I stared at the woman, stunned beyond anything in my experience. She was shorter than me, barely over five feet, with dishwater blond hair, shrewd black eyes, and a sharp, angular chin that was raised as she looked down her nose at me. This was me? The past me? But how could that possibly be? I shook my head, so confused I just wanted to walk out and leave it all behind me.
"Eleanor," Alec repeated, finally pulling himself together as the woman - I couldn't think of her as me, since she was nothing like me - walked over to him, and without a glance at anyone wrapped her arms around him and damned near sucked his face off.
"Yes, my darling, it's me. I'm back."
"But . . ." My fingernails dug into the flesh of my palms as I struggled to keep from yanking her off Alec. "But I . . . er . . . Alec's Beloved is dead. She was run over by an oxcart several hundred years ago."
"How do you know that?" Kristoff asked, giving me a long once-over.
"I . . . uh . . . I had a vision of the event."
"Ah." He didn't look convinced, but let the matter drop as Eleanor came up for breath. I noticed Alec didn't seem to be fighting her very much, although his expression was anything but overjoyed to see his longlost Beloved. Or, rather, the original version of her.
Jesus wept, what had I gotten myself into? I should be happy she was back. Now I could wash my hands of him and be through with vampires forever.
My inner devil delighted in the feelings of intense unhappiness that thought triggered.
"I was dead," Eleanor said, kissing Alec's chin before turning to face me. I ground off a good layer of enamel trying to keep from yelling at her for doing so. "But they had me brought back."
"We know a necromancer," Pia said, her gaze flicking between Alec, Eleanor, and me. "We thought if we brought her back, the council would be forced to get you out of the Akasha, Alec. We didn't know that you . . . that Cora . . . oh, man, what a mess."
"One that I'm sure we can figure out," Kristoff said, gesturing toward a couple of couches. "Please sit, Cora."
"Where are my manners? Yes, please, sit down, all of you. We have so much to talk about." Pia shook off her stunned expression and smiled as she moved over with me to one of two couches.
"It's a lovely room," I said, standing awkwardly by the door, miserable but refusing to acknowledge that when Eleanor, with one hand on Alec, tugged him down next to her on a love seat. "And a lovely house."
"It is pretty, isn't it? It's built on a twelfth-century tower that was later part of a monastery. There's a cloister and everything. But I can show you around the house later - there are so many questions that Kristoff and I have. Like how did you meet the Ilargi who stole Ulfur? And how did you get out of the Akasha, Alec?"
Alec had been watching me with an avidity that evidently didn't make Eleanor happy at all, for she put a proprietary hand on his thigh and gave me a cool look as he answered. "I have Cora to thank for that."
"Do you indeed?" Eleanor said softly.
"Are you a . . . what do they call them . . . ? " Pia turned to Kristoff.
"Guardian," he said, eyeing me. "She does not appear to be one."
"I'm not. I'm a secretary. I got zapped into the Akasha myself, and when I was de-zapped, I arranged for Alec to be brought out, as well."
"Why?" Eleanor asked.
I swallowed back the urge to shout at her that I was his Beloved, not her, and I had saved him because he needed me, chastising myself for such stupidity. I had an out in the form of Eleanor - I would be an idiot not to take that.
And leave Alec, never to see him again.
My heart shattered as everyone looked at me, curiosity almost palpable.
"It seemed like the thing to do," I said lamely, avoiding Alec's gaze, but all too aware of the swift lance of pain that shot through him at my words.
Both Pia and Kristoff looked at me as if I had turned into a giant dancing panda bear.
"I think Kristoff's right, and you're going to have to tell us what happened from the beginning," Pia said, gesturing toward a pale blue brocade couch.
As I passed Kristoff, he froze, an odd look on his face as I could have sworn he sniffed the air.
"Cora, why don't you - what?"
Pia turned a shocked expression first on her Dark One, then on me.
