Eternal Island (Book 1 in the Eternal Series) (27 page)

“You scream and I’ll pull the trigger. You’re a pretty little girl. I could play with you for hours,” he whispered in her ear.

Ariana was scared to death, but she knew that if she didn’t do something her and Becky might be found on some back road somewhere, cut up in little bitty pieces, if they were lucky. Fish food, if they weren’t. And as she opened her mind to read his, she found that little bitty pieces and fish food were both preferable to what he had planned for them before he killed them.

Ariana brought all of her emotions to the surface and then whispered ‘burn’.

“You say something, sweetheart? What I want you to do is open the door nice and slow and hit that little button to pop the trunk. Then you two are gonna walk around to the trunk…”

Ariana focused again and this time she shouted it at the man. If they were going to die, it wouldn’t be because she was too scared to at least try to save them. “Burn, you asshole!”

“What? Ow… what the hell?” The man dropped the gun and let go of Ariana’s arm to bat at the flames that were getting bigger and bigger, licking all over his body. “Ahhh, ahhh, make it stop. What did you do to me, you little bitch?”

Ariana brought her emotions up again and shouted “Water”. Instantly, the man was saturated with water that came out of nowhere. The look on his face was panicked as he first backed up and then turned around and started to run away.

Ariana knew she shouldn’t let this creep go, but she didn’t know how to stop him without burning him or drowning him. What can I do to immobilize him? Ariana thought.

It came to her as suddenly as if someone stationed in her head answered her unspoken question.

She brought her emotions to the surface once again, pointed and shouted before the villain rounded the corner. “I paralyze you.” The guy first dropped to his knees, and then his face hit the concrete.

Becky dialed Jonah’s cell, breathing hard, close to tears.

“Hey, you miss me already? I miss you, too. How much longer are you two going to be? Abe’s getting antsy.”

Becky’s voice was shaky when she spoke. “Is he there? Is Abe there?” Becky looked at Ariana who was still pointing at the man laying on the ground. “I think it’s okay now, Ariana, he ain’t going anywhere. Put your hand down, honey.”

Jonah sensed something was wrong. “Becky, are you okay? Did Ariana wreck the Porsche?” She could hear Abe in the back ground and his voice was getting louder. She just knew he was going to snatch the phone out of Jonah’s hand.

“Where’s Ariana? Is she okay? Damn it, Becky, talk to me,” Abe growled.

Yup. Looks like she knew Abe better than she’d thought.

“I think… Yeah, I think we’re okay now. But we will be bringing you something back to the palace. We’ll be there in about forty-five minutes or so. Don’t worry, Ariana can sure take care of herself. We’re coming home now.”

“Becky, if you don’t tell me what happened I’ll probably have all my hair pulled out by the time you get here, and if Ariana leaves me because I’m bald, it will be all your fault. Do you want that on your conscience? Could you at least drive, please? I don’t want Ariana fainting behind the wheel.”

“Yeah, I can drive.”

“Good. Now let me talk to her so I will know for sure that she’s alright.”

Becky held out her phone to Ariana.

“Abe wants a word with you.”

Ariana looked Becky in the eyes, took a deep breath and let it out before taking the phone and putting it to her ear. “I’m fine Abe, keep your hair on. We are coming back now. We really are fine, so you can quit worrying. And I don’t care if you’re bald, but I do like your hair.”

Abe spoke through his teeth. “I’ll stop worrying when you’re safe in my arms, Ariana. Until you become a vampire, me worrying about you is not open for negotiation. Please be careful on your way back. I love you.”

Ariana had calmed down enough to understand why Abe was so worried. She had felt the same way the minute she found out Michael had been killed. You never knew when your whole world would be turned upside down and so she lowered her voice. “I’ll be there soon. I love you, too.”

Becky walked over to their paralyzed attacker. His eyes were darting back and forth between Ariana and Becky; they were the only things he could move.

“Are you going to help me, Ariana? Pop the trunk and grab his feet.”

Ariana opened the trunk and noted that it was huge for such a compact car. She looked at Becky. “Let me try something; I don’t want to touch that creep.”

Becky stood back as Ariana pointed at the man. “Levitate!” Ariana laughed, shocked yet delighted, as the guy’s body raised two feet off the ground. She directed her finger toward the open trunk and his frozen body obeyed her command.

