Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-three

“That’s quite a pair of questions,” Hans said. “I’m surprised Sarah managed to do such a thorough job on the secret revelations. You weren’t in the bathroom all that long.”

He didn’t look angry, but I felt a flash of guilt, worried I’d dropped her in the shit.

“Yes, there is a code of conduct here,” he said, and it was obvious the mists around my thoughts had faded away. “Players and vampires are expected to keep their confidences.”

“How about Mary, then? Is she one of your confidences?”

“Mary was one of my confidences, yes. A long time ago.”

I felt like I was digging in places I shouldn’t, because I had no business there.

I felt like crap when Hans stepped away from me, wishing I hadn’t said anything, but he shook his head.

“Don’t ever give yourself over to regrets. I lived with that mistake for over three hundred years before I learned my lesson.” His eyes were so beautiful. “You asked some questions. That isn’t a crime.”

“I shouldn’t have been so demanding. It wasn’t my place to ask so soon.”

“You’re a girl trying to make sense of a very unusual world, curious and overwhelmed, battling with whispers in both your ears and your head. It’s hardly a surprise you are searching out answers.”

I was trying to keep up with his words.

“So, what are fated mates, Hans? Sarah seems to think I’m one of yours.”

“The only one of mine, yes.”

“What about Mary? Who was she? Was she a fated mate of yours too?”

He paused, and I realised my legs were trembling, scared of the answer. I saw the trapdoor shaft and peered inside, just a little. There was a flash of movement down deep.

“We need to get home,” Hans said. “Conversations like these aren’t for a place like this.”

There was no sign of Sarah or the guys as we collected my dress and panties from the floor of the bedroom. I slipped them back on without a word, still well aware of Veronica’s screams sounding out from the room opposite. I was on mute autopilot as we descended the stairs. The atmosphere was different down here now, and the drawing room was a lot busier. I’d have loved to have met some more vampires.

If only I hadn’t been such an idiot for blurting out questions.

“Stop it now,” Hans said. “I’ve already told you, your questions deserve answers, they just can’t be delivered here in this place.”

“Why not in this place? Why can’t you just tell me? I’m a big girl, I can take it.”

“Trust me,” Hans said, “You’ll be glad you are at home when you learn the truth.”

Things went by in a blur as we prepared to make our exit. I was smiling, but it felt distant, as though I was standing back from myself. I saw Sarah standing next to Edwin, pressing against his side as he placed a hand on the small of her naked back.

I was happy for her enough that my smile was genuine.

“People love Sarah,” Hans whispered when he saw it. “You’ll be such good friends in here. People are going to love you, too.”

“Will she find a fated mate?” I asked.

“That’s for destiny to decide, not me.”

Hans was quick and warm with the farewells, and I said my goodbyes along with him, but Edwin was by far the main focus of Hans’ attention as we bid goodnight.

Lady Jane interrupted their goodbyes. “When will you be back next? Will you be joining us for Samhain?”

“No,” Hans’ replied. “Not this year.”

“Really? How come?”

Everyone around us looked puzzled.

“We have some prior engagements,” Hans told them.

“They must be important ones,” Lady Jane chuckled. “You’ll be sorely missed.”

“Indeed, they are,” my lover confirmed, and I got another fresh prickle up my spine. “Ladies, gentlemen, we’ll be seeing you soon.”

“Bye,” I said, dumbstruck like a fool.

Devon the butler provided a car for us, and we travelled back to Hans’ place in the back of a limo this time, rather than a cab from London. It would have been crazily exciting if my nerves weren’t interfering with the experience. My feet were tapping, my heart was thumping wild, as though I was about to attend a court of law hearing. The trapdoor shaft was calling me louder now we were away from the bustle of the blood house.

Hans placed a hand on my thigh, so steadily. I took strength and calm from the power in his touch, because I believed in him, even if my nerves were cut to pieces.

It was into the early hours when the limo arrived back at home. My eyes were fixed on Hans once we were inside the hallway as he took off his jacket and hung it on the rack.

I wished I could scream at him, beg him to tell me who the hell Mary was, but my voice would have been weak.

I should know her.

Prickles, so many prickles.

Hans led me into the kitchen, sat me at the breakfast bar and brought me a glass of water. I took a long drink and braced myself for what was coming.

Hans took the stool by my side, waiting until I looked him in the eyes before he spoke.

“Understand that it’s not just vampires who have fated mates. The phenomenon has been around since the beginning of human existence. Soulmates, true love at first sight, the love of someone’s life, and happily ever afters. They all exist, even though people have grown cynical of them over time.”

“Is that what fated mates are?” I asked him. “Soulmates?”

“Yes, but in the case of humans the waves of love can often come in and out over many lifetimes. In some of their lives people find it, in some they don’t. Fated mates are often like passing ships in the night, so near but so far.” He clicked his fingers. “One tiny movement can change the course of everything. One spilled cup of coffee delaying a meeting in a doorway can change the road for decades ahead.”

“You said over many lifetimes. People live many lives, then? Reincarnation? One life after another?”

“I think of it as a cycle rather than a series, but I’m still learning. I’m by no means a master.”

I tried to weigh it up.

“How about vampires? Are you excluded from the cycle? You must be, right? Since you don’t die.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Our cycle is certainly a lot… longer, if we have one at all. As I said, I’m still learning. I may never find the answer.”

I loved the humility in Hans. The way he seemed to know so much, but didn’t associate it with ego.

“Have you heard of the butterfly effect?” he asked me.

