The Awakening (22 page)

“What happens if I can, Will? What happens?”

“Surely Victor has told you.”

“Ah,” Carmen almost laughed aloud. “Of course you know Victor. I bet you got Andrew the job at Great Blizzard.”

Will shook his head. “It’s not what you think. Now, can you help Beth or not?”

Carmen felt the little girl’s leg. Shattered in several places below the knee. A nasty break that would have her in plaster for months and leave her with a permanent limp. She closed her eyes and was still for a moment. “Yes.”

“Then do it.”

“Why should I, Will?”

“Because she’s in great pain and you should use your gifts for good.”

“Even though you would have seen me like this today?”

He shook his head. “I anticipated what would happen. I knew you would control Pale Rider.”

“But if you had been wrong, I’d have a shattered leg or much worse.”

“Look Carmen. There is a great deal at stake here. At this moment and in the future. If you truly are the daughter of Ursula, the last Warrior Goddess then I want you as part of my family. I know what you will become. I want you on my team.” He took her hand for a moment and she felt a surge of warmth, a total absence of steel and suspicion. “
I
am not your enemy.”

She looked at him. What had he just said? What did he know? The darkness was gone from his eyes. He was the man she had first met several months ago and had warmed to immediately. “All right. But this goes no further than us. Andrew is not to know, nor Elizabeth. Not anyone. Okay?”

Will nodded. “Okay.”

“But we will talk – just you and I.”

“Momentarily, Carmen. Please help Beth, I know you can heal her.”

Carmen moved both hands slowly and gently across Beth’s leg. She massaged the space just above the wound, just as she had massaged Andrew’s back a few days ago. She whispered in Beth’s ear, “this was a sprain, a nasty fall. You are a bit bruised but nothing is broken. You will only recall the fall and a bit of discomfort. You are fine, Bethany.” Carmen sat back and spoke aloud. “I think you’ll find it’s okay, Beth. Just a bad bruise. Up you get.”

“Thank you, Carmen,” Will said. “I am very pleased Andrew is marrying you. I couldn’t hope for a finer daughter in law.”

She looked at him closely. “I hope you mean that, Will.”

He put out his hand towards her. She hesitated and took it, felt the warmth in his heart. “I do, Carmen. I do. I look forward to many more grandchildren.”

“And a son in the White House.”

He laughed. “I am not your enemy. Whatever Victor Bernhard has been telling you, I am not the one you need to be wary of.”

Carmen considered Will. He seemed an ordinary old man. True the sense of power and control was strong within him. But she could not feel any of the evil or malevolence she’d sensed at Andrew’s apartment. Was she wrong? Were her skills so new that they could easily mislead her?

He seemed to sense her confusion. “Ask me what it is you need to know. I will tell you the truth.”

“Who am I?”

Will smiled. “Such a simple question, my dear. You are Carmen, the last daughter and heir of Ursula, the great and only Warrior Goddess, who has been lost to her people for too many years now. She was possessed of great powers, of sight and healing, of communion with nature and the great beasts. You have a great kingdom to inherit and there are those who would stop you and lie to you to achieve their own ends. But you are not ready yet. Thus you are in danger.”

“I know that bit,” Carmen laughed.

“What you really wonder though, is why hasn’t Victor told you who you are. That’s your conundrum, isn’t it? How can you believe him if he has kept this vital and central truth from you?” Will shrugged. “What else isn’t he telling you, Carmen?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“How can you trust him now?” Will asked.

Carmen sighed, her world spinning wildly beneath her unsteady feet. “Indeed, how can I believe him?”

Will took her hand, kissed it gently and spoke softly. “I am your friend, Carmen. Andrew loves you. We can keep you safe. In your heart you know that or you would not be here. Let us be your family. We have not lied to you, or kept things from you. It is Victor you cannot trust.”

Carmen nodded. It was so. How could she trust Victor if he had kept the central truth of who she was from her? Nothing she could think of explained his deception. Other than the inescapable truth that he was her enemy and he was deceiving her all along, persuading her that Andrew and Will were the danger. Every time something terrible had happened Victor had known or been the first on the scene. He knew all but told her nothing. He was keeping secrets. He was the liar. He was the danger in her life. That thought had long been in the shadows at the back of her mind and now Will had brought it into the light. She closed her eyes, felt the sting of tears burning her.

