Mack Read online

  I laughed out loud, chuckling toward the ceiling of the car and smacking my knee. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I tried to heal myself, but ended up being more broken than ever.”

  “You simply wanted to be free of your own pain,” King said. “I can relate. Regardless, after that, you couldn’t remember a thing. I ended up sparing your life and using your gifts for a while.”

  My jaw dropped. “Well, that was kind of rude.”

  He shrugged. “Waste not, want not. I ended up killing you anyway.”

  “Gee. Thanks.”

  “You may have forgotten your past, but you were still just as stubborn and disobedient as always. You ended up crossing paths with Mack one day—you were supposed to be out at a job, but decided to show up at my townhouse in London. I quickly got rid of you.”

  “Didn’t it bother you? Killing me over and over again?” I asked.

  “No. I was fighting my own demons. And, as you’re aware, there’s nothing I won’t do for my brother. He is my blood. We’ve also established that lost memories or not, you are a hazard to him, which is why I still intend to kill you after we’ve brought him back and you’ve healed him.”

  I hissed out a breath. “You’re a ruthless asshole, you know that?”

  He dipped his head. “So I’ve been told.”

  “If we bring Mack back, he’ll be free from my father’s curse. And I never vowed to kill him, only to free him. My curse or promise or whatever you call it will be ended, too.”

  “Are you certain?” he asked.

  I gave it some thought. “It has to be over at that point, King.”

  “I am not willing to risk it.”

  Seriously? “Well, I sure as hell am not going to let you murder me again, King—and has it ever crossed your mind that this is all your fault? That in your quest to protect Mack, you’re actually being extremely selfish? You can’t stand the thought of losing him, so you destroyed him. You keep killing the woman he loves—and by the way, you no longer have the excuse of being an evil disembodied bastard. I mean, for fuck’s sake, King, how would you feel if Mack kept killing Mia in the name of brotherly love? But somehow, Mack still loved you. And he forgave you. Again and again. Probably out of guilt because of what he did to you three-thousand-fucking-who-cares years ago. But you! You just keep hurting him with your high-handed ‘I know what’s best for my brother’ bullcrap, which is probably why he wanted to die. He couldn’t take watching me bite the dust anymore and he couldn’t turn his back on you.” I threw up my hands. “Just let the fucking man live in peace, King! Let me and him figure out how to fix this.”

  King glanced at me with those cold blue eyes, but didn’t say a word.

  “Fine,” I said. “But then don’t ask me to help you win back Mia. She can divorce your evil ass for all I care.”

  King snapped his mouth shut and growled.

  “Oh. Did you forget about that?” I asked. “Your wife who’s going to be heartbroken? You’ll be lucky if you ever get near her or your son again.”

  A long, frigid moment passed.

  “Perhaps,” King cleared his throat, “we can come to an agreement of sorts.”

  I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yep. That’s what I thought.”

  Point for Teddi.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  When we pulled down that long dirt road shrouded in an eerie, foreboding energy meant to keep curious eyes away, I now had the distinct impression that King’s little tricks weren’t the only thing safeguarding these grounds.

  “There are many souls watching over this land,” King said, reading my thoughts.

  His Mercedes rumbled down the road, the wheels crunching and grinding the dirt.

  “Stay out of my head!” I barked over the loud noise. “And how the hell did you and Mack find this place to begin with?”

  “The place has power and is considered to be one of my possessions. I protect this land, and in exchange, the souls who reside here assist me from time to time.”

  “Like some kind of ghost brotherhood?”

  King smiled in a sinister sort of way. “Something like that.”

  “So why did Mack want to be buried here?”

  King’s smile faded.

  “Tell me,” I prodded.

  We pulled up to the rickety shack, and King turned off the engine. “Because he wanted to be with you. We buried your bodies here—a few anyway.”

  I blinked at him. Jeez. How morbid. And why did you even care where my body went?

