The Kingdom of the Nine; The Vampire Legacy IV (10 page)

“I didn't realize that you knew anything
about that.” He whispered, which made me glance over at him, just
as we stepped into the doorway.

I witnessed a lot more than any one
realized.” I answered as the two of us turned and looked at Ashley,
who was standing by the fireplace which was lit with a fake
electrical orange glow. She turned and looked over at us, with a
shocked look that Julian was standing there.

“Would you two like me to leave?” She asked,
with an angry tone in her voice.

Julian shook his head. “I knew you would be
here, Ash, that's why I came, to help Caitlyn explain all of
this.”

“There isn't much to explain, Julian.” Ashley
sighed, looking from one of us to the other, and then she stopped
to look directly at me. “I can see just what's going on here, it's
written all over both of your faces.”

Julian looked at me and I turned to him,
there was nothing there that I could see, then, I watched him
smile.

“Oh.” I said and stepped back away from him.
Julian's expression changed as I moved away, like he had seen, in
my eyes, exactly what I saw in his. I turned to Ashley. “I thought
we had gotten passed this.”

“You can't deny that the two of you are in
love.” Ashley said, sourly. I looked back at Julian as he glanced
at me, and shrugged, then reached out for me, which I backed away
from. “Can you honestly deny yourself love, Caitlyn?”

“I am not denying anything.” I told her,
snapping around to face her. I stepped up closer to her. “My
husband and son are upstairs, what does that tell you?”

“That you're fooling yourself.” Ashley
replied. I turned and looked at Julian, who had made his way over
to the chair and sat down. He sat looking at her, as he leaned
forward in the chair with his elbows on his knees.

“What did you really come here for?” I
questioned, looking from him back to the woman with the blue eyes.
She looked over at Julian then back at me.

“I came here to find out exactly who you were
and why he had such a strange look in his eyes when I asked about
you.” She sighed and walked over to the chair she had been sitting
in. “No, I would like to know exactly who Nick and this Creolas
person are and why I've never heard of them.”

I looked over at Julian, who was looking at
his fingers, and then I watched as he slowly looked up at me.

“Would you like to take this question? I'm
not sure I could explain it right now.” He nodded, and looked over
at Ashley who was staring him down.

“Nick and Creolas are, were, our cousins,
mine and Quinn's. How they survived the two centuries in between
our meetings, besides the fact that they had become vampires,
baffled me for a while, until Nick arrived one day, after Caitlyn
and I began to get really involved with each other. He helped her
by keeping his brother away from her, for the most part, which
struck me as odd because Nick, mortal or immortal, could really
have cared less for any other living being unless they served a
purpose, and I was afraid that one day, he would feel that Caitlyn
had outlived her usefulness.” Julian shrugged and looked back down
at his fingers.

“What was her usefulness?” Ashley asked.

Julian looked up her and smiled. I sat back
in my chair and watched him, looking over every part of his shape,
studying his face, taking in his features and I realized how I
couldn't deny my love for him, but my worry was what Ashley would
do when she found out the truth.

“She was part of a connection that I didn't
quite understand, not then, even though I knew what she was and
that she was part of a prophecy that Larado had told only me.”
Julian sighed and shook his head. He glanced up at me, caught me
staring in his eyes and he spoke. “Should I go on?”

His voice shocked me back to the den, and I
looked back and forth from one of them to the other as they both
stared at me.

“I'm sorry; I was caught in a memory. Please,
go on.” I whispered, and then listened to Ashley grunt as a
reply.

Julian looked over at Ashley, addressing her,
no doubt, trying to not concentrate on me. “Nick had always been
very vocal about anything he disapproved of and basically that
meant anything I did with Caitlyn. So, when I asked him what his
intentions were, he told me that I should be with her and not
badgering him. I wasn't going to get the answers I wanted from him
very easily, I knew that then, so, I started following him around
and one night, I watched him sneak into her room. It was one of the
nights that she had stayed because of a storm, a night I wished she
had gone home.” He sat back and closed his eyes, as I watched
him.

I knew what night he meant, because I had
remembered it on my own, but to hear him speak about it, again,
made me realize how angry it really made him.

