Author's note: A reader asked me if Gregori was Aingeal's father. No, he is not her biological father but he has become somewhat attached to her and seems to have emotionally adopted her. Her biological parents will be introduced in this chapter, so, enjoy! And, as always, let me know what you think!
2
Savannah's hands ran through Gregori's hair. "I know you are awake now. You might as well open your eyes."
Gregori peeked at her with one eye. "You might stop if I do not continue to appear grievously wounded."
"Or I might poke you in the eyeball if you do not obey your lifemate this instant."
Gregori shot up to capture her smiling lips with his. He grasped her hips with his hands and brought them up to span her ribcage.
Savannah pulled back from Gregori to whisper in his ear. "We have company. I don't think Dominic would enjoy waking up to find us."
Gregori groaned and removed his hands from her. "It would be his own fault. He should not still be here."
"You know the burns on his body refuse to heal normally," Savannah shoved him off his knees and onto his butt. "He needs the soil enhanced by Syndil to stave off continued damage from the mage's spell."
Gregori took a moment to get himself under control. After their extended separation he desperately needed to feel her and make sure she was really there with him.
"Where is the girl?"
"My father thought it best to leave her at the inn where she could be monitored at all times." She reached out to link her hand with her lifemate's. "What happened? Francesca and Shea said you were somehow trapped in the girl Aingeal's mind and that it was unlike anything they had ever seen before."
"Her mind is damaged; twisted by events she has very little memory of and wracked with visions she can't control." He reached out to place his hand on Savannah's slightly rounded stomach. "She showed me our daughters. They are going to be beautiful and I will never be able to sleep again for worrying over them."
"I know you are anxious about the girl. Francesca believes Skyler will be able to connect with her, show her how her life could be even with so dark a past behind her."
"And Dmitri?" inquired Gregori.
"He will go with young Skyler. He could not sit by and allow another to retreat from the world as she did."
"We should go and offer our services."
Savannah stood up and sashayed away from him. "I believe we should give Skyler a chance to connect with the girl alone. Besides, I am in need of my lifemate." She glanced at him suggestively over her shoulder.
Gregori emitted a low growl in his throat and streaked after Savannah to their home.
"Skyler?" Francesca asked to the house in general.
"I'm coming!" called Skyler from her bedroom at the top of the stairs. Tamara was sleeping and Skyler had taken the opportunity to reread Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre Dame for the hundredth time. The story always seemed to relax her no matter how many times she read the story. She replaced her marker in the book and ran down to see Francesca. Immediately, she was distracted by deep blue eyes staring at her from the shadows. She wrenched her gaze from Dimitri to glance worriedly at her guardians Gabriel and Francesca.
"What's going on, Francesca? Is someone hurt?"
Gabriel, Francesca reprimanded her lifemate, Stop posturing. You're frightening Skyler.
Gabriel, who had been silently glowering at Dimitri since he entered, uncrossed his arms and smiled at his daughter. "Everyone is fine, little one. However, there is a girl at the inn we would like you to talk to."
Francesca wrapped an arm around her daughter to offer support. Self doubt always seemed to cloud the girl's mind whenever her lifemate was near.
"She's around your age and in trouble. She refuses to emerge from her own mind because she half believes we're vampires, even though she is at least partially Carpathian herself."
"What can I do?" Skyler asked apprehensively.
"Apparently she is very gifted and has been having visions of all of us. For this reason, she fears our rejection above all else. We became a safe haven in a world that rejected her. So, we thought you might be able to show her how her life could be; show her the friendship she could have if she's brave enough to seek it."
She wanted to help. If she could do what Francesca suggested then it would only prove she was moving closer to how Francesca saw her and farther away from the unworthy being her father had convinced her she was.
Do you really think I can do this? Skyler asked her parents.
Absolutely, they answered without hesitation.
A hand brushed against her face and she looked to the corner where Dimitri stood, as immobile as ever.
Skyler's heart fluttered. "Are you coming with us?"
"Yes, I would never allow another to endure alone as you have had to." His blue eyes were filled with sorrow at the thought of the young lifemate he was unable to protect. No one but Skyler seemed to notice.
"I will stay with Tamara," announced Gabriel as the women headed to the door, flanked by Dimitri.
