The Forbidden Chapters Part 1: Afterlife Saga

  “Okay so as much as I am glad to be out of your demonic mountain home…no offence…” I added making him give me a sideways smirk.

  “…What are we really doing here?” I asked as everyone was out of earshot. Lucius looked at me and knew what I was doing so said,

  “You’re fine sweetheart, no one here can speak English.”

  “Oh…okay, well good but that still doesn’t answer my question.” I said as the barmaid came back with two pints…two very large pints I might add.

  “I told you, we are on a date…so, cheers,” Lucius said clinking his glass to mine before taking his first swig. Damn he even made drinking look hot. Well I guess there were worse places to be I thought looking around the quaint, old fashioned pub that was mainly all decorated with carved wood panelling and exposed, old brick walls.

  “So, in other words, you thought it better to get me shit faced drunk rather than let me wallow in my own self-pity…is that it?” I asked making him nod.

  “Yep, in a nut shell,” he agreed.

  “Oh, well in that case, good plan…cheers,” I said clinking my glass to his and taking my first sip. Of course, when I did it I had to use two hands like a child, not like giant man hands over there, I thought frowning. He made it look as if he had spent half his life as a Viking and had been born holding a massive tankard the size of a bucket!

  But then I had my first sip and wow. Now I wasn’t much of a beer drinker but this stuff was, well, it was the bomb! Germans certainly knew how to brew the good stuff.

  “So, what are you going to do now?” I asked Lucius, shifting in my stool to face him. Lucius continued to look head on at the mirror behind the row of bottles and glasses.

  “About what?” he asked taking another swig.

  “About what? About all this cold weather we’ve been having…what do you mean ‘About what?’ about me, about Draven, about the whole bloody reason I am in this mess to begin with.” I said sarcastically. He gave me a sideways glance and said,

  “Nothing has changed.” I snorted at this, yes actually snorted and I didn’t give a damn if he did look amused or raised a questioning brow at me.

  “Oh, I think you will find that it has and in a big way.”

  “How so?” he asked and I wanted to ask in an outraged voice, was he serious?

  “Well you get that Draven cheated on me.” I told him wondering why he hadn’t asked me about it considering it was only last night that I was denying that the footage I had seen was even real.

  “I may not be the ‘in touch with my feelings’ type of guy, Pet, but I am not blind. I’m observant enough to know that your meltdown wasn’t about your hair, hissy fit over some shoes you want or the fact you’re getting your period,” Lucius said making my mouth drop. Yes, actually drop open.

  “Seriously, how have you ever managed to have a girlfriend and not have her kill you in your sleep?” I asked making him smirk again.

  “Some girls are all about the body and what a man can do with it,” he replied smoothly making me put my finger in my mouth and pretend to gag. Thankfully it made him laugh.

  “Yes, and some girls are just bat shit crazy, knife wielding lunatics named Layla.” I reminded him. He clinked his glass to mine and agreed,

  “Touché, Kitten.”

  “Well, now even she can’t have him so maybe she will finally stop trying to kill me, so silver lining there I guess.” I said this time taking a big drink and trying to drown my sorrows in the light amber liquid. Finally, this was when Lucius turned to me.

  “What do you mean, can’t have him?” he asked making me frown.

  “You know, Draven… tall, dark and handsome dude that also happens to be a two-timing bastard that likes to shout a lot…that Draven. Unless you know of another enemy of yours that just so happens to…” this is where he cut me off.

  “Layla isn’t in love with Dom,” he said confusing me.

  “But if not him then…oh.” That’s when it finally hit me and I felt like a freakin’ idiot!

  “She’s in love with you,” I said making him groan and he grabbed his drink, this time taking bigger gulps.

  “That’s why she hates me so much. it all makes sense now. You send her away to play the spy on a girl that she knows you will kidnap. So, she gets jealous and tries to kill me before you even get the chance,” I said and this time he snapped dryly,

  “Yes, thank you for the recap, little Miss Sherlock.” I couldn’t help but laugh and when he shot me a look, I placed my hand on his arm and told him,

  “It wasn’t one of your brightest ideas, now was it?” He growled low at me but I didn’t care and I didn’t take it seriously because I just started laughing again before picking up my drink.

  “Well, I am glad to see you enjoying yourself at my expense,” he muttered making me giggle before making a witty comeback.