“What happened?” Ashley asked, looking at me.
Julian sighed.

“He walked over to her bed and woke her from
her sleep, but as he talked to her, she seemed to go into a trance,
awake but not really sure what was going on. I heard her talking to
him, and it occurred to me how wrong her tone of voice was and
that's when I heard her call him by my name. The anger ripped
through me as he undressed her, and she, him, but they didn't make
love, instead, he took from her and gave her back his blood in
return.”

“Was he making her a vampire?” She asked.
Julian shook his head.

“I don't know.” He whispered. “He denied the
whole thing when I confronted him and he never went back to her
room. I confided in Quinn about the situation, which is when he
told me that he believed I had seen Nick in the room, but that he
believed it wasn't Nick that had done it.”

Julian looked at me as I stared at him. He
had never told me about his conversation with Quinn, or what Quinn
had believed, and at that moment, by the scared look in Julian's
eyes, I found out why.

“Quinn believed it was Creolas and that the
red-eyed vampire had learned how to shift into different forms. His
favorite seemed to be Nick.”

“Is that possible, to shift or even use a
mind control to make two people see two different things at the
same time.” I asked, shaking my head, not wanting to believe it.
“That night I saw Julian and he saw Nick. How can it be that those
two people were someone entirely different?”

“That's what the conversation the night they
arrived was all about.” Julian smiled. “There were only three of us
when I got there. Creolas had disappeared, but he promised to
return. It was a promise the three of us hoped he didn't keep.”

He stood and walked over to the fireplace. He
leaned against the mantel and stared at the empty space in front of
him, caught in the moment of that fateful conversation.

* * * * *

I stood there, looking at the others, Quinn
sighed, as Nick and I exchanged glances. The anger I felt, the need
to protect Caitlyn was brewing inside me and I found it hard to
contain.

“So, let's get on with this before Creolas
comes back.” Quinn spoke up. Nick looked at him and nodded. “First
question, why are you here, why did you come back?”

“I thought you would be glad to see me.” Nick
smiled, sarcastically at us. I shook my head, rolled my eyes and
then looked back at him. “Honestly, I was called back, and I'm not
sure by whom, but, when I found out Creolas was coming back also, I
knew that it didn't matter who it was that had sent out the call. I
also knew that O'Neal had returned and that fact alone made me come
here.”

“Stay away from her, Nick!” I ordered.

“I should be the least of your concerns,
Cousin. The real danger lies in Creolas, and the prophecy.”

“What prophecy?” Quinn asked, stepping up
between us. I looked at my brother, then back at Nick.

“Tell him, Cousin; tell him just what you got
Caitlyn into.” Nick smiled, evilly. I struggled not to hit him as
my hands clenched into fist.

“Larado is her ancestor.” I told Quinn, who
looked at me in shock, but then it slowly faded. “There's something
that Larado told me when he was alive and it has to do with
her.”

“What?” Quinn asked, moving closer to me.
“Julian, what's going to happen to her?”

“In one hundred years, the time will come for
events to unfold. Three rings of gold will set the scene for the
power of three to make things right, with an Earthly brown, a soul
is found, as skies are blue, whose powers are true, and seas are
green, to fight forces unseen. If all three will stand and fight,
on this full moon's night, and then turn towards the circles of
fire, waging war, they will save what evil desires.” I told him the
prophecy had been in my mind once Caitlyn had arrived because I
knew it was about her. Quinn was staring at me this whole time but
when I lowered my eyes to the floor and crossed my arms, his temper
flared.

“Damn you, Julian!” He screamed at me. I
glanced up at him and watched him walk away a bit, throwing punches
in the air, then he came back to us. “You and those damn prophecies
are just an excuse to put innocent young women in the way of danger
so you can come trotting in on a white stallion to save their
asses. It has to stop!”

“She's not innocent, Quinn.” Nick spoke up. I
looked at him and snarled.

“Of course, she's not!” I hollered. “Not
after what you did to her!”

“For the last time, it wasn't me!” Nick
snapped and turned to face me. “Can't you get that through your
feeble mind, or shall I pound it in for you?”

“Then, who was it?” I asked.

