and sighed, looking at my cell phone. I wanted to call Shane. I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t want him around me.
Would he think I didn’t want to see him
? I might have been mad, but I wasn’t so mad any more. We would talk, and the secrets would be erased. I would check on him later, after I talked with my grandfather. We would have a proper conversation, with my nerves calmer and my rationality sharper. I needed to get a grip on my feelings. I was becoming bipolar: one moment I wanted to shout at him, and the other I wanted to hug him and never let him go.

“Shall we?” Eric asked from the huge, black, gothic front door beneath a small portico. Someone had opened the door for us to go in.

I followed my uncle inside. The sumptuous décor took my breath away. I barely noticed the ceremonial greeting taking place with the tall, serious-looking man dressed like a butler. He was holding the door and bowing to us, eyes on the floor.

My eyes, on the other hand, were on the huge hall and the two curved, cantilevered staircases that rose from the east end of the grand foyer. That was the first thing that I noticed. The first floor that had a long corridor with alcoves filled with huge paintings of Roman gods in shiny, baroque, golden frames. The hall was laid out as an oval; an enormous central bronze and crystal chandelier hung from the glass cupola over the entrance and spread tiers of light in flame patterns. The ceiling was as beautiful as the rest of the hall, because it had surrounding frescos of what seemed to be nymphs and animalistic shifters that told some tale that I didn’t recognize and didn’t have time to ask about.

I stepped onto the white and black marble floor which reflected the chandelier’s light and followed my uncle, who was already climbing the first row of stairs. I didn’t have time to fully take in how, near the downstairs landings of each staircase, there were doors that went somewhere else in the palace and that at the middle of the arch beneath the stairs was a huge glass door that gave entrance to a ballroom. I was too mesmerized by the paintings and the velvets that hung on the walls and screamed baroque style. There was a rich variety of styles inside the palace which made it unique and actually less pretentious than most palaces I had seen during my visits to Europe with my parents.

“We have to go upstairs. Dad must be in the library. He is often there,” Eric explained, stopping a second so I could catch up with him.

The house probably didn’t amaze him anymore, since he lived there. I was just hoping to memorize the way to the library, so I wouldn’t get lost if I had to leave alone.

On the first floor, we followed a long corridor illumined by small chandeliers on the walls; it had doors on both sides and many paintings of landscapes with rivers and mountains. At the very end of the corridor, Eric opened a door that was bigger than the others and gave way to the library.

If the hallway was amazing, the library was just a dream come true. It was huge; it would probably take up an entire building, because I noticed it even had some curly stairs going down to my right. What hit me first when I entered the room was not exactly the decorations and the bookshelves, but the smell. It smelled like oak and linen, not musty at all. It smelled like books, but not like old, dusty books. Besides, the library itself was a work of art from ceiling to floor. There were frescos on the ceiling, surrounding the small crystal chandeliers, and the walls had even more works of art and columns and statues of Greek gods, plus even some contemporary art as decoration.

There were rows of bookshelves, perfectly aligned and categorized by theme and century. Books with leather covers and hard paper ones filled the shelves. I even spotted stacks of parchments out of the corner of my eye. It would be a dream come true for any book affectionate or historical researcher. They could spend years inside there, overwhelmed by the variety of books and their antiquity.

After traveling through the jungle of bookshelves and their corridors, we arrived at an open space that had a twin-pedestal mahogany desk with a rectangular top inset in green tooled leather. It was filled with books and papers and had a modern desktop computer. On the opposite side rested a black velvet armchair. No one was sitting in it, much to my disappointment.
Guess Grandpa had not waited for us and perhaps had gone to bed.

Eric didn’t seem surprised by the absence of the king like I was. He just turned right and smiled, as though he knew something I didn’t. I turned to him, frowning, and he pointed at the back of the room. There he was with his back turned to me, staring at a seriously big painting of a lady dressed like a queen. The painting was big—two times bigger than Eric! It covered half the wall of the library.

"That is my mom,” Eric whispered, not wanting to disturb the silence there. “Dad likes to stare at her.”

I acknowledged his words and gazed at the woman in the painting. She was beautiful without a doubt. It was an old painting with a lot of influences of the Romantic period, because the painting tried to convey both the majesty and innocence of the queen. The landscape had a light blue sky with shreds of clouds, and the queen had a soft smile on her pretty face and pensive, profound brown eyes. She had her hands on her lap and had been painted in a seated position, wearing a silk white dress. Her brown hair was loosely braided and piled on top for a Victorian look.

I was supposed to look like her, but I just thought that the resemblances were her lips and the shape of her face. And maybe the nose. I had a rather small, turned-up nose. I liked my nose. So, instead of seeing my grandpa first, I had my first meeting with my grandma’s painting.

My grandfather was the next person I analyzed. He had his hands folded behind his back. He was wearing a silk white banyan, very king-like, with nice silver brocade and rich gold embroidery on the sleeves and collar. They may be his casual clothes at home, but they were enough to leave me impressed by all the mystery around him. He also had a signet gold ring that attracted my attention for its simplicity.

