Taken by Moonlight (45 page)

Cassie
didn’t know she’d moved until she was standing behind one such stone, peering
into a circle of men who were enclosing something. They were chanting, their
voices rising in harmony as another voice, in its anger, seemed determined to
drown them out. Suddenly the chanting stopped, and Cassie witnessed another man
in the middle of the circle. Confused, she stepped around the boulder,
forgetting that without the protection of the rock, she was free to be seen by
all. They didn’t seem to notice her so her stride became bolder.

The man in
the middle was saying something, something in Latin about a sacrifice, and the
gods, before he reached down and yanked something up. Cassie’s eyes widened as
dirtied blond hair immediately came into view. His hair obscured his face, but
Cassie had a bad feeling in her gut, the feeling she usually got when she was
telling herself something couldn’t be, and it turned out to be just that.

She moved
directly next to one of the group encircling the two men. It was then she
recognized a few things. Surrounding the two men, and deeply carved into the
ground, was a pentagram. In college, she’d had a Wiccan roommate who’d
introduced her to her culture. The pentagram surprised her, but the captured
man shocked her. It was Alexander. She knew it. She couldn’t see his face
because long, golden-colored hair covered it, but she knew that build, knew his
height. Even chained, shackled by two gold bands at his wrists and two at the
ankles, and bloodied, he looked regal.

Silence had
descended upon the gathering, and Cassie felt foreboding settle over her. The
silence was broken by her involuntary scream when the man holding Alexander
suddenly lifted a blade in his right hand and tugged on Alexander’s hair with
his left. His head went back and his hair moved, giving her a glimpse of the
face underneath.

She
expected fear. No one could blame a chained man for showing fear in the face of
such adversity. There was none. He was enraged. His lips were drawn tightly,
his pale eyes hard and angry. Alexander didn’t look like a man who’d accepted
he would die. He looked like a man ready to kill.

The blade
arced out and across, and Cassie was held still by some unnatural force as a
red line appeared at Alexander’s neck, moments before the blood began to flow.
The man, whom she’d surmised by now was one of the grand wizards who’d banished
him, stepped out, away, and rejoined the circle.

Cassie
couldn’t pull her eyes from the bleeding man. She was screaming inside, but
nothing came out. Alexander’s gaze shifted around the circle, locking on each
grand wizard as the light in his eyes slowly died, before landing on her. She
briefly wondered if he could see her. That thought propelled her forward, but
she bumped up against an invisible barrier. His gaze never left hers as he fell
to his knees, his face becoming a pasty white as red soaked through the already
dirtied white of his tunic, and absorbed into the material of his pants. His
eyes flickered, once, twice, and then he exhaled and collapsed onto the ground.

Gasping in
horror, Cassie fought against the unseen barrier to get to him. He was dying,
if not already dead! She had to—what? What could she do?

The grand
wizards began chanting again, and Cassie felt her anger grow. How could they be
so callous? Her horror and anger mounted when the blood from Alexander’s body
seemed to drain into the carvings in the ground, filling it until it glowed a
frightful red.

She
screamed, frustration and anger battling for dominance. Shaking her head, she
tried to run to him, moving away from the circle and returning at different
spots to break through the barrier. She couldn’t….

The scene
fell away, and she found herself struggling and fighting against a very alive
Alexander Petraeus. Tears leaked from her eyes, and he pulled her close,
pressing her against his body. Warm. Alive. She could hear his heart beating
steadily under her ear.

“You died,”
she said in an accusatory way, wanting to kill him over again for making her
watch that.

“No. No
weapon fashioned by man can kill me. I was gravely injured, drained of my
life’s blood, and weakened.”

She
breathed deep, willing herself to be calm. Cassie wasn’t the hysterical,
weeping kind. Her last breakdown had been early teens, and well deserved, but
this pushed her limits.