"What what?" I asked, wondering if I had somehow offended them.
"You're . . . you're a Beloved? Alec's Beloved? But Eleanor . . . Kristoff, are you sure?"
It was my turn to freeze. "Uh . . ."
"Cora can't be my Beloved," Alec said, rising from the love seat, much to Eleanor's dissatisfaction. His face was a mask, absolutely devoid of emotions, but I could feel them all twisting around inside him. "I don't say that we don't have a blood bond, but . . ." His voice trailed off as he glanced toward Eleanor.
"What sort of a blood bond? " she asked, her eyes narrow with suspicion.
Alec ignored her as Pia spoke hesitantly.
"But . . . but Kristoff said . . . he said she smelled . . ." Pia blinked at me.
"I smell?" My voice came out close to a shriek, because honestly, if being told you stink by people whom you were going to ask for help isn't a moment to shriek over, I don't know what is. "I don't know what . . . I mean, I took a shower.... Did I step in something? . . . Jesus wept, Alec! Why didn't you tell me I stink?"
"Kristoff is wrong," Eleanor said, her voice as hard as granite. "I am Alec's Beloved. He said I was, the first day he saw me. He was courting me, had asked my father for my hand, and I was going to agree to it, except that stupid woman with her stupid oxen came down that hill and ran me over."
Sympathy welled up inside me. I knew just how bitter she felt about those oxen and that woman. I was just as annoyed when they had run me over.... What was I thinking?
I put my hands to my head, hoping to shake some sense into it.
"No, no, you don't smell at all, Corazon," Pia said soothingly, reaching out to pat my arm. I backed away, worried that I might have some sort of hideous Akashabased body odor that had escaped my notice. Why the hell didn't you tell me I stink? I could just die!
You don't stink. You smell wonderful, like sun-warmed wildflowers.
Your nose is clearly out of whack because the others certainly think I smell. I realized that I was talking to Alec, something I hadn't done since we'd come into the house, and immediately was swamped with emotion. Can you . . . er . . . can you talk with her, too?
It took him several seconds to answer. Yes.
"I don't think I am wrong," Kristoff said slowly, his eyes filled with speculation as he looked at me. I was too busy battling a sense of nausea that followed Alec's admittance. That he could talk to Eleanor confirmed she was truly his Beloved, and made my path clear. I had to leave. He no longer needed me, and if I stayed, I'd just end up confusing myself with the desire I had for him.
"Explain it to Cora," Pia growled at Kristoff, pinching the back of his hand.
He shot Alec a look. "He can explain."
"Cora, before you run off to bathe yourself in perfume, please sit down," Pia said, shooting both men annoyed looks.
"I'd like to know just why he thinks that woman is my Alec's Beloved," Eleanor said with an injured sniff. "When it's clear I was, and am."
"Yes, but you don't smell. At least I don't think she does. Does she, Kristoff?" Pia asked.
Kristoff lifted his chin and sniffed. "Not really, no."
"Your nose is wrong," Eleanor told him.
"I don't understand this smell thing," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. "But I'm sorry if I've offended anyone."
"You haven't offended anyone, Cora." Alec moved over toward me, but stopped when Eleanor grabbed his arm and held him back. His face twisted in anguish for a second, his eyes burning into mine.
Stop it, I told him. Stop looking guilty. You found your Beloved. You should be happy.
My Beloved is dead, he answered, shaking off Eleanor's hand to move over next to the couch.
That was true enough. And she's been brought back.
As a lich.
So?
His gaze wavered. Something is not right here, Cora, the least of which is the pain I feel in you.
I gently pushed him out of my mind, uneasy that he could read my emotions so effortlessly.
Pia sighed. "Since Alec never bothered to explain this to you - honestly, men! - I will. There's this weird thing about Beloveds. I know I freaked out when I heard about it, but Kristoff assures me it's no big deal, and it can vary, so don't think you're walking around smelling like a big ole manure factory to all Dark Ones."