  “Well if I had a penny to my name I would buy you a drink to say thanks but nope, you kinda kidnapped me without my purse, so it’s all on you tonight, matey.” I joked and this time I could see the twitching of a grin that wanted to appear at the corners of his perfect lips.

  “We’ll call it an I.O.U…and have no doubts Pet, I will be collecting,” he said leaning into me and placing a hand on the top of my thigh. Then he laughed when he felt me tense under his hold and gave me a squeeze there before letting my leg go. After this we sat in a comfortable silence for long minutes, which surprisingly, was broken first by Lucius.

  “What you said back there, about making your peace before you died…was that true, did you make your peace with God?” At first, I was taken back by Lucius’ abrupt question but in the end, I knew this was Lucius we were talking about. He wasn’t exactly the ‘beat around the bush’ type of guy.

  So, I thought back to that horrific time in my life, looking down into my beer as if the amber liquid held all the answers. Then I picked it up, took a long drink before putting it down again and turning to Lucius to give him my answer.

  “Yeah, I did. My last thoughts were of the love I had for my family and I smiled knowing now they were safe, that…” I paused for a breath as my voice wavered but I carried on and I didn’t know why.

  “…that I could go in peace.” When I finished, Lucius nodded his head once as if he had decided something. Then he too, took a long drink and simply…

  Confessed.

  “I looked everywhere for you,” he said looking straight ahead into the mirrored wall as if the memory of himself was playing out behind it. But my own reaction to this was mirrored back at me showing me the sight of utter shock.

  “Ever since you were found that day, I had been able to feel your presence in the world…that was until you were taken,” he told me as if it pained him to remember.

  “You never saw me yourself?” I asked bewildered by the fact.

  “No,” he said simply and then he finally turned to look at me.

  “I wouldn’t allow myself. I had you watched from afar and I would receive regular updates on your life but I never intervened. It wasn’t my place,” he told me making me frown. I was about to speak my mind when his next statement stopped me.

  “That was until I found out you were gone. Missing my men said. The fools! You were never missing, you had been stolen, Keira.” I swallowed hard as the memory of the day I was taken assaulted me. But what surprised me was not my own pain upon thinking it, it was the pain Lucius was also displaying in remembering it.

  “It was the only time I got involved myself and by the time I had discovered the truth of who could be behind it, well by then you had been discovered too,” he said taking another long swig of his drink as though he needed it to wash away the memory.

  “It was the first time I ever saw you…in person that is.”

  “What?” I uttered this in a secret whisper, one he heard.

  “When I heard that you had been found I had to see. I had to see for myself what he had done to you.” Hearing this brought tears to my eyes. I wondered what
would have happened had I see him. This handsome stranger watching over me, trying to protect me?

  “You were having a nightmare at the time.”

  “I was?” I asked thinking back to my silent time in the hospital and apart from screaming bloody murder the second I got past those emergency doors, after that…I didn’t speak again for days.

  “You looked so lost, even in sleep. So, I placed my hand on your cheek, cooled your heated skin and entered your mind to ease your suffering,” he told me and before I could stop my actions my hand shot out and covered his on the table.

  “I remember,” I whispered, seeing the nightmare so clearly now in my mind’s eye. I had been locked down back in the dungeon. I was crying, screaming in fact to get out but no one heard me…no one ever heard me. But then I felt a cooling hand touch my body. Even dreaming I knew it meant I was safe. I leant into his palm and the next thing I knew the walls cracked all around me and finally I could see the sun. It blinded me at first, after being without it for so long. Then it all burst around me, as if an explosion had destroyed the walls, pulling them outwards in a mighty blast of power I couldn’t see.

  “You carried me out of there.” I said making him nod as he knew what he had done to ease my suffering as he put it.

  “But why? I don’t understand Lucius, why would you care? Your plan was always to kidnap me and at first to scare me and…” He raised a hand to stop me and then turned on his stool to face me. His face looked so stern and it didn’t match his caring actions as he raised a hand to my cheek, just like he had done that night. He took a deep breath and said,

  “I cannot explain it all now sweetheart, for there is much you still don’t know and it is not my place to tell you but…” He frowned for a second so I prompted the rest from him.

  “But?”

  “But, you have to know that everything I did, I did so under my belief in the Fates, after all, we all have our part to play in them but no part is as important, as that of yours.”

