Mack (King #4) (15 page)

“If it’s that easy to find the chalice, then why hasn’t he?”

She gave me a look. “Who said anything about easy? It took the man over three thousand years to find the rock I used to bind his curse.” Someday I’d have to ask her how she happened to be alive. From what I deduced, she knew King and Mack three thousand years ago. But that just didn’t matter right now.

I can’t accept this. I can’t
, I thought, looking at Mack’s beautiful face.

“We’ll do everything we can to find the chalice. I promise,” Mia said.

“What about your brother?”

She looked down at the lifeless hand cupped between hers. “Mack once gave me the choice between bringing back King or my brother. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made because I knew how losing Justin destroyed my parents, but I made my choice that day. I chose King. I will always choose him until my last breath. I choose him now. And that man doesn’t know how to live or breathe without his twin—the connection they have is too deep.” She sighed. “Saving Mack is saving the man I love.”

“I love you, Mia,” said a deep, gravelly voice from behind us.

We both swiveled our heads toward King, who stood in the doorway, his fit arms stretching the black fabric of his finely tailored suit. And I had to admit, it wasn’t easy looking at the spitting image of the man I’d just made love to less than a handful of minutes ago. My heart ached for him in a way I’d never be able to articulate.

Mia stood and walked over to King, pushing herself onto her tiptoes to reach his lips. I felt so envious of the two. Come what may, they had each other.

Me?

I had a past I couldn’t remember and my heart lying bled out on the floor in front of me. I didn’t know the man, yet he was everything to me.

“How much?” I said.

I didn’t hear a reply, so I glanced at King and Mia. They looked confused.

I repeated, “How much? How fucking much to bring him back?”

King frowned at me, clearly insulted. “You think I’d accept money for something like that?”

I shrugged. “All I know about you is that you’ve murdered me without mercy. And according to your wife here, you’re the guy who can find anything.”

He shook his head. “I wouldn’t even wipe my ass for you.”

“King,” Mia scolded.

“No.” He shot her a stern look. “There’s a reason I’ve kept killing her, and it’s lying on the floor right now. She can burn in hell.”

“I just want Mack back. That’s all,” I argued.

“You can find a deep dark hole to wither and die in.
I
will get my brother back.”

“I am not going to sit on my ass, waiting and hoping,” I said. “Not when he’s just as important to me as he is to you.”

King had a sinister look in his eyes.

“King, no,” Mia protested. “I know what you’re thinking. But your bartering days are over.”

Okay. What
was
King thinking? I continued listening.

“Not exactly,” King admitted.

“What?” Mia snapped. “But you told me you were done with running the 10 Club.”

Later, I would learn what the 10 Club was and why Mia seemed so adamant about King not being a part of it. For the moment, however, it was just one more piece of a world I was only beginning to understand.

“Mack was helping me dismantle it,” King said. “Obviously, that’s now put on hold. And I cannot leave it to run itself or someone else will take power. I must remain in charge until I can figure out a new plan.”

“Fuckingshit, King. No,” she barked. “Those people are dangerous.”

“So am I,” he replied.

“We have a baby. We have a life now,” she pleaded.

“Which is why you will return to the safety of our home in Crete while I do what I must to locate the chalice and take care of this hiccup with the 10 Club leadership.” He turned and looked at me. “As for you, I meant what I said. And I will give you five seconds to leave this place before I kill you for the sixth time. Or is it the seventh? I cannot remember.”

Mia’s face turned an angry shade of red. “I won’t let you—”

“No,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. I’ll go if it means I get to see Mack again.”

King growled. “If you so much as breathe my brother’s name again, I will remove your head and place it in a jar. But you won’t die, little Seer. You’ll live—for thousands of years if I wish it—screaming for help. But no one will hear you. Not a soul.” Mia opened her mouth to speak as he turned toward her. “And before you say a word, woman, I will remind you what you did to the man who gutted your brother like a fish.”

