Souls of Fire (33 page)

At that declaration both Aaron’s and Aidan’s eyes shot to me, and then each other, before darting back to Malcolm in disbelief. My heart sank into my boots.

No, no, no, no, nooooo! It’s a nightmare!
raced through my mind.

“The feeling’s mutual,” Aidan muttered under his breath, throwing me a contemptuous look as my head spun toward him in surprise.

“What just happened there?” Aaron addressed Aidan, his voice practically oozing distrust.

“You can read her mind,” Malcolm said, looking intently at Aidan. It had not been a question but a statement. Somehow Malcolm seemed to have expected this.

Aidan didn’t answer, but everyone in the room knew Malcolm’s statement had hit home; Aidan’s silence, and the fact that he had dropped his gaze avoiding eye contact, spoke volumes.

“Why can he read my thoughts?” I asked Malcolm, “and how can I stop him?”

“You can’t stop him, my dear,” Malcolm responded, his tone regretful and conveying sympathy, “you are connected. The reason he can read your thoughts is that his gift has been honed since early childhood. He has learned how to use his power, you and Aaron have not. That is why you can’t read Aidan’s or each other’s thoughts.”

“I don’t understand,” Aidan said, “how can we both be destined to be her lover? That doesn’t make any sense. The curse spoke of a lover not two lovers. There should only be one ordained lover.”

“Ordinarily, yes,” Malcolm conceded, “but in this case, I’m afraid that because you are identical twins, deriving from the same cell, identical on a cellular level, what applies to one applies to the other.”

“I disagree,” Aidan maintained, “if that were the case, if I were part of a curse the conclusion of which is deeply rooted in and brought about by all-encompassing lust, then I would certainly have felt something of the sort by now. I haven’t.”

“Yes, I believe I can explain why that is,” Malcolm responded evenly. “Destiny has a certain way of fulfilling itself. A multitude of possible chains of action will lead to the same foreseen event in space and time.

Which means it is extremely difficult to escape one’s destiny because one never knows exactly which events can set a chain in motion and lead to its fulfillment.

In this case, it could have just as easily been you, Aidan, who set the wheels in motion if you had met Persephone first.

The pull of your destiny is nearly impossible to resist; Aaron and Persephone were thrown in each other’s paths and had no other choice but to give in to destiny’s incredible power, thus triggering the curse that will lead to our destruction.

Because they have already initiated the curse, I believe you and Persephone do not react to each other quite as strongly and, therefore, should be relatively safe in each other’s company without being tempted. However, I would strongly advise that you do not kiss.”

“No chance in hell!” Aidan replied, “I wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole,” he finished.

“Likewise,” I retaliated evenly.

Though Aaron seemed to take offense at the insult behind Aidan’s declaration, I couldn’t help but notice his self-satisfied expression at the fact that there appeared to be no love lost between Aidan and me.

“So, I had to pin you to opposite sides of the wall because …?” Malcolm asked smugly.

I could see Aaron’s head suddenly turn toward us, his eyes darting to me and Aidan; they were dangerously narrowed as he waited for further explanation.

“It was nothing,” Aidan replied evenly. “I needed to get a rise out of her to see if I could really read her mind, or if I had only imagined doing so. It was an experiment, nothing more.”

His explanation and the matter-of-fact statement he had given seemed to appease both Malcolm and Aaron, who visibly relaxed back into his chair.

“Aaah, well then I feel confident enough in conducting an important experiment of my own with the two of you,” Malcolm said, alternately looking at Aidan and me.

“Do I even want to ask?” I demanded sarcastically.

“Probably not,” Aidan agreed.

“People,” Malcolm interrupted, “show some confidence. I am merely trying to make life easier for everyone involved.

The fact of the matter is,” he looked at both Aaron and me before he continued, “that the two of you are utterly miserable. You can’t be together without endangering everyone, and you can’t be too far apart because of the curse, which makes your situation even harder to bear.

Persephone, since Aidan is connected to you as well, there is a not so slight possibility that his presence would be sufficient to keep you alive when Aaron is not near you.

If that indeed were the case, then you needn’t see each other so often and could eventually attempt to live your lives apart from one another, thus removing temptation and avoiding heading down a disastrous road.

And since I am confident that the two of you,” he motioned to Aidan and me, ”would rather be at each other’s throats than glued to each other’s lips, there is nothing to worry about if I remove Aaron from your floor and stick you in a room together.”

“In
one
room … together?” I cried out, my voice sounding shrill to my own ears. “How is that better?” I demanded. “You know, if you want to torture me, there are better ways,” I stated angrily.

“Torture
you? I’m
the one who’s being tortured, believe me,” Aidan retaliated.

“Kids, please!” Malcolm interrupted.

When both of us threw him a heated ‘whom-are-you-calling-a-kid’ look, Malcolm just shrugged his shoulders, and without batting an eye said:

“Well that is how you are behaving.”

So we stopped arguing and sat in mutinous silence, alternately glaring at Malcolm and one another.

“Is this really necessary?” Aaron asked suddenly. It seemed he was not quite as confident about the situation as Malcolm, and seemed ready to get out his dueling pistol instead.

“It has to be one room,” Malcolm qualified, addressing me, “because I’m unsure about the strength of your connection to Aidan, seeing as your reaction to him is not nearly as strong as to Aaron.”

