"Get out, Giovanni, you are done here! I have enough liars in my bed to last me a lifetime." I couldn"t believe my own ears. I had just ordered a five-hundred-year-old vampire out of the room, and called him a liar. He spun around and looked at me. He flashed his fangs at me. I didn"t budge. "Get out now!"
"He must leave as well! You swore to never see him again," he said, pointing at Pallo.
"As I recall, oh master of the twisted word, you yourself said that I was not to see him after tonight. The night is not over yet, is it? Besides, it would serve you right if I did. You seem to find the arrangement flexible." He looked as though I"d just kicked him in the gut. I had him and he knew it. He threw Pallo a look of disgust and stormed out of the room.
Pallo crawled on the floor towards me. I glared at him. "You"re a free man now Pallo, go enjoy yourself!" I said bitterly to him.
He stood slowly and put his finger to my neck where Giovanni had bitten me.
"You did this to free me?" he asked. His voice was so low, so quiet.
"Go!" I shouted.
"I can fix this. I can beg for this to be undone. You should not have aligned yourself with him, he is a monster."
That made me laugh. "Oh, yeah, you"re an expert on those aren"t you?"
My words. .h.i.t him hard, and he backed up a bit from me. "I cannot allow this to be. I will go and speak with him."
"Why in h.e.l.l would you want to grovel at his feet? Go be a man, be free of him. You"re free of me. Are you happy you got what you wanted?"
"No."
"Are you telling me that you didn"t want your freedom?"
"I did, but not at this price."
"What price is that?"
He looked at me. He was a beaten man, his words fell flat. "You."
Pallo turned and walked slowly out of the room. I stared at him hard the entire way out. I feared that this horrible ending was all we would ever have.
Chapter 21.
I gathered up my stuff and repacked my bags. Two bags still lay on the floor.
When I bent down to pick them up, everything slid out of my arms. "Would you like some help?" I looked up. James stood in the doorway, smiling at me. He had on his usual black tee shirt and jeans. His boots were a little different. They had a thicker black heel to them. He looked a little taller. I smiled at him. He was a sight for sore eyes. "Yeah," I said. He came over and picked up all the bags. I tried to take one from him, but he would not let me. I got the door for him and we headed down the hall and upstairs. He stopped on the steps before we got to the door. "Let me take some of those," I said, turning back to take a few bags from him. "That"s not the problem," he said, looking at the door. It hit me then. It must be daytime. I had lost all sense of time in Pallo"s little bas.e.m.e.nt. I had just a.s.sumed, because James was up, that it was night. I looked at him. He had known I would be leaving, and he had waited for me. He was a good friend, a true friend, the kind that didn"t want s.e.x in return. The kind of friend every girl needed.
"I"ll get them from here," I said, touching his hand lightly. "Could you call a cab for me?"
He set the bags down on the stairs and reached into his front pocket. He pulled a set of keys out and smiled. "Here, I thought you might need these. I parked the car out front before the sun came up."
I took the keys from him, and gave him a hug. He held me tight and gave a slight squeeze.
"Gwen," he said in my ear. I stepped back from him. "Stay away from Giovanni, please!"
"Won"t he hear you?" I asked in a low voice. I remembered the night that Pallo had overheard me talking to Ken.
"No, he left last night. He is not Pallo"s master anymore, so Pallo had the right to revoke his invitation." James said, as if stuff like this was common knowledge to me.
"Is Pallo good to you?" I asked.
He touched my hand. "Pallo is not just my master, he is my friend, and that is rare, very rare."
"Where is he?" I asked. I would have thought he"d try and talk me into staying. I was a little disappointed that he hadn"t come to see me off. I knew he was aware I was going. I thought about his freckled shoulders and strong arms. I would miss touching them.
"Gwen, he hasn"t lived this long and not learned a thing or two about women."
"What do you mean?"
"He knows that you need to go. He loves you enough to let you do that. If, or when, you"re ready, you"ll come back. He knows that," he said.
I had to laugh. I couldn"t picture myself setting foot near this place ever again. I had had enough of the melodramatic life that surrounded Pallo. I wanted to return to the way my life had been before him. Simple.
I gave James another hug and watched him walk back downstairs. When the bottom door had shut, I picked up a couple of my bags and headed out into the sun. It hurt my eyes at first. I had to put my hand up to shield myself from it. I had gotten used to living in the dark, gotten used to Pallo"s world. I stopped and looked in front of me at Caleb"s red Explorer. I looked down at my hand holding the keys. James had given me Caleb"s truck. Why not, he wasn"t using it anymore, and I didn"t think he"d mind me borrowing it if he were here. I loaded my bags into the back end and fetched the rest from the stairwell.
