26. Once Upon a Broken Heart
Once Upon a Broken Heart
Light colored linen pants and a soft, form-fitting t-shirt that I have no doubt are designer are waiting for me in the bedroom once I finish my shower.
Along with a black bra and thong, which fit perfectly.
I slip them on, not thinking about Micah picking them out himself.
Which is ridiculous. He has people for that.
My other clothes are nowhere to be found, and I leave my gun and extra clip of silver-tipped bullets in the guest bedroom. I won’t need it in Micah’s suite, and I don’t want it hanging between us like a ghost of lingering mistrust.
The city skyline is visible through the windows across the room as I tuck my legs beneath me on one of the couches in Micah’s vast living area.
I watch the brilliant flashing colors of the Skyway as it hovers above the concrete jungle that is Manhattan.
I’m holding a plate with both salad and pizza, so I can feel virtuous while also eating my favorite comfort food.
New York has the best pizza in the country, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
The kitchen counter holds an array of other food options.
Thai, Chinese, steak and potatoes, tacos, and a pasta dish that smells so good I may have to eat it after the pizza.
Dessert includes cheesecake, chocolate cake, and Petit Fours.
There was an open bottle of white wine waiting, and I poured myself a glass before sitting.
Between one bite of pizza and the next, the cheese a string from my mouth to the slice, Micah appears in a chair opposite me.
He’s wearing the same clothes, the same haunted look in his eyes, but his color is back.
The deep bronze of his skin glows with a preternatural warmth that only comes from blood, an allure to it I’ve always found hard to look away from.
It’s like the afterglow of sex for humans.
He sits back with an ankle casually crossed over his other leg, glass of wine in hand, sipping slowly as he watches me over the rim. I can tell the difference between blood and wine, and I’m not sure why he’s drinking alcohol. Maybe he had enough blood while I was showering.
‘This doesn’t count as dinner.’ His voice is low and intimate, skittering across my already tight nerve endings.
‘Who is she?’ I ignore his comment, taking a gulp of my own wine. I’m not sure if I was hoping he’d forgotten I still owed him dinner, or disappointed when I thought he had.
He’s going to tell me who this rogue Vampire is. But not because I’m asking. If he weren’t, he would have sent me home to shower and eat.
‘Once upon a time.’ Micah smirks, and despite the tension and trepidation filling my veins, my heart catches on those timeless words that hold the power to captivate.
‘Are you serious?’ I can’t help the incredulity that creeps into my voice.
‘Doesn’t every good fairy tale start that way?’ His midnight eyes are full of stars again. He’s teasing me, and it’s better than the pain he was hiding earlier, so I smile back at and salute him with my glass.
‘Once upon a time, there was a princess. She was beautiful and willful, charming and cruel, deceitful and captivating. She was at times childlike, and at others devious. Mostly, she was spoiled and used to having her own way. She toyed with hearts the way other girls play with dolls. By the time she was sixteen, she was dazzling. Every man who met her fell in love.’
I’ve never heard him talk like this. The cadence, rhythm, and tone speak to a depth of feeling gained experientially. I wonder if this is what it feels like when Vampires use Mesmerism to Compel humans?
‘Are you the hero or the villain in this story?’ He was obviously in love with this girl from the way he’s describing her. My heart squeezes at the thought. Another woman he loved. I push it violently aside, reminding myself I have no right to feel that way about him.
‘That depends on who’s telling the story. Maybe I’m neither. You’ll have to make up your own mind. But in the end, it doesn’t matter, because we cannot change the past.’
And this is not really a fairy tale. It’s history. His history. Placing my empty plate down on the coffee table between us, my stomach hollows out in anticipation and fear. I already know there’s no happily ever after in this tale.
‘What happened?’ I prompt.
Micah swirls his wine idly, his eyes seeing through me to the ghosts of the past.
‘On her twentieth birthday, her parents decided it was time she married. They invited nobles from across the lands to their palace.’
‘What lands? What country was this?’ I cut in, leaning forward, almost spilling my wine as the glass tilts precariously.
