Tentyrian Legacy (52 page)

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our Fourth
Annual American Dream Realized Housing Award ceremony. Tonight we
will be awarding fifteen homes to some very special families who
have joined us. This evening wouldn’t be possible without you all
who, in one way or another, have directly contributed to this
project’s success. It’s now with much pleasure I’d like to
introduce Maximos Vasilliadis, the creator of this admirable
endeavor,” says Robert in a booming voice.

Maximos gives my hand a quick squeeze, and he
excuses himself from the table to take the stage. The spotlight
follows him to the podium as the room erupts in applause. I’ve
attended plenty of company functions to know when there is
lackluster appreciation for a leader. This is not the case. They
adore him.

Maximos gives a humble thanks to the crowd.
He is about to start introducing the families when the waiter
clearing away the first course places a folded piece of paper at my
place setting. I look up immediately with my senses exploding in
fear. It’s Charles.

“Hello, Ari,” he says coldly. I look around
nervously and catch Ryan’s eye, who is sitting only a table away. I
give him a nod, and he stealthily gets up to approach the
table.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper as
Maximos continues with his speech.

“Just delivering a message,” he smiles and
whispers in my ear. Chills go down my spine, and our eyes briefly
connect before he hurries away. I’ve never seen him so glassy eyed.
He’s been turned into a Human Subordinate. Ryan follows him from
the room, knowing that something is amiss. Not wanting to draw
attention to the incident, I stay seated. The Brothers are all
nearby, and I’m safe. I pick up the paper gingerly and open it.
It’s a heavy and luxurious cardstock. Written in a delicate
script—no doubt from an expensive fountain pen—is a message:

Never forget, you cannot change destiny any
more than your legacy. The Brotherhood may have won you over, but
they won’t with the Second Luminary. We already have.

Stavros

The room feels like it’s getting smaller, and
my chest is constricting. They have found the Second Luminary. I
look around the room in desperation while everyone is rapt with
Maximos’ speech. It feels like forever until Maximos returns. The
main course is now starting.

“What did you think?” Maximos asks, flushed
with the joyous giving of the evening. “What’s wrong?” he asks, now
alarmed after he’s absorbed my distress. I hand him the note. My
hand is trembling. He reads it quickly, and his jaw clenches in
response. “Let’s go.”

Maximos helps me from my seat as we subtly
excuse ourselves. Luckily, a side exit isn’t far. We head back up
to Maximos’ room, and he takes out his phone to call Aristos and
Evander. Once we are behind closed doors, there is a torrent of
discussion about the note and the Dark Coven. We learn Ryan
followed Charles, who saw that he was being pursued. In a bizarre
turn, Charles took a powerful cyanide pill, then promptly seized
and died on the lobby floor. Charles may have betrayed me, but I
never wanted him to become the pawn he did. The Dark Coven used him
just to rattle me.

Once Maximos is off the phone, he lets out a
series of curses in Greek. At this point, there is nothing we can
do. We have no leads. I walk over to him, the tulle of my dress
rustling against the plush carpet. “We’ll find her,” I tell him.
“You found me.” He rakes his fingers through his hair and throws
his phone on the desk in disgust.

“This never ends,” he says in frustration.
Maximos takes a seat on the edge of the bed.

“It will one day . . . and it will be a happy
ending. We have to believe that,” I say. All this time, Maximos has
been the voice of assurance. But now, I’m the one who needs to
offer it to him. I’ve never seen him deflated—until now. He stares
at me with obvious pain in his eyes.

“Do you know I’ve been doing this for over
two thousand years, matia mou?” Maximos says. I’m struck by the
hollowness of his voice combined with the endearment I never
thought I’d hear again. “And all this time I’ve been alone. I’ve
had Aristos and Evander, and even the Brothers. But do you want to
know something?”

“What?” I ask softly as I sit down next to
him and kick off my heels.

“It’s never bothered me, until now. For the
first time, I want to be selfish. I want to tell the Brotherhood
and the Dark Coven to go fuck themselves. I want to just live a
life—for once. And I want to do that with you.”