“Where one small thing that happens changes the course of everything around it, bigger and bigger, like a ripple effect?”

“Yes. That’s the case with destiny, too.”

He took my hand and positioned us so his upturned palm was just a small distance from mine, and I could feel the heat, the pull, the electric charge.

“Fated mates are two magnets with perfect polarity,” he told me. “They call and crave each other, and when they merge, it is the most wholesome feeling in the world, but if they miss the pull, even just slightly.”

He pulled his hand away sharply and I winced. It hurt. He nodded in acknowledgement.

“Our two souls have been calling from the moment you were a spark of conception. I just kept away as best I could until you were ready.” I saw the hurt in his eyes. “It was hard, yes, but it is an awful lot harder when someone is snatched away before you so much as get the chance to hold them tight.”

I felt the ghost of a whisper.

Mary.

“Yes,” Hans said. “Mary was my fated mate, back before I knew what such a thing was.”

I felt sick to see the sorrowful look on his face. My eyes welled up for him. I felt as though I was going to throw up on the floor, because there was something else going on down in my guts. Something scary.

“Mary was twenty-nine years old when I last saw her,” he said. “She begged for her life to be spared, and the life of the young daughter beside her, and they granted one wish, but not the other.”

The room spun for me, alive with whispers.

“The wish they granted. They kept her daughter alive?”

“Yes. They did. Her name was Lillian.”

Lillian.

I saw a sobbing child’s face, arms reaching out as she cried for her mother. I knew her face. I knew the way her hair fell around her cheeks. I knew the touch of her tiny little hand.

She was so real. As real as the girl under the trapdoor, screaming to be heard.

“Don’t fight it,” Hans told me. “Let it come, but take it slowly. Soul trauma is a difficult one to bear. Yes. You’re thinking of Lillian. The girl you are seeing is Lillian.”

I felt like a deer smashed by a car, waiting in pieces at the side of the road to be put out of its misery. I was done with coaxing. I didn’t want an easy road to the truth, I wanted it short, sharp and fast, no matter how dangerous.

“Just tell me, please,” I managed to whisper, holding back the retches. “What happened?”

His eyes were piercing. “You know what happened. You were there.”

I shook my head on instinct, the trapdoor crying out. Was I also the girl with the tiny little hands, trying to keep hold of her mother?

No. I didn’t want to be!

I didn’t want to see her. And I didn’t want to feel her pain. And I didn’t want to feel the devastation in her fragile little body as her whole world got torn into pieces.

Hans gave me a moment, staring at me but not demanding. I was on the edge of a cliff of understanding, but all I wanted to do was back away.

Be sure you want to know the answers to questions before you ask them.

I’d messed the fuck up on this one.

“Was I Lillian?” I asked him. “I was, wasn’t I? Just tell me. I was Lillian, wasn’t I? Oh fuck, Hans. So much pain.”

My lip trembled. The memories crept in from deep, strumming my heart with their pain, and they were going to suck me up, suck me in, leave me in pieces…

The side of a lake surrounded by people. Ropes and jeers and splashing.

And Lillian, the little girl crying out for her mother.

I hated the hurt in her eyes. It was so real, I could reach out and touch her, but my hands were locked. Bound together.

I wanted to make it better.

I struggled against imaginary bonds at the breakfast bar, battling so hard that I knocked my water glass over to smash on the floor. I got trembles from my feet, shuddering all the way up my body, and I could feel Lillian’s screams piercing through my heart.

I kept struggling against my bound wrists, and the trapdoor was pulsing so loud that it hurt my skull.

“Don’t fight it,” Hans whispered, but I was still shaking my head.

The side of a lake surrounded by people. Ropes and jeers and splashing.

Jeers…

WITCH!

DROWN THE WITCH!

Lillian crying, arms reaching out in desperation for her mother.

I heard a woman’s voice, begging.

“Don’t kill her, please! She isn’t a witch! She’s just a little girl! Take me, not her! Because I’m the witch. I’M THE WITCH! I’M THE WITCH, NOT LILLIAN!”

I slammed my hands down on the breakfast bar and pressed my forehead to the counter. My mouth wide open in a silent scream.

Don’t kill her! Don’t kill Lillian!

I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!

A woman with her hair across her face as arms grasped at her, tugging and binding. So many arms and so much strength. Too much to fight them all.

I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER!

The cold of the marble against my forehead shot into my senses enough to realise that the screams were coming from my throat, right now in the present. I heard the desperation in my own voice, just like the woman in my memory.

“I’M THE WITCH, NOT HER! NOT LILLIAN!”

I sucked in a big breath, my eyes wide as I sat bolt upright and stared over at Hans with a new sense of recognition. The tears streamed like rivers down my face.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked Hans through the sobs. “I’m the witch, not Lillian.”

He reached out to take my hands. They were as pale as his.

“Yes, Katherine, that’s true. You were the witch, not Lillian.” He smiled like he hadn’t seen me in centuries. So full of love it broke through my pain.

I felt the splash as I was dunked into the lake, the jeering of the crowd muffled underwater as I fought for breath. Lillian’s screams fading in and out with my consciousness.

Hans was nodding, gripping my hands so tight.

“It’s true. Believe the memories,” he whispered. “You weren’t Lillian, you were Lillian’s mother.”

I knew before he said it.

His smile burst in and ate my whole soul in one, two magnets slamming together after centuries apart.

“Yes, my beautiful little one,” he told me. “You were Mary.”