After I loaded the truck up, I climbed in and started it. I closed my eyes and thought of Pallo. He had hurt me pretty bad. It was an emotional wound that I didn"t think would heal anytime soon, yet I would miss him. I would miss his smile, his dimpled chin, the touch of his cool skin. I would miss his odd sense of humor. I would miss hearing about when he first met me in his village as a boy. I would miss so much.
I put the truck into drive and headed off. Missing him wasn"t reason enough to stay. I needed a life, and he couldn"t offer me that. My promise to Giovanni had seen to that.
Chapter 22.
I stopped by the hospital to see Ken. When I walked into his room, he was out cold. His eyes were puffy and black. He had an IV running into the back of his right hand. Lying there, he looked so much smaller than he actually was. I sat in the chair next to his bed and reached up to touch his hand. It was so warm. Being around vampires will make you forget how warm something alive feels. I cupped his hand in mine and leaned forward to kiss it. They had the backs of his arms bandaged. Sharon had said that it had taken the doctors seven hours to st.i.tch Ken"s body up. I believed it, looking at all of the bandages. He looked more like a burn victim than the victim of a psychotic, dog-breeding vampire.
I wondered how Ken felt about wearing the light yellow hospital gown. He couldn"t be comfortable letting the nurses see him naked. He loved his body, but it was his body. I slid my hand up and let it rest on his chest. I could feel it rising softly beneath my hand. I closed my eyes and put my head down on the cold steel bar on the side of the bed. The feel of Ken"s breathing was soothing. The tiny pump hooked to the IV made small swooshing sounds. It was so quiet in there.
I thought of the time Ken took me to look at houses. He wanted us to have a home after we got married. He had his heart set on it, and nothing I said or did would change his mind. He surprised me on my lunch hour by taking me to a real estate agency. We met with a tall woman with short blonde hair. Beth had been her name. I had almost forgotten that. She pulled photos up on her computer of various houses that fit Ken"s bill. I sat there with my mouth open. I had pictured us settling down in a small, three bedroom ranch in a suburb near the city. He had grander things in mind. All of the houses she pulled up had at least six bedrooms in them. Some had four full baths, two had in-ground pools. I just sat there, not knowing what to say.
Beth and Ken went back and forth about each listing. Ken"s hand wrapped tightly in mine. I could feel his excitement. my stomach hollowed out. If he wanted a house with six bedrooms, then he wanted a large family. He knew that it would be hard for us to have even one child, let alone a house full. I wanted to run from Beth"s office. I had felt a wave of nervousness. .h.i.t me and I stood up. I looked at him and took off running out of the agency.
When I broke through the doors, I bent over and took several deep breaths. Ken came bursting out behind me. He wasn"t upset with me for leaving, he was worried about me. He asked me why I left, and I cried. I told him that I couldn"t offer him the life he wanted, and that by seeing the houses he picked, I knew that for sure. He held me tight in his arms, and laughed. He didn"t expect me to give him a big family. He expected to give that to me. "We will adopt. We will get you as many little ones as you want." He loved me so much. He just wanted to make me happy.
At that moment, I knew that I loved him too. I loved how kind and gentle he was with me, versus the hard-a.s.s he was in the court room. I had thought we would spend the rest of our natural lives together.
I thought about how strong his body was when he had held me, how powerful and sure of himself he was. My body grew warm remembering how he felt near me. My energy, my power spilled out of my hand and onto Ken"s chest. I jerked my hand back and stood up. I was horrified that I might have burned him. His body twitched and I screamed and fell backwards over the chair.
My body smacked the cold hard hospital floor with a thud. The door to his room swung open and a male nurse came running in.
"What the...?" he managed to get out as he stared from Ken"s bed to me lying on the floor.
Ken"s body twitched harder now. It lifted off of the bed involuntarily. The man screamed for help and pushed past me. I pulled myself to my feet, and backed into the corner. The man shouted at me. He wanted to know what had happened. I just stood there looking at him trying to hold Ken"s body down. Two more people ran through the door, a man and a woman. The man looked to be a doctor. He wore a long white coat with a stethoscope hanging out of his right front breast pocket. They ran to Ken and the woman helped to pin him down. The doctor huddled over Ken"s body. He tried to figure out what happened. He turned to me and was calm.
