Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (34 page)

“While they’re invasive, they’re also kind-hearted. An odd combination, I agree, but they are very knowledgeable about anything magic. These women and myself are magic, you see, and have been since time began. We’ve been the Keepers and the Watchers, the Law and the Counsel to all the magic used by all its beings. And though we aren’t sure how yet, you too are a powerful part of it with us. So why don’t you tell us about yourself? Aunt Savannah, she has a mark on her. Maybe we could tell her what it means.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please, I’m begging you, I’d like to go. I don’t want to be any part of this, any part of you. I’m sorry, but I don’t want this. I want to go now.” Shade felt panicky and closed in. As her heart began to race, she calmed just as quickly. Colin.

He had felt her and sent her his...his assurances, his support, she supposed. He gently touched her mind, not invading, but gently soothing her. She had never felt anything like it before. It was both scary and calming at the same time. She turned to look at the woman who was approaching her.

“All right, Shade. I promise you that we’ll let you go. No, don’t, Sara.” Sara stopped moving toward them and returned to her place. “We’re stressing her out. Small wonder too, you poor child. She needs to take a breather from all of this, from all of us. But in return, I’d like to see your mark, and then I will take you to the front door myself. I promise. Look Shade, look inside of me to see that I tell you only the truth. Isn’t that a fair trade?” Elizabeth looked around the room. Her look alone said, “Don’t fuck with me,” and no one did.

“You can’t see it. What I mean to say is no one sees it but me. It moves and doesn’t stay anywhere for long periods of time, then it will move to another part of my body. It doesn’t work on a time schedule that I’ve ever been able to track. I don’t care what it is, what it means. I don’t even think about it unless it shows up where I can see it again. It changes from time to time. I’m not sure what it changes to all the time, but the few times when I first noticed I had it, it would be different.”

Shade started to unbutton her shirt. She may not pay much attention to it, but she knew where it was at all times. It sent a small signal through her skin, a hum of awareness. She pulled the t-shirt up and bared her waist just above her left hip. Savannah got up and after gaining permission from Shade, ran her hand softly over the smooth skin. She looked up at Shade and smiled with her entire face. Shade couldn’t help it. She smiled back and relaxed a small bit for the first time.

“You’re right, I don’t see it. I can’t even feel it. No heat, nothing; it’s as if it isn’t there.” The other women took turns looking at the unmarked area, a few touching, but none of them seeing the tattoo. “Can you tell me what it looks like right now?” Elizabeth asked.

“It’s a tree in full season. No, that’s not right, it’s all seasons. There are yellow, orange, green and pink orbs on it, citrus fruit, I’m guessing. The leaves are all sorts of greens, yellows, even some blues; the tree bark is dark brown and the branches are long and thick. There are several baskets under the tree on both sides filled with what looks like fresh apples and peaches; I can even see the fuzz on the fruit. Spring-colored grass is on one side of the tree, and a foot of snow on the other. There are a couple of clouds floating across the sky to the left; lightning just zigzagged on the right. The tree is about five or six inches tall, a couple of inches wide at the base, and the baskets are sized to fit with the scene.” When she finished, she looked around the room; each of them were looking at her expectantly. “At times, the weather is different. The fruit is too. The clouds are new to me, but not necessarily new to the mark. The baskets showed up a few years ago. I don’t know when exactly, as I can’t see it all the time, only feel where it is. Once in a while there are other things around or on the tree and...and sometimes, I’ve seen things moving through it, like it’s in an open field and sometimes an animal walks through on its way to somewhere else I suppose.”

She began to redress herself, tucking in her shirt into her jeans and pulling on her coat. “I’ve given you what you asked and I’d like to leave now. Please.” She hadn’t lied to them, but she hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t told them what happened when she had touched it with her finger.

“Of course. I’ll take you now.” When the other women in the room started to protest, she silenced them with a sharp look and a wave of her hand. She took Shade to the front door and even opened it for her. “I’d like to have someone else I know look at it please? She is of another race, another being of magic, and a good friend of mine. Her name is Fiona. How can I get in touch with you?”

Shade looked at the woman standing in front of her. She had kept her promise, and Shade could do no less than to trust her in this as well. She reached out carefully and touched her bare skin on her arm, making a physical contact, a connection with her. Shade felt it run up her arm and into her brain, the bond between them now made a permanent thing.

“You only need to think of me now, and I’ll answer you. Now that we have contact, you will be able to reach me anytime, anywhere.” She turned away, not wanting to see the shock and horror of what she had done on the woman’s face. “This friend of yours, will she...do you think she’ll be able to see the curse? Will she know what I am and be able to take these things away forever?”

“I honestly don’t know. But I have a feeling she’ll be able to enlighten us some. Thank you very much, Shade. I understand how much this is costing you to trust me. Thank you.”