"Mother Mary," I gasped, staggering to the couch, drawn against my will toward Alec. If I was going to stink, he could just be inflicted with it. "I smell like manure ? "
You do not stink. Just the scent of you makes me hard.
Damn the man! How did he get into my head so easily?
"No, of course you don't," Pia said soothingly. "Beloveds, to Dark Ones who are not theirs, have this . . . odor. Supposedly it alerts them that they are taken or some such thing, and that their blood is basically poison to anyone but the designated Dark One. So I suppose I can see that there should some marker to indicate that someone shouldn't be munched on, although really, I think they could have come up with a better method than smelling."
Does Pia smell bad to you? I couldn't help but ask.
Not bad so much as . . . mildly unpleasant.
I looked at Kristoff in horror. He laughed, and wrapped an arm around Pia. "Pia is making too much of nothing. Beloveds in the process of Joining smell a little different, that's all. Once Joined, it's a bit stronger, but even then I've never found it repellent. We are used to it, I assure you. What I'm curious about is how you came about to be."
"My mother and father fell in love," I said somewhat indignantly.
"Boy, you're really Mr. Put Your Foot in Your Mouth today, aren't you? " Pia asked him, her hand doing a little possessive leg touch. "I think he means how you can be Alec's Beloved when Eleanor was killed several hundred years ago."
"And brought back, just to save him," Eleanor added, glaring at me. "I do not like this woman, Alec. I don't know who she is, or why you all seem to feel she's as good as me, but she's not. I am your Beloved. I am the one you begged to Join with you all those centuries ago. And it is I who will redeem you now."
My gut tightened as my inner voice nagged me to spill the truth, urging me to explain my connection to Alec, but that way would only cause more pain, for both of us. He would just feel even more guilty than he did already, and I didn't want to spend my life with a vampire.
Liar, my inner self snarled.
I rubbed my head, my emotions as confused as my brain.
"You were, at one time, my Beloved, as Kristoff knows," Alec admitted slowly, the pain from inside him spilling out onto me. "But be that as it may, there is a bond between Cora and me that we cannot deny. I do not believe such a bond exists between us anymore, Eleanor."
She's your Beloved, Alec. Stop fighting it.
Do you dislike me so much that you are so happy to be rid of me? he asked.
Tell him! my little devil demanded. He's hurting because he thinks you don't want him.
I tried to argue that I didn't want him, but even I didn't believe that anymore.
It just figured that the one man in the world I wanted was the one I should never have. Way to go, life.
"How does Kristoff know?" I asked the room in general, trying to drown out my conscience. "How did you know about Eleanor?"
"It was his wife who killed my Beloved," Alec answered, his eyes a pale jade. "His first wife."
My eyes widened as I stared at Kristoff. "Your wife was the one with the oxcart? The one who cut off my head? "
The second the words left my mouth, I cursed myself. My devil cheered.
"Your head?"
Slowly, I turned to look at Alec.
Your head? he asked again.
Um . . .
"What do you mean, your head?" Pia asked, leaning into Kristoff when he sat next to her.
"Yes!" Eleanor said, leaping to her feet, her face red with anger. "What exactly do you mean, your head? It was my head that was cut off, not yours! You're trying to steal him, aren't you?"
Cora?
"You're trying to steal Alec from me!"
Alec's pain lashed him so hard, I crumpled into a little ball, hugging my knees, unable to look at him.
"You bitch! She's using you, Alec, nothing more. She had some sort of a vision about the day I was killed - she said so herself - and now she's trying to use that to confuse you. I'm your Beloved, not her. I don't care what Kristoff says - it's me who has the bond with you."
"Corazon? " The word was spoken softly, with a world of warmth behind it. Alec knelt next to me, his hand lightly touching my head as I rubbed my cheek against my knees, torn with the need to tell him the truth, and the knowledge of what such an action would mean to us both. And to Eleanor. Could I do that to an innocent woman?
