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He suddenly steered the car right, taking a loosely graveled path leading to asphalt which wound itself through a medieval forest with dripping bows and blackened bark. Rounding a narrow drive toward a bluff where gnarled birch and elm stood like silent guardians, she spied a house, perched atop a ledge overlooking a vast body of water. The house was grand, wrapped in cedar with shutters and a red tile roof and drawing nearer, she noticed water sheeting the walls with luminescent quality. He pressed a button atop the visor and one of six garage doors slowly opened. He zipped inside, and the Ferrari stopped on a dime, the garage door closing behind, all but silencing the storm.
Donja surveyed the garage which accommodated multiple cars, the Ferrari, a Mercedes, SUVs, a Jeep, Range Rover, motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles. Suddenly her door was flung open and Torin freed her of the seat belt and pulled her to her feet. He took her hand and led her past the showroom of vehicles to a door and into the home. The first thing she noticed as he led her down a tiled hallway with her spiked boots resounding, was the smell of sandalwood. They came to great room flanked by a wall of windows overlooking Lake Huron. The atmosphere was rich, the décor quite masculine with supple leather furniture, mahogany tables, and oil paintings, complete opulence. She noticed a fireplace, crafted of native stone which rose twenty feet and turning, she looked up to the bannistered, upper level which provided a clear view of the great room and beyond. She watched his fluidic movement as he moved across the room and in the blink of an eye appeared at the bar. He removed the stemmed ball from atop a crystal whiskey decanter and poured himself a drink. He thrust his head back, raised the fluted stein to his lips and downed it in one swallow. He threw the empty stein which crashed into the glass shelves, shards flying. He leaned upon the bar and then as if one could never be enough, snatched another fluted stein and poured another.
Donja couldn’t pull her eyes from him, the fury within mounting. It occurred to her in that moment just how much she would enjoy clawing his eyes out. Suddenly her mom’s tears flashed through her tortured mind. She cast her fur coat and clutch to the sofa as her feet, by no will of their own, marched straight to him. He turned to face her, his seething eyes on her body, not her face and that just served to infuriate her further.
“You bastard,” she said as she slapped the stein from his hand. “How dare you hurt my mom, that wasn’t our deal,” she screeched as she punched his chest. He didn’t move, not a bit of resistance as her fist found his chest again and again, mercilessly. “You could have warned me that you were going to come, propose and rip her heart out, I could have prepared her. Damn you!” she wailed as her tears fell.
He suddenly grasped her hands. “It’s not me you’re angry at, Donja, you’re angry at yourself, the way you talked to her, the pain your words inflicted.”
“You forced me!” she screamed, struggling to free her hands. “I had to hurt her to keep her alive, you bastard. I hate you!”
“No more than I hate myself,” he said as he forcefully spun her around and spooned her back, holding her hands firm to her waist. “Do you see this room?” he groaned, his chin to her shoulder with his deep masculine voice resonating. “This is who I am, this along with my villa in Italy is where I have spent the last two hundred years of my life, waiting patiently for what I thought would never come again.” He forced her forward to the windows and pointed to the floor. “Do you see that path worn in the floor?” he scoffed. “That’s where I have paced, day after day, locked in a prison of hell.” He forced her to a wall where an antiquated picture hung. Donja surveyed the picture painted on birch bark. It was decaying inside a frame which must have been hundreds of years old. “Do you see her?” he moaned. “That was my wife, my life, my love, taken from me, ripped away by age, her hatred of Iridescents and her fear of becoming immortal.”
Donja felt her blood run cold, eyes on the face of an older woman with dark skin and long gray locks and though the image was worn with cracks and chipped edges, she focused on her eyes which looked hauntingly familiar. She raised a hand to her brow as her mind took a tumble.
She’s one of the women in the wedding album.
“She’s Chippewa.” she breathed, hauntingly.
“Yes, second child of the Durent chief, born at the dawn of time and it took me sixty years to convince her to sit for a portrait,” his voice softened, “because she was afraid doing so would steal her soul.”
He spun her like a rag doll and their eyes met. “You are as close to her blood as any female alive, that’s why I all but dropped to my knees when you walked by the V.I.P. booth. For a moment it was her, you’re so much like her, so beautiful, but after I caught your scent and scanned your blood, my hopes sank, only to be…”
“Let go of me!” she exploded as she struggled to be free. He released her and she slapped him across the face. “I’m not your dead wife. How dare you destroy my life as well as my family’s in some insane attempt to replace a dead woman, who must not have loved you or she would have moved heaven and earth to stay with you.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened.
“Now take me home,” she snapped as she pushed past him and set her stride for her coat and clutch.
She felt his hand, firm and hard as he spun her and pulled her to him. “Don’t play with my heart, Donja, you won’t like the outcome!”
She met his gaze, the temper he warned her of self-evident, but it mattered not for at this moment their tempers were so evenly matched that she would have slapped him again had he not held her arms so tightly. “So, you can dish it out, but you can’t take it, huh?” she hissed. “Let me go, you son of a bitch. You may force my hand in marriage, but I can see and feel the permanent damage you’ve inflicted on my family and I hate you for it, do you hear me? I hate you.” Their eyes locked and as the tether between them intensified, Donja felt weakened by his gaze. “Release me,” she groaned turning her head unnaturally to one side. She saw movement in her periphery and cast her eyes to the bannistered, upper floor where eight or more men stood with silent faces, watching. A shiver of some intensity washed over her.
His minions, oh God…what if he sends them to strike my family.
She turned her head and they faced off. “What’s wrong, you afraid you can’t handle me on your own, or do you just need an audience to your brutality?”
Torin looked up to the second level and saw Val Fabichi, his best friend for over three hundred years. “Val, I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“Just a few beers with the boys and a game of pool,” Val answered, “sorry, I didn’t know you were coming back.”
“Get them out of here. Leave us!” Torin snapped.
Donja watched in bewilderment as the men flashed like streaks of light down the stairs and out the door. She glared at Torin as she tried to break free of his grasp. “Let me go,” she groaned.
He ignored her and met her gaze with scintillating eyes.
She instantly felt a hypnotic power penetrating her mind. “Stop that, don’t look at me,” she hissed, closing her eyes, “it’s unfair…this power you possess.”
“It’s who I am” he whispered, and she felt his breath on her cheek. “I can’t control it, the swoosh of your blood, the beat of your heart—your scent.” He took a breath. “Listen to me. I don’t want to replace Anstosa, she’s dead and what I feel right now, this pain in my chest far exceeds…”
“Stop it!” she screamed, turning away from his eyes which were so powerfully possessive that she squeezed her eyes tightly.
“Look at me!” he commanded and his voice—the power.
She spun to face him, dark locks flying.
He released his grip. “It’s you, Donja, not her, it’s always been you, I just couldn’t find you.”
