Purpose (38 page)

“You’re brooding,” I finally said.

“Hmm…?” he asked distractedly.

“You’re wallowing in regret and you need to
stop.”

He confirmed my suspicion by not responding
for a long moment. When he finally did, his voice came out in a
pained whisper. “I almost killed you today, Alexis.”

I shook my head. “No. Not you.
You
protected me. The monster tried to kill me, but you were still in
there, too. Preventing it.”

“I couldn’t control it, though.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I countered.

He sighed. “You give me too much credit.”

“I wish you would stop beating yourself up,”
I said with a groan of frustration. “If you really wanted to kill
me, Tristan, you would have. But you didn’t. You couldn’t do it.
You overcame the monster.”

He shook his head. “God overcame it.”

“God gave me the power and I gave it to you
to strengthen the
real
you. Because we knew you were still
fighting. I would be dead right now if it weren’t for Real
Tristan…
my
Tristan…keeping me alive.”

He fell silent again for a long time. I hoped
he accepted my point.

When he finally spoke, his voice was much
lighter. “Well, keeping you alive
is
in my best interest.
And I’m selfish like that.”

I snorted. “You are one of the most
un
selfish people I know.”

“Hmm…when it comes to you, you have no idea
how selfish I can be.”

I smiled to myself. “Well, I forgive you for
that, too. Since it’s also in my best interest.”

“Thank you,” he murmured. His kisses behind
my ear and the lighter feeling in the air told me he no longer
mulled over this afternoon’s events. Happy to move beyond the
gloom, I trained my thoughts on the blaze over the water.

“Can I ask you a question?” I asked, turning
sideways to see his face.

“You can always
ask
,” he teased,
pulling out one of my old lines, from when we first met. I smiled
at the memory…and at the fact that his attitude had genuinely
improved.

“What is it with you and sunsets? You never
told me why you like them so much.”

“Ah.” He shrugged. “They’re just beautiful,
aren’t they? The perfect piece of art, each one unique.”

“That’s it?” I’d always thought there was
something more to it—he’d always made such a point of watching
them.

“Well…not exactly. I like to watch the
sunrises, too, but you’re never awake for them.” He paused. “See,
the vamps may be able to come out in the day, but they prefer the
night and the cover of darkness. All the Daemoni do. Humans fear
the unknown and anything beyond the light is unknown. The Daemoni
feed off that fear. I once lived for the night, too, but now I
appreciate the light and all its various forms. The colors it
produces that can’t be seen in its absence. The way it bounces off
the clouds and the water when it’s on the horizon. Sunsets are a
little extra special because they mark another day I’ve been able
to live in the light. They only mean anything when I’m with you,
though.”

He glanced down at me, then quickly looked
away, as if embarrassed by this secret he’d just divulged. The
pinks and purples and golds—so many more than I’d ever noticed
before—swam out of my vision as I took in an even more precious
sight. If at all possible, he appeared even more exquisite now than
he’d ever been before. And, if at all possible, I loved him more
this moment than ever before.

I took his face in my hands and kissed him.
It became the first passionate kiss we’d had since the
Ang’dora
. It blew me away. His lips felt even softer and
smoother than they had last night, like silk against mine. I
caressed my hands over his face, feeling the new smoothness, and
slid them back, twisting them into his hair and pulling him closer.
I separated my lips and his tangy-sweetness tasted delicious.

He lay me down in the sand, cradling my head
in the crook of his arm, and moved his mouth along my jaw, down my
neck and across my shoulder and then followed the path back up
again. The electric current underneath my skin charged more
intensely than ever and felt more exciting than our first touches.
His free hand trailed down my side, over my hip and around my
thigh. He slid it under the bottom of my dress, up along the inside
of my leg. I shuddered with overwhelming excitement as his fingers
trailed along the edge of my panties.

“This is unbelievable,” I breathed.

