Preternatural: An Erotic Paranormal Romance Collection (3 Book Bundle) (9 page)

Shan pinned Yuan to the ground with his weight, as Johnson moved from the door to crouch next to the pair. Struggling in her captor’s arms, Yuan stared at Johnson. “You set me up you son of a bitch!” she hissed at the man, furious.

“Yes, he did,” Yuan heard Shan’s low voice in her ear, “based on my orders. We have been searching for you for some time, little bird.”

Yuan kept struggling, partly because she felt like laying her hands on Johnson, and another, that she be free of Shan’s hold. Shan’s strong arm pinned her hands behind her back as he tried to soothe her struggles, yet she wouldn’t stop trying to free herself.

“Calm down, little one. I won’t hurt you,” Shan said, “but we can’t allow you to leave either. Not yet, anyway.Besides, if you keep wiggling like that, you will have more to deal with than just my annoyance.”

Yuan stilled with that comment, feeling for the first time, Shan’s aroused response to her proximity. Her own, already feverish body began to heat further in answer to a primal desire that she was completely unaware existed. Then she began to shiver, her fever now  turning into chills.

Shan, feeling her vibrations pressed his cheek gently to hers, and feeling her fever backed away instantly. “You aren’t well, little one. You need to be back in bed.”
Moaning in agreement, Yuan allowed herself to be picked up in Shan’s mighty arms and carried down the hallway, back to the bedroom she had just exited.

The chase and wrestling match had taken more out of Yuan than she had realized. She was very exhausted and was swiftly growing sicker. “Stay here, little bird,”  Shan said.

“Rest, and when you wake up Lauren will take care of you. Then we will try to explain what is going on here.”

Tenderly, Shan placed her on the bed, and then smoothed the covers over her, tucking them in closer to her tiny frame.  She began to ponder how and why she had been sourced and kidnapped by Johnson and Shan.

Yes, a kidnap it was alright. It was not about the job Johnson had talked her into. Stealing the silver chest was definitely a deceit to bring her in. But why?

“What is it that you want me for… that you are willing to throw one million dollars away for,” she asked him slowly, almost in a murmur.

She worried that it might be her life, but then the reasoning that if that was the case, Johnson could have got it done with at their first meeting when her guards were down rebuffed that. Also, there was this tenderness with which Shan had brought her in and laid her down just then. He cared enough to cover her from cold.

Was there not a not so well concealed care in his voice when he found out she was running a fever? Her mind kept wandering to a million and one other reasons of which she could never be certain. Amidst these thoughts, feeling more tired than she had realized, Yuan soon fell asleep.

When Yuan awoke, Lauren was sitting next to the bed on which she lay, a bottle of cold medicine and a big bowl of soup on a tray sat upon a table next to her. “I’d warn you not to run again, Miss, but considering how you are feeling I don’t think that’s very likely right now.”

Lauren smiled at Yuan kindly. “Besides, Ruger there, you’ve already met him, is watching the door for me, and there’s no moving him when he’s decided otherwise.”

Looking over at the door, Yuan saw a giant brindle mastiff lying directly in front of the exit, his head resting on his paws. That must have been the dog that crashed into her when she was trying to steal the chest, Yuan thought.

Lauren was right; she was in no shape to try another escape attempt. Instead she allowed the woman to help her take the medicine. Then much like a small child, Lauren fed her, spooning warm chicken broth into her dry, fevered mouth.

As the two women sat alone, Lauren made efforts to cheer her up but Yuan was too focused on the reality of her hostage situation to really loosen up. After a while, Lauren decided to tell her an old folktale. “Once there was a mighty king, who deeply loved a maiden in his village,” she began.

“The maiden was from a family of healers who cared for the local holy shrines, Lauren continued. “The king, on return to his village from his many battles, set eyes on this beautiful maiden and was love struck. He could not find any other thing beautiful enough to live for other than her. Their little friendship began and like a shooting star their love grew in leaps and bounds.”