Dimitri nodded in acknowledgement. Gabriel may not approve of Dimitri as his daughter's lifemate but he wanted her to be happy. They had not returned to France precisely for that reason. They had stayed under the cover of having a birthday party that Josef, Josh, and the adults could all attend, but their main reason was to allow Skyler the time to accept her lifemate.
Skyler stopped to remove her coat from the peg next to the door. Dimitri was there first, holding out the garment for her to put on. She thought about refusing but, seeing Gabriel looking on as if waiting for a chance to banish Dimitri, she shrugged into the coat. Dimitri's hands brushed up both of her arms, making them tingle as she fumbled with buttoning the jacket.
Soon they were out in the snow. The below freezing temperatures helped to cool the heat Dimitri's gaze was causing in Skyler. She had no idea what she was doing to him, her mind contemplating his facial features and long hair. She thought him "cute" but wished he would cut his hair so she could see more of his masculine face. Dimitri smiled with inner triumph, he could do that one small thing for his lifemate. Francesca watched him surreptitiously, surprised by the change a smile wrought upon his face. For a moment he was not the solitary hunter-nor the shy boy he had once been described as-but some mixture of the two. It was a brief glance of a man who might see to her daughter's happiness as well as her safety.
It took a while before they made it to the inn. The ground was treacherous and they had to go slow for Skyler's sake. Even so, she slipped once during the journey and Dimitri had to catch her to keep her from falling face first into a snow drift.
Once inside the door, they were immediately waved farther in by Slavica. "The girl continues to lay upstairs as if dead."
"We hope to change that," replied Francesca, kissing Slavica on the cheek in greeting. "We believe Skyler can convince her to come back into the world."
"Follow me and I will unlock the door for you."
As Slavica opened the door, all three gasped at the sight of the young girl lying on the bed with a barely discernable heartbeat. Lack of nutrition and proper rest showed in her even more with her spirit locked away in her mind. If they were unable to draw her out, she would not last much longer. So far, any attempts to force her compliance to sleep or eat had failed; her mind was too far withdrawn.
Skyler, however, gasped for an entirely different reason. She did not know where but she had seen the girl before.
"Francesca," Skyler turned to her guardian breathlessly, "Her name, it's Aingeal isn't it?"
"How did you know that, cara? I didn't tell you."
Skyler pressed her fingertips against her eyelids until she saw little spots of color. "I'm not sure. I remembered…something, just for a moment but it's gone now."
Francesca conveyed her worry to her lifemate. There was only a single portion of Skyler's life that she could not remember, the time she and her mother had been trapped with her vampiric father Razvan. Anything connected to that time of her life deserved extreme caution. Francesca was ready to whisk her daughter from the room when Aingeal spoke.
"Leave it, Skyler, or he'll be mad at you." Even barely whispered, everyone heard her words. It was clear she was still in her head, talking as if she were asleep.
Skyler stepped forward, "Who'll be mad?"
Even with her enhanced hearing, Skyler had to step closer to hear the reply. "Razvan."
It could not have been more chaotic had someone set off an explosion. Francesca and Dimitri pulled Skyler away from Aingeal, forcing her back just far enough for Dimitri to insert himself in between the two girls. He looked as if he might attack the girl lying so helpless on the bed.
"Stop it!" screamed Skyler.
Francesca stepped forward and pulled Aingeal's shirt up just enough to reveal the flesh above her left hip. "She does not bear the Dragonseeker mark, which makes her connection to Razvan all the more suspicious."
"That's not her fault. How could she have chosen to be connected to him when she's my age? It's like saying I chose to be his daughter."
"Love, no one is blaming you. You were a babe," soothed Francesca.
"So was she, though. She warned me not to help her because Razvan would be angry. We must have been trapped with him together when we were small."
"I will not allow this to continue." Dimitri entered the conversation. "Whether it is a conscious act on her part or not, entering her mind might be a trap. She has very little memory and could have been sent out by Razvan as part of his plot to destroy our people."
Skyler turned to him, eyes filled with tears of frustration. "All of you expect so much from me. Why can't you trust me?"
Dimitri did trust her; he just did not trust anyone else. His eyes bored into hers. Every second he stood between Skyler and her task, he lost the progress he had fought so hard for with her. She still did not accept him as her lifemate but she was becoming accustomed to his presence; that would be lost if he insisted much more.
