Page 51

Viggo was quick to catch me before I hit the floor, and he squeezed the back of my neck and then mumbled something under his breath before raking his fingers up into my hair, massaging my scalp as he went, and instantly the migraine started to wane as quickly as it had come.

He continued to hold me and my lashes fluttered and my eyes rolled back in my head as his skilled fingers massaged the back of my scalp.

I couldn't figure out why I kept getting migraines lately, but as long as Viggo was there to catch me, I wasn't complaining.

And just like the other migraines I've had lately, it came and went quickly with Viggo's intervention.

"Things are not as they seem, Ariadne," Viggo whispered, pulling his fingers back down the length of my neck before he started massaging it, deep kneading the muscles at the base of my neck and between my shoulders, and I fought to keep from moaning.

That would have made things even more awkward than it already was, and the last time I moaned when in his arms Viggo quickly shoved me away from him.

"Did you fall asleep?" Viggo whispered against my hair when I didn't say anything or make any attempt to pull away from him.

"Nu huh, it feels amazing," I said with a soft moan.

Viggo gives the best massages.

"Why would you waste your life looking for me?" I mumbled, trying to keep him from pulling away from me, but it was the wrong thing to ask.

Viggo made a soft huffing noise under his breath, pushing me back away from him, before folding his hands together on his lap. "Did you not hear what I said? I have been in love with you since before I was born. It has always been, and will forever be, you, Ariadne. You are the only one I will ever love and will ever be capable of loving!" he snapped at me.

My eyes widened.

That was romantic.

"Time and distance could not change that," he informed me, "and neither will the future regardless of where it takes you or to whom. I am sorry, but I cannot put you in that type of precarious situation like what happened in the pool again."

Viggo got to his feet and headed for the door.

That didn't make sense!

If he loves me and has been in love with me for years, why can't we be together...

"You're promised to someone, aren't you?" I whispered, causing him to stop.

"There is an arranged marriage that most certainly complicates things, one that will not be changed regardless of how hard I have tried," he answered with trepidation in his tone. "And that is what complicates our future."

"When?" I asked, ignoring the tear rolling down my cheek.

"There is still a couple of years before it is to be fulfilled," he admitted, his voice thick with emotion.

I struggled to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat. "So it isn't because you have a micro-penis," I said.

Viggo glared at me from over his shoulder. "Non, it is not," he said with a thick French accent.

I smiled wide.

"That was not an invitation either," he snapped at me, causing my smile to fall. "I will still be there to protect you," he promised. "I will never let anyone hurt you."

"It's a little late for that," I whispered harshly, causing him to regard me.

"I am sorry about the upír and the benandanti. I will not be distracted again."

I snorted, making a face. "That isn't what I was talking about."

In an unnatural show of confidence that pertained to anything other than my Sentinel training, I crawled out of bed and headed crossed the room, backing him into the corner by the door.

"I'm already hurt," I whispered, looking up at him.

Nervous, I bit my bottom lip before sliding my hands under Viggo's shirt causing his breathing to catch in his throat.

"Only you..." I struggled to explain. "Stay with me tonight?" I asked before pulling his shirt up, over his head, before dropping it to the floor.

"Ariadne, I cannot."

"You can't or you don't want to?" I asked.

"Cannot," he clarified to my delight.

I felt a thrill rush through me from his admittance.

"I had another nightmare, as you heard the recap of, and I don't want to be alone tonight," I explained.

It wasn't a lie.

But I knew telling Viggo I wanted to have sex with him wasn't going to get him in my bed either though.

Softly Viggo caressed my head with his large hands before cupping my face, forcing me to look into his eyes. "Behave," he sternly warned.

"Never," I purred, giddy, before pulling him across the room to my bed.

Viggo sighed. "Even after all of these years, I still feel as if I am making a deal with the Devil when you do that," he complained.

"With good reason," I teasingly sang, pushing him back on the bed.

Viggo shook his head. "Are you going to lock the door?" he asked. "I do not have it in me to fight with your brother this morning."

I shook my head, crawling up on top of him, getting a look in return. "No. Besides, you could take Zannie if he felt the need to fight for his baby sister's honor or virginity or whatever."

Viggo's eyes widened.

