Stone Lover (39 page)

    “You’re trembling,” he murmured, stepping back and putting his hands in the air to show her he wasn’t going to do anything she didn’t like. Briefly, she noticed that a robe was covering his nudity. Rhys was standing next to him and he was also covered, concern etched across his brow.

    “I h…hate h…heights,” she stammered, not realizing how paralyzed with fear she was until she was no longer dangling over the edge of the building. Closing her eyes, she snuggled further into Vaughn’s stone body; if she pretended hard enough, she could almost imagine she could feel warmth coming from him.

    “Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?” Rhys asked softly.

    “Why?” she asked, trying to find a comfortable position where stone wasn’t pressing against a cracked rib, or a broken arm, or a bruised shoulder. “I just got out of one.”

    “What the hell happened?” Armand asked, demanding answers from the girl before she lost consciousness. It seemed like a really bad idea to not take her to the hospital; she looked as if a light breeze would knock her over.

    “Car accident,” she mumbled, her brows furrowing as she fidgeted. Her lips pressed together and the color faded from her face as she kept knocking against a sore spot on her body. And since her entire body was sore….

    “Jesus, Melanie,” Armand growled, ignoring her protests as he carefully slid his arms beneath her body. “You need to get inside.”

    “I can’t leave him,” she objected, unable to struggle out of his strong arms. “If I hadn’t removed the necklace, I would have been here on time and he wouldn’t be stone now. He wouldn’t have to wait for me to die to wake up.”

    “You actually planned on completing the ritual,” Armand whispered with wonder, staring down at her and seeing her as if for the first time. Her eyes were closed, the thick lashes a curve on her battered cheeks; she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was going to complete the ritual.

    “Yes, of course,” she scowled. “Of course I was. Please let me stay with him.”

    “You need some rest,” Armand contradicted. “Sleep and when I feel you are strong enough to stand on your own you can come back up.”

    He was so demanding but she was too tired to argue. “You’ll let me see him?”

    “Yes,” Armand murmured, taking her into their living quarters, into Vaughn’s room. He gently laid her on the bed. “I’m sorry; I didn’t know you loved him enough.”

    “I shouldn’t have panicked,” she mumbled, breathing in Vaughn’s familiar scent as Armand placed her in the comfortable bed.

    “You’re only human.” Amusement laced Armand’s voice but Melanie had a hard time finding the humor. At the moment all she wanted to do was close her eyes and lose herself in the oblivion of sleep. She started to roll onto her side when she felt the pull of fresh stiches; she tried moving the other way but the bed pressed against her ribs.

    “Let me see the damage,” Armand murmured, carefully removing her clothes. She was too overwhelmed with grief to care over much that she lay naked before him. Turning her head to the side, she closed her eyes as Armand clinically and methodically examined her cuts and bruises, his hands lightly moving over the tender wounds.

    “Can you heal her?” Rhys softly asked from the door way.

    “Of course, but it will take a little time,” Armand answered, warmth spreading outwards from where he touched her with the tips of his fingers.

    “Why?” Melanie asked the question but her voice had no sound and the scent of Vaughn filled her head. Warmth pulsed through her wounds and the world disappeared.

     “Why are you so much more powerful that your brothers?” Melanie asked Armand several days later as he continued to heal her body. He had explained why her body would go into shock if he healed her too quickly: it wouldn’t understand the difference between healing and infection and it would retaliate, hurting her even more. And then things would get really messed up.

    In a lightweight camisole and a pair of skimpy panties, she was strangely comfortable wearing so little in Armand’s presence. His touch was tender and full of affection, but it was the affection of a healer for a patient. Or a brother towards a sister. They didn’t talk much; she had been pretty much out of it for the first two days and today was the first time she felt human again. She just had to learn to live without her heart.

     “I gave up my nights for a woman once,” he explained distantly, but she had already figured that much out. With a negligent shrug, he added, “I lost the girl and I gained some power.”

     That was such an understatement.

    She looked down at Armand’s large hands on her left arm; the cast was gone and there was no pain. Running her hands over her ribs, she discovered that they were no longer wrapped in bandages either. She took a deep breath and felt her lungs expand to full capacity. Moving her free hand over her face, she no longer had any stitches and there was no more pain. Armand had told her that she would always have the faint scars but they would continue to fade; they were hardly noticeable now. She was continuously amazed by how quickly she was healing, even if it wasn’t instantaneous.

    Armand wasn’t just good, he was incredible. She had had no idea he was so powerful. She was lucky that it had been Vanessa that night in her apartment; she would never have met Vaughn….

    Hell, maybe it would have been better if Armand had erased her memory; then Vaughn would still be a living gargoyle and she wouldn’t know this crushing agony. But then she wouldn’t have known Vaughn and that would have been tragic.

     “Do you hate her?” she asked softly, glancing up at Armand from beneath her lashes; he truly was a stunning man with his black hair and piercing green eyes and sculpted-to-perfection face. He cocked the head to the side in question and she licked her bottom lip, “Do you hate the woman for not choosing you?”

