Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (73 page)

Long minutes passed before she moved. Even longer before she could gather any strength to think about how much pain they would be if they slept on the floor. But Tucker picked her up and carried them both to the bed. He slid her in under the sheets and joined her. Sam never moved, even after he pulled her body to lay across his. She lay just the way he put her, exhausted and sated. They both slept throughout the rest of the night and all through the next day.

Their rest was complete, their bond as well. Sam wasn’t sure how she knew this, but she did. They were a couple and would very much need each other in ways they would never have thought possible. Marta had come for them.

~CHAPTER SEVENTEEN~

Sam was sitting in the kitchen when Sara walked in at two o’clock the next afternoon. Sara looked at Duncan with a raised brow as if to say, “what’s going on” and he shrugged his shoulders.

“She has been sitting there for a few hours now, missus, and not said a word in all that time.” Duncan’s voice was low. “I have tried to speak to her, but she does not seem to making any sense, so I stopped trying. I’m very worried for the young miss.”

Sara knelt down in front of her and touched her chin. “Sam, what is it? What’s the matter? Did you and Tucker have a fight?”

Sam stared at her for a minute, then two, looking as if she didn’t or couldn’t see her. Sara gently reached out and hit the wall Sam always had up. Sara looked around the room and saw that the shades were drawn tight against the house and she reached for Aaron.

“Something’s wrong with Sam. She seems to be in a trance or something. I can’t reach her. I’m worried, Aaron. What if that woman has her and is hurting her?”

“How long has she been like that?” Aaron was asleep, not really needing to wake to speak to her. He was her mate, her love, and they could talk always.

“Duncan said about two hours. He said that he tried talking to her, but she doesn’t make sense when she answers. Her eyes are open, but she seems to have stepped out. What do you think I should do?”

“I’m coming, love, but call Mel or one of the others. Maybe they can feel something you can’t.”

When Aaron entered the kitchen, Eliz and Mel were arguing about something, no doubt Sam’s problem. Sara wanted to smack them all.

“I didn’t say that. I said I think she’s meditating. You’re the one who said she was in a trance.” Mel’s voice had a tone, tempered a little because of who she was talking to, but a tone nonetheless.

“What I said, you blockhead, was that she is searching for something or someone, not a trance. Keep up, you dolt. I swear, sometimes I wonder if you weren’t switched at birth. There isn’t any way Savannah gave birth to someone as stubborn as you are.” Elizabeth huffed at Mel. “I don’t even know where you got that. I’m not stubborn. A granddaughter should be more circumspect of their elders, not a bitch.”

“Circumspect of what? I haven’t zapped her, have I? I call that being very circumspective.” Sara started laughing at Mel, but caught herself. “And stop calling me names. You’re not very good at it anyway. You’re dating yourself with ‘blockhead.’ It’s so sixties, the nineteen-sixties, that is. How many does that make for you now, a hundred, maybe a thousand?”

“Good morning, ladies,” Aaron said as he walked in the room. “So, we’re fighting again, are we? Always a pleasure with you two. You make things seem so...oh I don’t know, tense isn’t quite the word I’d use, but I think you get it. Have we figured out anything other than we are all incredibly old?” He gave each woman a peck on their cheek. He dearly loved her family, but they could be hard on the nerves at times. Sara wanted to bash their heads in.

“I think she’s trying to sort something out.” Eliz stated happily, and turned and stuck her tongue out at her granddaughter. Sara burst out laughing. “The girl has a very tight rein on her mind, and even I couldn’t break in. Well, I probably could, but I didn’t want to hurt her trying. Poor thing. Someone should probably wake her mate up.”

Mel just growled at her grandmother. She was getting really good at it, too, Sara realized. Mel had heard Aaron growl at her once and Mel had decided she liked the effect it had on people. When she had done it in her Court once, the entire guard took a step back from her. Sara still got a tickle out of the look on Mel’s new head guard’s face. They had been terrified beyond belief. Sara didn’t have the same effect on Aaron since he was much better at it than her.

“I...she’s trying to remember something she forgot. She is...her momma is talking to her. I can hear them. She’s sad for her.” Everyone turned around to look at Mac. He was standing just inside the kitchen door, his backpack still strapped to his little back, jacket in hand.

“You can hear her talking with her mother, Mac?” Sara looked at Aaron and he picked his son up. “Do you know what they’re saying, son?”

