Aris Reigns (2 page)

King DeMarco grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. His mouth softened for only an instant before the menace returned. He tore his hand away and continued pacing. “In that time long ago when your father snatched you from Diego, from me, I went mad. I roamed the woods like an animal mourning your loss. When, at last, I returned to the gypsy camp my grandmother told of a vision she had of you in the court of Henry VIII. I set out to follow you to London and there I found you at court. Do you remember?” He stopped in front of her, stooping down, resting his hands on the tufted arms of the chair in which she sat. She felt like a trapped animal. A trapped wolf will chew off its own leg to get free. She vowed she would do whatever it took to escape this wretched place. She remained silent in fear that any word from her might drive him over the edge.

“Ýes, I found you at court in London. I came to you. You shunned me. You turned me away. You told me you loved another.” There was madness in his eyes as, once again, he gripped her face in between his huge hands. “But I loved you still.” Suddenly his black eyes softened as they locked onto her frightened ones. Almost tenderly he pulled her to her feet. Suddenly his body grew rigid, he began shaking. Instantly repelled by his sudden urge to hold her, he threw her back down onto the chair.

Slowly he paced a circle around her as he spoke. “I watched the palace. I followed you to the ship on the day you set sail for Spain when Cardinal Woolsey exiled you to be married. I stowed away, but before the ship cast off, a sailor found me. He gave me over to the captain. Beaten and whipped, I nearly died from the great loss of blood and the infection that set into my wounds.” He tore the jacket from his shoulders, pulled the sweater over his head and threw both of them on the floor. His muscles strained with anger. His body looked powerful, invincible. “Do you see this? Wounds so deep even
my vampire body retains the scars.” He spun on his heel, exposing his nude back to her.

Even in the soft lantern light she could see the long silver scars running from shoulder to shoulder, crisscrossing his spine to his waist and below.

Turning to face her, he picked up his jacket and put it back on, his pale chest a striking contrast to the black leather. “I took a thrashing for you because you once said you loved me. The wounds on my back healed, but the wound in my heart remained open and bleeding. I vowed I would find you, win you back. I was obsessed to have you for my own.

“When I healed sufficiently to work, I signed on to a ship's crew bound for Spain. They drove us like dogs and I grew strong once more in spite of my ordeal. It was only after we landed that I learned you were dead, killed by a storm at sea. Again, I mourned my loss of you.

“Desiring solace, I traveled the countryside unaccompanied and on foot, learning the lay of the land. It was then I found this very castle occupied, in those days, by minor royalty. I secured work inside its walls as an apprentice to the lord's blacksmith. I lived a quiet life, alone and finally at peace, for more than two decades. Then in my forty-second year, the blacksmith died without a wife or child; he willed me his small house and his blacksmith tools. I took pride in my work and made a decent living.” He stared out the window, possessed for a moment by human memories. His expression eased and Sarah could finally see DeMarco, the man she had cared for, in this vampire King standing before her.

Without warning his eyes hardened; his spine stiffened. His voice grew gruff as he continued. “One evening as I walked in the forest, I was set upon by two of the fabled undead. I had heard of vampires before but I did not know they truly existed. The two males dragged me to their encampment and there, took my human life.” DeMarco
paused, staring into a far distant past. After a moment, he continued his story; Sarah strained to hear his soft whisper. “For three days I suffered the fires of hell. When the pain stopped, I knew that I was the same as they, one of the undead.”

Again, he stooped down before her, his eyes level with her own, pain clearly visible in his dark gaze. “I knew there was no turning back, no way out, so I quietly accepted what I had become.” Tearing his eyes from hers, he stood and began anew to pace. “I lived within the coven, yet apart from it. I learned all I could about vampire lore. As the years passed, I heard tales of the Catacombs. The legends said the Catacombs was a place of great learning; their libraries contained books with the secrets of life and death. Never forgetting for a moment my only true love, my Elizabeth,” he spun on his heel to face her, a sneer narrowing his eyes and his smile holding nothing but disdain as he spoke. “Yes you, Sarah, in an incarnation where you loved me and betrayed me.” Sarah was shaking, terrified he would end her life any moment.

After an interminable silence, walking away from her toward the window he continued speaking in a soft, measured voice. “But I believed if I could find her, find you, in a future life, I could win you again. I realized if I could get my hands on those books, I just might be able to do it. My deep love for you was my last vestige of humanity, all that was left of my human life and I clung to it like a drowning man.

“I plotted my journey to the vampire underground kingdom in London, concocting a plausible story as to why they should admit me to their society. I heard of others who left Spain for London and had been welcomed and lived there still.

“I set sail for England, working my way across the sea on a merchant ship. It took weeks before I reached my destination, but to a vampire, there is no such thing as time and so I was patient.

“I appealed to the great Council.” His scorn was evident when he
spoke the word ‘great.' “I told them I longed for a peaceful life, a life without being a beast of human prey. They believed me and, after much time and testing, I was accepted. I worked diligently, building a reputation as an honorable Immortal.” He laughed and it was an ugly sound as it reverberated off the stone walls. “It took centuries, but, as I said, what is time to a vampire. At long last, I managed my way into the most elite circle, those who work on the Infinity Diaries, the very books of life and death that I had traveled to uncover. I was given primary responsibilities that I readily accepted and fulfilled. After decades of pristine work, I gained the trust of the Master Keeper of Records. He gave me what I was looking for, access to the ancient scrolls. The delicate job of updating and copying the ancient scrolls was delegated to me; transferring them into current volumes representing each soul that had ever walked the earth.