  King stared ahead, his eyes locked on the cabin, though he clearly wasn’t looking at it.

  I waited. “Why, King?”

  “Because this place is where souls who die with honor are laid to rest.”

  I stared at the side of his face, unable to truly believe what this man had just said. “But you hunted me. You ruthlessly murdered me.”

  He cleared his throat. “I did what I had to do to keep my brother alive. And I would do it again. But that doesn’t mean I discounted the love he had for you.”

  I looked away and my eyes followed a little dust devil spinning next to my door. This was possibly the strangest confession I’d ever heard. King had ended my life and then taken great care to bury me somewhere he clearly felt was special.

  “Errr. Thanks. That was very thoughtful of you. In a very cold-blooded kind of way.”

  “Don’t mention it.” King nodded but didn’t look at me. Regardless, the torment in his eyes was obvious. “Let us get to work.” He opened the car door.

  “Wait!”

  King had already gotten out, so he bent over and looked at me through the open driver door.

  “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t watch you dig him up.” The thought of looking at his pale, lifeless face was too much.

  “I understand. I will return shortly.” He closed the door, and I watched that tall frame—now dressed in black jeans and a thin black sweater—disappear behind the cabin. From where I sat, yes, still wearing my stupid Vegas sweater, I saw nothing but a plain dirt field with rolling hills off in the distance. My guess was that there was a cemetery back there that could only be seen by certain people. Kind of like the inside of that cabin.

  This place is so freaking weird.

  Over a half an hour passed until King returned, the sleeves of his black sweater pushed up and his jeans covered in dirt. The icy look on his exotically sculpted face, a face I still saw as Mack’s, was undecipherable.

  I popped open my door and hopped out. “Did he have it?” I asked anxiously.

  King nodded his head of thick black hair.

  “Yes!” I slammed the car door and did a little celebratory air box. We were going to get Mack back. But what’s with Mr. Dark and Dreary over there?

  “Please, don’t tell me you have bad news,” I said.

  King shook his head, and that was when I noticed deep blues shedding off him as if he were melting.

  “Whatthefuck?” I whispered under my breath.

  King ignored me. “Come. I have him wrapped in cloth. We can perform the ceremony outside behind the cabin. Please grab the cooler from the trunk. It’s underneath Mack’s duffel bag.”

  Cooler. There’s a cooler of…Don’t think about it! “You need to consider changing your profession, King. This is just not right.”

  He dipped his head. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, Miss Valentine.” He disappeared behind the cabin once again, and I went to pop the trunk. Of course, I had to snoop in the bag.

  I unzipped the thing and found clean clothes. It was a touchingly sweet thing to do, bringing fresh clothes for his brother. It was a sign of how much he cared.

  I shoved the clothes back inside and zipped up the bag, going for the…the…cooler of…

  Supplies. They are just supplies. What sort of people were these Incas that they’d make this blood part of the—

  Any day now, Miss Valentine, I heard King’s voice resonate inside my brain.