Mia snapped her mouth shut and looked up at him, visibly fuming. Yes, I now wanted to know what happened to this man King had just spoken of, but I had bigger issues, and clearly it was pretty heinous if it could make this Mia woman stop talking. Still, I had to plead my case. I had to try.

“I don’t care if I ever see Mack again,” I lied. “I just want to get him back. I want to know that he’s all right. Please, just let me help.”

I guessed that King didn’t like that idea, because I felt something slam my body into the wall before I blacked out.

~~~

When I woke, still in that cabin, I felt like I had been dismembered by a taffy puller. Every fiber of my being ached and felt paper thin, unable to carry its own weight. I glanced over to the spot where Mack’s body had been.

Gone.
So was the woman.

I groaned and rolled from my side onto my back, wishing I was dead, too. I missed Mack. I missed him so much that all I could think of was digging that hole King had mentioned.

Mack. Mack
. Less than a week ago I had been a woman focused on her career. I’d lived a life that was colorless and absent of love. Now, I loved so much that I could hardly breathe. Yes, I barely knew this man. But my heart and soul knew him like the sound of my own voice. It was such a difficult thing to have such a profound connection with a person and not have the memories of how you got there—dates, a first kiss, making love for the first time.

And as I lay there, wheezing and trying to find the strength to get up and fight, one question circulated in my mind.

Why can’t I remember?

It seemed that my memories wanted to push through but couldn’t. Whoever had done this to me didn’t want me to learn about my past with Mack or find him. And I didn’t get the impression that King (or Mia) had anything to do with it.

So why? What was it they wanted to hide from me?

I started to sob, dripping with misery, drenched in agony.
Fight, Óolal. Fight. That bastard King can’t really hurt you, and he knows it.
It was that voice inside me speaking. Me. Not me. Familiar and unfamiliar.

“How can I fight when I can’t even move?” I whispered.

Without reason or thought on the matter, I painfully edged my hands over my heart. I closed my eyes and stopped fighting the pain. Something inside told me to let it in.

I inhaled the hurt and consumed its heavy weight, like eating cement. Within seconds, I felt myself fading away to another place…

~~~

I am standing at the edge of a giant ballroom with white walls and gold trim, watching the other extravagantly dressed guests bow and twirl to the orchestra. I can’t believe I am here at yet another ball. I’m too old for this and have no desire to marry. At least not any man I’ve ever met. They all smell like perfumed poodles or speak only of my dowry. My friend and companion Lucida, on the other hand, lives for the day she is wed. Of course, she is proper wife material. I am not. I read incessantly—science, philosophy, religion, and politics. I argue with my father. I refuse to do as I am told. My heart is wild and untamable and always will be.

I glance over at the grandfather clock in the corner of the massive room crowded with people who are laughing and drinking and judging one and other. One more hour of this horseshit and I am free to go. My older cousin Robert will chaperone me, as my father is away on business and my mother is feeling a bit “under the weather.” Really, she loathes these social events as much as I do, but this is my last season before I will officially be declared a spinster.
I cannot wait.
There is great freedom in being an old maid—no husband to make demands, no children to discipline, no more balls to attend.

As I try not to fidget or tug at my cream-colored silk dress to relieve the pressure of the whalebone digging into my rib cage, I feel someone watching me from across the room.

Oh, glorious
. Yet another man I will have to politely shoo away with an excuse about my worn-out feet. But when I look up, a stunning pair of blue, blue eyes meet mine, and I feel like the wind has been sucked from my lungs. I start to fall backward, unable to keep myself upright.

“Madam, are you unwell?” says a man to my side who had been chatting with my friend Lucinda about something trivial related to gardens.

I find my legs again and nod. “Yes, I am fine. My dress is a little tight.”

Lucinda, who is a petite-framed thing with golden locks—the exact opposite of me with my black hair and dark eyes—lets out a little laugh. “Evelyn, you really will go to any length to leave early. But I’m not having it. You made a promise to stay to the last dance.”

This is the point where I would normally begin begging her to leave, appealing to her love for me, as we’ve been lifelong friends, but this time I do not wish to go anywhere. At least, not with her.