“Her momma is gone, but she needed to tell Sam somethin’, somethin’ important, she said, so I brought her to Sam. She said she wouldn’t hurt her, that Sam needed her. I...she said she was Sam’s momma and I know how much I need my momma, so I brought her to Sam. Was that all right?”

“He’s a necromancer. My…my mom said that he’s a necromancer because of the circumstances surrounding his birth. Mom...my mom said that he was...he nearly died before he was born and one of his gifts is the ability to raise or talk with the dead. She said he’ll be very powerful one day.” Sam had tears in her eyes.

Sara reached out and hugged Sam. If anyone needed it, she did. Then she realized what Sam had said. A necromancer, her son was a necromancer. Sara sat down hard in one of the kitchen chairs. She could only stare at Sam then her son. He was a warlock. He would be able to...she didn’t know what he’d be able to do, but right now, he could talk with the dead.

“No, Mrs. MacManus, not a warlock, he’s a wizard vampire, a very rare breed of both. He will be a great man among his people, and greatly respected as both a vampire and as a wizard. He will live many centuries and do many great things. His own mate will be someone of great wealth, but I don’t know of what. They will bring you both many descendants.”

“You...you can see this, his future?” Aaron asked.

“Yes. It’s one of the things I can do. Lizzy too will be respected; her mate will be one of the few men you will like in her life. Her son will conquer evil in a way that will have repercussions for many a millennium. Lizzy has already met her future mate.”

“Who...how do you...I don’t understand, how can you know this?” Sara was reeling, her head and mind trying to process what she had just been told.

“I just can. I don’t know why. My mom, I guess. Maybe the...maybe something else. It’s why I don’t like to be touched. I’m a telepath and an empath. Well, that and more, but that’s not important. Mom said that I need to call the Courts of Magick and demand that the vampire that torments Tucker be brought before them. Do you know who they are?”

“Yes, it’s these two and a few others.” Sara pointed to Mel and Eliz. “They hold the magic that everyone uses within them. Mel is the reigning queen, the Mistress of Light, Keeper of Magic. The other woman is her grandmother and the first queen. They’re true immortals, in that they can’t be killed.”

“I don’t remember the last time a mortal called forth a Courts of Magic, I wasn’t even aware that you knew about it. Did she tell you what they are, and what they do?” Elizabeth had been created, not born. She was created to procreate a successor to take over when she decided to leave, and to watch and maintain all magic, dark and white. She had created the Courts to govern all species, so that no one group could harm another.

“Yes, she said that the Courts of Magick was made up of nine beings, the queen and her champion, and someone from each race, and never the same group of nine.” Sam shook her head as she continued. “When someone calls them, they assemble in a neutral place whether in this realm or the queen’s, and hear both sides of the claim for and against the magic used. She also said that what they decided was law and bond over to immediate fulfillment, sort of the judge, juror and executioner. I just don’t understand what sort of magic his maker used against Tucker and why it would be beneficial to go before them. But my mom said I’d figure it out soon.”

“All is magic and magic is all. Stupid, I know, but it basically means that everything is based on magic and the belief in it. Vampires use magic, although some don’t believe it’s magic.” Sara made a pointed look at Aaron, who still believed that he just was and it had nothing to do with powers of magic. At his look of profound innocence, she continued. “But the fact that they can live, and live for a great number of years off of blood, just screams magic. I don’t know what Tucker suffered at her hands, but if it involved her vampirism, then she is subject to the laws as well as anyone else.”

“So, how does one call a meeting? Who approaches whom? Marta is getting close, so we need to make these decisions now,” Aaron said. He never put Mac down, but held him close. Sara knew how he must feel.

“She’s close,” Sam said. “She’s very close. Mom said that she may be in your territory sometime tonight.”

~~~

Marta moved along the perimeter of the MacManus estate, watching and waiting. She could feel the hum of the electricity, but didn’t know enough about it to figure out its source. She only knew that is was a security system, a good security system. Still, she was virtually impossible to see with the shadows pulled tight around her. Raising her face to the air, she took a deep breath and found what she wanted. Flashing forward, she was upon them before they knew it.

“Are you sure no one can find us here?” The voice was young; Marta loved it. “My mom will spill her guts if she finds out that I’m smoking.”

Marta smiled. She loved the taste of fear in the blood. It gave it a spice that she had grown to crave over the centuries. Then there was wolf blood, young wolf blood…she was going to dine well tonight.

“That’s why we’re doing it out here, stupid, so we don’t get caught.” This voice was older, but not much. And still a wolf. “You can be such a baby at times. Come on, I hid everything over here.”

The two teenage wolves were walking across the deep, dark woods. Marta thought they smelled fresh, clean. Soap and the sweet smell of innocence was all around them. They moved to a small clearing just down from the falls. Marta could also smell sex, though not from these two. It was in the grasses and the very air. Different scents of different people. But they mattered little to her; she wanted the ones that were fresh.

Once they gotten their cigarettes out and lit, they sat down and watched the waterfall. After ten minutes had passed, Marta struck at the youngest boy. He dropped his smoke as he just suddenly disappeared. One second he was there, and then he was gone. Marta laughed when she had him, knowing the other boy’s terror.

“Jase,” the boy whispered. “Are you there? Come on, buddy, I won’t call you a baby anymore.”

Marta laughed out loud.