It was Shade’s turn to be shocked. This is not what she had expected. The woman didn’t seem surprised or disgusted in anyway, rather the opposite. Embarrassed and pleased, Shade walked out of the house and into the bright and cold afternoon sun.

~CHAPTER SIXTEEN~

Colin rose early again from his deep sleep, the kind that all vampires like him needed. When he found that the women of the house had let Shade go and didn’t make her stay and wait for him, he was livid. Instead of taking it out on them, Colin started toward the door when Elizabeth stopped him with a gentle hand on his arm. She wanted to ask him a couple of questions, she said, and she was sure it was going to help them figure out what Shade was. He followed her to where the others were already seated in the living room around the big, roaring fire.

Once everyone was settled down, Savannah started. “We had a very nice conversation with your mate today. Shade showed us where her tattoo was this morning. What do you think about it?”

She was fishing about something, about what he couldn’t tell. But he decided he would play along for now. He had heard her tell Sara that someone named Fiona would be coming around to see Shade in a couple of days and he assumed this had something to do with it.

“Okay, yeah, the tree? It’s pretty, kind of in a weird place, but I guess that’s okay. Big, though, I think. Why do you ask?” The silence around the room was very noisy in its entirety. Colin stared at each person and waited for someone to speak.

“You’ve seen it?”

The surprise in April’s voice could not be masked and that had him more suspicious about what they were trying to hide. He was sure they were hiding something.

“What do you mean in a weird place?” Sara asked. “There’s nothing weird about where it is when she showed us.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Why wouldn’t I? She’s my mate. We’ve bonded in the way of our kind. You don’t think having it on her lower spine might have been painful to have done? Wait, it’s not like either of yours, is it? I didn’t think about it at the time, but no, it doesn’t look like your tree, Sara. Shit! It’s not a tat, is it? It’s that...signage thing. She’s marked as a being would be, isn’t she? What is she?”

Colin had mated with a magical being. That explained a few things very quickly. One of which was his sudden ability to be awake more during the day, and her strength to throw him across the room.

Colin had been awake well before the sun set tonight. And this morning, when he had felt Shades’ anger, he had been able to go into the bright kitchen without any pain to himself to be with her. It had been well past noon when he had finally had to return to his rooms below the mansion.

“It’s called a sigil. No, we can’t see it. None of us can, just you. Did you ask her about it? Comment on it in any way? I don’t think she realizes that you can see it.” Sara was grinning and Colin didn’t like that. “You say it was on her back last night? Today she showed us where it was supposed to be; it was on her left hip.”

In fact, he was almost positive he did not trust the grin. There was something quite…scary about it, he decided. He looked over at Aaron.
Well
, he thought,
no help there.
Aaron was, if it was even possible, grinning bigger than Sara.

Colin shifted uncomfortably. There was something he had only just thought of. It moved. The sigil had...it moved. Not to another place on her body like they claimed, but the scene itself had moved.

Shade had been asleep on her stomach. He had just leaned in to kiss her awake when he saw the mark. At the time, he had thought it was nothing more than a tattoo, a pretty tat. Just as he reached out to touch it, it moved. A breeze had blown through the tree and a rabbit had hopped by, stopping by long enough to nibble a bit on the green grass before going across the other side. It had left his prints in the snow as it had passed by. He watched the tree and the scene for some time. It continued to blow and sway by an unseen breeze. When Shade had rolled over and looked up at him, he simply forgot everything but her and the look of need in her eyes.

“What does it mean? Okay, I get that she’s not human. So, what is she? And how do I keep her safe?”

More and more things about her were falling into place for Colin about Shade. His mate, Shade, was his, his for all time. And as he thought about that, he felt something move through him, over him. Love…he loved her.

“Honestly, I don’t know, Colin. She has some very strong and powerful magic. It has a different signature than ours, but it’s a part of it too. I have a friend who is coming here to see her in a couple of days and I believe she’ll be able to answer a lot about her. Shade, as you know, is very quiet about things. Did you know that she has no memory before about fifteen years ago? She said she woke up with a wound and nothing else. Can you imagine what she has done to survive all this time?” Savannah said with awe in her voice. “What she’s had to endure, to learn? I find myself being more impressed with her all the time. That she has been living on her own, taking care of herself for all of that time, makes a person wonder what else she can do?”

Colin looked at Savannah and felt the heat rise to his face. Embarrassment was not something he wore well; it also made him stupid, apparently.

“No, we haven’t...we didn’t talk...things progressed fast...shit! No, I didn’t know. I know nothing about her other than her taste; she’s mine. I was going to spend the evening with her tonight getting to know her, but someone allowed her to go out on her own. Want to explain to me how five grown women,
magical women,
could not keep one little woman here at the house?”

Colin would wonder later if he could have worded that differently or if he would ever learn to keep his mouth shut around these women. And now he was mated to one of them.