Once he was settled in there, with all appendages inside, Ariana shut the trunk and started for the driver’s seat.

“Um, Ariana, Abe really wanted me to drive, just in case you…”

Ariana shot Becky a dirty look.

“You can drive,” Becky said quickly.

They got in and Ariana started the car. She put it in gear, pushing the pedal all the way to the floor once more.

“Are you really okay, Ariana? That guy scared the shit out of me and I wasn’t even the one that had the gun in my back.”

Ariana took a deep breath. “I’m fine now. If this had happened to me a month ago, I wouldn’t have been. But I think, since I got here, well… I think my powers are giving me some mental strength, too.”

“You start feeling woozy, you pull over and I’ll drive the rest of the way home, deal?”

Ariana smiled at Becky. “Deal.”

Ariana drove the car as fast as she could without once feeling like she was going to lose control. It helped that the road was straight as a board.

She could tell, by looking at the sky, that there would only be a few minutes of daylight left, and she was glad that Becky’d had the idea to put the top up on the car so the wind wouldn’t mess up their new hair on the way back.

As she drove down the ramp, into the garage, she saw two male figures standing two feet back from the line the sun made on the concrete floor. She didn’t want to run them over, so she stomped on the brakes.

Abe had her door open and his arms around her in a flash. “Are you okay?”

When she didn’t say anything he held her at arms’ length and searched her eyes anxiously.

“Well, for a second there, I couldn’t breathe. But I think I’m okay now. Can I park the car?”

“Let Jonah or Becky do that; I’m not letting you out of my arms.” Abe looked up at Jonah, who quickly took the hint and got behind the steering wheel.

“I see your hair’s still okay,” she tried to brighten Abe’s mood.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah.” Abe cracked a smile. “You haven’t seen me at my best, though. The day you arrived it was electric blue.”

“What? Your hair?”

“Um-hum. Rainey uses booby-traps instead of dead-bolts.”

“Ha, ha. Yes, she did say she expected to see lots of blue-haired people when she got back. I never realized you were one of them.”

“It was a close-run thing. You saw me right after Rainey restored my natural good looks. Now, about earlier. What happened? You’re not hurt, are you? Becky almost gave me a heart attack. Well, she would have if I had a beating heart.”

Ariana squeezed his hand. “Abe, we need to talk about something.”

He stopped suddenly, gloom clouding his eyes. Ariana quickly scanned his thoughts.

“No, no, I’m not leaving you. I’m not going anywhere, but I’m not completely happy with the idea of becoming a vampire yet. I’ve just done something today, something… powerful… and that proved to me that I don’t need vampire strength to live. My powers are enough to keep me and my friends safe. And besides, I got the job at the clinic today. I will have to go to work while the sun is still out. If I’m a vampire, I won’t be able to do that. Oh, and I got Becky a job, too, as my assistant, so you’ll need to replace her in the kitchen.”

When they got closer to the parked car Ariana heard something. At first she thought the guy in the trunk had regained his mobility, but after looking at Abe she realized it was him grinding his teeth.

Abe lowered his head to hers and took a deep breath to calm himself before he spoke.

“Ariana, I thought I made myself clear about that. I won’t watch you suffer. I won’t watch you get broken bones or cancer. Hell, I wouldn’t even want to see you get a paper cut. And I won’t watch you die. I can’t. I thought, after all you’ve been through with Michael, you would understand. It would kill me to even think that, one day, it will happen. There are ways to keep your job, if you’re serious about it. I will set a clinic up for you in the palace, so your patients can come to you here during daylight hours. I’m glad Becky will be working with you, it’s good to have friends close by.” Abe cupped her chin in his hands. “I love you, for all eternity. Please understand that. I won’t force you to change, I couldn’t force anything on you, but if your choice is to stay the way you are, you won’t leave the palace unless I’m by your side, and that includes going to work.”

Jonah and Becky got out of the car. “Hey, man, wait till you see what they brought us to play with,” Jonah said grinning from ear to ear.

Abe never looked away from Ariana. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Probably not, but I handled it. I could never kill someone, so I thought that maybe you could deal with it, or leave him like he is and make him suffer. I’ve seen the awful things he was planning for us and, well, you might have found me and Becky somewhere, but we wouldn’t have been breathing when you did.”