~~~

Davey sniffed the air, hoping to find...the smell assaulted his scenes immediately, making him gag. Blood and lots of it. As he started to move home, he felt something hit him hard across the middle. The pain was incredible. He put his hand to the area and felt a wet, sticky substance on it. He was hurt, his blood covered his hand, and it was then that he felt it soaking his pants around the top. He curled his arm around himself and took off running. He needed to shift, but it took someone as young as him a lot of concentration to do it. But he couldn’t stop, not now. Something was chasing him; something was trying to kill him.

“Don’t you wanna play little boy?” the voice asked. “I so love a good game of chase. Hurry, hurry, I don’t want this to be too quick.”

He heard the woman’s voice; it seemed to echo all around him, inside of him. Davey ran faster, tripping and staggering over roots and rocks. Terror made him forget that he could see much better than anything else in the forest. When something, he assumed it was her, hit him again, he fell to the earth, gasping for breath. She had hit is face this time, breaking his jaw and shattering his left eye in the socket, knocking his eye from his head.

He got up and started forward again, weak from loss of blood and from pain. He was disoriented and confused, not knowing which way home was. He wanted his mom; he wanted her to hold him, to tell him it was all right, he was going to be all right.

“Poor baby wants his mommy,” she taunted him. “Too bad, little boy. She’s not going to be able to help you now. You’re mine.” And with that, the woman stepped in front of him, grabbed him by the throat, and ripped, tearing his jugular out.

Davey dropped to the ground, his life’s blood draining from him and saturating the forest floor. The last thing he saw before he died was the woman rubbing his blood over her body and dancing in the puddles beneath him.

~CHAPTER EIGHTEEN~

When Bradley and the others first came upon the scene, he dropped to his haunches and bayed to the moon, calling to the others Davey had been found. Davey March had been tortured and killed, and it hadn’t been an easy death either. Bradley, careful to stay out of the blood trail, moved along the path that Davey had taken, trying to get away from his attacker. He could see where it had hit him the second time, slicing open his face and tearing away the tissue and his eye. When he got to the first hit, he could smell bits of his bowel, where when whoever had hit him had torn through his stomach and disemboweled him, spilling his intestines from his frame. Davey had never stood a chance.

When more of the pack arrived, Daniel, one of the men with him, had already shifted and was gathering evidence for David when he got there. He had worked with him before, and knew what to look for. David being the local police helped keep a lid on things that happened that no human would understand.

“Have you found Jason yet? I understand from Patty, his mom, that they were together.” Bradley was hurting. He had known these two since they were pups, and now one of them was dead.

“No, I was hoping Jase might be close, but I haven’t picked up anything yet. Besides, I didn’t want to leave him alone.” They weren’t afraid of the forest animals bothering his body, but stayed out of respect for his kind. Pack took care of pack.

“I’ll have a look around and see what I can find. I’ll take Peter and Jacob with me.” Bradley shifted again and summoned the other two men to follow.

It was still a good three hours before sunrise, and ten since the boys had managed to sneak out of their homes. Bradley hoped that Jason March, cousin to Davey, was still alive, but looking down at the young man’s body, he didn’t hold out much hope.

Thirty minutes later, they found him. Jason was still alive, but barely. He had been tied to a tree upside down by his feet. He was naked and his flesh was scored with hundreds of knife wounds that all dripped into a puddle beneath him. Bradley quickly shifted into human form and grasped him around the waist, unmindful of their shared nudity. Peter managed to get the rope untied from his feet and they slowly lowered him to the ground, careful not to lay him in his own blood. Bradley carried him to a clearing, just north of the falls.

“Contact Sheila and tell her to bring the med team, but do it without alerting the others.” Bradley looked down at the boy. “I want everyone to be on their toes and coming to Jason could cause someone to get hurt.”

