Chapter 9

N athan collapsed into the seat of the new Ford F-150 rental truck. What do I do? What? How do I get to her faster?

Lillian was speeding away from him, he was shaking like a crack addict needing a fix and the damned Visions wouldn’t offer him a look at her location, only her surroundings. He saw her against a pale car interior, fingering the long mahogany coil of hair over one shoulder. He saw that she wore charcoal grey silk. He saw the point of her chin and the elegant column of her throat. The keyhole of sight had widened, but not enough. He couldn’t see a road sign or interstate number. He couldn’t see her eyes.

He jammed his fingers through his hair, the heat of that small glimpse surging through his body. It swelled within him, back building like a fire out of control. The blood itch was unbearable and aggravating and beautiful.

His hand trembled on the keys in the ignition. The truck roared to life. Then he removed the phone from his pocket and linked it to the truck. Instantly, the heavy, pounding metal music drummed the windows. The vibration ricocheted up his arms like the shock of a hammer blow, and it calmed him.

Within minutes he was on the interstate, speeding toward Lillian. John LeClair could move her from place to place, but eventually Nathan would catch up.

This idea brought another question to the fore. Did John LeClair know his woman had Called to another man and was purposefully running with her? If John LeClair was immortal, he would see the glow of The Calling upon her.

You can’t outrun The Calling, you bastard. When I find her, she will fall into my arms. Our blood is tied.

Nathan chanted this in his head in time to the beat. Soon the California coast was speeding darkly beside him. The scent of the sea was in his air, fresh and fecund. He had never been to California, but he didn’t miss it. He had eyes only for the braid and glowing skin of his Visions.

The low fuel sensor on the truck sounded and he cursed. He despised the smell of gasoline, and though he liked to drive modern vehicles, he did everything in his power to avoid filling the gas tank. Give him a barn full of horses and a pitchfork of hay to fuel them any day.

The truck bumped over the uneven pavement into the rest stop where Lillian had stopped before him. When he circled the truck to gas up, he caught it. Just there in the shadows—the flavor of their union.

Did he want to witness it?

Hold on, Halbrook . Shock coiled inside him. This is gonna hurt like hell.

Debilitating dizziness washed over him, bringing with it drenching sweat. It beaded on his forehead and upper lip. He licked it off and tasted the salt. Sick, Nathan strode for the shadows, knowing if he caught them, he would be a murderer. There was no way to stop him from killing John LeClair.

When he reached the spot, no one was there. He felt the invisible outlines of the car they drove, and the window film did nothing to conceal the images of her locking John LeClair’s mouth beneath a hungry kiss or moving with him or gasping as he filled her.

“No!” His feet pounded as he sprinted back to his truck. The acid and bile taste of fury welled on his tongue. A berserk rage stole over him, numbing him from head to fingertips.

He struck the driver’s door. The metal crumpled beneath the hammer of his fist. As the first hit resounded through his body, he lost control. He smashed his fists into the truck again and again, the blows ringing in his ears as he pitted the metal, wishing it was John LeClair’s fucking face.

He imagined the bloodied destruction he could inflict on that face, but also he imagined shoving Lillian awere and forever denying this connection she had wrought.

“Dammit, Lillian!” He threw himself into the ruined truck and moved it around the corner of the Quik-Mart cut the engine beside the dumpsters and stared at the sea of asphalt separating him from Lillian.

He seethed. This was how murders were committed. They were committed by psychopath immortals who believed the mate they were bound to was inside a hotel room, binding herself to another immortal man.

Nathan shut his eyes to the slide show that threatened to start again.

No more.

Not tonight or ever.

And with that—that denial of her—he broke. A hot sob rushed up his throat and he collapsed against the steering wheel, choking and gasping.

For many long and bleak hours he remained hunched over the steering wheel, battling the need for Lillian and his anger with her. When the first kiss of dawn touched his face, he knew without looking at the hotel that Lillian and John LeClair were gone.

He drew the cell phone from his coat pocket where it nestled against the mahogany hair he had removed from the café chair. He punched the number and said Dante’s name after the first ring. It wasn’t Dante, but Maria, his mate.

Her accented voice was not softened after centuries in America, but still held the notes of a long-dead language harking back to her Mayan heritage. “Dante’s gone out for the day.”