The dam of emotion I didn’t know I had in my
heart has just been torn apart. Happiness and sadness, all at the
same time, come flooding out, along with my tears. I didn’t cry at
Raad’s funeral, but now all of a sudden the tears are
unstoppable.

“But why can’t we, Maximos? Don’t we deserve
happiness too?” “I don’t know,” he says uncertainly. “I don’t want
to hurt you. I

don’t want to compromise everything that we
are trying to achieve.” “You cannot change destiny any more than
your legacy,” I say,

echoing Stavros’ words. “If that’s the truth,
my destiny is with you, and I don’t want to change it. I’ll fight
for the Brotherhood, but I’m done fighting what is between us. The
prophecy says I will have to make a sacrifice. And I’ll do
it—whatever it is. But right now, that sacrifice doesn’t mean us.
We’ve been brought together in the most unusual circumstance . . .
but what’s between us is real.”

“I know it is,” he says as his hand reaches
to cup my chin.

“Then let’s stop this game of pretend,” I
urge, letting myself speak freely without worrying about the impact
and how he’ll respond. But his response couldn’t be sweeter . .
.

“Agreed,” Maximos replies.

And then, like a man who has just been
unfettered from living a life in chains, he pulls me to him. It’s
not gentle or innocent—it’s voracious. He tips me back onto the
bed, and in the sea of tulle that is my dress our bodies press
together—reaching to entwine every limb and ounce of exposed flesh.
But it’s not enough. There is too much fabric between us and not
enough skin. My hands reach eagerly for the buttons on his tuxedo
shirt, and his hands reach for the zipper on my dress.

Hands move at lightning speed, unfastening,
unbuttoning, and unzipping. As if we’ve been starved, our hunger
for each other has finally been unleashed. I need to be satiated.
Our fangs are exposed, and I can feel my blood humming in arousal.
I’ve never wanted anyone like this before. Finally, we’re free of
the constricting clothes, and I can appreciate Maximos in all his
glory as I crawl my way up his body, brushing my skin against
his.

I remember touching and tasting him the night
of the Turn—how could I ever forget? But now, without the chaos of
my hormones clouding my actions, I can appreciate the muscular
planes of him and even the curl of hair on his chest all that much
more. I explore his body with my hands, feeling the hardness of him
everywhere. Where I’ve considered myself to be in shape and firm,
Maximos is like rock . . . in more places than just his arms and
abs.

“I’ve wanted this for so long, agapi mou,” he
groans between a kiss with his hand wrapped tightly in my hair.

“Me too,” I whisper. My body is arching under
his touch that seems to create electricity wherever his fingers
follow.

“Your scent has been calling to me. I never
knew the smell of honey and lily could be this . . . delicious.”
The tips of his fangs graze my neck, releasing some beads of blood.
Rather than hurting, it feels amazing. He takes his time and licks.
But I want more, I want to feel him inside me and to drink from me
the way I want to from him. “By the goddesses, this is true
ambrosia,” he says.

I look into his eyes that are now glowing. He
called me agapi mou, or “my love.” Before, it’s always been matia
mou, or “my eyes” or “my dear.” Now is as good a time as ever to
tell him . . .

“I love you, Maximos,” I whisper. He breathes
in deeply and exhales. I can’t tell if it’s relief or regret he’s
feeling. Fear flutters in my chest. I wait for him to say
something. He then closes his eyes, as if he’s searching for what
to say.

“I need to do something,” he answers. What?
What can he possibly need to do right now? I can’t think of
anything to say. But surely my expression of dismay is enough.
“Just stay here. Don’t move. I promise I’ll be back in a few
minutes,” he says quickly as he pulls on a pair of boxers and
nothing else. The next thing I know, he’s gone. He shifted
away.

I’m puzzled and more than just a little hurt.
I thought we agreed we could be together? Did he get scared? I pull
the sheet, now rumpled and twisted from our frantic encounter, over
my body that is still radiating waves of heat. I’m not sure what I
should do—ease my sorrow with a drink from the mini bar or watch
television. What are you supposed to do when a guy leaves you right
before you’re about to make love?

