His Captive Mortal A Vampire Romance - Renee Rose Page 0,49

cuckolded him, after all.

Damn him—why did he have to materialize in her room when she had a young man in her bed? An Adonis-beautiful, wealthy young man, no less, who paid her to teach him how to pleasure a woman. She’d expected Charles’ fury. Perhaps part of her had even craved it as proof of his love for her. She had thought she might have to protect the boy from murder, imagined a delicious dramatic scene in which she would use her feminine wiles to distract him. Perhaps she hoped he’d beat her mercilessly with the riding crop.

But leave her? Non et non!

Bitter tears burned her eyes. She hated him for this. How would she go on without him? She had no one in the world who cared for her now. No one at all.

She hurled a silver pitcher at her looking glass, shattering it.

Damn him.

She would show him. She would best Madame de Olivier and her traitorous vampire.

Summoning the full force of her anger and pain, she collected it in her gut, drew it up her center column and down her arms to her hands. Picturing Charles naked with the Olivier bitch, she hurled her curse, striking his cock with a magic more potent than she’d ever wielded, punishing him for all of eternity for scorning her.

She wrapped her robe around her with a snap.

“Adieu, Charles. You will never take pleasure with another woman, so long as you live.”

Aurelia

I sit up in bed, trembling.

Anka. And the curse.

Why was I dreaming as if I were Anka? To help heal Charlie?

I pull the blankets up around me as if they could stave off the chill within. Even as I think it, I know it’s not true. That feeling. That panic Anka experienced over being left by him was way too familiar. It perfectly mirrored my own the night before. I thought my anxiety about his leaving seemed overblown, and now I understand. Something deep inside me knows the truth. Fork. I’ve always known it. I fell in love too quickly. Had trusted too wholly. Had ached more than the situation warranted.

Charlie didn’t find me by accident. I am Anka. Or I was in a past life.

I know it on a cellular level.

The thought terrifies me. How could I have done something so terrible to him? And what would happen when he finds out? He’s just beginning to trust me, to open up and share his vulnerabilities. How could he ever forgive me for what Anka did to him?

I climb out of bed and walk to the shower on shaking legs. Turning on the water, I stand under it, numb.

I never gave much consideration to karma. My nana taught me to believe in past lives, and I do but more as a concept that doesn’t really concern me. I know I came into this life with quirks—everyone does. Things that couldn’t be explained by life experience. People have irrational fears of water or choking. A hatred of men or screaming children. A sensation of never having enough time.

My nana always said people in our lives are the same people from past lives—family members are recycled into different roles. Lovers become parents in the next life, children become sisters or brothers. I don’t know how that works with the immortal, but I know for certain Charlie walked back into my life for a reason. And healing him is the only way to release the karmic damage Anka instigated.

I sigh and turn off the water. Now that I’ve experienced how Anka threw the curse, can I undo it?

I lean into the emotions of the dream—fury, jealousy, betrayal, pain. I gather it like a ball around me, hold out my hand and picture Charlie. Then I try to suck the piece of it lodged in him back to me, drawing it like a magnet.

I gasp when I feel it move, jumping and quivering. Charlie moans from the bedroom.

Does it hurt him?

I intensify my effort, sweat beginning to gather on my upper lip, the magnitude of concentration all-consuming. The blockage continues to quiver. Charlie cries out in pain, busting up my concentration. The connection breaks, the cork in Charlie grows still. My head throbs in protest, and I fall back against the bathroom wall, exhausted. I open the door and start to get dressed before I remember Charlie’s edict.

I look at the clock. Nine thirty. Crap! I forgot to call in sick to work. Snatching up my phone, I wrap the towel around my torso and