  “And these fates…they planned on breaking my heart, they planned for me to fall in love with a man and then shadow that love in bitterness... in deceit, in…unfaithfulness? Tell me Lucius, for I am just dying to know…what the hell have they got planned for me next, because I will tell ya, I don’t know how much more I can take!” I told him getting emotional and swiping angrily at my tears.

  “I wish I knew sweetheart…I wish I knew,” he said before wiping away the rest of my tears then pulling me into him and kissing the top of my head as he held me to him. I cried out my pain, my agony, forgetting everything. Who he was, where we were and most of all who I was supposed to love and who I was expected to hate. It simply faded away and nothing but the hurt I felt mattered. There were no lines drawn in the sand for me to step over. There was nothing left for me to run towards. There was only the arms that held me now, arms that had kept me safe a lot longer than I ever realised.

  I raised my head up once all my tears were spent and saw that the room was full of people but no one moved. Startled I moved back from his chest and Lucius chuckled at my reaction.

  “I didn’t think you would want everyone to witness your…”

  “Meltdown?” I said finishing that statement for him. He cocked his head a bit and said,

  “Emotional outburst. But now, I think it’s time for another drink…” Then he clicked his fingers and every still person came back to life all at once. I jumped and couldn’t help but marvel at the sight of so much power. It made me wonder, had it been like that the night he first saw me. Had his powerful presence stilled the world in the emergency ward and he had simply walked through the living statues and into my room with purpose.

  I could almost see it now for myself. This powerful being there to check how broke and lost a human monster like Morgan had left me. His face, what would it have been like? Would he have looked upon me with his soft, grey eyes in the caring way I knew he could or the blood-filled rage that made him want to rip a man limb from limb? If I had opened my eyes right then which side of Lucius would I have seen first?

  “Does it hurt?” Lucius’ question pulled me from my thoughts.

  “What?

  “Having a head that full of questions?” he teased making me laugh and just like that, the tension fled me.

  “Come on little doll, let’s have another drink,” he said before calling the waitress over and ordering something more dangerous this time.

  He held up two fingers he said only one word,

  “Jägermeister.”

  Chapter 28

  Dirty Dancing

  Book 3

  The rest of night went as follows. I drank far too much beer, that looked more like glass buckets in my hands, and then consumed too many Jägermeister shots to count. But we laughed, we were loud and we were happy as we sat and acted like old friends that hadn’t seen each other in years.

  Lucius was a pretty funny guy and even though I knew the alcohol wasn’t affecting him like it did me, he was still the most relaxed I had seen him yet. Was this what it would have been like being with him. Shedding the burden of what he was or more importantly who he was in his world? Because like this, it was hard to picture him as anything else, even if I had witnessed the Vampire King first-hand.

  Oh yeah, lines were getting blurry alright, right along with my vision. Which brought us to now and the reason Lucius was carrying me back to my room after a car ride I had obviously fallen asleep during.

  “I am fine!” I said overly loud and then realised my mistake, correcting it…not like it mattered now.

  “Ssshh, I mean I am fine,” I whispered making him laugh.

  “Why are you whispering?” he asked mimicking me.

  “Because I don’t want to wake anyone up…jeez, loud feet much, don’t you know how to tip toe?” I asked making him laugh harder this time.

  “Well firstly, I don’t tip toe…ever,” he said making me giggle and then he added a very good point,

  “And considering we are Vampires and sleep in the day, I doubt we will be waking anyone up and besides, who are they going to complain to…their volatile, bad tempered king?”

  “HA! So you admit it, you are grouchy!” I teased making him groan,

  “Grouchy? Really, what am I, a damn cartoon character?” I giggled this time making him roll his eyes at me but the grin he couldn’t hide kind of ruined his whole ‘Bad ass’ persona.

  We soon came to my door and he was just about to make it open without touching it when I slapped him on his chest in little motions.

  “Wait! Before you do it, I always wanted to do something…” He gave me a questioning look and nodded, obviously curious as to what on earth the little human was up to this time.

  “Okay, OPEN SESAME!” I shouted in an over dramatic way that made Lucius groan aloud,

  “By the God’s, woman.” But I wasn’t listening, no instead I was holding my hands out towards the door and waving my fingers as if I could do magic. Of course, when he didn’t open the door quick enough I had to give him a nudge.

  “Come on, you big brute, don’t leave me hanging.” I told him speaking out of the corner of my mouth, like you do when you didn’t want the audience to see.