She took a breath and continued, “With time, the maiden loved the king so much more than she ever could imagine from the onset. Everywhere they went, they went in each other’s company and they were never seen apart. The villagers were amazed at the intensity of such love being expressed and emanating from the heart of a king, a warrior, a man of the sword and shield.”

Lauren looked at her sick listener who motioned for her to continue. “Before long, the king sought permission to wed his beloved from her father, and it was granted. It was an easy decision really for the father as he had seen and was glad about the joy and ecstasy that had come to be in her daughter’s life since the king started coming to see her and was more than happy to ensure his daughter had that for the rest of her life.

Preparations for the wedding were made, and the entire village rejoiced to hear the news of the match.”

“The lady,” Lauren continued,  “though happy, was also worried. She knew her beloved’s life as a king was a dangerous one, and that her happiness might be ripped away if her husband were to be killed in battle. She loved him so much that she could not stand the thought of ever losing him.  So she begged her sister, who was a mighty priestess, for a blessing of luck to ensure that her love, the mighty king, would be successful in all his battles and not come to any harm of any kind.”

“The sister,” Lauren said, “who knew her sister’s love for the king was well aware that should any misfortune befall her sister’s heartthrob, that her sister would rather join him, than live without him. Thus she obliged her dearest sister.”

“Bring me his dagger” the priestess said to her sister, “and I will place a blessing upon it, so that as long as he wields the blade, he shall never be defeated.”

“Overjoyed, the maiden decided she would take his dagger in secret, so that she could return it, blessed with luck, to her beloved on the day of their marriage. She intended to offer this unique gift to him as a surprise,” then Lauren hesitated for a moment and took a drink herself.

“And so the maid crept by night into her beloved’s abode, determined to take the dagger from him as he slept.  Being a man of battle, the king kept his dagger always at his side, so even as he slept the blade rested near at hand. The maiden snuck up to the side of her lover’s bed and reached across him to take the blade from its sheath. She had hardly picked it up, when having felt the movement, the king awoke, his warrior’s instinct telling him he was about to be attacked. He wrested the dagger from the thief’s hand and plunged it straight into her heart in defense, too late realizing, he had just killed the love of his life.”

“In grief, the king carried his beloved to the temple of her family, begging her sister to use her holy magic to return his beloved to life. However, the priestess,” Lauren went on, “though powerful, was not so strong that she could restore life to the dead. Instead, deeply grieved she took the dagger from her sister’s breast, and spoke both blessing and curse upon the king. She would respect her sister’s wishes – he would not die in battle of a wound, nor of age and infirmity as a normal man should. Instead he would live, undying and unloved throughout the ages, his heart sealed within the dagger he had used to slay his lady.”

“There would come a day,” Lauren continued, “when the maiden would be reborn into the world… as the thief he had mistaken her for. And if she could take possession of the dagger, knowing it for what it truly was, then the memory of her past love would be returned to her, and the couple would be reunited to live the life they had been denied by his actions. The priestess plunged the bloody blade into the king’s chest, straight into his heart.”

Lauren hesitated a second before she went on, “Though the strike should have killed him, it did not. Instead, when the priestess pulled the blade from his chest, the blade pulsed, beating in time with his trapped heart. She then sealed the dagger within a sacred chest, made from silver and trimmed in gold. And there it waits still for the maiden to reclaim it.” Lauren’s voice trailed off to a stop.

“Shan Li is that king,” Lauren said. “You, we believe, are the maiden from his past, reborn to free him from the curse set upon him so many years ago.”

Yuan stared at the woman, who had clearly lost her mind.  She must be mistaken if Shan had told her that and she believed it. It was most likely that Shan had put her up to this.  Whatever it was she thought she was doing, her hypnosis, if that was what it was, was not working.

“Yuan, I know you don’t believe me, but no one except Lord Shan has been able to touch that chest since the dagger was sealed within it over two millennia ago,” she continued.

“You will believe me, soon enough.” Lauren nodded her head sagely, and taking the empty soup bowl exited the room, stepping carefully over the large, sleeping dog.

