"Will knowing make it easier? You said you didn't blame your parents."
"Yes, but if they could know the truth...I'm sorry, Dez, it was a stupid thing to ask."
And it was at that moment Dez could not deny what she'd been desperate to hold back. This man was special to her. And she did trust him.
In her heart, she had already made a decision about Ivan Drake.
"I want to show you something."
"I think I've seen all of you," he said with a chuckle. "What's left?"
"This."
And a huge weight dropped onto the end of the bed, startling Ivan to sit and slide up next to Dez.
There, nestled upon the sex-scented sheets, lay the Grande Grimoire.
Chapter 14.
"I s that what I think it is?" Ivan leaned over the book, but didn't touch.
"It is."
It was huge, but not as large as he expected a book containing every spell ever cast by all the witches in the world should be.
About two feet wide by three feet long, and thick as his fist. It was covered in a rich, red, watered satin and had no symbols on the front save the elaborate gold arabesque work stitched along the edges.
He placed a hand over it, and then retracted it.
"I won't touch it." Ivan sat back, hugging his side against Dez. The warmth of her sent a shiver up his spine. "I don't want to take it from you, and if I touch it, then I won't be able to stop."
He glanced out the window. Close to twilight, the sun was low in the sky. "Why'd you do this? Why now?"
"You wanted to read your mother's love spell."
"Really?"
"Yes. And the council meeting got me to thinking."
Just as he and his mother had hoped.
But things had changed in the course of an afternoon. Ivan didn't want Dez to do anything she was uncomfortable with.
She didn't want their sexual hijinks to become a relationship? He'd have to work with that. She wasn't willing to share her blood with him? A roadblock to them becoming as close as he wished, but he would also have to deal.
She hadn't wanted to show him the book. Well, what was up?
"Perhaps the Protection spell should be considered," she said.
She leaned forward and without even touching the book, cast aside the cover. The pages began to flutter at the direction of her dancing fingers. They were so thin, like pages in a telephone directory, but perhaps even thinner. And colorful and filled with images and text and...and- "Depth," Ivan said, marveling at the page opened before him.
He leaned in, tucking his hands to his stomach, and examined the page. It looked like parchment, thick and crinkled and, if he touched it, he suspected it would feel rough. Perhaps he even detected a fine hair that hadn't been scraped from the ancient hide during the tanning process. The odor of wet wood curled beneath his nostrils.
An elegant hand had written a spell he didn't want to begin to read, because the feeling that if he read it then it would become whole cautioned him.
But this spell was safe from his comprehension. "Latin?"
"You don't read Latin?"
"Never had the patience to learn. Though my mother taught me a few important words. Is the whole book in Latin?"
"No, there are many different languages throughout. Depends on whoever crafted the spell. This one was used to drought a farmer's crops. See here the wheat seeds and the dirt." She touched a few grains of dark earth and they moved, as if sitting loose upon the page.
"How can that be? The thing is-the pages are so thin. And yet, it looks like I could reach in and snap that wheat shaft in two. It's magic."
"Of course it is." Clutching a wrinkled white bedsheet to her breast, Dez leaned in and blew gently. More pages fluttered before them. "Here's a death spell crafted in the seventeenth century." "Who is that image of?" Ivan tilted his head. It was a holographic three-dimensional picture, and the image of a woman's face appeared at the lower right corner of the page.
"The spell crafter. All spells are identified with an image."
"Show me the love spell Himself ordered my mother to cast."
Humming absently, Dez danced her fingers over the book and the pages swished by rapidly. Ivan felt so many pages must surely bring them to the end, but it never seemed to go much farther than a few pages.
"You have an intimate command of the book, don't you? You speak to it."
"In a manner. We've been together a long time."
Yes, as far back as when the Merovingian kings had ruled France. Stunning. This woman he was losing his heart to was a dozen centuries older than he. The knowledge she must have. And wisdom!
And he, a mere baby boy, as she'd once called him. At once Ivan revered Dez, marveled at her and, as well, desired any small attention she might gift him. He could learn so much from her.
Then you mustn't destroy her.
Pushing aside the dark thought, Ivan wanted only to be in the moment, not struggle with a coercion he knew would be upon him soon enough.
Pages fluttered, and scents of herbs and earth and some rather foul things whispered into the air. Ivan detected cranberry in one instant, and in the next he could taste the blood of a beating frog's heart pulse at the back of his throat.
"I believe this is the one," Dez said. She kissed the corner of Ivan's mouth and gestured he should move closer.
He inspected the spell, in English, and he read the first few lines before forcing himself to stop. The holographic image of his mother appeared in the corner, below a drop of blood that looked ready to spill off the page. And there, black flesh and obsidian horns.