“It’s all right now, Carmen,” Will’s voice was as warm as the sunshine, as soft as the clouds. “You have us. We will take care of you. Your life with us will be wonderful. I promise you.”

“How do you know this, Will?”

“I knew Ursula, Carmen. I knew your mother, before you were born. In truth I knew her quite well and I knew who you were the moment you burst onto the national scene with those remarkable swimming feats. I could see her in you,” Will smiled. “And I could hardly believe it when Andrew brought you home. I knew you had to be part of us, that your destiny was to become an Adams, that through us you could take up your mother’s mantle.” Will seemed to look into the past. “I feel that Ursula would have been pleased to see you in our care. A romantic notion of an old man, I guess.”

“No, Will,” Carmen patted his arm as they walked back to rejoin the others. “It sounds just fine to me. In fact it makes sense. A great many things are finally making sense.”

Andrew was very pleased with how dinner had gone. There hadn’t been a single discordant note, no disagreement about dates - the first weekend in July; nor the venue – here at the “cottage”. He had expected Carmen to argue that one and he’d been surprised at how readily she’d accepted the idea. Admittedly it wasn’t his but he’d warmed to it as soon as Will suggested it. A small, intimate affair with the ceremony out by the boatshed and a marquee on the lawns. Carmen liked the idea of being outside and admitted to Andrew that she’d been concerned about a huge New York bash. Her mother would love it here. Carmen seemed happy: Andrew was happy. Will had been his expansive, jocular best at dinner and Andrew felt for the first time in many years that he had actually pleased his father. Even Elizabeth had smiled serenely and sincerely throughout the meal.

Carmen had showered quickly and slipped into her lilac silk night gown – the one she had for going away. She smiled, thinking about the fun she could have shopping for her trousseau. She wandered out onto the balcony where Zanzibar and Alaska kept watch. They’d been spoilt with steak and meaty lamb bones and were as happy as any dogs could be. She bent to stroke them. “Still suspicious, guys?” Alaska pulled an undecided face. Zanzibar seemed to shrug. The sea air was doing them good too. Fleetingly she thought of Victor. She stood up looking at the moon, all fat and silvery hanging like an ethereal mother above the water. She loved the moon. She hated Victor: she had believed all he had told her but he had betrayed her. He had kept from her the central fact of her life. No wonder she and Madeleine had so many issues.

“There you are,” Andrew stood behind her and caressed her strong body through the soft silk. “I do love you, Carmen Whyte.”

She rubbed her head against his neck. “And I love you, Andrew Adams.”

“Dinner was good, hey?” he said, moving his hands slowly up and down over her chest, breasts and waist.

“Yes. Your family outdid themselves.”

“They like you, Carmen. They know how I feel about you.”

She felt herself warming to his touch. She brushed her ass against his groin, tempting him to grow almost before he was ready. He squeezed and massaged her breasts, lightly pinching her nipples. She could feel the throb between her legs begin to swell.

“I just want you all to myself,’ he murmured in her ear. “Just you and me, Carmen. Nobody else.”

“I know, Andrew. I want that too.”

“You’ll stop work won’t you, once we’re married?” He kissed her neck. “Let me take this off.” Andrew fumbled with the clasp on the polar bear pendant.

“If you want,” she purred. She wanted him to stop talking and take her to bed. She wanted to belong just to him again, to have the last slivers of doubt obliterated by his physical love for her. She needed him: she wanted him so badly. She knew she loved him as she had loved no other man. There were no thoughts of Victor. As the necklace fell from her neck his image fell from her mind. He was gone and Andrew was finally and fully in residence. Carmen was relieved: the test was over, she could have the life she wanted and let Victor and his insanity burn in hell. She was home and safe in the arms of the man she loved and wanted.