“I’m fine.”
Pulling away, she wiped at her face. His hands still held her upper arms, and
he was peering at her closely, as if trying to decide whether she spoke the
truth.

“I didn’t
want to show you that memory, but you gave me little choice,” he explained.

Cassie
nodded, sniffling still. “I don’t understand. Why did they
hurt
you like
that?”

“They
needed a powerful sacrifice. One that could open the portal to the other
realms. I’m strong, Cassandre, very strong. It’s a result of my birth, and the
gifts given to me then.”

“By your
father?”

“Yes.”

“So they
used you to banish the druids?”

He nodded
and her brow furrowed. She’d remembered him calling this place a prison. Was
this where they’d banished him to? Was this one of the other realms?

“No,” he
stated, and for once she didn’t mind him reading her thoughts. It was all
overwhelming, and if he could answer her questions, she was fine with it.

“They
banished my people, but they could not banish me.” He looked away briefly and
said, “None but a god can banish me. It is another provision afforded me by my
father.”

“I don’t
understand. How is this your prison?”

Alexander
released her arms, and sighed. “You have called me a cold-blooded killer, a
murder, and what I am about to tell you will prove that. When my body had
rejuvenated enough to awake, I knew I was alone. I could not feel them, my
brothers, my sisters. They were no longer a part of this world.” He ran a hand
through his hair. “Even the corpses had been banished. It was as if they never
existed.” His voice hardened. “I tracked them down, all twelve of the grand
wizards responsible for the banishment of my people. I killed them all and I
cursed their descendants, their followers, their friends, and every witch to
come in the future generations. As long as my people suffered, so would
theirs.”

His gaze
held hers, as if affording her the opportunity to call him monster, or killer,
or something worse, for what he’d done. She wanted rage at him for cursing a
group of people who’d had little or nothing to do with the banishment of his,
but she understood. It had begun to make sense the moment he’d allowed her to
witness that memory, and she was understanding. To the witches, he was the
avenger of his people. To the druids, he was their freedom fighter.

She turned
from him and walked to the water’s edge, thoughts swirling in her head. “If I
resurrected the druids, would you take revenge on the descendants of these
grand wizards for the crimes of their ancestors?”

A sigh. A
long-suffering sigh, as if he were Atlas, and held the weight of the world on
his shoulders. She guessed in some ways, he did.

“No. The
witches have suffered much over the centuries. If you were to resurrect my
people, I promise no retribution will be sought on our end.”

She nodded.
She needed to think this over. Cronin wanted the druids resurrected for selfish
purposes, but Alexander wanted his people freed. Which brought her back to the
question she’d asked him….

“You said
you weren’t banished by the witches, so why are you imprisoned here?”

He
approached her slowly. “After killing the grand wizards and cursing the
witches, I banished myself.” When she gasped, he continued as if it was the
most natural thing to do. “It was unfair that my people were suffering while I
was not. I spent half a century in that torturous existence, always hungry,
thirsty, tired, lonely, but unable to find relief. It is an existence where one
yearns for death, but even that is denied.”

“Half a
century?” She looked over to him, recognizing for the first time he was
actually wearing a shirt. A tunic shirt like the one she’d seen in that dark
memory. An image flashed into her mind of Alexander in the center of the
pentagram, a red line against his neck. She shook her head immediately, pushing
it away.

“Yes.
Against my will, my father removed me from that existence, and brought me here.
He’s made it so I cannot leave this place”

He was a
prisoner. Just not the type of prisoner she’d assumed.

“What is
this place?” she asked curiously, wondering at a prison that was so luxurious.
When she thought of prison, she thought of bars and small spaces, not beaches
and comfortable, king-sized beds.

“My
father’s temple on Mount Olympus,” he replied easily.

No, it
wasn’t. Wasn’t Mount Olympus supposed to have towering castles and a
white-haired Zeus with a thunderbolt he kept at his side just for the hell of
tossing it at someone? Also, for as long as she’d been having this dream, she’d
never seen a temple anywhere on these grounds. Who’d put a temple on a beach,
anyway?