He shifted almost imperceptibly, allowing her to return to the bedside. Skyler placed her palm on the girl's unnaturally cool forehead.
"I cannot go with you. She will not allow it after I have tried to force her back into the world." Francesca connected them with a hand on Skyler's shoulder at the forlorn look on her face, "I will be here to help you back if you should need me."
Dimitri firmly took Skyler's right hand in his left; he would keep her anchored as well. He held his breath as his lifemate entered Aingeal's mind.
Aingeal shivered. Physical contact with another always heightened the intensity of her visions. She glanced up to smile at Skyler as she appeared beside her. They were in a cave surrounded by towers of ice and swirling spheres of magic.
"Do you feel the power in here?" Aingeal inquired of Skyler.
"Where are we?"
Aingeal extended her hand to touch the magic she saw shimmering in the air. As soon as she touched it she tried to withdraw her hand but it was stuck. Skyler realized something was wrong and tried to remove Aingeal's hand from the glowing ribbon. They both began to grow younger as they struggled, becoming a part of the vision instead of observers.
"Leave it, Skyler, or he'll be mad at you." Aingeal yanked her bleeding wrist from Skyler's grasp. "I don't know how you can stand that all of the time."
Skyler shook and absentmindedly rubbed at her tiny wrist at the mention of Razvan's daily feedings. "It keeps him from hurting mommy."
"We need to leave, Skyler."
The younger child began to cry. "I can't go without my mommy, Aingeal. What about your mommy?"
"Maris…doesn't want to come with me. I know all of her spells, though. I can get us out of here." Aingeal would never reveal to anyone exactly how Maris had "taught" her the spells. Maris had been driven crazy when her lifemate found her after already having turned vampire. She took her insanity out on her daughter, unable to blame the man who raped and beat her nightly. Aingeal was a product of one such night.
"Where's your mommy at, Skyler?"
"She's at my house," tears streaked down her dirty little face. "He said he would hurt her if I tried to run away. I don't want him biting her too." By an unspoken agreement, they never uttered Razvan's name. He seemed to know when they used it.
Aingeal used her compelling voice to quiet the racking sobs stealing forth from Skyler's lips. "We can go tonight. I've been working on the safeguards He puts on the doorways and I think I can undo them. We can go and get your mommy and run way to Paris to live in a bell tower just like Quasimodo." Aingeal had often told Skyler the story of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was one of the few stories she knew. She had stolen it from her mother's mind after she had called Aingeal Quasimodo during a particularly harsh beating. To distract herself, Aingeal had invaded her mother's mind to find out what it meant. Half formed. Half mage and half vampire. She was used to such harsh vilifications from the woman who should have loved her and had moved beyond the definition to find the comforting story behind the word.
Skyler giggled quietly, the story always relaxed her.
"We have to do it quickly before they come back, though." Skyler bobbed her head and they clasped hands as they made their way tremblingly through the room of spheres. "I can't do it by myself."
Little Skyler immediately gave her power over to her friend. And so, Aingeal began the painstaking task of unraveling the safeguards Razvan had placed on the exit. It was nearly dawn before her chore was accomplished. Both little girls collapsed into a heap after Aingeal removed the last strand of the spell.
Skyler tugged at Aingeal's hand to make her move. "I can hear someone." Skyler whispered.
Aingeal glanced warily at the room around her. She could hear someone as well. She had been wrong, her father had not left with Razvan. He had been with her mother the whole time. She tried to get to her feet but she simply could not. Most of her energy had been consumed in an effort to preserve Skyler's strength.
"Go!" she mouthed in a desperate attempt to save the younger girl. Skyler shook with fear, but she would not leave her companion behind. Aingeal gathered her remaining energy and flung it at Skyler to make her leave. Skyler staggered backwards dazed; the spell had blocked out all of her memories.
Aingeal turned her voice on the girl. "Go, find your mother and live in Paris."
Skyler tore off up the entryway.
Aingeal's father hissed at her from the entrance to the chambers below. "You little bitch. You are just like your whore mother was, using your witchcraft to try and escape."
He had not yet noticed the other girl was missing. Aingeal lay helpless on the floor, panic and exhaustion triggering a vision. Her father's foot swung towards the tiny body in punishment. As soon as she felt the mind numbing crack of contact, she wrapped her arms around her father's leg, trapping them both in her visions as her body fell limp. For hours, she was forced to watch her father kill Maris over and over.