Before he could blink, he was down on the floor again and frozen in place by unseen bonds. The wind had been knocked out of him, and his whole body felt like a ton weight was lying on top of his chest. He started to speak, to say how sorry he was, but was brought up short by Elizabeth looking down at him.

“Can’t you move, fang-boy? Is the weight of power too much for you?” She kneeled down to his head, laying flat against the floor and looked directly in the eyes. “Is this how you would have had me hold her here for you? So
you
could come and go as you please? Let her terror manifest and multiply with every second, wondering what I’ll do to her next? Will I let up her soon? Will I leave her here to die? You want her so afraid that she would run, scared of us all? Is what you meant when you accused us of being unable to hold her here?” Elizabeth’s tone got harder; her voice dripped with anger.

“I dinna mean to…” Colin started, only to be cut off.

“I hope you have more sense than that, or have I really misjudged you? I made her a promise and kept it. I told her I would allow her to leave if she would talk with us. And rather than demand her compliance, I asked her and it worked so much better for us. How did you and your master do with your strong armed tactics? Did you get anywhere with her? I’ll let you up now, Colin Rachel Larimore, but you will hold your tongue. I
will not
tolerate insolence from anyone so young and as weak as you. Do you understand me?”

Colin was released suddenly. He was mad, but not at the being still leaning down over him. He had been the one in the wrong, just as she had pointed out. He had demanded, pushed Shade around until she had had no choices of her own but to flee at every chance she had gotten. He had never thought to ask; he was her mate, and his whole DNA makeup made him need to protect her. But that was a poor excuse for the way he had treated her. Again, he had failed her. Again, he had forced her away from him.

“I’m sorry, my lady. I do beg your forgiveness. As I will hers when I see her again, and I will beg for it every day for the rest of our lives together. I thank you for your kindness and for your wisdom. Thank you.”

Colin bowed before her and then bared his throat to her. The ultimate sign of submission and trust for a vampire.  Colin showed her a great deal of trust and respect with his move. Taking the head from a vampire’s shoulder or exposing them to the direct sunlight were the only two known ways to kill a vampire and bring a true death.

Colin didn’t move, but stayed knelt before her. When she kissed his jugular, he sighed with relief. She had forgiven him and would allow him to live. He stood and bowed once more before her and then sat in one of the wing chairs near the fireplace.

Colin reached out to Shade again through their connection. It had been hours since she had left and he hadn’t been able to reach her in all that time. He should have tried to contact her rather than try to intimidate her, he realized. He thought that if he didn’t learn this lesson soon concerning these women, he may not live long enough to tell Shade he loved her.

“Shade, my love, where are you?”

He smiled when he felt the connection touch her. The only other person he had been able to touch mentally had been Aaron. Touching Shade this way was so much more intimate. He sent her his warmth and his need for her as he waited for her to reply to him.

There was a slight hesitation at his touch from her. She was trying to build higher and tighter walls to try and block him out, away from her. It would no longer work; they were true mates and the bond was strong, but it still hurt nonetheless.

“What do you want? How did you contact me?”

Colin could feel the anger rising in her when she realized that she couldn’t block him. He smiled at that. His mate had as much to learn about him as he did her. They were both very stubborn people, it seemed.

“We have a blood bond, you and I. We’ve exchanged blood. It’s given us this unbreakable connection that can only be severed by death. You are my mate, as I am your. It’s called a ‘true-path,’ a private link we share for our conversations with each other. I’ll always know where to find you, what you’re feeling, thinking. Just as you can me.”

“Just fucking great! Even more ways for you to irritate me. If you can tell where I am then why the hell did you ask me, you dick head? So, what…I wait here while you rush to bring me back to your king bloodsucker? I want you to
—
”

She stopped suddenly; he felt her have a sudden awareness, a ripple of fear race through her mind. There was something else, something he couldn’t understand. Then the pain ripped through her whole being. Incredibly horrific pain had lanced throughout her, radiating from her upper left shoulder and down her arm; her mind hazed with it. Then another strike of pain, this one from her left side. He could feel the blood leaving her body, weakening her.

“
Shade!”
In his terror for her, he was yelling out loud. Everyone in the room heard his anguish for her and knew something horrible had happened. “What happened, baby? Answer me.”

Colin jumped from the floor and flashed to the door, nearly stampeding the woman there running ahead of him. He knew that Elizabeth had felt it too, and wondered about that fleetingly, but the thought was gone almost as quickly as it had appeared. He was totally focused on Shade and what may have caused her so much pain.

“What? What happened? She’s gone now. I can’t feel her. I...I can’t touch her. What happened? Please tell me what you know.” Elizabeth begged him for answers.

“I don’t know. She’s been hurt badly. Shot, I think – twice. The pain was incredible. I have to find her, get to her. I’m going to go and look now.” He was opening the door as he spoke, moving out toward the woman he loved.