“Mmm…it’s a good start,” he replied, still
kissing me. Then he picked me up and carried me into the house, our
lips moving together the whole way. The results of the
Ang’dora
magnified every sensation of making love to him by
at least one hundred times compared to before. I lost any control
I’d ever had. And he did, too…but not in the way that made his eyes
blaze. In a good way. A blissful way.

I knew because when I lost control, the wall
in my mind fell and I could hear his thoughts. And I felt the
sensations and experienced the excitement for both of us. Overcome
with euphoria, my mind exploded and reached into his, sharing what
I felt.

“Oh…
Lex
,” he moaned pleasurably as we
both flew over the edge.

I apologized later, as we lay on the floor,
the bed in shambles again. “Sorry for getting into your head. I
couldn’t help it.”

He grinned widely, the gold flecks in his
eyes dancing. “Don’t be sorry. That was…
mind blowing
.”

I slept peacefully—for the first time in over
seven years, I didn’t have a single dream.

We spent the next two days putting our
affairs in order, as Rina had put it. Tristan used my computer to
move money around our various accounts. Owen met Julia, who
delivered identification for him and for the new A.K.
Emerson-Wells. We also worked on my powers.

By our last day there, I could move
objects—even Tristan—with my mind, control my electrical charge at
different levels of power and flash without falling. We practiced
flashing together, too, Tristan holding my hand and leading me. I
found this even more disorienting than flashing by myself, because
I went with him but didn’t know where. The “destination” I had to
concentrate on was simply “wherever Tristan is.” We must have done
it fifty times before I could land without falling, Owen laughing
at me every time. Although I learned to sense Tristan’s flash
trail, the guys decided against my learning how to follow it yet.
Apparently, following a trail was more difficult than I had time to
practice.

We also searched for my pendant. We never
found it.

Our flight from Miami to London, where we
would connect to Athens, left in the afternoon of the third day. My
emotions were mixed as we prepared to leave the beach house, where
so much had happened to me.

“Will we ever be able to return?” I asked
Tristan.

“I don’t know. I hope so.”

“Me, too,” I said with a sigh.

From my honeymoon to grieving to the
Ang’dora
, this house had seen the best and worst of me. It
would forever hold a special place in my heart. We shared one final
kiss in
our
house and then Tristan looked down at me and
smiled.

“Ready to go home?” he asked.

I felt sad to leave but excited for what was
to come, even with the danger we could face on the way. “I guess.
Let’s do it.”

He took my hand and we walked down the
driveway, into the brush and flashed. I’d become accustomed to the
absence of air by now, but I still sucked in a huge breath when we
appeared, a natural reaction.

Owen had gone ahead to drop the photos in the
mail and to transport our luggage because we couldn’t flash with it
and we’d look suspicious flying without any. He waited for us in
the long-term parking lot at the Miami airport.

“So much for the Ferrari,” Owen muttered
sadly as we abandoned the sports car and headed for the
terminal.

“I thought you were getting a motorcycle,” I
teased to cheer him up. It worked.

His face brightened and he smiled. “Oh,
yeah.”

We traveled with no problems from the
Daemoni. Tristan had been concerned they would stage a terrorist
attack, but apparently they weren’t ready to go that far with the
humans. When we arrived in Athens, we had to go our separate ways.
The Amadis mansion occupied a private island in the Aegean Sea.
Owen took the Amadis boat with our luggage, but Mr. and Mrs. Wells
checked into a hotel room and then rented a boat for the day,
leaving a paper trail for the authorities and the media.

The boat trip was unbelievably beautiful. The
sun shone brightly, dancing on the azure water and warming the air,
although the wind held a slight chill. I was glad to finally be
able to let my mind relax—being in crowded places was difficult. It
had taken every ounce of mental energy to keep my wall up on the
airplane, knowing I couldn’t escape the voices if it fell. Owen and
Tristan took turns “singing” and “talking” to me, just to give my
mind something to tune into. Now, with no one around but Tristan, I
didn’t have to hold the wall at all.