That innocent woman is you! my inner self yelled. She is a past version of yourself!
"Do you remember that I told you I'd seen a vision of the time when I . . . when your Beloved was killed?" I asked, unable to bear Alec's pain any longer.
"Of Kristoff's first wife killing my Beloved? Yes."
I lifted my head to look at him, needing his warmth, needing his strength. His eyes searched my face, and I could feel him gently prodding my mind. I kept him out of my head, unwilling to say what needed to be said, but having enough pride to do it the honorable way, rather than just letting him pick the facts out of my brain.
"Well, it wasn't really a vision. It was a . . ." I swallowed, casting a nervous glance at the others. "It was more of a past-life regression."
"A past-life regression," he repeated, looking confused.
"Yes. I was the woman whose head was lopped off by the crazy lady with the oxcart. Oh, sorry, Kristoff. I didn't mean she was nutso crazy, just a little . . . well . . ."
"No!" Eleanor shrieked, leaping to her feet. "She lies!"
"Oh, my god, you really are Alec's Beloved," Pia said, obviously astonished. "You're . . . what? Reborn? How can that be? And how could we have raised Eleanor if you're here now? Kristoff ?"
"I don't know," he said, his gaze first on me, then on Alec. "But I'm happy for Alec nonetheless. One way or another, it would appear he has a Beloved again."
My gaze shifted back to Alec, as well. His expression was impossible to read, his eyes burning with a light . . . but what sort of a light?
"This is ridiculous, nothing but a tissue of lies," Eleanor said, marching over to clutch Alec. "And I resent the fact that any of you could be so foolish as to believe any of it. I was his Beloved, not her. You summoned me back from death. She is nothing to us, nothing!"
"I'm sorry," I told Alec, ignoring Eleanor's ranting.
"For what?" he asked.
I made a wordless gesture of confusion. "For . . . for making things more complicated."
"'Complicated' is an understatement. I just don't understand how you can both be here if you're really . . . what, the same person?" Pia asked.
"We can't. That is proof that she is the false one," Eleanor said, trying to force Alec to look at her. "Feed from me, my darling. Then you will know the truth."
To my dismay, Alec turned his attention on her, looking very much like he was going to accept her offer and feed. He gazed into her face, his eyes glittering jade. "You have no soul," he said finally.
She jerked back out of his grip, her own eyes blazing with fury as she jabbed a finger toward Kristoff and Pia. "That is not my fault! It is because they had me brought back as a lich!"
"Liches have souls," Kristoff said slowly as we all looked at Eleanor. "They get them back when they are raised by a necromancer."
"Then the necromancer who you hired to raise me did it incorrectly," Eleanor snapped.
Alec looked at me with speculation. "Kris, what do you know about reincarnation?"
"Not a lot," he said with a shrug, then raised his eyebrows. "I've heard that only a certain type of mortal can be reincarnated, that the mortal being dies, is judged on their purity of heart, and accordingly granted life again based on that purity. Oh, you mean - "
"Yes," Alec said, his sudden smile so brilliant, it made me clutch the couch to keep from flinging myself on him. "I think Cora is one of those beings. She was born as Eleanor, was killed, and reincarnated into her current form, soul and all."
I stared at him, caught in the green snare of his gaze, wanting to believe the joy he felt was due to the fact that there might be a future for us rather than I was merely a form of salvation.
"That would explain why Eleanor doesn't have a soul?" Pia asked.
"No, it wouldn't. It doesn't," Eleanor insisted. "If she and I are the same person - and really, the idea is ludicrous ; just look at her! She's completely unlike me. If we were the same person, we couldn't exist together in the same time and place."
"But you don't, not really," Kristoff said gently. "You're a lich. Your existence is beyond the mortal world. Cora is mortal. You aren't."
I dragged my gaze off Alec to look at Eleanor, wondering if I had really ever been her. What a pain in the ass I was.