Nathan checked his watch and realized they were hours ahead of him on the east coast. He swore.

“You can talk to me, Nate,” she said in the gentle way that enabled him to picture her sweet face. “Dante told me about your immortal mate.”

Nathan crumpled once more, and a long moment passed before he could speak. “I think she’s imprinted with the man she’s traveling with, John LeClair.” The name was a burning ember on his tongue and he spat it out.

“Why do you believe this?”

“I saw them. In my mind!” He was nowhere near in control.

“Nathan. If you were able to see this, then you are still with her. She can’t bind herself to another immortal. When you find her at last, she will be yours.”

“How can you be sure?”

“There’s no way to stop The Calling. She cannot undo it. She cannot choose John LeClair.”

“How can I stand by, knowing she’s—she’s—sleeping with him? Giving her body to him.”

“Have you Called to her, Nate?”

He was puffing like a train and had to calm himself before replying. “Called to her?”

“Called her name? You know her name, don’t you?”

“It’s Lillian.”

“Talk to her from your soul, but speak her name and she will hear you.”

After a long silence, he battled down the lump lodged in his throat. “Maria. Thank you so much. I can never repay you for talking me down from this terrible ledge I’m on.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing back a fresh round of tears. They were not tears of rage, but a mixture of relief and gratitude for Maria’s friendship…

And an unutterable tenderness at the thought of speaking to Lillian’s soul.

He slumped over the steering wheel, this time steeling himself.

For round two of this battle—or three. Who knew how many more he was in for? One thing was certain, though. The rental truck had lost the fight.

* * *

Nathan continued to drive down the coast in Lillian’s wake. His thoughts repeatedly returned to Maria’s advice to Call to her and use her name. He had used her name before—thought it and yelled it and even added blasphemies to it. Spoken from his soul? No, spoken in anger and frustration.

Use her name. Use her name. If he spoke her name, he could speak with her, but was he ready for that? After all, the images invaded his head at every turn, which was bad enough. He didn’t think he was prepared to hear her voice. Or worse, her rejection.

Thinking of her tore a blindfold from his eyes. Her image swelled in his mind—driving, chewing her lip. As he watched through the tunnel of vision, she released her lower lip in that maddeningly slow fashion. A hot spring of desire bubbled in his core.

What Nathan was not prepared to see was the masculine forefinger sliding along the moisture on her lower lip.

Black spots of rage burst behind his eyes. His boot crushed the brake and the truck jerked to a stop in a fishtailing spray of gravel. He fell out the door and onto the road, stumbled to his feet and did the only thing he could think of doing. He sank his fists into the thick metal door. His knuckles were already bruised and sore, but he couldn’t stop. They made a satisfying explosion, yet did nothing to alleviate his rage. His breath sobbed in his lungs.

He’d made the wrong decision last night. He should have forced his way into Lillian and John LeClair’s hotel room, ripped him off her and pummeled his face rather than the truck. He should have annihilated him. What had stopped him?

The answer came to him swiftly. It was the idea of Lillian rising from John LeClair’s bed, damp with the sweat of their lovemaking. He would not have that be their first meeting—a disheveled bed between them, a sheet wrapped hastily about her nakedness and her eyes wide with horror as Nathan beat up her lover.

He shoved the image away.

Cars sped by, and as Nathan destroyed the rental truck’s door, they began to slow. A horn blared and the jeering voice of a driver cut through his frenzy.

With one final slam of his knuckles, he leaned his head against the cool window glass. His hands ached like hell, but it was nothing compared to the throb in his chest. He touched the inside pocket of his leather jacket. The coiled mahogany hair lived there—a talisman of his link to Lillian.

What had Maria said? When you find her at last, she will be yours. He embraced this thought.

She has Called to you. She has wept for you. She is having Visions of the feather mattress. You’ll find her .

Straightening away from the truck, he swiped the perspiration from his forehead and climbed back inside.

With his music cranked, he felt a little lighter. As he drove, he tried not to ‘see’ and finally began to enjoy his surroundings. He hadn’t traveled in many years. The beauty of his farm sustained him. But the coast was gorgeous in an untamed way, and everything stimulated his senses. The ruffled feathers of a seabird and great, twisting trunks of olive trees inspiring him to carve.