A little
smile upturned his lips and he replied, “The temple is behind you. It can only
be seen by a god, or the direct descendant of one.”

“Poseidon?
Your father?” Just to clarify that. When he nodded, she sighed. Well, her days
of hard facts and science were officially over. They’d been over for a while
now, with the recognition that she was a druid, but she was in a dream, talking
to the son of a god, on Mount Olympus, at said god’s temple. That alone could
not be explained with the scientific method.

“So, all in
all, you gave me your spell book so my sister and I can resurrect the druids?”

It took him
a while, but he nodded once. “Yes, so that you can resurrect the druids,
Cassandre.”

She gave
him a curious look and then turned her body to his.

“Why did
you only come to me? Why didn’t you go to Vivienne?” She furrowed her brows.
“Did you go to my sister?”

Alexander
stared at her for long moments, and then he shook his head. “You don’t
understand, do you? You are the key to our salvation, Cassandre. You are
creation, and whenever a druid is born with that type of power, another druid
must counter it. Vivienne is destruction. It has been that way from the
beginning.”

Cassandre
felt like she was a little girl learning about the Bible. This sounded
suspiciously like Genesis. In the beginning…creation…destruction….

“What?”

“I should
have explained this to you instead of leaving it to a witch to explain your
druid.” Just briefly, Cassandre considered yelling at him for talking bad about
her mother. He wasn’t actually talking bad, but he sounded a bit condescending,
still.

“Whenever a
druid is born, he is able to control an element. When druid twins are born,
they control elements that balance each other. My people have waited centuries
for a druid wielding the power of creation, Cassandre. We’ve waited centuries
for you. However, because you can resurrect us, there is another power able to
destroy us.”

Understanding
but not quite getting it, Cassandre replied lamely, “She was born first…by a
few minutes.”

A dry
chuckle escaped his lips. “It does not matter who came first. You are to
balance her, as she is to balance you.”

“Right.
Ooookay.”
Sure, tomorrow I’ll wake up and maybe this will make more sense
.

“Wait.
Another druid came to me a few nights back. Did you send her to persuade me to
resurrect them?”

 His humor
faded, and his face grew serious. “That’s impossible. The druids cannot leave
the realms where they’re being held.”

Cassie shook
her head, remembering the pale druid with the long, black hair and green eyes.
“Well, someone came to me, and she said she was a druid. I think she said she
was from the House of Selene.”

Alexander
looked thoughtful. “House of Selene? Describe her to me.”

Something
flickered in his eyes. “Be wary of any visitors, Cassandre. You are key to our
salvation, and those who despise us would bring harm to you, and possibly your
sister.”

As she
watched him, contemplating whether she should tell him about Maximilian Cronin,
who wanted to resurrect them for ulterior purposes, she decided no. The time
she’d spent with Alexander had been a great revelation to her, but she wanted
to share this information with her mother before she made him aware of Cronin.
She believed him. She didn’t believe one could fake a memory, but her mother
was older, and more experienced at these things. After she discussed him with
her mom, she would decide.

Maximilian
Cronin stared down at the pictures and could not believe his luck.

Over the
past days, as his son slept, he’d hovered by his bedside, searching Max’s
memory for any hint as to where the Bordeaux girls were hiding. He already it
was likely Vivienne was with Conall. In fact, he’d be surprised if she wasn’t,
but with that type of daily and nightly security around her, she would be hard
to take. So, he needed to know the location of the other one. If it were easier
to grab her, he would start with that one, and then move to the other. Max’s
memories were mostly a jumble of random thoughts and unrelated pictures, but
one image seemed to reoccur each time he looked into his son’s memory. An image
of a laughing girl with dark eyes and jet-black hair. Why his son was
remembering that image Maximilian didn’t know, and didn’t particularly care.