Alec laughed in my head. I wouldn't say that, but I admit that I had only just met you when you were killed.
"Even admitting that was possible - and I don't admit that for one minute. But let's say it is. Then all that means is that she's a knockoff of me, and I'm the original Beloved, and she has my soul." Eleanor's eyes narrowed on me. "And she can just give it back!"
"Oh, that is not going to happen," I told her, amused despite the unpleasant situation. "Finders keepers, and all that."
"Faugh!" she yelled at me, and spent the next five minutes arguing that Alec owed his allegiance to her.
"It seems to me that you're just going to have to decide," Kristoff told Alec when Eleanor wound down long enough for someone else to get in a word. "Cora or Eleanor. Which Beloved do you want?"
Instantly, my eyes went to Alec's, my heart beating with sudden urgency.
"That is the question, isn't it?" he said softly, smiling at Eleanor. She beamed back at him until he lifted her hand and kissed it. "I can't tell you how grateful I am that you agreed to the plan to save me. You will have my eternal appreciation for such a noble act."
"No," Eleanor snarled, jerking her hand from his and backing away, her face black with rage. "You can't mean that! You can't pick her over me. I was brought back to save you!"
"I know you were, and I regret greatly - "
"Nooo!" she wailed, and bolted from the room.
An uncomfortable, highly charged silence fell upon us all as the sound of her footsteps racing up a flight of stairs, followed by the slamming of a door, drifted down to us.
"Oh, Alec," Pia said, her shoulders slumping. "I'm so sorry. We thought we were helping you - "
"And I appreciate that you would do so," Alec interrupted before turning to me. I struggled to keep my face placid, and not express any of the pleasure that I couldn't deny when he obviously chose me over Eleanor.
He said nothing for a minute, simply looking at me.
"You knew that you were my Beloved, but you didn't tell me," he finally said, his voice as carefully neutral as his expression.
Where were his expressions of undying devotion? Where was his declaration that he had picked me? Where was his arrogant statement that I was his Beloved, and he would fill my nights with endless passion, and my days with expressions of utmost gratitude?
Rather than any of that, I got a sense of carefully masked anger.
"Yes." I lifted my chin a little. "I knew. I don't like vampires. I never have."
"And yet you fed me."
"I didn't realize who you were then," I pointed out.
"You don't like vampires, but you fed me."
Kristoff and Pia sat opposite, their gazes shifting from Alec to me and back again, just as if they were watching a tennis match.
"I explained to you about that. I thought you could help Diamond and me get out of the Akasha."
"You fed me multiple times."
"Well, you were hungry!" I said, slapping my hands on my legs, wanting desperately to know what he was thinking and feeling, needing the reassurance that he wanted me. "What was I supposed to do, let you starve?"
"You didn't leave me behind. You were worried about my wounds."
"Are you going to catalog every single one of my actions with regards to you? Because if you are, you should include me slapping you for trying to kiss me."
His eyes narrowed. "You gave yourself to me. Repeatedly."
I glanced at the others. "OK, really, I'm sure they don't need to hear about that."
Pia giggled.
"You're my Beloved."
"Well . . . yeah, I guess I am. I wasn't quite sure about whether a reincarnated Beloved can be the same as the original one, but I guess that's been proven."
"You're my Beloved," he repeated, and without another word walked out of the room.
"Well, hell," I said, now thoroughly miserable. "He hates me!"
"I don't think . . ." Pia looked at Kristoff. "I don't think that's possible, is it? Can you hate your own Beloved ? "
"No." Kristoff got up, waving Pia back when she rose, as well. "He's just a bit stunned is all, what with Eleanor, and now . . . this. I'll go talk to him."
Alec? I asked, wanting desperately for him to reassure me.
No, he said, and closed me out of his mind.
No what? No, he didn't want to talk to me? No, he didn't hate me? No, he never wanted to see me again? If that was the case, why had he more or less dumped Eleanor ?