  I blew out a breath, prep
ared for anything. Okay, that was a lie. I wasn’t prepared for this at all.

  ~~~

  Like before, King created a circle of blood with little symbols around it. Only now I realized that it wasn’t some satanic circle of resurrection, but a compass or a sundial meant to properly orient the chalice.

  “So it’s like a combination lock,” I said aloud, completely fascinated.

  “Precisely,” King said, once again down on his knees, fine-tuning the strange etching on the side of the chalice, which wasn’t really what I would call a holy grail or anything of the sort. It looked like a miniature wineglass made of metal.

  Mack’s body was only a few feet away, wrapped in a white sheet. I could barely breathe anytime I looked at it. Truthfully, I could understand why I would heal myself and wipe away my memories. Some things were simply too painful to live with for an eternity, and watching Mack die was one of them. I guessed that was part of the reason he didn’t want to stick around either. He’d had to watch me go more than once and several of those times by his brother’s hand. Yet, he always remained loyal to King, despite all of the horrific things he’d done while cursed. Maybe because Mack was in no position to throw stones. And his heart was just really, really big.

  King rose, dusting off his hands. “All right. It’s ready.”

  I handed him the cooler, and he repeated the same bizarre ritual as before with the blood, the necklace, and the chanting. But this time, something different happened. The sky above us turned a deep purple and the wind kicked up, filling the air around us with several hissing dust devils.

  “What’s happening?” I said loudly over the noise.

  “The spirits are unhappy. They don’t want to let Mack through.”

  I guessed if anyone would know that, it would be an ex-ghost. “What do we do?”

  King mashed his lips together, and then his eyes locked on me. “Come here. Give me your hands.”

  I didn’t want to because I knew I couldn’t trust this man, despite his now being healed. He was still ruled by a moral compass entirely his own, and loyalty to his blood was top priority.

  “I give you my word; I won’t harm you. Yet.”

  Damn that man. Always reading my thoughts.

  “Fine.” I stepped around the circle and held out my hands.

  “Very good,” King said. “Now, I want you to focus on your gift and try to move that light through me.”

  “It didn’t work the last time!” I yelled over the growing hisses and whipping wind.

  “The healing is not for me,” he explained. “I believe they’re upset. They don’t understand why it can’t be their turn.”

  They were freaking jealous. Dear God, how crazy was all this?

  King grabbed my wrists and closed his eyes, telling me to focus on healing them and helping them to rest. So I imagined that ball of white light somewhere beyond my body, existing in a place beyond this one, and then began pulling from it. Slowly, I felt the draw. The light moving through me like a warm, comforting stream of bathwater.

  I realized that like that chalice, my body was merely a conduit, a door with a combination lock that when opened could connect two energies together. When the light hit my fingers and flowed into King, I actually felt it continuing on through him and out another door. It was the spirit world that King lived in for thousands of years.

  And then…I felt them.

  Ohmygod! My eyes snapped open and met King’s.

  “You were doing well, do not stop,” he commanded.

  “Mack never crossed over. He never left,” I said in a panic. “They wouldn’t let him.”

  “What?” King looked pissed. And surprised.

  “And they don’t want to be healed,” I added. “They just want a sacrifice.”

  King frowned. Now he looked really pissed.

  “Nothing comes without a price,” I elaborated. “It’s that cosmic balance thing! Shit—I don’t know what you call it.” And I don’t know how I knew all that, but I did.

  King dropped his hands and looked down at the ground. Meanwhile, my mind had a go at the puzzle pieces. They wanted a sacrifice. Meaning…someone had to take his—

  Oh fuck. I stepped back, but King caught my arm, and I suddenly couldn’t move. Nor could I speak or breathe or do anything other than realize I would become the sacrificial lamb.

  Please, King. There has to be another way, I pleaded in my head. If you kill me, you’ll have brought your brother back just to let him suffer. He won’t forgive himself unless I heal him.

  King continued staring at me with those piercing orbs of endless blue.

  Blue. So much blue. And then darker and darker.

  “You’re right; there is another way, Miss Valentine.” He dropped his firm grip and slid off a silver ring from his right index finger. The ring was chunky with a clear stone in the middle. I’d never even noticed him wearing it.

  “Take this and put it on,” he said.

  It was far too large for my hand, but who the hell cared? “What are you doing?” I frowned.