"That's the one," he said in a whisper. "It was intended that my mother craft the love potion and hand it over to Himself, but my father surprised my mother-he was intent on killing her that evening-and instead he fell in love."
"A good thing," Dez said, and nestled to his side, her breast falling heavily against his bare arm. "Else I would have never met you."
Ivan kissed her. He glided a thumb over her hard nipple.
But he could not dismiss the spell so quickly. Looking over the page, he wanted to reach in and touch the narrow glass vial that contained a gold liquid, but tucked his hands under his legs to keep from doing so. A familiar fragrance drifted upward, and he recognized it as his mother's perfume.
"I don't see any names. An intended target."
"Let's see..." Dez drew a finger down the page, discerning the handwriting Ivan recognized as his mother's. Brimstone now combined with Ravin's perfume. "Normally, if the recipient was mortal, there would be a picture and a name and sometimes even a genetic family tree. But all I'm sensing is Ravin Crosse's presence and another. A very powerful vampire."
"My father."
"The intention is firm. There doesn't seem to be deception or even a sense of accident. The spell was spilled over Ravin Crosse, I know that."
"And then my father bit her. But he had intended to kill her."
"Really? Nice guy."
"Only because my mother first tried to kill him with a blood bullet. They didn't know each other then. It was vamps against the witches, as usual."
"I see. Yes, I can feel the anger, the driving need for vengeance. He drank a lot from your mother. So much it should have killed her. But he also drank in the love spell."
Dez sat upright and withdrew her hands to her lap. She closed her eyes and said, "As intended."
"What?"
The spell read plainly upon the page. Dez had felt Himself's influence as she'd drawn her fingers over the paper. It had been no accident that brought together Nikolaus Drake and Ravin Crosse.
"Himself planned this all along?" Ivan pleaded. "He planned...me?"
"I believe so," she answered. And a sigh was all she could offer.
It pained her to witness the frantic race of emotions crossing Ivan's face. If Himself had intended the two natural enemies to come together, that could only mean he had known the result would be Ivan-his future fixer.
"You can reassure your parents they are not to blame," she tried, and stroked a palm down Ivan's arm.
He flinched, but didn't pull away. "Yes, I suppose."
"I know what you must be thinking."
"Do you? I bet you can't begin to imagine how I feel."
"Betrayed. Tricked. Used."
"Manufactured for evil intent. This is incredible." He caught his forehead in his palms with a smack.
"Do you want me to leave you alone for a while? Maybe I should go find that half-empty bottle of wine we left somewhere in the hallway?"
Dez began to slide from the bed, but Ivan clasped her arm and pulled her to his body. Together they fell to their sides and spooned upon the wrinkled sheets. He drew her tight to his chest.
"Just be with me," he whispered. "I need you."
And they lay there for an hour or more while the room grew gray with shadows. Dez sensed when the coercion prickled into her lover's psyche, for he briefly stiffened, sucked in a gasp, almost pushed her away, but yet, then drew her even closer and kept an iron embrace about her arms.
She knew there was great danger with the book lying exposed on the bed while she lay in the arms of the fixer.
But at this moment, Ivan Drake needed her more than she needed to defeat Himself.That's your heart speaking. You may like to think beyond the spell now, witch.
No, she didn't want to. Dez would much rather be where her heart intended than anywhere else in the world.
"You can't reverse another witch's spell, can you?" Ivan asked. "You being the keeper of the grimoire? I know no witch can reverse spells that don't belong to them."
"That's not entirely true. But we like others to believe so. Anyone can reverse a spell; they have to be determined and have the right connections."
"Himself?"
She nodded. "You wouldn't want to reverse your parents' love spell."
"No, never. I would cease to exist. And despite my trials, I wouldn't sacrifice a day with you for freedom from a thousand years of suffering."
And she felt the same. Was this love? It didn't happen so quickly. Did it?
No. Not in twelve hundred years had it ever happened like this.
"I was wondering about the Protection spell." Ivan blew softly across the back of her shoulder. "Do you think another witch could reverse it?"
Dez tensed in his arms. Her muscles stretched along his relaxed torso and her nipples tightened even harder, slipping from his loose touch.
"If it's too risky," he said, "we don't have to talk about this anymore. It must be nearing sunset. Christ, it's already dark."
He sat up abruptly. Dez turned to embrace him, but the black design looming but inches from her face stopped her.
"You don't feel the coercion?" She traced a finger down the back of his neck. Did the black tattoo move? Quiver at her touch?
"Not at all."
Was he lying? She had known the moment darkness had fallen specifically from his reaction to it.
Follow your heart.
She felt so close to him, more than the blissful comfort sex had granted. She could relate to his betrayal in a way he could never imagine.
"I need to show you something," she said in the smallest voice. "To share with you. It's been so long since I've ever felt so close to a man."
Her eyes traced his, seeking, wanting.