After about an hour, Tristan idled the engine
and pointed at an island about three miles away, barely visible on
the horizon. “That’s where we’re flashing to first. I’ll lead. Then
we’ll have to swim to the Amadis Island. It’s shielded, of course,
so we can’t flash onto it.”

“Okay,” I said, although I didn’t feel okay
at all. My insides squirmed with anxiety.

Tristan twisted his hand and shot a bolt of
fire at the boat’s engine. It ignited, large flames building on the
fuel. No turning back now.

And then we both heard another boat engine
approaching quickly. Too quickly.

“They’ll go by—I hope,” Tristan muttered. We
had little time with the flames growing larger by the second and we
certainly didn’t need someone coming to help before we flashed.

“
Got ’em
,” the horribly familiar yet
beautifully musical voice chimed in my head. I felt the blood drain
to my feet.

“Vanessa,” I barely croaked.

Tristan spun around and eyed the approaching
boat. He swore under his breath, his fists clenching at his
sides.

“Now what?” I mouthed, unable to get the
words out.

His body relaxed as he turned to me. “Stick
to the plan. She won’t be able to get us.”

“Will she follow us, though?”

“She won’t know where we’re going and she
won’t get close enough to follow our trails.” Tristan’s eyes cut to
the fiery engine. “We have to go.”

He grabbed my hand but I couldn’t bring
myself to stand up. I watched the other boat approach from the back
and swing around to the front of ours.

My insides contracted tightly with panic.
What if I screw up and don’t go with Tristan? What if I get
stuck here alone? Can I fight her?
I thought I could, but I
wasn’t positive. And Vanessa had back-up. Her brother drove the
boat.

“Come on,
ma lykita
, we’ll be okay,”
Tristan said softly. “Trust me.”

Those last two were the words I needed to
hear. I stood up and nodded. Holding hands, we ran up the bow and
jumped.

Barely in time. The boat engine exploded.

Vanessa stood right below us at her bow,
grinning as she looked up at us. Her brother stood behind the
wheel, also gazing at us. They seemed to be waiting for us to land
right into their laps.

And then we flashed.

But not before I caught the gleam of the sun
hitting a silver circle with a red stone in the center, dangling
from Vanessa’s gloved hand, as if taunting me.

We landed on the island and I sucked in a
deep breath as Tristan surveyed our surroundings.

“We’re good from now on,” he said.

I turned around, though, and started stomping
away as if that was the way back to Vanessa. “Stupid, evil,
thieving vampire bitch.”

Tristan’s arm immediately encircled my waist,
holding me motionless. “I know, my love. I saw it, too.”

“Then let’s go get it!” My anger overshadowed
the fear I’d just felt when I first heard her thoughts.

“Don’t worry, we will. Just not right now. We
need to get home.” He pressed me tighter against him.

I stopped struggling. As strong as I was now,
intensified more by my anger, I was still no match for Tristan. And
he was right. There would surely be plenty of opportunities to get
my pendant back in the future. Because she—and the Daemoni—would
not give up.

Which became obvious immediately. I heard her
thoughts again first and then her boat as it quickly approached the
little island.

“Son of a bitch,” Tristan muttered.

“How does she always know where we are…?” My
voice trailed off as I realized the answer. “Oh! Oh, no! Tristan…my
blood. My blood is in her!”

His arm dropped from my waist and I slid to
the ground.

“
Shit
. Why didn’t I think of that?” He
kicked a boulder the size of a soccer ball and it sailed across the
water before dropping with a
ker-plunk
.

“How far until we’re safe?” I asked.

He took me back into his arm and walked to
the edge of the water. He nodded at another island, again about
three miles away.

“The shield goes one mile out from that
island.”

“Can we flash into water?”

“
I
can, but I don’t know about you,”
he said. “It takes practice—you can’t inhale like you do or your
lungs will fill with water. And we have to get the distance just
right, close to the shield, because they’ll be right on top of us.
There’s no room for error.”

Vanessa’s boat came around to our side of the
island, slowing down as it approached the beach, aimed for right
where we stood.

“Then we fight or we try. Unless you have any
better solution?” I asked.