Lying back down, Yuan sighed to herself. Clearly she had been captured by a bunch of loonies. Rich loonies at that, if they could spend a million dollars to lure her here in the first place. What were they trying to have her believe, she wondered in her cold addled state of mind?  That she once existed about two millennia ago and that the handsome young man, Shan Li, had walked the earth for two millennia already without aging?

She just dusted off the story as an ordinary tale; they must be just ridiculous to even think that she could be so easily brain-washed. As the cold medicine began to work, Yuan heard more movement outside the door.
Shan put his head inside the door frame. “Lauren told me she shared my story with you?”

Yuan nodded, though the look on her face clearly told him she didn’t believe a word of it. “I can understand that you might think it pure fantasy,” Shan agreed.

“I have a deal for you. though. Hear me out and keep an open mind. If you would just come back to my bedroom, open the chest and take the dagger. Once you do that, if afterwards still feel the same way you do right this minute about everything Lauren has revealed to you, then you are free to leave if you like. You will even be paid the remainder of your fee. I just can’t let you leave before you try.”

Although she was skeptical, Yuan agreed. Why not? At this point, if it would free her from this crazy house, then she would play along. For one, she didn’t believe anything was connected to her in this and just as she has seen, if they are silly enough to try such funny brainwashing on her in the hope that it would work, then they just might as well let her go realizing this had nothing to do with her, whatever it was.

Whistling to Ruger, to make the huge dog move from his guard post by the door, Shan walked to the side of her bed. Gently he helped Yuan up, and led her down the hall to his bedroom. When they reached the huge room, he backed away, allowing her to enter on her own. Shaking her head over the silliness of the scene, Yuan walked back over to the silver chest.

She again touched the silver chest, which now seemed oddly warm beneath her fingers, not the cool metallic form she was expecting. Then she frowned. It couldn’t be possible, but the silver chest seemed to begin thumping with her touch, as if she had her hand upon a man’s chest, feeling his heart beating through skin and bone. She looked back at Shan, who nodded at her, encouragingly. Biting her lower lip, Yuan opened the chest, to find a tiny ornate dagger lying on a bit of fabric, gleaming within it’s silver resting place. Hesitantly she reached down into the chest, and picked up the blade.

As soon as her fingers closed around the hilt, a lifetime of memories flooded through her. Everything that had happened which she didn’t know of prior to then came to her like the rush of many waters. It was all before her now; in fact she relived it in those few seconds, as if in a flash. The first time she had met Shan, the fierce love that had been built between them as he courted her. The first time they had made love, after she had snuck out of her house to meet him. The joy of watching as Shan sought permission from her family to marry her, and her father agreeing to his request. And finally that night, the terrible night when she had snuck into Shan’s home to steal his blade…

Yuan gasped as she again felt the sharp pain of the knife wound slice right through her chest. Crying out, the dagger fell from her grasp, and Shan rushed to catch her. It was real; it was all real to her now. She came to the realization of everything in mere seconds. Everything they had just told her was true!

Shan held her close as the echo of that old pain faded away from her body. “I remember… I remember everything. Oh, Shan!”

Her beloved held her as she wept, and when their lips met in a kiss, she could feel his heart begin to beat within his chest, in time with hers. She was just as she had lived her life before, totally in love with Shan again. Amazed that someone had loved, and still loved her, that much, and yet she didn’t know.

“I am sorry about that night,“ said Shan. “I very much wanted to tell you how sorry I am; over and over again but you couldn’t hear because you were gone for so long. Now that I have you back, I will never lose you again, never to leave your side and will never let any harm come to you; oh, not ever.”

“Oh Shan, you need not worry about it anymore” said Yuan. It was only an unfortunate accident which fate burdened us with – but I am here now; we have each other. We can do whatever we wish with our lives now,” she said.

“Yes, and I have only one wish my dear,” answered Shan. “That we spend the rest of our lives together; Marry me?” Down on one knee, he stretched out his right hand to her.

She smiled looking into his deep green eyes; taking his hand she replied, “Where is the ring? You haven’t got one but it’s a ‘yes, alright’. Yes, I will marry you,” she repeated.