  “It will make me feel better knowing that you’ll always be around to watch over my brother.” He grabbed my left hand and shoved the thing into my palm, practically crushing my poor little fingers as he forced me to make a fist around it.

  “What the—” I was about to jerk my hand away, but as King held my hand in his, I could see him. Really see him. All the way down to his soul. And it was literally breaking apart, as if dissolving.

  I covered my mouth with my free hand. Unable to bear the sight of what I was witnessing: a man breaking. Truly and utterly breaking, realizing he would never find real peace or happiness or be able to save the people he needed most in this world. But that was what my Seer gift showed me. King’s heart ripping apart, disintegrating into dark ash. And as I realized what he meant to do, my heart broke right along with his.

  You can’t do that, King. Please don’t. Think of Mia and your baby. Think of how lost Mack will be without you. We’ll find another way, I promise. The tears fell from my eyes in steady streams, dribbling down my cheeks.

  “It’s been a pleasure, Dr. Valentine.” King dipped his head of silky black hair, and then I watched the dark shadows, in the shape of arms, spring from the ground and reach for his legs. He collapsed to the ground.

  “No!” I jumped on top of him and rolled him flat on his back, frantically checking for a pulse.

  Nothing.

  “Fuckingshit, King! Don’t do this!” I puffed several breaths into his mouth and then began pumping his chest. “You evil stubborn bastard! Mack won’t want this!”

  Minutes or hours went by—I didn’t know—but the dust devils died down, and the sky turned to a pristine blue. There was a sudden warmth in the air and sweet smell in the wind blowing through my hair. It was the scent of peace. That was all I knew.

  And then I felt lighter. Not physically, but…well, mentally. Like there had been a weight—guilt, despair, fear—pressing down on me that was suddenly gone.

  My own curse—that vow I’d made so many years ago—was gone.

  “It’s useless, you know,” said a deep familiar voice. “That fucking prick just had to be the hero.”

  I gasped and turned my head, finding a tall, naked man, ripped from head to toe with glossy black, shoulder-length hair. He looked just like King with those stunning sky-colored eyes, thick dark lashes, sensual mouth, black stubble and…

  A sadness in his eyes.

  “Mack?” My voice came out all shaky.

  “Yes.”

  “Ohmygod.” I jumped up and ran to him, throwing my arms around his neck. I kissed him with everything I had—my heart, my soul, and every ounce of passion. He kissed me back, and yes, he was buck naked, but this wasn’t that kind of moment or that kind of kiss. It was pure and simple, a need to be touched and held and comforted. It was two people testing their sanity to ensure that what was in front of them was real.

  After several long moments, I pulled away,
my eyes tearing like crazy. “Is it gone? The curse?”

  He nodded. “Yes. Though, I’m not exactly sure how, because I couldn’t move past this place. I felt it clinging to me until the very last moment.” He looked behind me at his dead brother lying in the dirt. “I think…”

  Saying that he looked sad would be the understatement of the century. He looked absolutely devastated.

  “I’m so sorry, Mack. I tried to stop him.”

  “I know. I saw the whole thing,” he said.

  “You did?” I sniffled.

  He nodded. “Yes, and I should’ve known my brother wouldn’t let me go peacefully.”

  “But we can use the chal…” My words faded along with the idea as I noticed that the chalice was gone, a small crater left in its place. Ohgod. Where did it go? I blew out a breath, trying to hold it together. I was crushed for Mack, yet I was elated to have him back. Did that make me greedy or uncaring? I didn’t know. But all I could do was look at this beautiful man who’d I’d loved before this version of me was even born. It was all too surreal for words.

  I stared in wonder at this new perfect body that looked just like his original.

  “You can’t stare at me like that. Not here,” Mack said.

  I cleared my throat. “Let’s get you some clothes.”

  Never in a million years would I begin to understand how something like that chalice worked, so I would end up doing myself a favor and simply calling it magic. Later, much, much later, Mack would try to explain it in terms of particle theory, matter cohesion, and energy fields, which normally would’ve rung my brainy-bell, but was still too outlandish and landed me back in the “magic bucket.” For the time being, however, none of that would matter, because the facts were the facts: We buried King that day, right alongside Mack’s old body. Mack was heartbroken, but wasn’t ready to let me heal him from this or any of his painful baggage from the past. Watching him bury his twin was the saddest moment I could remember living through.

  “What are you going to tell Mia?” I asked, wishing that I could be there in Greece when she heard the news that the man who’d loved her for three thousand years was dead. Again.