Micah frowns. ‘It’s not important.’
I want to argue, but it’s pointless. I’m frustrated because princess is a blanket term for royalty in many cultures.
She could have been a Pharaoh’s daughter, or the Hebrew, Greek, or Norse equivalent of the word.
I could have misjudged his age, and she could be a Germanic, Briton, or Saxon princess.
She could be Helen of Troy, for all I know.
‘Fine. What was-is-her name?’ The idea of thousands of years, or even centuries, is fine in theory, but the reality is almost impossible to wrap my mind around.
‘Selene.’ He says it smoothly, as if having anticipated my question, and I scan his face, trying to gauge his feelings toward her now. But he’s like a blank canvas before the painter mixes colors and creates something beautiful.
Selene could be from many cultures. It could be a name she chose for herself.
Vamps often change their names, some multiple times.
To suit an era, who they believe they are at a given time, to throw off their past, their humanity, or if they just don’t like their birth name.
Lila once told me her name was originally Lillian.
I don’t even know if Micah is his original name.
Saint James isn’t; it’s entirely British.
I doubt he even had a surname when he was born.
A quick scan of the i-web gives me the origin and meaning of Selene: Greek goddess personifying the moon.
Blinking the info off my contacts, I refocus on Micah.
‘So Selene’s parents wanted to marry her off.’ I pick up my slice of pizza and finish it.
Micah drains his glass and moves so fast it looks as if the bottle appears in his hand. Instantly, our glasses are full, and he places the wine onto the small occasional table beside him.
‘Were you one of her suitors?’ My heart constricts again, and I almost frown down at it in disapproval.
His laugh is bitter, his eyes chasms of fathomless darkness, beautiful mouth twisting as the words spill out.
‘I was a servant. When we were younger, we used to play together. I was two years older, and as we grew, I was made very aware of my station. But we secretly spent time together despite her parents’ disapproval.
She was as radiant as the sun, the moon around which my world turned.
She was vain and selfish, and I loved her to distraction.
‘I believed she loved me back. I’m not sure what I hoped would happen when these boys, these princes, arrived and started vying for her hand. She said she loved me, we were each other’s first, and I made plans for us to run away together. I saved everything I had.’
I can barely breathe, aware of every single beat of my heart in the silence blanketing us.
‘What happened?’ I whisper.
Micah’s gaze swings to mine as if remembering he’s telling this story to someone. As if he’s forgotten I’m here.
‘She was toying with me. I knew the moment I saw her kissing someone else. She reveled in the attention and wanted everyone to love her. For months, she played with their hearts, leading them all on, giving each one hope. She laughed at me when I told her my plans. It was all a game to her. I realized what a fool I’d been, thinking someone as perfect as her, so used to decadence and an easy life, would settle for being poor for love.
I had nothing to offer her. So I left, vowing never to return. ’
What a bitch. But looking at Micah, I can’t blame her for wanting him.
I don’t think there’s a woman alive, or dead, who wouldn’t have taken what he offered.
Even as a human, he would have been gorgeous, with his bronze skin, onyx eyes, and midnight hair.
His perfectly muscled body. I shut down my thoughts and force myself to listen, to focus on his words and not how he still affects my traitorous body.
‘I was Turned a few years later. But that’s a story for another night. Once I had control over my appetite, I went back. I needed to know what had happened to her. And I had accumulated some wealth by then.’
Vamps always do. Mesmerism and time work wonders for accumulating money, property, and material possessions. I’m aware his castle holds several priceless works of art, not to mention the actual castle itself.
‘Was she married?’ She must have been in her mid-twenties by then.
‘She was. To a very powerful…prince. She went with him to his land after they were married.’ He pauses, an emotion I can’t grasp passing over his features.
‘She also had a lover. I wasn’t sure what I thought would happen.
Perhaps only that she would see me differently. As someone now worthy of her love.’
I’m on the edge of my seat, food and wine forgotten, almost forgetting this isn’t only a compelling story.
