Goddess of the Rose (17 page)

The creature was huge. He had to stand almost seven feet tall. His hair was the unrelenting black of a new moon night. It fell thickly around his massive shoulders. Two dark horns protruded from his head. They curled forward and tapered to dangerous-looking points. His face . . . Mikki's breath caught in her throat. The face of the statue had been roughly hewn and indistinct, but the living Guardian was no unfinished rock; he was powerfully masculine, with a thick brow; high, distinct cheekbones and a square jaw. Taken by itself, his face reminded her of ancient images she'd seen stamped on foreign coins or carved into statues of warriors long dead, but mix his classic features with the horns and the sharp glint of a carnivore's teeth, and it was obvious that the man did not completely dominate the beast that lay so close to the surface.

His breastplate and tunic left quite a bit of his muscular body bare. The skin that covered his torso was dark and looked like living bronze in the candlelight. She let her eyes travel down his body. She knew what she would see, yet still she sucked in a shocked breath at the reality of it. His thick legs were covered in dark fur. Instead of feet, the flickering light glinted off cloven hooves.

He was the personification of animalistic power, and though he did not move to threaten her, the aura of feral viciousness that surrounded him was almost palpable. Mikki shivered and pulled the blanket more closely around her shoulders.

“The night is getting cold,” he said as softly as possible. “I should have had them set your dinner within by the hearth.”

“I—I like it out here,” she stuttered.

“Do you? Or are you just being polite?”

“No, I often eat dinner on my balcony at home,” she said, feeling a tremor of homesickness. There wasn't a lot she'd miss about her old life, but her comfortable apartment and her view of Woodward Park was something that would always be a bittersweet memory.

“Then I am pleased that I chose to set your dinner on your new balcony, Empousa.”

Slowly he placed the goblet on the table and, with a gentlemanly gesture that was in direct contradiction to his bestial appearance, he poured her another glass of wine. Each of his movements was unhurried and carried with it a catlike grace.

Like a predator,
she thought.

When he was finished pouring he took a step back from the table and nodded at the full glass.

“Drink. It will soothe you.”

Mikki did as she was told, barely tasting the excellent red. Her body felt detached and unreal, but the wine warmed her and helped anchor her senses. She drank deeply, for the moment not caring if it made her tipsy or muddled her thoughts.

Her thoughts, after all, were highly suspect. Perhaps they could use some muddling.

“I dreamed of you. Back there, in your old world . . . at your old home. I dreamed of you often.”

His words jolted through her, and she put down the goblet before it, too, broke. Mikki raised her eyes to his. They were almond shaped and as dark and bottomless as a quarry.

“I know,” she whispered. “I dreamed of you, too.”

“It was a shock,” he said, pulling his gaze from hers to look out into the darkness. “After all those countless years of nothingness . . .” He shook his head and his mane moved softly around his shoulders. “It seemed impossible that I was aware again. At first I sensed you, but I could not see you. I only knew your presence.” His voice was deep with a low, hypnotic sound, but his face remained expressionless, as if part of him had become stone again. He did not meet her eyes. “Then the dreams changed. They became more real. I could see you and feel you. Finally you called to me and I awakened completely. I knew you were Hecate's Empousa; only she could have awakened me. My mastery over magick returned to me, and so I brought you here.”

“I thought I was going crazy,” Mikki said, wishing he would look at her or give her some hint about what he was feeling. But he only stared, stone-faced, into the night.

“No, Empousa. You are not mad. You are fulfilling your destiny.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“
Y
OU know that's not really my name,” she blurted. Now why the hell had she said that?

He turned his head and finally looked at her again.

“Of course not. Empousa is a title of respect, not a name.”

“Well, it doesn't really seem like it's me yet,” she said. “Like just about everything here it seems foreign . . . odd . . .” Mikki stifled a sigh, wondering how it could be that she was talking so easily with this man-creature.

“If not Empousa, then what shall I call you?” he asked.

“Mikki,” she said.

His thick brow furrowed, and for a moment she thought she caught the glint of humor in his dark eyes.

“Mikki? That is a name?”

“It's not my given name, but it's what everyone calls me.”

“What is your given name?”

“Mikado,” she said.

“Ah.” He nodded, and the candlelight glinted off a quick flash of too-sharp teeth as he smiled. “The Mikado Rose. It is appropriate.”

Mikki took another drink of wine. With its spread of warmth through her body came a sudden, delicious sense of heady courage. She cleared her throat and spoke quickly before she changed her mind. “What is your name?”

“I am Guardian of the Roses.”

Mikki frowned. “But what do I call you?”

“I have always been called Guardian.”

“Guardian?” Mikki said doubtfully. “That sounds like Empousa—a title, not a name.”

“It is what I am. Title or name, there is no difference for me.”

His face changed again, and this time Mikki was sure she saw sadness there before his expression settled into an unreadable mask. He was such a mass of contradictions. One second he was scaring the breath from her, and the next he was making her feel pity for him. Her head was a little woozy. She was definitely more relaxed—not exactly grounded, but relaxed enough to allow the next question to spill from her mouth.

“Am I making you up? Is this all happening just in my mind?”

“No. We are real, you and I. As is the Realm of the Rose and the goddess we both serve.”

“So I'm not asleep and dreaming this?”

“No, Mikado.” He enunciated her name carefully. “Not this time.”

His eyes caught hers, dark and expressive with the knowledge of what their dreams had become. “You are very much awake, as am I. Finally.”

“Sometimes my dreams of you felt more real than the world around me.”

Slowly, not taking his eyes from hers, he moved closer to her and lifted his hand so his fingertips brushed lightly over her cheek. “You broke the spell that entombed me. For that I will eternally owe you a debt of gratitude.”