    He was silent for a long time, staring intently at his hands on her left arm. The silence grew deafening and Melanie was debating whether or not to ask again when he rasped, “It was easier to blame her for not choosing me and I think I must have hated her for not loving me enough.” He laughed without humor, “I even told her about the repercussions before we ever began and she was eager to be my eternal mate. But in the end she changed her mind.”

    A tear ran down her cheek and her lips trembled, “Did you ever forgive her?”

    His eyes searched hers, perhaps trying to find the answer. Brushing the tear from her cheek with the pad of his thumb, he nodded his head once, “Yes; I believe I have.”

    “Do you think Vaughn hates me?” her voice was barely more than a whisper but she knew he heard her; his head jerked back as if she had slapped him.

    “No, sweetheart,” Armand said vehemently, cupping her face in his palm and forcing her eyes to meet his. “No; he loved you until the end. He still loves you.”

    “Will he be able to forgive me?”

    Closing his eyes, he gathered her up in his arms and held her close. She wrapped her arms around his neck as tears fell unheeded against the navy silk of his shirt. Stroking her back, trying to comfort the devastated girl, he whispered roughly, “I wish I could take all of your pain away.”

    “Is there anything we can do?” she managed to get out between gut-wrenching sobs as her grip tightened and her body was intimately pressed against his. She was nearly crawling into his skin and she was unaware of how little she wore.

    Armand’s arms tightened as well and he could feel how much weight she had lost in the last couple of days. In addition to having spent a week in a coma, she hadn’t been eating since waking up. She pecked at the food he and Rhys brought to her but in her grief she had no appetite. Pressing his nose against the curve of her neck, he inhaled deeply and slowly let it out. “There may be a way.”

    Abruptly, she pulled away and looked at him, her blue eyes swimming in tears. A small smile trembled on her lips as she remained nearly in his skin, “Really?”

    Clearing his throat, he swallowed, “I take his place.”

    Her brows drew together and she frowned at him, “I don’t understand.”

    “You preform the ritual with me,” he said roughly, holding his body and emotions tightly together. “If I give up my nights for you than he should be free.”

    She stared at him as if he was mad and perhaps he was. He swore never to give up his nights again and he was offering to do so for this girl, knowing that the ritual would never be completed. She would still grow old and die but at least his brother would have a few years with her….

    She fell out of his arms and flung herself back onto the bed, laughing. “Oh, Armand, I do love you but you know that is an impossible solution.”

    “Melanie,” he growled, leaning over her until she was beneath him and they were face to face. He rested his forearms against the bed on either side of her head as he glared down at her. “Damn, it, Melanie, I’m serious.”

    Reaching up, she stroked the silken skin of his cheek and gazed at him with a soft expression, her blue eyes sparkling with tears and broken laughter, “I know you are, Armand; but I’m not going to do that to you or to Vaughn.”

    With a sigh, she turned her head to the side, “Maybe Omari knows how to get him back.”

    Armand went preternaturally still atop of her, “You know Omari.”

    “Yes,” she sighed again, a slight smile curving her lips. Before she could explain how she knew him, there was a deliberate cough from the door. She turned her head to see Rhys standing in the doorway, an amused expression on his face as he took in the scene before him.

    “Sweetheart, your sister is here to see you,” Rhys grinned as Armand pushed himself from Melanie’s bed and stood up, keeping a wary eye on the girl.

    Confused and bewildered and pleased, she asked, “How does she even know where I am?”

    It wasn’t that she was trying to hide from her loved ones but she didn’t want them to see the severities of her injuries and she needed some time to figure out how she was going to deal with the loss of Vaughn. Truthfully, she hadn’t given much thought to them since waking up in the hospital and then realizing she was too late to save Vaughn. She hadn’t thought about much of anything. 

    “Apparently there have been news reports of a girl with severe injuries who woke up from a week long coma and simply disappeared from the hospital,” Rhys explained; she could hear the smile in is voice. “Jenna recognized your photo, even though it was taken while you were unconscious and broken.”

    Melanie groaned, rolling her eyes and smiling wryly. “I hope nobody else recognized me; I was not very pretty at the time.”

    Rhys chuckled, striding forward and placing a brotherly kiss on her forehead, “She’s determined to see you; shall I let her in?”

    “Of course,” Melanie said, forcing herself to sit up against the headboard. It was made difficult by the fact that Vaughn’s bed was so luxurious and plush and she just wanted to sink back into it and fall asleep. Pushing her tangled hair out of her face, she looked from Rhys to Armand, who had the strangest expression on his face. “How do I look?”

    “You look beautiful,” Rhys said sincerely yet she didn’t believe him Even if she hadn’t given any thought at all to her appearance over the last few days, she knew she looked a wreck.  She turned her head to Armand but he just glowered, grabbing Rhys’s arm and leading him from the bedroom. She must have looked worse than she thought.

    As soon as they left, she once again dragged her fingers through her tousled hair, hoping to look at least a little respectable for when she saw Jenna. What was she going to say to her sister? How could she explain where Vaughn was and why she was living with his brothers and not back at the house?  It was true that she had been pretty out of it but she should have given a brief thought to calling her family and letting them know that she was all right. And as long as she didn’t think about Vaughn… as longs as she didn’t think about him, she was almost okay.