His hands twitched to hold the pitching tools, to knock off huge chunks of stone. He could nearly taste the stone, the rock dust slightly burnt and bitter. He loved the grit of it in his teeth and occasionally slipped a sliver onto his tongue, holding it there while he carved. He was hungry for it now.

For him, the music always went hand in hand with the work. From a pile of rubble at the quarry where he selected his granite, he had plucked a small stone, and the Louis Armstrong song, La Vie end Rose, had wheeled through his mind. He’d never worked on such a small scale, but in that instant he had seen a graceful rose, petals unfurling to the morning sun. He had spent more time on those intricate petals than on some larger pieces of his career. All the while, the dulcet tones of Louis spun a web in his brain.

When he finished, the delicate creation was no bigger than the palm of a woman’s hand. Then Nathan had shipped it off to a gallery where it depressed him to think someone would buy it for a paperweight.

By mid-afternoon, he decided to stop and rest. He felt horribly brittle, as if the slightest upset would shatter him into a thousand shards of non-being. It had been ages since he felt a pillow under his head or a hot shower, and he hoped these creature comforts would fortify him.

And he planned to do an internet search for John LeClair.

He made a wide turn onto a long country lane leading toward a bed and breakfast. The dust was a plume behind the tires and miles of grape vines spread in every direction. The sun was a ripe orb low on the horizon, stretching its glow upon the crop like fingers resting on the heads of her children. Nathan hadn’t seen such beauty since nineteenth century Italy, where he had studied sculpture.

When he reached his rented room and drew back the draperies to the unfettered view of the vineyard, his cell phone rang. He fished in his pocket for it, and his finger brushed the hair, sending a shock through him.

Still reeling from this, he brought the phone to his ear and heard Dante’s rich voice.

“Hi, Dante. Thanks for calling me back.”

“I received a call from Maria, and she was quite distraught for you. How is that hole in your chest, Nate?”

Nathan’s fingers lifted to his chest, probing at the ragged edges only he could feel. A hole that had been punched through him when she’d Called to him. A hole only another who had been through it would understand, as only an immortal could detect another immortal’s glow. “How did you know?”

Dante chuckled in his melodious way. “It has not been so long that I’ve forgotten my own hole. Maria Called to me, punching a hole that only she could fill. I know the Visions are driving you wild.”

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Seeing the lovemaking worsens the shaking.”

“I know. The lovemaking starts the bond. Starts it and finishes it. You must share your bodies and blood willingly.”

The image in Nathan’s head was so erotic that for a moment, he couldn’t speak.

“Keep searching, Nathan. No matter what obstacles John LeClair throws in your path, you must find Lillian. If you don’t, you’ll be destined to Walk the earth as Ricardo does.”

Nathan shivered. The immortal who lived as Dante and Maria’s companion was a shell of himself. After following his own Calling to Asia, he attempted to bind himself to his mate, and she had died because their blood wasn’t compatible.

The flayed hole in Ricardo’s chest was visible to any immortal, glowing with every beat of his heart. To mortal eyes, he appeared to be a downtrodden human. To immortals, he looked like he’d been ravaged by war, had taken a hit from a grenade and wore his sucking chest wound as proof. It was a chance immortals took, and there was no recourse. They had to follow The Calling.

When Nathan hung up with Dante, he went into the bathroom and looked into the mirror. He was unkempt and dark smudges stained his under-eyes. He looked deeply, past the emerald irises and into the cavity of his soul, where Lillian’s light pulsed. She was in there, and if he desired, he could Call to her.

He whirled away from his reflection. No. Not yet.

He fell fully clothed onto the thick, soft mattress and was instantly asleep. He woke once in the deep hours of night, parched with thirst. He stumbled to the bathroom and drank two glasses of tap water before returning to bed. The last thing he saw before his eyes slammed with exhaustion was the North Star, winking through the open window.

His mind played with the images of his day, warping them into new ones. The seabird with the ruffled feathers burst from the chest of Ricardo, even as the long, spindly tree branches embraced that man. Nathan saw Maria trying to restrain him as he pummeled the fender of the rental truck.