“Alpha?” Jason’s voice was weak and barely above a whisper. But Bradley heard him. He leaned down to quiet him, to calm the young pup.

“Shhhh, hush now, I’ve got you. You’re going to be all right. Help is on the way.” Bradley, using his fingers as gently as he could, wiped some blood off of Jason’s face.

“She said I had to…I’d die if I didn’t…tell you. I…she said Tucker, Tucker is hers. That she wants him…he has to go home. Kill more…if…she will kill my mom if he won’t.” Jason gave his message to Bradley and slid into a deep sleep of the very weak. His pulse was thready and weak. His blood pressure was low. He would be lucky if he made it through the night, Bradley thought.

He held onto the young cub until the medical team arrived. Pack had their own medical services. It was just too difficult explaining to humans how their kind healed quickly and sometimes, well, most always explaining that if a hurt or injured were shifted, they would be completely healed. No, it was just easier to have some on hand for just such emergencies. As he walked away, he called Aaron.

“We found the other one, he’s alive. Barely. But I have a message for one of yours, for Tucker. Is he there by any chance?” Bradley felt tears fill his eyes as he spoke to Aaron.

“No, not with me, but I can contact him. Would you like for me to send him to you? I believe he is with a group of searchers in the South. I believe the person in charge of his group is Alice Manner. Does that help?”

“Yeah, I can contact her.” Bradley reached out to her as her alpha. “Can you meet me at the pack house? We need to talk. This concerns one of our kind now. And now that she’s involved me and mine, I want revenge.”

~~~

“When was the last time you saw him?” Bradley just walked in the door to the Pack House as Aaron asked about his man.

Tucker had been missing for nearly three hours when they’d been alerted, and it was well into daylight. Bradley had seen what the woman, Marta, had done to the two young wolves, and what she would do to Tucker was too horrific to think about. Bradley knew that Aaron had told Sam, although they both figured she was just as aware as they were. Aaron was frantic with worry.

“I have twenty-five wolves searching the grounds for him, and another ten going over the security tapes. Pete is in there now going over all the electrical lines, seeing which ones may have been breached. I don’t know what else we can do at this point.” Bradley had just left the infirmary, looking in on Jason who was going to make it, thanks mostly to the sips of vampire blood now running through his system. “We’ll find him, Aaron.”

Bradley hoped so. He didn’t know what do to about Sam. She was too calm, Bradley had been told, scary calm.

~~~

When Tucker woke up, he was chained by silver links to the wall of a large cave by both his feet and legs. His bare body was covered in cuts, mostly superficial, but others were very deep. Marta was trying to weaken him by slowly draining him of his blood; this was something he knew she did as a final punishment. What she would do to him then, he didn’t want to think about. He reached out to Aaron, and realized that he couldn’t get past the tight magic surrounding the cave.

“The cave is nice, isn’t it, sweetheart? I just love the deep walls and the nice pool. We could bathe in it later if you’d like.” She sounded…she almost sounded normal, but when one looked at her, madness stared back from her black eyes. Tucker was suddenly very afraid.

“Why are you doing this? I want you to let me go, Marta. I have a mate now and we can’t be together ever again. I can’t feed from you either. You have to let me go.” He tried for a calm, reassuring voice; he didn’t want to anger her any more than he needed to.

“Why, you know I can’t let you go. You’re mine, Tucker, and I love you. You always have been mine, and always will be.” She flashed to his side, jamming a blade into his side to the hilt. “And if I can’t have you, lover boy, then no one will.” She twisted the knife hard, and then pulled it out, the blood pouring from the fresh wound. Tucker lost consciousness again.

He woke sometime later and tried to reach out to Sam, then Aaron. He couldn’t seem to break through. He was so weak by now that he couldn’t stand up. The silver from the chains was digging into the flesh of his wrists and ankles. He heard a noise and turned to look at his maker.

“You can’t contact them, I’ve warded the walls. They can’t find our little love nest either. I have thought of everything so no one will interrupt us during our special time together.”

The cave was different now, he noticed. There was a large bed, draped in long, sheer curtains and a comforter was thrown over it. Rugs were spread all over the dirt floor, heedless of the insects crawling over and under them. There were pictures of people he didn’t know, and doubted that she did either. Some of them had been torn from newspapers others were old and yellowed. There was a large stuffed chair with a pillow on it, several more strewn around the floor. Near the pool of water there was a fire pit with a large fire burning in the circle with even more pillows stacked around it. Candles were everywhere, on every available surface, in every conceivable color and smell. If it hadn’t been so pathetic, it might have been romantic.