It’s the same feeling as when you watch a holo you’ve already seen, and every time you hope the ending will somehow, impossibly, be different.
That a character you love won’t die, or the couple will end up together.
Or sometimes, that the villain will win.
‘What did you do?’ As if I don’t already know. My skin feels too tight across my cheekbones, dread pooling in my veins.
‘I offered her immortality.’
Jealousy stirs in my stomach, churning it violently. I had dreamed, yearned, for him to offer it to me.
‘She didn’t want it. Or at least, she didn’t want it if it came with me.
She wanted the sun on her face, the admiration of others, and the vast wealth she enjoyed.
She never could see beyond the present.’ Micah’s pain is etched across his face in a way I’ve never seen before.
As if his history is too much for even his usual stoicism to contain.
I look around his penthouse suite in the Coven estate that he owns and almost laugh. I think of his private jet, the gold and jewels I know he has, the cars, the castle he shipped across the globe, along with all his many properties worldwide. And I’m only aware of a fraction of his wealth.
Micah smiles ruefully at me, acknowledging my silent thoughts.
And I can’t help thinking how I never cared about any of it.
He gave me something much more valuable when my life was in ruins; when I was stripped of everything I loved in this world.
He gave me protection, a home, a family, and most of all, himself, in all the ways he could.
‘She still thought of me as a servant. Below her. I turned her anyway. It was my revenge.’
Okay, that was a plot twist I did not see coming. My mind is an empty, yawning chasm with only the howling wind for company as I stare at his impassive face.
‘She took to drinking blood as if she’d been born to it. She gloried in it. Killed her husband and her lover, and every man who took her to bed after that.’ He’s lost in thought, in memories of the distant past, his wine forgotten.
‘I taught her everything I know. Bought her houses, dresses, jewels, all that she desired. But she never loved me. And eventually, I grew weary of her appetites. The death that followed her. She Turned others to make a Coven for us. All as bloodthirsty as she was. But as the centuries passed, it became harder to keep what we are secret from humanity. So I left her, with enough wealth to sustain her for several more centuries.’
Centuries. He spent centuries with her. I have no right to the bright envy that burns its way through my veins into my heart.
‘Why is she here now? Why engage a Warlock? Why the Daemon? Why Jason and Evan? Killing Lila is the only move she’s made that makes any sense.
She was letting you know that it’s her doing this.
Her that’s killing. But why would she want a war between the Were Packs, and why involve the Cartel?
Micah, why?’ I’m firing questions like bullets, but I can’t stop.
It makes sense, but it doesn’t. As hard as I’m trying, I can’t put all the pieces together.
‘Because it’s my city, Evangeline. Mine. I was here before the Wolves. Before this Cartel, before its predecessor, and the one before that. She wants to take from me everything I’ve built. Everything I love.’
‘But why now?’ It doesn’t make any sense. He’s claimed cities before. He ruled New Orleans for centuries. When he left, it was because he chose to, and he built another kingdom here, in my city.
‘I can’t give you a definitive answer to any of it. Selene is, as you would say, unhinged. And she’s immortal. Time is not the same for us.’ He stands and stretches. It’s such a human gesture that I blink. His face is carefully blank as he looks down at me from his towering height.
But I have the terrible, sinking, gut-wrenching feeling that I know exactly why she’s chosen now to exact her revenge on Micah.
‘I need to sleep,’ I say wearily. It’s as if the afternoon nap never happened. I need to be alone. I need to think.
‘Do you need a car?’ He doesn’t offer me the guest room, and I don’t ask.
‘Mine is right outside. I’ll be fine.’ At this time of night, the city streets will be quiet. People are either at home or they’ll take the Skyway or hyper-rail for convenience.
He wraps me in his arms, and I sink into him, my cheek pressed against where his heart should beat.
‘Be careful, Evangeline,’ Micah says into my hair before releasing me.
‘As long as you are as well,’ I tell him. Because he’s going hunting tonight, and I can’t shake the feeling of foreboding that has me in its grip.