Abe wasn’t registering half of what she was saying. It was like a cell phone with bad reception. All he heard was, ‘Probably not. I could never kill. Deal with it. Make him suffer. Awful things. Planning for us. We wouldn’t have been breathing.’

Still not breaking eye contact with Ariana, Abe growled. “Jonah, open the trunk before I rip it off.”

“Gladly, cuz,” Jonah replied as he hit the trunk button and it raised on its own.

Abe, still unmoving, closed his eyes. He could smell the human’s blood and hear his racing heartbeat, and he could smell the fear as the unfortunate realized whom he’d screwed with.

He had to let go of Ariana’s sweet face before he hurt her in his rush to teach the asshole a lesson.

Abe carefully let go of Ariana and braced his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths. “Ariana, Becky… get out of here, please.” As the girls started to go, Abe yelled. “Wait! Release the spell, Ariana, I want this bastard to feel everything. He’s gonna know whose woman he messed with.”

Ariana looked at the worthless piece of crap in her trunk and almost felt sorry for him. She could imagine what Abe was going to do to the guy. And then she reminded herself what was in his head and lifted the spell without another thought. The guy shot out of the trunk clumsily, tripped and fell on the garage floor.

Abe looked at Ariana. “Go and get ready. I have a few surprises for you as well, although I’m sure you will like my gifts a little more than I like the one you brought for me.” He smiled and kissed her quick. “I’ll pick you up at nine. Jonah and Becky are taking my Hummer, and we’ll take your new car. I’d like to be alone with you – I have something to talk to you about.”

Ariana’s heart skipped a beat and Abe heard it. He looked at her confused for a second before she whispered. “I’ll be ready.”

C
HAPTER 39

“He’s gonna do it tonight, isn’t he? He’s gonna pop the question and ask me to marry him tonight, isn’t he, Becky?” Ariana was a wreck as her eyes pleaded with Becky to tell her the truth if she knew it.

“Shhhh! Vampires have extraordinary hearing. You want him to hear you? Of course he isn’t going to ask you to marry him,” Becky said smiling. “Vampires don’t believe in marriage.”

Ariana sighed. “Good, that makes me feel a little better. I wonder what he wants to talk about, then.”

“Oh, maybe that he wants you to be mated to him. Be the island’s Queen. And maybe even have an heir for him, before he turns you into a vampire.” Becky said nonchalantly.

“Are you trying to run me off?”

“Lord, no. Abe has been like an angel since you got here, and I like you a whole lot. That’s why I’m telling you what I think it is, so you can freak out now instead of later, in front of him. It’ll save a lot of heartache. Go ahead, freak out.”

Ariana smiled. “Well, I’m going to use our alone time in the car to let him know how I feel before he does anything foolish.”

“And how do you feel?” Becky asked.

“I… ah… it’s just going too fast.”

“Why, you waiting on anything else?”

“Well, no, but…”

“What’s the problem, then? Didn’t we go through this once today already? Do I need to be Abe again, ’cause I don’t mind – he’s kinda hot.”

Ariana laughed as she let them into their room and stopped dead in her tracks.

“All these things better be to you from Jonah.”

There were flowers all over the place. A black ball gown and silver salsa dancing heels had been carefully laid out on her bed. On top of the dress sat a black velvet jewelry box the size of a small encyclopaedia.

“Um, Ariana, I don’t think any of that is for me this time. You’d better open that jewelry box, ’cause I have a feeling you would hurt his feelings if you do what you did with Jonah’s present.”

Ariana walked slowly to the bed and picked up the box. She opened it cautiously, as if its contents might jump out to bite her. What she saw nearly blinded her. A beautiful matching set of earrings, necklace and bracelet shimmered like miniature stars against the black velvet cushion of the box.

The diamond and onyx earrings would hang just below her earlobes. The diamond solitaires in them must have been a half carat each and there were three of them hanging from a black onyx stone on each earring. The bracelet was made from diamonds and onyx stones placed alternately, but the necklace was in a whole league of its own. It was sixteen inches of diamonds that came to a point in the center, a black onyx the size of a quarter hanging from the mid-point.

Becky choked. “Is he for real?”