“Working with determination, I searched until I found the soul-chart of Elizabeth Wyatt. It was there I learned about Sarah Hagan of Chicago. Research is quick and most accurate on the internet so I found out everything I could about the psychologist and newly famous author from Illinois. I read your book on reincarnation. It made me laugh that you believed in past lives yet did not remember yours. I vowed to make you remember. I vowed to make you love me. I devised a plan to win you once again.

“I took my leave of the Catacombs, arriving in Chicago where I found you and courted you as DeMarco Brassi. I hoped you would feel something when you saw me, remember me. But you did not.”

His voice was low, muted with contempt. She shivered as he whispered, “I became everything you could ever want. I learned all there is to know about your trade. For all purposes, I became a psychologist. All that was missing was the university degree. I studied re-incarnation. I gave you lively debate and intellectual stimulation. I respected your wishes concerning intimacy. I offered you all the love and security that you could ever desire. DeMarco Brassi deserved
your love, but you gave it to another. You turned from me yet again and for that second time, Sarah Hagan, you will die.”

CHAPTER 1

A
s if he were looking for something, DeMarco turned to watch from the window, leaving Sarah to stare at his back in silence. The moments ticked slowly by, each second a minute, each minute an hour and all she could think about was Aris. Was he safe? Where was he? She knew a person's whole life was supposed to flash before them in a heartbeat at the moment of their death, yet her memories were only of her life with Aris. The first time he appeared to her through one of her clients, a voice from a distant age speaking to her through Carlos Havarro's therapeutic hypnotic trance. He returned each time she hypnotized Carlos and she grew to know him, to know who he was. Then he shared what he was; vampire, Immortal.

The first time he told her about his race and how different his society was than what humans believed blood drinkers to be. She recalled her disbelief and then her fear when she realized he was telling her the truth. To quiet her fear, he explained about the two races of drinkers of blood, the Immortals and the wild, evil vampires of past legend. If that wasn't enough to take in, when he told her the Immortals were created by the blending of humans and an Alien culture visiting earth on a scientific expedition, she knew she had lost all sense and reason. So she simply surrendered and listened to his story with an open heart.

She grew to be more than fascinated by him as he explained his society in the underground Catacombs of London. He told her of the Utopian life they led. At first it had been hard for her to believe, yet when she met his closest Immortal friends, Gabriela and Richard, she came to know that everything he told her about Immortals was true. They did not take human life to survive. They were much further evolved than the evil vampires that roamed the earth and filled movie screens. She remembered when he first appeared to her as a human. She was frightened at first, but his kindness won her trust. When first he told her of their past love and life together during the time of Henry VIII she scoffed, but through her own hypnotic sessions, she came to believe it was the truth. She believed she had loved him before and she couldn't stop herself from falling hopelessly in love with him again. Now, here she was facing another man from a time centuries ago who said he, too, had loved her and because she had chosen another, was now determined to end her present life.

The sound of the door scraping on the stones as it opened jolted Sarah into the present and sent an icy shiver of dread through her body. At the sound, DeMarco spun to face the arrival of the beautiful female vampire who was stepping into the room. Sarah gasped as she recognized the same woman who had kidnapped her and slapped her so savagely in the back of the kidnapper's car.

“Ah, here is my Queen.” The King turned toward Sarah, laughing as he spoke, “Now human, you will deal with Mariska.” The female was long and lean, wearing a tight-fitting black business suit. Her strappy black high heels clicked a staccato on the stone floor as she crossed to stand next to the King. Seeing them side-by-side, even in the midst of her fear, Sarah marveled at the dark beauty of the evil pair. In her mind's eye, she had pictured the enemies of the Immortals as grotesque, horrendous, repulsive. The subterfuge of their great beauty made them all the more terrifying.

Mariska stepped closer to their captive as she spoke. “You do not
remember me from your past, do you human?”

Her mind cloudy with a thousand disjointed thoughts, Sarah couldn't remember ever seeing the female vampire before the kidnapping. She shook her head ‘no'.

Now it was the Queen who paced in front of her. Sarah found herself mesmerized by her movement, breathing in rhythm with her tapping steps.

“Long ago in the gypsy camp you thought you bested me. You used your long, fair hair and pale skin to steal my betrothed.” Her black eyes burned a hole through Sarah, a sinister laugh curved Mariska's crimson lips. “Soon I will begin using my dark powers to steal your mortal life. Slowly. Painfully.” Her last words were softly whispered and even more frightening because of it.

Sarah's head swam as she did her best to recall some memory of the female vampire who was standing before her. Suddenly, she had a flashback to one of the hypnotic dreams she had during the time she was doing regressions in Chicago with her own psychotherapist. In the dream it was the sixteenth century and a maiden named Elizabeth Wyatt was fighting in the dust with a young gypsy woman who she now realized, resembled the Queen greatly. Sarah's mind began to clear. During her hypnotherapy sessions, she discovered Elizabeth Wyatt had been the name of one of her past life incarnations. Somehow this vampire thought Elizabeth Wyatt had stolen her man in that long-ago lifetime. It was only a moment before Sarah recalled why the two women were fighting and she knew Mariska was right. They were battling in the dirt over the woman's gypsy lover, over Diego, Diego, who now stood before her as King of the vampires. Her head swam as she realized that she and Mariska and DeMarco had all shared a life together in a long-past time. And in that century long ago Elizabeth won, not only the fight but the man. She remembered the curse the bruised and defeated gypsy spat on her as she crept away from the midnight fire.

And now, here she stood, Mariska, Queen of the Spanish Coven. Sarah feared this was going to be a very long night.