“Creolas.” Nick whispered, softly.

“Ah-huh.” I nodded then rolled my eyes.

“I hope you have evidence to support this.”
Quinn said, sternly. Nick smiled and shook his head.

“Whether you believe me or not, doesn't
matter to me.” Nick replied. He turned and looked me squarely in
the eyes. “It's her life at stake, not mine.”

“Fine.” I answered, also crossing my arms.
“Let's hear your story.”

“After we left here last time, I followed
Creolas back to London, and then I learned some fascinating things
about my younger brother.” Nick walked over to the fireplace and
leaned on the mantel, staring into the fire. “Apparently, during
the period of time that my brother had seemingly disappeared off
the face of the Earth, he had begun to study under a witch that
specialized in lycanthropy.”

“A shape-shifting witch?” Quinn asked and
Nick nodded in response.

“She helped him become powerful enough
mentally to not only shift, at will, into any form he wished, but
also to control the mind into believing it saw something completely
different.” Nick smiled over at me. “I know how your mind works,
cousin. I know that you need proof but I don't have any to give
you.”

“I do.” A voice reached out to us from the
doorway and the three of us turned and looked at the figure
standing there. He stepped into the light and I listened to Quinn's
quick intake of breath, then I looked from the man in the doorway,
to behind me at Nick, who was staring at him, back to the identical
mirror image of him that stood before us. “Shocking, isn't it?”

Slowly, the voice changed, becoming deeper as
the outer shell of this man shrank two inches and gained the long,
red hair that belonged to Creolas. His brown eyes turned fiery red
and my youngest cousin smiled, evilly, at me, his vampire teeth
seemed to be permanently elongated.

“I wasn't aware that I was being followed.”
Creolas smiled at Nick, who sighed and looked away. “You've learned
to hide yourself well.”

“I've had a lot of practice.” Nick
snarled.

“Why are we discussing me?” He asked,
politely. I rubbed my forehead, and tried not to look at those evil
red eyes. “Is it because of that beautiful blue-eyed creature
upstairs?” He looked over at me as my head snapped up to look at
him. “Ah, it must be to get such a reaction from all three of
you.”

“Stay away from her!” Quinn told him. Creolas
smirked at him then folded his hands in front of him.

“You can't protect her all the time.” He
answered. “Can you?”

“What do you want with her?” Nick questioned
which made Creolas look at him.

“The same thing you seem to want,” he stepped
closer, and looked at me, “and the same thing you want,” then, his
attention turned to Quinn, “and, you.” He pointed his fingers out,
towards the three of us and laughed. “You all want one thing, her,
so why not share in the fun? I heard orgies came be great fun.”

“You son of a bitch!” I yelled and moved at
him, but, as I stepped closer to him, teeth bared and eyes glowing,
an arm came up to black my way. I looked over at Nick, who held my
gaze with a stern look, and snarled. “Get out of my way!”

“Go upstairs.” Nick whispered. I glared into
his eyes.

“Stop trying to order me around!” I screamed
at him through clenched teeth.

“Can't you hear her?” He whispered. I could
see the red blood haze around my eyes start to fade as I opened my
mind and listened to her. She was talking to me, but I'm not sure
if it was a conscious chat or not, but all that she was saying made
sense, and I felt drawn to her. “She's calling you. Go to her.
Quinn and I will handle this problem.”

* * * * *

“I'm not sure what happened after I left, but
you could feel the surge of emotions for several minutes before it
vanished.” Julian looked over at me as I concentrated on him and he
shrugged. “You were asleep when I came up and Michael had said
nothing about you leaving the room, or not.”

“So, now you've heard it.” I said, looking
towards Ashley. “Is there anything else you'd like to hear?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.” She
said, in a soft spoke voice. I crossed my arms as I watched her.
She blinked, glanced down at her fingers, and back up at me.

“And, what's that?” I whispered.

“The rest of the story.” She replied. This
took me back a bit, and I had to study her awhile before I nodded
and decided to go on. Julian moved to a chair close to hers and
watched me as I got comfortable in my own chair. I looked up at the
two of them, and then glanced at Julian, who smiled, adoringly, my
way.