Betrayal (50 page)

“Yes, he’s still quite dead.” I cleared my throat.

“How did you know about the assemblage of the entire family?” I felt like I was being interrogated by a seasoned detective who was totally trying to trip me up.

“Winston told me.” My admission left a slightly surprised look across Evan's angelic face. He looked at me for a long second then looked downward at his feet, and sort of half chuckled.

“Did you ask Winston to take you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? I’m a part of this family, aren’t I? The most important part, so I’ve been led to believe. Shouldn’t I have at least been invited?” I said it all so fast, all in one breath, with real conviction, but Evan didn’t seem taken aback at all. He looked amused.

“The meeting was set to lay out the strategic plan to finally take down Victor. We’ve decided to… put pressure on Lucas. He knows all of Victor’s hiding places.”

“That much I heard.” I said, kind of angrily. I was angry. Who did he think he was, coming in here, and asking me all these questions like I answer to him?

“My intention was not to shut you out. I wasn't certain that you were ready. I thought that with your memory not quite restored, that it may be premature, and overwhelming.” Evan said, staring me straight in the eyes. I guess what he said made sense. I fought with myself not to drown in the beautiful oasis of his eyes. I couldn’t allow my growing feelings for him to distract me from my agenda.

“I'm not so... fragile.” I stated under my breath.

“And I don't see you that way.” Evan's eyes were intense. The corners of his mouth looked as if they were about to turn upward into a smile. And then they did. His smile was as mesmerizing as always. I was captivated by the warmth of it. What amazed me was how something as simple as a smile could transform the feelings of the recipient of the smile. A few moments went by as we stared at each other. I knew that he wanted to kiss me. I read his thoughts, unintentionally, again, and it was what I wanted, but I couldn’t allow that to happen yet, if ever. I needed more information from Winston.

Evan was a distraction to any progress of my memory being restored. If what we shared earlier was real and not a dream, incredible as it was, then I felt that we were moving too fast. I just couldn’t catch my breath. It was like being swept away in turbulence. I had to know if it was a dream.

“Earlier today, after we spoke in the parlor, did you spend time with me in here?”

“Yes, and you fell asleep.” He answered. I replayed the moment in my mind, and Evan just stood across from me and watched me intently.

“I love to see you smile, Delia, it’s my favorite moments of each day.” I hadn’t realized that I was smiling as I thought of the time Evan and I spent together today.

The room stayed quiet as neither of us spoke. I couldn’t hear his thoughts, and I really wanted to, and I tried and … nothing. Again it felt like we were the only two people in the world. I had to turn away, so I walked over to the window, and peered out through the lace curtains as I could feel Evan’s eye’s on my back.

The garden was a blur of Demeter’s blossoms, and their continuous rebirth. It was like looking at a kaleidoscope made up of pastel flowers. I relaxed a little as the aroma of the blooming buds wafted in. The lilacs seemed most intoxicating at this particular moment. I pondered Evan’s last remark, and turned around to face him. I then found the nerve to ask him a question that I needed an honest answer too.

“How do you see me?” Evan's eyes changed from sapphire to reveal the clearest boldest sky blue. I was stunned by their dramatic change and waited patiently for his reply. He took a moment before answering.

“When I look at you... I don't only see the most beautiful girl… woman... in the world. I see the strongest in will and heart although, understandably shy.

I see an iron clad devotion to her purpose in this world although, she may still feel unsure to what that is exactly.” Evan's gorgeous face was the same shade as some of the budding roses in the garden – blush pink.

“It's late. We'll talk tomorrow.” As fast as a current of electricity, he was beside me. “Goodnight Cordelia.” Evan whispered in my ear. I felt the warmth of his sweet breath against my cheek. The kiss was so light that I barely felt it.

“Goodnight.” I said, as I watched him walk out of my bedroom doors. I was blown away by Evan's words, and speechless. He thought that I was beautiful beyond compare, inside as well as on the surface. I truly wanted to live up to who he saw, but Evan was right, deep down I still didn't know who that was.