I lay there for several minutes pondering my
predicament. If he can leave, then so can I! My emotions have swung
from hurt to anger. I throw the sheet off and retrieve my dress
from the floor and begin to put it on. I’m so angry I end up
ripping the zipper right off the dress. Damn it. With one hand
closed around the dress to keep it from falling off, I search under
the bed to find one of my heels that is now missing.

“What are you doing, Ari?” I hear Maximos
ask. He’s back. “Leaving!” I whirl around to face the shirtless
Greek god standing before me. “You do it so well; I thought I’d
take my cue from you,” I snap. Fear transfixes his face.

“You misunderstand . . . I didn’t leave you
because I didn’t want to be with you. I left because I want to be
with you.” Now I’m only more confused.

“I don’t understand this cryptic speak. Here
in the twenty-first century, men don’t leave their women right
before they are about to have sex.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I was
hoping to do this in somewhat of a charming manner, but then again
I wasn’t expecting you to fly off the handle in the ten minutes
that I left you.” He then starts to laugh. I’m about to start
arguing with him, but he gets down on one knee. He actually gets
down on one knee.

“I know it’s the twenty-first century,
Arianna Elizabeth Parker. But in my day, we believed in doing
this.” He then pulls out a small box that he had tucked into the
back band of his boxers. He opens it to reveal a vintage-looking
oval cushion-cut sapphire, hugged by two half-moon diamond side
stones.

“I want you to be my wife. To be my partner
and my friend. I want you to be my lover. The fact is I love you
too. And I realized that I couldn’t tell you that or go another
moment without asking for your hand. Will you marry me, Ari?”

I’m shell-shocked. We’ve known each other for
less than three months . . . I was hoping that Maximos might tell
me he loved me. But to ask me to be his wife. It wasn’t even in the
consideration set. But the reality is, this is right.

“Yes!” I say. I think it comes out more as a
squeal of delight. He then slides the sparkling ring on my finger.
I pull him from his knee into my arms and give him a smoldering
kiss.

“Maximos, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been,” I
tell him as I frame his face in my hands. “You’ve given me
everything I could ever want: love and a family.”

“What a relief, because you didn’t seem too
happy when I came back.”

It’s now my turn to laugh. “I suppose I do
have a flair for the dramatic.”

“The stones were my mother’s,” he says as he
reaches down for my hand now laden with the stunning ring. “I had
them recut and set many years ago—for what I didn’t know until
today.”

“It’s beautiful. You know you are going to
spoil me rotten if you keep this up.”

“I’ll happily spoil you for the rest of our
lives together. You know, before he died, I promised Raad I would
protect you and help you find love. And I will give that to you, as
long as I’m alive.”

“Well I intend for us to live very long
lives.”

“Good,” says Maximos with his devilish grin.
“You should also know when I went to get the ring from the safe on
Ambrosine, I asked Aristos for his permission. You should have seen
his face when I showed up in his room like this.”

“What did he say?” I ask nervously.

“He said, ‘It is about time.’” We both break
out in laughter, and I jump into his arms with my dress hanging
down at a precarious angle. “I suppose I’m going to have to remove
this dress from you again, my love.”

“Good. I thought you were going to insist on
waiting until our wedding night,” I say, relieved.

“Well I did just promise to make an honest
woman out of you, and I always keep my promises. So we’ll do
whatever you want to,” he says mischievously. “Tonight is about us.
Our duty can wait until tomorrow.”

Elise Walters is a marketing executive with
over seven years of experience in the advertising and marketing
industry. Elise has helped articulate the value propositions for a
wide array of products – from birth control to checking accounts.
If her career has taught her one thing it is the importance of
crafting a story, a skill she has translated into her debut novel
Tentyrian Legacy.

Elise graduated from Wake Forest University
in 2007 with a B.A. in English. While her career led her into
advertising, her passion for literature was one she continued to
nurture as an avid reader. That passion began at the age of 12 when
Elise ordered her first batch of romance novels from amazon.com.
With titles by Catherine Coulter and Nora Roberts, she hid her
books, embarrassed at their lack of age appropriateness and
scholarly pedigree. However, it was those books that helped shape
her teen years by offering an escape to the awkward time of
adolescence.