“Where did this stuff come from?” He asked. “Did someone bring it to you?”

Tucker hoped someone had and they would report what they’d seen. But his hopes were dashed with her answer.

“Oh, I made it, isn’t it beautiful?” She flitted around the room in a teddy and heels.

Marta looked as if she hadn’t been feeding well. Her skin was pasty and dry, her bones sticking out hard at odd angles. She had always been plump, heavier than the woman of today, but more to the style of the ones during their time as humans. Tucker shuddered when he thought of her trying to feed from him.

“Marta, I don’t know why you’re doing this. I can’t feed from you. You are not my mate. You know that, don’t you?” He tried again to reason with her, but she just ignored him.

If a mated vampire fed, or tried to feed from someone other than his mate, the blood would poison him. Not killing him necessary but eventually it would drive him to insanity and to the sun. That was why mates, vampire mates, only had one true love, the one that would be with them throughout eternity. If needed, a vampire could feed from his master, but that too would make a vampire ill.

“I must go now, love,” she told him. “I need to build my strength so that I can be able to feed you later. I must take care of mine. I was thinking that we should have a child, you and I. Wouldn’t she be beautiful? My looks and your…well, she would be so beautiful.” She left him hanging there, and he fell into a weak and troubled sleep, too scared to think about what she would do if she found Sam.

Marta returned sometime later. He didn’t know when or what time it actually was. He was so disorientated that he didn’t know if he had been there for ten hours or ten days. His energy was draining away and it wouldn’t be long before he would be too weak to even feed. His need for Sam was growing exponentially; he needed to touch her both in mind and in body. Seeing her again was what kept him from just giving up and giving in to Marta.

“Let me go, Marta, please. I’m not going to live if you—”

She rushed at him. “You’ll live. You’ll live because I command you to. As your maker, I command you to live.” Her laughter was manic, terrifying. “You don’t want to make me angry, Tucker. You know how I—”

A being shimmered into the cave. It was a creature he had never seen before, but had heard of. It was a centaur, a beautiful creature of half man and half horse. Tucker closed his eyes, thinking he had surely gone over the edge, but when he opened them again, there he still stood.

“Marta Lipscomb,” he said. “You are hereby ordered to appear before the Courts of Magic. You are to appear at seven o’clock this very evening, and you will be ready for trial. The prisoner, a Tucker James, will be brought with you as well. Do you have any questions?”

“I...what is the Courts of Magi? Am I being awarded for my abilities?” The girly squeal in her voice hurt Tucker’s head. He didn’t know what was going on and he didn’t care. Someone had found him.

“The Courts of Magic, and I’m not privileged to know the ins and outs of the Courts. I am just the Summoner. Do you have any more questions?” At her negative reply, the centaur disappeared magically, leaving a scroll with the pertaining information behind as to where to go and the time.

Tucker stared at the place where the creature had been and couldn’t wrap his mind around it. He had heard what he had said to Marta, but it as yet hadn’t registered in his overtaxed mind. Courts of Magic? Mel, the queen was summoning them to—

“Oh Tucker, we are going to court! Isn’t that grand? I bet they have heard of the good things I’ve done for our kind. Yes, that’s it. I’ll be getting something from the queen. I’m so excited. Oh, what should we wear?”

Dresses began to appear. Dozens at a time in as many colors as there were styles. Then clothing for a man appeared as well—shoes and belts, coats and ties. Tucker felt himself weaken more. This couldn’t be happening; Marta surely couldn’t be rewarded for her “good” deeds.

At six forty-five, they materialized in the main hall of one of the outer realms estates. Tucker had heard there were several from the human world and wondered briefly where they were. The one that they were entering was made specifically for them, and would seal closed as soon as they entered, never to open again, the scroll had said. Because they had been expected, the guard was there when they arrived. There was a company of ten royal guards there to meet them.

Marta was so happy. She felt like royalty herself, she’d told him over and over. She had allowed Tucker to bathe in the pool and had given him what she considered suitable clothes for court appearance. He was clad in an outfit straight out of the sixteenth century, powdered wig and all. He could barely walk, much less stand.

The guards shouldered Tucker’s weight, nearly carrying him when he fell into them several times. He had tried to apologize to them, but they never said a word. When some led Marta to the large chamber, others took Tucker in the opposite direction Marta was being led. Marta didn’t even notice he was taken from her, her thought only on how she could manage to live in such splendor someday soon. He was glad for her distraction.