It seemed to make sense, even if I would rather have eaten dung at that moment than admit as much in front of Malcolm. He had managed to invoke my rebellious streak.

Aaron was very quiet, apparently waiting with bated breath to see if Malcolm’s decision would be final.

If he had any misgivings about me spending my future nights in the same room as his equally gorgeous ― at least physically ― twin brother, he didn’t let on.

A large part of me found itself rather disappointed in Aaron’s lack of jealousy regarding this new living arrangement, before I mentally kicked myself and recalled I wasn’t supposed to feel this way. I was supposed to stay away from him, not entertain romantic notions about a happily ever after that was just
not
  written in the stars for us. So what did it matter whether or not he was jealous? It didn’t, not a damn bit!

Chapter 14
*
Moonlight Serenade

A
idan found himself in one of the tower rooms a short while later, cursing his bad luck and his father’s pig-headedness. He was now in the same room they had put Persephone in when she had arrived.

His father had magically expanded the room to fit another four-poster that he had conjured and placed directly next to Persephone’s.

He had also converted the other bedroom into a luxurious bathroom, complete with bathtub, shower, Jacuzzi, and a large lighted vanity. He had set the Jacuzzi in a corner niche and made one of the walls disappear, replacing it with a beautiful gothic window that provided a breathtaking view upon the rough sea in the cove far below.

After Persephone disappeared into the bathroom, Aidan lay stretched out on his bed, barefoot but fully clothed, arms bent behind his head as he contemplated his predicament.

This was a really bad idea!

He could feel it in his gut that this new living arrangement just spelled catastrophe. Inevitably the path they were on would lead to a turnoff. They had two choices:

It was a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. Either they would end up killing each other, or she might actually manage to bewitch him and take them both over the edge ― and the world with them.

He had lied to his father; well not exactly lied, but omitted some rather important details of what he had experienced when his senses had reached out to her earlier.

He hadn’t merely felt connected, he had felt so much more, and he couldn’t make himself forget the images and sensations he had accessed … he had become vulnerable.

And he had not been able to bring himself to divulge this sudden chink in his armor. Pride had stood in his way; he hadn’t wanted to appear weak. He hadn’t wanted to let his father know that his confidence in him had just been undermined by the dark and twisted charms of a woman.

He had felt ashamed and anguished by his own response to the feelings that had flowed over him. It seemed he was not at all as strong and incorruptible as he had always believed to be.

The truth was: he wasn’t and had never been as immune to her as he had made his father and everyone else believe.

When he had barged into the office and seen her for the very first time, he had been stunned to see how beautiful she was.

He had spent what felt like half a lifetime reading about the curse and the evil woman known as Morrigan, but he had never given much thought to what she might have looked like; he only ever thought about the terrible darkness at her core.

It had never occurred to him that she would be the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on.

Beautiful and deadly ― a devastating combination.

The emerald dress mirroring her eyes had softly flowed around her as he had held her pinned against the wall; the way the black bodice had strained against the white skin of her rose-adorned chest sending chills down his spine.

The anger and rage he had shown her had been all too real, but he had needed to summon them from deep down to protect himself, by thinking of the vile creature she was at heart and that it was because of her curse that his mother had met such an untimely and excruciating death.

Had he not held on to that notion, he could easily have succumbed to her magnificence.

And he had very nearly kissed her!

Directly following that thought, Persephone entered the room, coming from the bathroom. It seemed she had taken a shower or indulged in a soothing bath, her fiery wet hair fluidly cascading down her back like a waterfall at sunset. Her eyes deep pools of emerald.

Aidan’s heart started racing, but he managed not to let on about it and looked away, pretending to be bored. In reality he felt shaken.

He hadn’t believed it possible that she could be even more alluring than when he had first beheld her. Now he stood corrected.

The image of her entering the room had taken his breath away ― barefoot with wet hair and clad in nothing more than a lovely silk nightgown with spaghetti-straps adorned with cherry blossoms that reached to about mid-thigh, a hint of vanilla on her freshly cleansed skin.

Clenching his fists tightly, his fingers painfully digging into his palms, he focused on the malevolence he knew she carried inside.

Looks could be deceiving, but she could not fool him. He knew her true identity; and the clearer he saw her as the monster she was, the better he could withstand her ensnaring charms.

Turning onto his side away from her, he tried to relax and get some sleep. It was late by then, and the events of the day had tired him out. Be that as it may, sleep was nowhere to be found ― every time he closed his eyes, the images and sensations that had come to him earlier, the ones he had refused to tell his father about, replayed over and over again.

He had felt connected, just as he had said; but the connection he had felt had run much deeper than his father could ever have guessed at. In a moment of heightened concentration, he had felt himself kissing her, touching her, their bodies naked and entwined; he had felt every sensation as clearly and acutely as if it had actually happened.

In that moment he had wanted her so badly that it had completely thrown him, and he had had no other choice than to treat her with the utmost contempt, alarmed and ashamed as he had been at his own reaction. He didn’t want anyone to see how weak he was, and how strongly she had already managed to get to him.

There he was, prepping nearly his entire life to fight the devil incarnate, and when it actually had come down to it, he had succumbed to her within seconds. He would make her reveal her true colors, maybe then he would be able to resist her.

After lying awake for what felt like hours, his body too tense, his mind too engrossed in images of Persephone, Aidan’s totally exhausted mind finally drifted off to sleep.