TwentySix

Abduction

I woke with a start, again. It was still dark, and I was restless. If I slumbered at all, it was in brief spurts. I dreamt violently of Victor ripping my heart out as he had done to my parents. I dreamt of the Masquerade Ball, and being surrounded by hideous masquerade masks and, deadly cloaked mavericks without faces, floating in a purple haze. Perhaps the nightmares were a forewarning of the evening to come. I wasn’t looking forward to the Masquerade Ball. I loathed anything that had to do with disguises, including clowns, and mimes. Something about not knowing beforehand whom I was looking at and talking to freaked me out.

I woke up every hour with thoughts that felt like mental obstacles. I thought about Athena’s riddle. I still hadn’t figured out what the goddess – my sister had meant. Her words were forever engraved in my mind, and impossible to decipher.

You have the strength were you lack the aspiration…

Free yourself from what you know.

I knew that I would never fall back to sleep if I kept rattling Athena’s words off in my head, so I allowed my mind to drift. I thought of Winston. I needed to see him again, soon. Hopefully, Winston would try to make contact before the Ball. He hadn’t had the opportunity to divulge much, thanks to Evan’s unexpected appearance. And just like that, my mind was consumed with Evan. I couldn’t help but feel nervous around him.

What I’m feeling had to be based on the memory of what I had felt for Evan before I left. I couldn’t be falling for him in the now knowing him, however little I knew, in only four days. It just wasn’t possible to fall for someone that quickly. There have been several moments since my return that felt so incredibly familiar, like when we were alone together the day before in the parlor and he held me close to him and kissed my cheeks, and while we sat together in my sitting room, just thinking about it made me want to see him right now, and while we sat in the gazebo and he tenderly feathered kisses on the inner part of my wrist and hand. In those infinite moments, I felt like I’d known his touch, the feel of his lips, and the intensity of his gaze for centuries.

At some point I fell asleep again, but it wasn’t a sound sleep. With every toss and turn, in my rumpled sheets, the member’s faces appeared as if they were in my room with me, but they weren’t. They were led by Nikolas and Bethany, and were all shifters of some kind.

Some were divine shifters of the elements and forces of nature. Bethany, was water of course. Olympia of the Leonidas family, whose rust colored hair matched the light sprinkle of freckles on the bridge of her slim nose, which contrasted her milky complexion, was a shifter of air – tornados were her specialty. Bertrand of the Octavius family was burly with skin as olive as the oil from the branches of the Goddess Athena’s tree, was a shifter of fire, the element alone.

The others were shifters of magnificent strength, yet terribly brutal creatures, such as Nikolas, a centaur and Julius and his sister Hedea of the Hepolis family. The Hepolis family were winged creatures of flight. Julius, who had to be at least six and a half feet tall with skin the color and texture of smooth chocolate, was a fire spewing weredragon as his mother. His younger sister, Hedea, had the warm complexion in the shade of honey with eyes that shimmered like iridescent gold. She was a werevulture, an overseer like her father.

Even though they all had different dimensions of strength and capabilities, they were all there to achieve one common goal; the objective was to prevent an abduction; mine. I saw them all standing outside of the grim lone mansion that sat behind Gold Hill. Suddenly everything felt sinister, yet familiar. I knew whose house it was, and I suspected that I was dreaming.

The members of the empire, the warriors, were dressed in their impeccable attire as always, and as expected, invaded the scarcely lit house. Through the gloominess, they seemed to determine where the hallways led as if they lived there. It happened quickly and decisively. The warriors split into two teams. One team led by Nikolas and the other by Bethany. The teams headed in two different quarters of the spacious house. I could see both teams working simultaneously, navigating their way through the darkness until they met their destinations.

Lucas was first. Hedea’s transformation took an instant. Her razor sharp talons jabbed into Lucas’ linebacker sized neck as he lay slumbering in his bed.

His snores broke instantly into a groggy, yet shocked response to the huge vulture’s beak which was just a few inches from his face. Hedea proceeded to Glamour Lucas, and the thought to shift into a panther was obliterated as if it was never even a thought in Lucas’ mind at all.

Hedea flew upward and away from Lucas, and perched herself on the edge of his huge bed, and transformed back into human form, dressed as she had come in, bustle and all. The four warriors looked at each other awkwardly as Lucas was exposed wearing only his birthday suit. He proceeded to follow Hedea’s strict orders. Lucas had his clothes on in less than a minute, and held his hand out to be shackled with silver cuffs; the antidote to shifting.