"When did this start?" he asked. His voice was higher than most other men"s voices. He was thin and tall. His hair was short and a very plain dull brown.
"I, I touched him and I...I touched him and he started to...." I couldn"t get the words out.
The doctor turned back to Ken, giving the female nurse instructions on what he needed. She ran out of the room. I followed close behind. I had hurt Ken. I had thrust energy into him and it would most likely kill him. I couldn"t watch that happen. I couldn"t stand by and watch him die because of me. I ran down the hall and found the stairwell. I ran downstairs and out the front lobby. I didn"t stop running until I reached the truck. I climbed in, grabbing the keys off the seat. Old habits die hard.
I peeled out of the hospital parking lot. I drove straight through to the farm house. I never looked back. I had no idea how fast I had been going, but I knew that it didn"t take me long to get there. I pulled onto the stone lane and headed down it. I parked the truck and got out. Finding the key under the loose porch board, I let myself in. I ran to the phone and dialed Sharon"s cell phone.
She answered on the third ring. I told her what had just happened to me at the hospital with Ken. She tried her best to calm me down and told me that she"d call me right back. I hung up and stood there, staring at the phone. I guess I expected her to phone me back instantly, I don"t know why. My fingers tapped on the top of the white phone, waiting to seize hold of it when it rang. It did.
"Yeah!" I said.
"Gwen, calm down. I called the hospital. The doctor had been trying to find you since you ran off."
"Oh s.h.i.t, he"d dead. Sharon I did it, I killed Ken. Oh my G.o.d! I..."
She cut me off. "GWEN!" she practically screamed at me. "Ken"s not dead."
I stopped carrying on like an escaped mental patient and spoke calmly to her. "He"s not?"
She started laughing at me. "No, Gwen, he"s not dead. In fact, it"s the opposite. The guy is fine. He"s completely healed. There isn"t a scratch on him. The doctor tried to find you, to find out how you did it."
Ken was fine? He was healed? I let my body relax. I was so relieved.
"Thanks Sharon, thank you so much," I said.
"No probs, babe. You gonna be all right?"
I thought about all that had happened to me in the last week. I had seen so much violence, death and destruction, but I had also known love from two different people in that short time frame. I was pretty sure that counted for something, didn"t it?
"Yeah, Sharon, I"m going to be all right."
I hung up with her, went out, unloaded my bags from the back of the Explorer, and took them into the house. It got pretty muggy outside and the house stayed pretty cool even though it didn"t have central air, but the sweatpants were getting a little hot. I dragged a couple of my bags upstairs and looked for some shorts. I found a pair of white ones. Those would work.
I changed into the white shorts and headed downstairs. I walked to the hall closet and felt along the top shelf. My hand ran across leather and I pulled it down. It was my father"s old hunting knife in its black leather case. The knife was about eight inches long, and he used to use it to gut things he killed. I was going to use it to gut something, too. I was going troll hunting. I stuck the knife into the back of my waistband. It stuck tight to me. I hoped that I would be able to get it out in time if I needed it, but I wasn"t planning on needing it. I planned on calling on my power and frying those little troll b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Just to be on the safe side, I decided to take Caleb"s crossbow with me. I grabbed it out of the back of his truck and brought it in the house. I couldn"t figure out what to do with it. Common sense prevailed, and I left it lying on the kitchen table.
I stormed out of the house and down the lane. It was a beautiful, late summer day, not a cloud in the sky. The only storm I felt brewing was the one deep inside of me. I headed down to the river. I hoped to find trolls there. I wanted them dead. I owed Caleb that much. I owed myself that much.
I reached the bridge in less than ten minutes. d.a.m.n, I walked fast. I walked out onto it and looked around. There was nothing there--just me, standing on the bridge, looking like a crazed lunatic. What else was new?
"Come and get me, you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds! Come on!" I screamed. It echoed off the sides of the hill that the river wound through.
No one came. I walked to the side of the bridge and climbed down the small, rocky walkway to the river"s edge. I kept looking in all directions. I wasn"t going to let one of those nasty, stinky things sneak up on me again. I would be ready for them this time. I would be...I heard the sound of leaves being crushed. I stopped thinking and started listening. I heard it again. I looked in that direction and saw a black blur. It was on the other side of the river, further down than where I was. I took off in a fast run along the side of the river. My feet hit the sandy, rocky ground and I felt myself slipping to the side. I almost twisted my ankle at least three times before I reached the shallow part of the river. It was near the bend and was only ankle deep. I splashed through it. The water turned murky brown everywhere I stepped. I churned the dirt up in it. My socks got soggy. I didn"t care. All I cared about was finding that troll and killing it. I hit the other side of the river. That side was not covered in sand and rocks, it was just dirt. The dirt led up to the edge of the woods. I caught sight of the black blur again and kept on going.