The vision ended and, suddenly, she was once more clutching hands with an almost 17 year old Skyler. "You're birthday is on January 6th isn't it?"
"Yeah," Skyler whispered, shocked by the scene she had just experienced.
"Mine is the 12th. The last thing I remember happened right after I turned 17." Aingeal stared at the girl beside her with glowing yellow eyes. "A year. I've lost so much time, so much of myself I don't know what was there to begin with. I'm not strong like you, I can't take another chance with the world."
Skyler stared at her in shock. "You are strong! You sacrificed yourself to save me when you were just five years old. How could you think you're not as strong as me? All I've done is let Francesca and Gabriel take care of me."
"You chose to live, Skyler." Aingeal sighed, "I know why you came, and I can't do it. Maybe if it was just you I could try, but you have a family now, a real one, and I won't ruin that for you. I hurt everyone who gets close. I didn't remember it before but I love you and I don't want to drive you away."
Her eyes flashed a mischievous green. "So, will you leave on your own or do I have to make you?"
She provoked her friend, trying to lessen the burden of leaving her behind again. Skyler would never willingly desert anyone.
Skyler smiled wickedly, unconsciously falling back into their forgotten competitiveness. Aingeal shrugged deceptively a second before launching her attack. She swiped at Skyler with her left hand, forcing her straight into an open hand blow to the chest and sending her stumbling backwards.
Aingeal commanded a portal to open just behind Skyler, who barely managed to catch herself before she fell through. "Ready to go yet?"
Skyler smirked in response and hell exploded for both of them. Flying into action, Skyler leapt forward at Aingeal who caught her legs and pulled them out from under her. She tried to pin her down until Skyler clawed blood from her arms. As soon as she was able, Skyler wiggled free from Aingeal's grasp and farther away from the portal. Aingeal stood up and pounced at her. Skyler was still on the ground and so brought up her legs and kicked Aingeal back towards the doorway. Her head fell a millimeter away from passing through to the other side. The air whooshed out of her lungs but she had no time to recover as Skyler jumped on top of her.
The ferocity of both girls, to say the least, stunned Dimitri. His connection to Skyler was so weak, even with physical contact, that he was catching only the ghosts of images. But what he did see made it look as if they were trying to tear each other's hearts out.
"What's happening, Dimitri? I cannot see anything," asked Francesca.
Dimitri smiled in his mind. Though the fight appeared vicious, neither girl was truly in danger. Still, he was unwilling to reveal the entire truth of the situation to his lifemate's mother.
"They are having a minor disagreement. Skyler is trying to 'persuade' Aingeal to exit her safe haven."
Francesca looked askance at Dimitri. Something in the way he said 'persuade' did not inspire her confidence in his assessment of the situation.
Panting and slightly bloody, both girls lay on their backs at the threshold of Aingeal's mind.
"I can't believe I forgot about that, it's so fun beating you up," joked Aingeal.
"I think we both know I won."
Aingeal groaned and rolled over to stare at her friend. "I don't think either one of us has succeeded in forcing the other through the portal. That, my friend, is known as a draw."
Skyler quirked her eyebrows, "Oh really?"
In a flash, she grasped Aingeal's hand and flung herself through the doorway, pulling the girl along with her.
Skyler fell to the floor laughing, once more in her own body.
Aingeal called weakly to Skyler from her bed. "Ha-ha, you win."
Francesca examined her daughter swiftly before moving on to Aingeal. The young woman flinched as warm light entered her body. Francesca was appalled by the old damage present in the young girl's body. However, she and Shea had done all that was possible without giving the girl the blood and rest she desperately needed, so she exited.
Calmly, she tore open her wrist with her own teeth.
"You have sorely neglected your own health. You need to feed so your body can heal itself," Francesca reprimanded.
Aingeal tore away from the woman to the farthest corner of the bed. Shards of memory pierced her skull, memories of bites, kicks, and, whenever she was close to escaping into death, memories of hot blood being forced down her throat. She held her hand out to Skyler in a silent plea for camaraderie.
"Wait." Skyler stepped forward to put herself between her mother and her friend.
Francesca closed her wrist and stepped back to allow her daughter to handle the situation.