All the while, in another room, further down the hall, the smell of stale perfume was as fierce as a smack in the face. With Sacha, the abduction wasn’t as simple as it had been with her twin. The warriors couldn’t be sure that if it had been the severe pinch of Hedea’s talons that woke Lucas, or Sacha’s high pitch scream. She had been sitting at her vanity, brushing her silky tangle of curls, while clad in nothing but a corset and bloomers as she sang a ragtime tune about the joy of squandering some pathetic fool’s gold.

Sacha was startled, as could be expected with four powerful demigods entering her room uninvited. Her recovery was quick and the attempt to shift was complete. The ferocious panther didn’t hesitate to pounce on Bethany who shifted simultaneously into her aquatic form. The panther sliced through the deluge of Bethany’s body, exiting totally drenched as the French doors magically flung open on their own. Olympia spun the night’s soft breeze into a forceful twister which sent the panther clawing and spinning out of control. But the four demigods had their orders, and Victor’s disciples were not to be killed, just seized. Therefore Olympia lowered the feline. The disoriented feline shifted back to her original human form.

Now Sacha was on all fours completely human, completely naked, and still mildly dizzy from the vortex of Olympia’s harsh winds. Julius began to Glamour Sacha while Bethany transformed back into her human form. Sacha was instructed to dress quickly. She behaved as any hypnotized person would, obediently. She almost appeared meek.

The teams exited the mansion separately, heading for the same location, while keeping the two prisoners apart. The strategy was to never allow one prisoner to know that the other was a prisoner as well.

The mine was dark and dank; the smell of sulfur rose in the air, heightened by the heat. He was there when they all arrived. Evan looked pleased as he knew the plan had been executed without any errors or casualties. His eyes flashed a menacing glare at Lucas, and then Evan’s eyes turned crimson as blood and bright as the yet to be invented street light. Lucas was shackled to the dirt and stone wall as was Sacha in another portion of the mine, both unable to hear the other, and more importantly unable to shift. Evan went for Lucas first. Lucas was no longer in the hypnotic Glamour mode.

Unfortunately, unlike all the other mortals, because he and his sister were of the supernatural kind, the hypnotic state only lasted a few minutes, and couldn’t be used more than once within a twenty – four hour period.

Evan questioned him. All questions pertaining to Victor’s whereabouts. Lucas sneered but wouldn’t divulge a morsel of information – a devoted disciple.

“You will tell me where Victor hides.” Evan smiled at Lucas.

“Oh I will, will I.” But the malicious grin on Lucas’ face slowly changed to a look of curiosity as the screams and profane language arose.

Julius, Hedea, Olympia, and Bethany led Sacha to where Evan, Nikolas, and Bertrand held Lucas. Lucas’ eyes bulged at the unexpected sight of his sibling in shackles, and twisting about. Sacha looked to Lucas through an avalanche of sobs as she lost her footing, and nearly tripped over the wooden tracks. The heel of her shoe broke. Lucas tried to wriggle free. His fresh crisp shirt was smeared with dirt as sweat dripped from his face.

“You bastards! Let her go! She doesn’t know anything!” Lucas bellowed furiously. The indignant expression on his sweaty face brought on mild laughter from Evan, and then Nikolas. Bethany and Julius and the rest, soon got the joke.

“We know that your twin doesn’t have the faintest idea as to where your master hides.”

“Let her go or I’ll Kill you all!” Lucas said, between clenched teeth. He fought the chains that dug into his flesh, but it was futile. He wasn’t strong enough to break them.

“Pipe down, Lucas. Who said anything about killing…yet? But… since you brought it up, let’s discuss it.” Evan said, evenly as Bertrand walked an imaginary tight rope around Sacha, leaving a burned circular imprint on the ground.

Sacha looked exhausted as she whimpered. She looked to her brutal twin for help, but he was proving to be no help at all unless…

“Tell us where he is, and I won’t hurt a delicate curl on her pretty little head.” Evan pulled one of Sacha’s spirally tendrils, and sniffed it, and then let it slide between his fingers quickly. He then twisted his face into a scrunched up expression as if Sacha’s hair had a displeasing odor. “Perhaps a bath to begin with.” Sacha spit in Evan’s direction.