And he saw Lillian’s braid. The thick rope slid through his palm like a living creature. He tugged it gently to tilt her head back, granting him better access to her mouth. Silver cuff bracelets dug into the back of his neck and raised a pore-deep itch. With a growl, Nathan ripped them from her.

The bedroom where he led her was awash in the blue of twilight. Holding her gaze, he lifted her wrist to his mouth, feasting upon the tender, bare flesh. He trailed his fingers up her arm to the crease of her elbow and felt her shudder at his touch. As he bent to her collarbone, tasting the golden skin—the finest vintage of wine, floral and sweet musk on his lips—he pressed her down into the feather mattress.

And located the blade.

The silver knife flashed in the dim light as he drew it across Lillian’s wrist. He felt her skin give, smelled her blood. She gasped sharply, a gasp of pain rather than the gasp of pleasure when Nathan kissed her immortal tattoo. But he forged ahead and sliced his own flesh. The hot blood dripped from the cut on his chest and Lillian put her wrist to it as he entered her body. His blood began to fill her veins.

Suddenly, the quiet was parted by a curdling scream. Blood spouted from her wrist, a gruesome fountain, and it spattered on the floor and wall with a sound like heavy rain. There was a downpour of blood-tears on her cheeks.

“Lillian, no!” He scrabbled to catch the blood and tried to press it back into her. Screaming, screaming, screaming.

Nathan bolted upright, smaller-scaled screams upon his lips. Oh, God. God, no. Please don’t let that happen to us.

He scrubbed his face with his hands and felt tears. Where the hell was he? He patted down the front of his body and found himself fully clothed and soaked with sweat.

It returned in a rush—the inn, falling asleep in his clothes and following Lillian down the California coast. He collapsed against his pillows with relief, his forearm slung over his eyes. She wasn’t here. She wasn’t bleeding out, dying. She was safe. He hadn’t killed her.

The horrific movie threatened to replay in his head and he held his eyes wide so he couldn’t see it. He counted to two hundred before his breathing slowed, pivoting his head to stare through the open draperies at the vineyards. Dawn sent long tendrils of light into the grey sky. Nathan watched it lighten by degrees, but couldn’t shake his Vision. Vision or dream?

He had been sleeping, and he didn’t need to sleep to have a Vision of Lillian. But he had been asleep when her soul Called to his. On his bed in Vermont he’d awakened from that Vision, thinking it a dream. But the Vision had continued to come.

He sat up now and shook his head to clear it. Just a dream, he thought…hoped.

Climbing off the bed, he went into the little bathroom.

Nathan had never been a vain man. He had been reared in a home where the single looking glass was a silver, hand-held object which lived next to his mother’s hog bristle hairbrush. And having no natural attraction to society, a simple shower with the hottest water in Christendom before tromping outside and into his workroom was enough for him. After all, his granite didn’t care if his hair was mussed.

But when he spied himself in the bathroom mirror, he was shocked. This was not the Nathan he knew. This Nathan’s eyes were bright with hysteria. His forehead was creased. With a heavy sigh, he set about putting himself to rights.

Ten minutes later, he reassessed himself. Was this man worthy of Lillian? John LeClair was a dark man, and being the opposite, Nathan’s insecurities rose to the fore. He recalled the Hawaiian hotel employee’s description of John LeClair. Ritzy. Expensive. When describing himself, Nathan thought the appropriate words would be crazed, berserk.

As he yanked a navy cashmere sweater over his head, his stomach rumbled. Great , he thought. I have turned into a teenage boy again. All cock and stomach.

He smoothed his jumbled hair and spun from the mirror. The antique carriage clock on the mantel showed him it was ten o’clock and that he had missed breakfast. Knowing his stomach could wait for a lot longer, he sat down and opened his laptop. He typed John LeClair into the search engine in two spellings before he nailed his address in Virginia. Hastily, Nathan scribbled it on a scrap of paper and slid it into his pocket next to the forgotten pearl and the coiled mahogany hair.

Again, he stared through the large windows at the California wine country, so foreign to him and far, far away from Virginia. Nathan’s heart swelled with hope. Eventually John LeClair would wish to return home with Lillian, and when he did, Nathan would be waiting.