“And we’ll have lots of babies,” he said biting her ear, rubbing his hands down into her groin as he pushed his stiffening dick into her soft silken ass.

“Yes. Lots of babies.”

“Straight away, Carmen.” He was purring in her ear, his hot breath urgent and sweet on her face.

“If you want.” All she wanted was to get bed, now before she exploded with desire on the terrace.

“Stop taking the pill,” he whispered. “Now, Carmen, for me. Let’s start babies now.” He picked her up and took her to the bed. “What do you say? Let’s start a family now?”

“Yes,” she moaned as he threw her on the bed and buried his face in her soft female flesh pushing his strong tongue deep into her demanding pussy. She pushed down onto his face, eager to swallow him, to take him into her. She felt him eating away at her, licking, sucking, making those amazing slurping noises that fired her juices. She felt the wave start, felt it build and break all over his face. “Yes,” he said. “Oh, yes, baby.”

Before she’d finished coming he’d moved on top of her thrusting his huge bursting penis into her. He seemed to only thrust for a few seconds before he burst inside her, coming to rest on her continuing wave of pleasure.

“So,” he said, his face covered in her girly stickiness. “We’re getting married in July and we’re going to have a baby straight away.”

“Yes,” Carmen said, rolling into his warm, loving embrace. “We’ll have a baby too.”

“That’s my girl,” Andrew murmured as he pulled her in close, his world as perfect and controlled as it could possibly be. Will may have been the supreme strategist but he would not have drawn Carmen into the Adams circle of power and influence without Andrew’s considerable charms and winning ways with women. Andrew drifted towards sleep assured that Carmen was back completely under his spell again, exactly where Will needed her to be. Andrew would be the faithful, loving husband and make her pregnant with the utmost urgency and ardour. Carmen would never want to be with anyone else: she would never doubt him again. And neither would Will. Andrew saw the White House shimmering before his eyes, beautiful and so close that he felt he could touch it.

The simplest thing to do was confront Victor.
Tell me about Will. Who is Ursula? Why haven’t you told me?
But the last person she wanted to see was Victor. At the moment she was sure about Andrew. He loved her, they were getting married (as opposed to just being engaged) and she loved him. This weekend was going to be an orgy of sex and intimacy – he’d promised her. Andrew wasn’t his father. Whatever the dogs felt they would simply have to warm to Andrew. After all, she reasoned, people often married against their parents’ wishes. Besides, her actual mother approved of it all. In fact for the first time in her life Carmen had made her mother happy. Not all those records or medals: too showy somehow. Or was it too macho? Perhaps life would have worked better for her mother had Carmen been a boy? Still, now was good and Carmen expected that having a child would cement the love growing ever stronger between them.

But Will had denied her visions about him. She had felt a deep disturbance when she’d held that photo. This man was part of her past, part of the secret world she’d thought only Victor knew. Carmen had been truly unsettled by the feelings from the vision, the business with the horse and the malevolence in Will’s eyes. Surely she hadn’t been wrong about him? It was as if he was a shape shifter himself, able to change his heart at will. She’d felt the evil in him reach out to hurt her. And then he was as he’d been from the first day they’d met: kind and welcoming, genuine in his words and actions. It was generous of him to offer to have the wedding at the cottage, and to explicitly invite her mother to stay at the house for the event. What had happened with Will? Which part was wrong – the vision, the feeling from holding that photo or the Will after he’d exposed her and accepted her? She was confused. Clearly sight and heightened intuition were part of the deal Victor was offering but she had no idea how to use it, how to know when to trust it? The simplest conclusion was that Victor was the trouble. He said her enemies were gathering. Did he know this because he
was
the enemy and was playing some elaborate game of bluff and counter bluff?

The truth was she was intensely angry with Victor. Coming to work was a real effort. She couldn’t bear to think of him or to even be in the same building. Whether he was her truest friend or her most dangerous enemy he was untruthful and had betrayed her. How could she trust him again? Will had been more honest about his intentions. True, she still felt an unease about him, but he wasn’t into games and enigmatic answers that told her nothing. No, she was better off with Andrew, who did love her and want her and that family, who also wanted her.