The vampire king seemed to notice that he had company, and when he turned to us, all I saw was a tall, well-built man in his mid-forties with a friendly but sad face covered with a white, stocky beard. He didn’t look like an old dying man; he was really handsome and distinct. He had some wrinkles around his eyes and forehead, but nothing that would say he was perishing fast or that he had grandchildren my age. He had aged nicely. What made him look older was probably the white of the beard that contrasted with his wavy, blond, shoulder-length hair. He had nice blond hair and deep, kind eyes—sad blue eyes. Summing up, he looked older than the rest of us, because age had taken possession of his once immortal body. However, aging had given him a distinct and honorable look. He was a rather pleasant man to look at and didn’t look like a grandfather at all.

When he saw me and Eric, his attitude, once gloomy and thoughtful, changed, and he drew up a smile as he walked toward us. I don’t know why I did it, because I’m not a hugging person, but I walked to him and, when we met halfway, I hugged him. It was not a shy hug; it was a strong, firm hug, like I had known him all my life and had missed him dearly. That was my father’s dad! I could totally see my dad in his smile. He was definitely the one who reminded me the most of him.

“Isobel,” my grandfather whispered with a sweet, emotional voice. I smiled wider at hearing my second name, the name that was my grandmother’s. “You grew up so much, honey! I just saw you once when you were two years old. You also hugged me like this.”

“I did?” I asked, amazed. I didn’t remember that.

“You did. You asked me why I looked so much like your dad. I told you that I was your dad’s father, and you hugged me. You told me that you were really happy that your name was Anika Isobel, because Dad had a mom named Isobel, and Isobel was your favorite name.”

“I don’t remember that,” I whispered, emotional.

“You were too young to remember. But I thought you were adorable, extremely sweet and cute. I fell in love with you at first sight. I asked your father to bring you here to visit, but things were a bit complicated between me and your dad. He still resented my unwilling attitude in the past toward letting him go to be happy with your mom. But I knew the world would be cruel to them. But… now that I see you, I know George made the right choice.”

“Dad,” Eric interrupted, now near us. “Kevin is also alive. Did Shane tell you?”

“Yes, he told me after I had talked to you.”

“I need your help to save him,” I said, remembering we didn’t have much time to waste. We could catch up after Kevin was cured.

“Sweetie, you just need to tell me what you need, and it is yours,” Grandpa said.

I smiled at him, happy for his words. It really meant a lot for me to meet my family and be welcomed by them like that. My grandfather was really handsome, and he seemed really kind. He was tall like Eric, which made me feel small beside them both. I was still hugging him with my head leaned and my chin on his chest, so I could talk to him. He had strong arms and a wide chest frame. He also smelled nice, like lavender. I liked him already.

I told him the best I could about what had happened and how Kevin was in a deep coma, fighting for his life. I needed their blood to cure him and make him wake up from the deep sleep. They were more than happy to help and leave immediately to the clinic to start donating Eric’s blood, because he was younger and stronger. So while Eric was talking with his chief of security, arranging more cars and bodyguards to keep him and his father safe on the road, I tried to call Shane.

No answer.

After the third call, I grew frustrated.
Was he ignoring my calls
? He had better be busy or he would be in a serious trouble, even more so than he already was. I was being silly. He was doing his job, but I wanted him to know where he could find us since, we were leaving for the clinic. Therefore, I decided to reach him using our mind link. I was going to ask him if everything was okay, but all I got was a really loud, painful sound that made me shrug as I put my hands on my ears to protect myself. I thought my head was going to explode and my eyes were going to pop out from my skull.

What was going on? Why couldn’t I reach Shane? And where was that loud noise coming from?

“What is wrong?” Eric asked, seeming worried when he noticed my pained face.

“I was trying to reach Shane, but all I got was a really loud, painful noise that made my head hurt and my ears almost bleed!”

“Was it like a sharp noise that you hear when you are looking for a radio station?” The chief of security asked me. He was a werewolf, so I guess he could hear other frequencies that I didn’t and understood them better.
But why did I hear that in my head when I tried to reach Shane?
It had never happened before.

I nodded to him. “But one hundred times louder,” I added.

“That isn’t good. We are being attacked. You heard inside Shane’s head,” the werewolf explained, becoming paler. “We hear that when witches are attacking us and are trying to slow us down and stop us from hurting them. It leaves us defenseless.”

“What?” I asked, panic slowing my heartbeat and freezing my body.
Shane was being attacked by a witch
. It was all I understood, and it left me terrified.

“We need to send men to find out what is going on,” he said, holding his phone to his ear. “No one is answering at the police station.”

I was losing my ability to think straight, but I couldn’t agree more. I needed to go to town and see what was going on. “I need to go to Shane. I need… How do I get out of here? What is the shortest way to town?” I asked my uncle, impatiently. If I’d known where to go, I would already have been gone. I wouldn’t be wasting my time waiting for them to send men.

“And Kevin?”

“You and Grandpa go to the clinic. I need to go to Shane first, and then I’ll go to the clinic to meet you. They know you are coming. Jason texted me saying he had called them. They are making preparations to receive you. But I need to go, now,” I urged, looking at the garden and beyond the trees to see how far I was from town. In my vampire form, I could get there faster. “I need a weapon,” I remembered after shifting to vampire.

Eric said something to the chief of security, and the man properly set a plan. “We have weapons in the car. Aaron will take you to town, and I’m already sending more men there to see what is going on. I can’t reach Shane either or any other wolf that was supposed to be at the police station today.”