I watch the stranger approach, weaving between an ocean of billowing ruffled skirts and men in black coats. He is a head taller than the rest and a thousand times more beautiful than any man I’ve ever laid eyes upon—shoulder-length sandy-blond hair, wide shoulders, and a pronounced jawline. The way he walks, with such confidence and ease, gives him an air of power. Or danger. I am unsure. Whatever the case, I cannot take my eyes away, and he cannot seem to remove his gaze from me.

I have seen him before. I know I have.
Yet I cannot recall ever meeting him, and this was the sort of man no woman could ever forget.

The man finally reaches me and stares down, holding me in place with those stunning azure eyes.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he says in a voice so deep and masculine that my toes curl inside my silk slippers underneath my gown.

Dear Lord, no. He thinks I am someone else
. My heart is broken. Right then and there.

“You have mistaken me, sir, for someone else,” I say acerbically. It’s just my luck that this man, this beautiful, wild-looking man who clearly doesn’t belong at a ball, though his clothes appear fine enough, would be in search of another woman.

He holds out his hand, a very improper gesture, as we have not been introduced. “I never make mistakes.”

I glance at his awaiting hand and cannot help wanting it. He’s simply too magnificent to deny.

I reach for him, and the moment I do, images flash through my mind. I see myself and him together, though he looks different. His features are dark and the planes of his face are exquisitely sculpted like a marble statue of a Greek god. But nevertheless, I know those eyes and their endless blues. And I know how he feels when he holds me and kisses me.

“Who are you?” I whisper.

“They call me Macarius.” His eyes shift around the room as if checking for someone. “Come, we must leave quickly.”

Lucinda is now dancing and paying me no attention. My cousin Robert is occupied with a young blonde in the corner, surely attempting to convince her to meet somewhere later so he can rob her of her virtue.

“Where will we go?” I ask, knowing it doesn’t matter.

Macarius smiles, but I can see it isn’t genuine. There’s a certain darkness in his lovely light eyes. He is dangerous. I want to be with him anyway.

He pulls me by the hand out the side door leading to a large fountain situated beside a long, torch-lit garden. The other guests will likely assume we are going to do something scandalous behind one of the many large trees, and I know my reputation will be soiled. I don’t care. I follow Macarius, and we silently make our way through the grounds, out a side gate, onto the street. The sound of horse hooves clicking, pulling carriages, fills the chilly air.

As we walk in silence, my gloved hand in his, more images come crashing down on me. Jungle, rain, a small dwelling. I see this man over me, sliding his naked body between my thighs, breathing into my hair.

Dear God. What is happening?
Still, I am unafraid. I want only to be with him. I am burning for him.

We turn the corner and enter the front gate of a large white house with pillars in the front. I know this home. I’ve seen it a million times. It was once owned by the governor, but he departed from San Francisco months ago. Rumor has it that a wealthy merchant from New York has purchased the estate but has not yet taken up residence. Obviously, they were mistaken. Here he is.

And he’s all mine.

We enter through the front door into a lavish foyer of white marble and muraled ceilings. Every thought running through my head tells me that my parents will disown me when word gets out that I am here. Yes, the servants will talk. They always do.

We go into his sitting room, where a fire is already lit. Cognac is set out on a small table beside the pastel blue couch.

“So this is your home? It’s lovely,” I say.

Macarius releases my hand and goes to pour himself a tall glass. “Care for a drink?” he asks, ignoring my comment.

“No. Thank you. I do not drink spirits. But can you…” I can’t seem to find the words I want to say.
What in God’s name is happening to me?

He guzzles his drink and sets down his glass, staring into the fire. “Do you have any idea how long I have been looking for you?”

“How can this be if we’ve only just met?”

He turns and looks at me sternly with those deep blue eyes. “You and I both know that’s not true, Óolal.”

“My name is Evelyn. Evelyn Burgess.”

“Call yourself whatever name pleases you. It does not change the fact that you are mine and that I am taking you up to my chamber.”