The heat of his brief caress made her shiver, and he quickly dropped his hand and stepped back.

“But why me?” Her voice was rough, as equal parts of fear and fascination struggled within her. “How could I have broken a spell I didn't know anything about?”

“You carry the blood of Hecate's priestess within you. None other could have broken the spell and awakened me.”

“I awakened you . . .” Mikki repeated. “And I'm here because you needed a spell lifted from you.”

“No, Empousa,” the Guardian said firmly. His words were stone, and the power that he had been keeping in check roiled between them once more. “You are not here for me. You are here for the roses.”

Inadvertently, she cringed away from the force of his voice, once again fearful of the monstrous creature who stood before her.

The Guardian sighed wearily. When he spoke, he had tamed his voice so it was no longer overpowering.

“I will leave you to finish your meal in peace. If you have need of anything, simply call and your handmaidens will attend you. I bid you good night.” He bowed neatly to her, turned and blended back into the shadows from which he had emerged.

When she was sure he was gone, she unclenched her hands and wiped them across her face.

Breathe. Be calm. Breathe. Be calm.
She let the words sink from her mind into her body. Instead of reaching for the wineglass, she began to methodically eat meat and cheese. She needed to be able to think clearly. Food made her feel more normal, so she ate and let the simple act of refueling her body rejuvenate her mind. She didn't take another drink or think more about the impossible conversation she had just had until the edge of her hunger was gone and the woozy feeling in her head had cleared.

Mikki slowed her eating and sipped the wine. The food worked exactly as he had told her it would. She was full, and she felt normal again—if she could use the word
normal
to refer to anything she was experiencing in this fantasy world.

The creature . . . how could anything so terrible and powerful walk and speak like a man? As a statue she had always thought of him as more man than beast, but seeing him alive—hearing him speak—had made her understand all too well that he was not,
could not,
be only a man.

You are not here for me. You are here for the roses.
The words seemed to echo on the empty balcony, accusing and mocking her. She remembered the sadness that had shadowed his face. Did beasts feel sadness? Would a beast think to have a sumptuous table set for a woman and then float a rosebud in her wine? Could a beast enter a woman's dreams and fantasies? And why would a beast touch her face with such gentleness?

He was not,
could not,
be only a beast, either.

Mikki tried to wrap her mind around the things he had said. He wasn't a dream. He wasn't a hallucination. He was all too real.

You are here for the roses.
He had told her that, and so had Hecate. But what did it mean?

“Tomorrow,” she said aloud. “Tomorrow I'll find out.”

She drank the last of the wine and then with a groan of protest at her stiff muscles, she dragged herself from the balcony and into her bedroom. While she had been busy circle casting and conversing with a living statue, someone had blown out the chandeliers and all but one candelabrum. The fire was banked, but the room was pleasantly warm after the coolness of the night. The thick bed linens were pulled back in preparation for her and a nightgown, a twin of the one she had been wearing earlier, lay across the foot of the bed.

Before she changed into it, Mikki nervously closed the doors to the balcony and drew the thick velvet drapes. Then she hastily peeled off her scanty ritual dress and gratefully slid on the soft nightgown. As she curled up in the middle of the opulent down comforters she thought about how much she'd like a warm soak in a bath. Man, her body was stiff. She sighed. She could tell she'd be sore as hell tomorrow. Her eyelids felt weighted. It was impossible to keep them open.

Her final thought before she slipped into sleep was to wonder if he would visit her dreams that night . . .

 

 

The Guardian paced back and forth across his lair's sleeping chamber. He should be pleased. He should be celebrating his release. At last, after all those silent, frozen years, he lived and breathed again. And she was here. It mattered little that she was inexperienced or that she was from the mundane world where he had been entombed for so many centuries. She had Hecate's blessing. Mikado was the new Empousa. The Realm of the Rose would, once more, be set aright.

He remembered the fear in her eyes when he had stepped from the shadows, but he had watched as that fear had changed, as it had become tempered with fascination, even while his power had intimidated her. He knew what she was feeling. It was fascination for her that had awakened him. He had known it before, when she had invaded his mind as his consciousness had been trapped within the marble body. He had not wanted to admit it, not even silently to himself. But now that he'd seen her . . . talked with her . . . smelled her living fragrance and touched the warmth of her skin . . . he could not delude himself any longer. His desire for her was like air—it filled him, sustained him, and he only felt truly alive when he breathed her in.

He growled while he paced. A test. That was the only answer for it. Hecate had given him this burden to bear, and by all the immortal Titans he would bear it!

Spring came early to the Realm of the Rose. Surely then the goddess would relieve his agony. Then he could return to the loneliness that had been a comfortable enemy. Until that time he would keep busy with his duties, which, he admonished himself, did not include watching the Empousa eat. It had all been a lie his mutinous desire had rationalized into temporary truth. He hadn't needed to stay and watch, nor had he needed to speak with her. The ritual had made her hungry and thirsty. Her body would have shown her naturally what it needed to be grounded, and even the empty-headed Elementals would have eventually gotten around to explaining such a basic concept to the inexperienced priestess.

He must not delude himself. Staying away from her was the wisest choice. And that would be easy. He didn't need to see her to know when she was near; he knew her scent. His hands curled and he quelled the urge to smash them into the smooth walls of the cave. Her scent would warn him if she was near, as would the sun glinting off the rich copper of her hair. He had touched that hair in his dreams. He had run his hands along the length of her smooth skin, reveling in its softness. And she had touched him in return, stroking his body as if they were lovers. He had seen the memory of that touch reflected clearly in her eyes. He had longed to respond to it, just as he had longed to respond to her body as it had shuddered beneath him in the last dream.

“No!”
he roared.