"What about me?" Skyler questioned Aingeal, "Can I help you?"
Aingeal almost agreed to stop the desperate look on her friend's face, but all she could see when she thought of feeding from her was a tiny Skyler with her wrist torn and ragged from Razvan's abuse. She dropped her gaze ashamedly and moved her head slightly to each side.
Skyler overcame her aversion to physical contact just enough to place a tentative hand on Aingeal's shoulder. Immediately, she was swamped with Aingeal's remorse and fear. Dimitri crossed the room in a single stride to remove his lifemate's hand from Aingeal. Her hand curled around his and her eyes stared up at him with wide-eyed faith, begging him to help her friend.
He pushed Skyler gently towards Francesca, who whisked her away from the room. Slowly, he turned around to stare down at the girl with his intense blue eyes. She held his gaze with a slightly defiant green one of her own. They stayed like that for minutes without saying or doing anything.
"Before I aid you there are things we should discuss. First, can you promise me you mean Skyler no harm?"
Aingeal's stare turned to a full on, yellow glare. "I saved her life. So, maybe I should ask you that."
"Very well," Dimitri nodded his acceptance of her answer; he certainly understood having a protective streak where Skyler was concerned. "However, our world is not without danger. You will be doubly protected for your connection to Skyler and it may chafe at you. Even then your safety is not guaranteed."
Aingeal crossed her arms over her stomach. "I expect danger every second I continue to breathe, but I will not accept the tyranny of your kind."
He casually shrugged his shoulders. "Nevertheless you will be guarded, and, in return, you will be expected to contribute to our society in whatever way you can."
She mirrored his shrug.
"That includes protecting the Prince with your life, should there be need."
"You might not have caught on to this yet, but I don't exactly value my existence that highly right now. I'd protect a flea with my life at this point."
"You cannot be suicidal and expect me to aid you in forcing yourself to remain in this world. You must have something you are willing to live for, even it is not yourself."
They stared at each in other in silence for a moment. This time Aingeal dropped her gaze.
Aingeal's eyes softened to a pale blue as she gestured vaguely to the door. "I promised Skyler."
Dimitri let out a slightly exasperated breath of air. "Skyler. At this point I think you are the one with the most hope of finding acceptance of your proffered protection."
"It's probably because I didn't make her feel incompetent when I tried to keep her safe. I let her do her own thing and just offered my help when she needed it."
"I ask that you continue to do so. That requires you to learn control over yourself and your powers."
"Sure thing, but right now I don't think I could do much more than spit at someone."
He raised an elegant brow. "Is that your charming way of telling me to dispense with the blood?"
"Indeed."
"You are going to bother me to no end," he predicted. But already he admired the courageous young woman.
He was about to break his flesh when she stopped him. "Not the wrist, okay?"
"Very well," he replied, removing his black t-shirt. It cost him something to allow her to feed this way, but he would not add to her burden of shame by revealing his discomfort. This method of feeding was much more intimate, reserved for lifemates and close friends. However, he cut open his chest without showing any of his inner qualms.
Aingeal hesitated as she approached Dimitri on unsteady legs. She had not noticed before, but he was physically beautiful. She felt happy for Skyler's find; they were true lifemates, and so, Aingeal would accept his help as willingly as she was able.
"Can you, uh…help me out with this?" She waved her hand to encompass his bleeding chest.
He swiftly took control, holding her mind with his as he stepped forward to her. She panicked as he put his hand behind her neck to pull her head to the gash. Her hand shot out to hold his pinned to his side, twisted painfully. Her teeth lengthened and sharpened slightly as she bit down roughly on his wound, a warning to keep his hands to himself. Dimitri increased the strength of his mind hold, ending the quiet growling she was emitting and forcing her to release the death grip she had on his left wrist.
He rubbed it behind his back as she continued to feed. She had damn near crushed the thing. As it was, the fractures were healing but it would still be weakened until after he could go to ground.
He waited until he was near swaying with weakness before he commanded her to close the gap in his flesh. As soon as she had done so and stepped back from him, he pulled her hand to his mouth and pierced the fleshy part of her palm with his teeth. He took only enough to ensure they would have a mental bond before carefully placing her on the bed and commanding her to sleep. This time she did not fight but succumbed to the gentle command.
It was her first rest undisturbed by nightmares or visions.