"I could just cry," I said, pleating the material of my pants in an effort to keep from doing exactly that.
"Don't, it'll just make your eyes puffy," Pia said, moving over to sit next to me. "Alec's a man, and you know how they are - some of them don't cope well with emotional things, and you have to admit, going from no Beloved to two in the space of a day could make the calmest vampire go a little bit nuts. I'm just a bit curious, though. You said you don't like vampires?"
"No, I don't. I saw Alec kill that woman who beheaded me. It was . . . he just bit her and drained her dry. It was horrible. And then my sister married one, and although she seems to be really happy with Avery, it seems so wrong, somehow. He drinks her blood!"
"Just as Kristoff drinks mine, and Alec feeds from you. Do you think that's wrong?"
"No," I admitted, pleating and repleating the material of my jeans on my leg. "It's very enjoyable, actually."
She smiled a slow smile that let me know that I wasn't the only one who found the act of feeding erotic.
"It's just that - I never wanted to be with Alec. I wanted him out of the Akasha, because that was only fair - he saved my butt in there from a wrath demon, and Diamond was having a good time, so when the de Marco guy said pick one, I picked him."
"Of course you did," Pia agreed. "I would have done the same. Not that I understand how you came to know the Ilargi, but we'll get to that, I'm sure."
"But I didn't want a permanent relationship with Alec. He's . . . a vampire!"
"You know, I think you're going to have to move past that point," she said gently.
I sighed and slumped against the back of the couch. "I know. And to be honest, I think I have. I was going to tell him about the past-life thing, I really was. I just was waiting for the right moment, and then . . . then . . ."
"Then we went and screwed it all up by having Eleanor brought back. Nothing like having your hand forced," she said, nodding. "I'm sure that, given a little time to get over the shock of today, he'll be right back in your hair, driving you crazy."
"Now probably wouldn't be the best time to say that I'm not sure I want him in my hair," I muttered, wishing I could rewind my life a few days.
That would mean I never met Alec again. My heart grew sad at that thought. Oh, dear heavens, was I already past hope? Had I started giving in to all that charm and magnetism and smoldering sexuality that had every woman within a five-mile radius ready to rip off her clothing and throw herself at him?
I looked at the woman next to me with a hard expression.
She blinked at it. "What?"
"You let Alec seduce you!"
To my surprise, she laughed. "I was wondering if you were going to come back to that. I did, yes. Well, not really. It's a little complicated. We didn't actually have sex, you know. That is to say, he didn't . . . we didn't . . . it was more just some mutual groping. I mean, we were naked, but that was really all we did. And he didn't even stay the whole night with me."
I stared at her, trying to sort through all of that.
"I didn't make it any better, did I?" she asked, still laughing.
"No." The word dropped like a lead weight.
"Honestly, I think he was just lonely. The fact that he couldn't have real sex should have warned me that he wasn't the man for me, but I didn't see it at that time. It wasn't until Kristoff and I got together, and I thought he was still in love with . . . well, our rocky start is neither here nor there."
"You had a rocky start?" I asked, momentarily distracted from the painful thought of her touching a naked Alec.
"Yeah, just about as rocky as they can get. I'll tell you about it when you have an hour or two sometime. But first, you have to tell me about Alphonse de Marco, which means we need the boys. I think Alec has had enough time to get over himself. Let me run and check on Eleanor to make sure she's all right - then we'll go remind Alec how lucky he is to have you."
She rose and left through one of the arched doorways. My own feelings aside, I wondered if Alec truly wanted me for his Beloved, or whether he had just picked me out of gratitude for saving his life and springing him from the Akasha.
And what would happen to Eleanor? Would guilt over her eventually taint his feelings for me? Was he even now blaming me for putting him in a position where he had to hurt one of us?
"You really know how to screw up your life," I told myself as I got slowly to my feet, and tottered off to find Pia.