I pushed my way into the woods. My shoes made tiny squeaky noises from all of the water in them. I pushed on. I was being driven by hate, by revenge. I looked around for a sign of where the troll had gone. There was no sign of him. The hairs on my arms stood on end. I ducked down just in time. Something large and wet lunged past my head.
I heard snarls as I turned around quickly. There it was. Those nasty teeth and beady, yellow eyes glared at me, wanted to strike out at me. The thing stunk more than ever, and I was actually happy to see it. I could taste my hate. I pulled the knife from its sheath. I gripped it tightly. "Come on, come on," I thought to myself. The troll made another lunge at me. I darted out of its pathway. As it fell past me, I slammed the knife down into its back. I struck out against its slimy, seaweed-like covering. It shrieked, and I laughed. G.o.d, I really was sick in the head. Guess Talia rubbed off on me. I hoped that I wouldn"t want to start dressing like her, too. I shook my head--no time to get sidetracked.
The troll pulled itself to its feet, slowly. It still cried out. That didn"t faze me in the least. What did bother me was that an identical sound answered it? I dove at it, propelling my body against it. We crashed down onto the edge of the river. It tried to lash out at me with its teeth. I moved my arm quickly to avoid a repeat performance. My hand slid over a large rock. I picked it up. Without thought, I instinctively raised the rock over my head and smashed it onto the troll"s face. It made a horrible noise that should have brought me to my senses. Instead, I raised the rock above my head two more times and smashed it into the troll until I was sure that I had killed it. I stood up from it slowly. I felt no remorse as I leaned to rinse my hands in the river water.
The cool, fresh water ran red under my touch. I let my head fall slightly. Warmth came from behind me. I turned my head around, slowly. There, standing on the edge of the river, was the man who had saved my life as a child--the faerie man with the long hair and navy blue eyes. He had watched me kill the troll. I was mortified.
"Kerrigan," the name fell from my lips.
He smiled. His face was soft and his eyes were warm. He wore robes of black and still had his sword strapped to his side.
"You know my name," he said. I almost fell over. I had never, ever heard him speak before. He was always just there, quiet and there. His voice was low. It was a voice that demanded your attention. It was wonderful.
"Yes, I...." I looked down at the dead troll. I didn"t know what to say to him. He waved his hand in the air and the troll vanished. I just looked at him. I should have felt wrong, or dirty. After all, this was the second thing I"d killed in the last week. "You"re King Kerrigan." I always surprised myself with just how stupid I could sound sometimes.
He smiled wider. "Was. I was the King. They have a new ruler now."
I made a small step towards him. "Caleb said you just disappeared. Why?" I asked.
"Caleb. You have met Caleb?" he smiled. I got the impression that he already knew the answer to his own question, but wanted to hear me say it.
"Yes, I knew Caleb."
"Knew him?" he asked coming closer to me.
"He was killed by a troll and some h.e.l.lhounds." I didn"t know why I told him all of this. I just felt like I needed to share this with him. He looked at the b.l.o.o.d.y stone on the ground and nodded.
"I see now. You sound upset. Did Caleb mean much to you?"
I looked at him and sat on the ground. I had to fight to keep from crying. "Yes, he meant a lot to me. More than I knew, I guess."
Kerrigan came close to me. I could have reached out and touched him, but I didn"t. I simply looked up at him. He was a sight to behold. I could definitely tell he was royalty. He carried himself well. He touched the top of my head lightly, and I cried.
"I lose everyone I love--somehow I manage to lose them all. I have no one...no family, no one," I cried softly. The tears slowly coursed down my cheeks.
"Gwyneth, you do not lose everyone you hold dear to your heart," he said as he bent down beside me. "And you do have family still alive. I can promise you that."
I looked up into his dark navy eyes. "Do you know my mother?"
He sat beside me on the ground. Even sitting down he was at least a foot taller than me. "I knew your mother well."
"She"s dead?" I asked.
He nodded slightly. "She fought hard to bring you back. She wanted you to have another chance at life, because you had been robbed of it."
"Why did she do it?"
"She did it because she loved you. She knew when she decided to bring you back that it meant she would die. She gave her life force to you so you could live again."