"I don't like locking my bedroom door," I explained to cover my slip that I just told him, in a roundabout way, that I wanted to sleep with him. "It activates sigils that turn my room into a safe house that I don't like because it blocks my connection with Zannie. If I need someone to hear me, I need them to hear me. Besides, you'll want someone to be able to hear if I make you scream," I teased the latter, wagging my brows.

Viggo shook his head before shoving me off of him by the forehead and I fell over to the other side of the bed. "You are incorrigible," he complained, slipping out of his shoes.

"Okay, that's fair," I agreed, stretching out so I could watch him make himself comfortable on the other side of the bed.

"Quoi?" Viggo asked when he saw me watching him.

I shook my head. "Just watching you get ready for bed... You know what I mean," I added when he cocked an eyebrow.

"Behave," he scolded again.

I smirked. "Jamais," I purred in French and he whimpered.

We stayed up talking instead of sleeping, and it effectively kept me from getting laid.

Viggo was stretched out on one side of the bed, shoes kicked off, shirt still on the floor, with one hand under his head propping it up like a pillow. I was much the same, too nervous to try to seduce him, all of my sexual courage dissipated as the morning went on. I was on my stomach, hugging a pillow, looking at him as he talked. Our bodies were only inches from touching, but neither of us crossed the invisible line stretching down the middle of the bed.

The stories Viggo told me of our shared childhood were so detailed, so full of love and happiness, that it broke my heart because I couldn't remember them...

I couldn't remember him!

If Viggo wouldn't have had the picture, I wouldn't have believed that he was the same little boy from our family vacation, a vacation I didn't remember going on until that moment, a little boy that I didn't remember even being there.

Something was very wrong with me.

I remember spending many days at a time in the French countryside as a child. Zane complained about horses and cows and whatever other animals were around.

I remember that vividly.

But I don't remember Viggo being there.

I clearly remember that I hated his brother Jean-Luc; he was older than us by seven years, and he always looked at me strangely and I didn't like it. I don't think Zane liked it either because he was always extra protective of me when Jean-Luc was around.

But I couldn't remember Viggo for some reason.

Or his sister.

What did that say about me?!

It broke my heart to learn that Viggo's mother died a few years ago in a benandanti and upír attack.

Althea sounded like a fascinating person and her thaumaturgy was amazing; she was a Necromancer Princess of House Thanos, the last and only House of Necromancers with a crown that was acknowledged by the Imperial Court.

The reason for that I wasn't sure of.

That meant her son, Viggo, was the sole crowned Necromancer in our world.

Couldn't get worse than that, could it?

Necromancers were very rare and their form of Thaumaturgy wasn't taught at the Academy. That was the reason why Majandra was able to heal me when I was so close to death. It is also how my migraines kept going away as quickly as they came when Viggo was around; he was healing me with his mumbled words of healing and deep kneading of the cervical paraspinal and occipitalis muscles and massaging along my scalp.

I wasn't complaining about the latter.

I loved it when Viggo massaged my scalp and kneaded the back of my neck and between my shoulders.

Necromancy was a very powerful form of pure Thaumaturgy, the purest form of white magic there was. Their magical artform was considered, by most, to be borderline Devilry if they dabbled in resurrection or reanimating the dead...

And yes, apparently there is a difference.

Again, it was a form of Thaumaturgy that was not taught or even mentioned in any studies at the Academy, and for a reason.

It is powerful white magic, thaumaturgy in its purest form.

Viggo was Althea's only child; his brother and sister were from his father's first marriage to a Vampire Princess of the Sixth House of Vampires so they were step-siblings.

That is why Viggo is a Hemoglobe; Necromancer mother and Vampire father, a beautiful and extremely rare, polar opposite spectrum, blending that gave Viggo all of the strengths and advantages of a Vampire but none of their weaknesses, and the Vampire side magnified his Necromancer side and Thaumaturgy.

That Vampire side could potentially make Viggo the most powerful Necromancer in the world if he studied hard enough.

It wasn't a title he was interested in, to say the least.

I couldn't stop asking questions even after Viggo told me that I was getting very Freudian with my questions.

Since I couldn't remember the past, our past, and our shared childhood, I asked questions about him instead.

I wanted to know Viggo, know all about him even though I will never have him.

A Royal with an arranged marriage was the very worst possible scenario there was, or so I thought.

Truth was, the sole Necromancer Prince, the only crowned royalty of his respective partial race, would have an arranged marriage to one of the First Houses...

Or worse, the heir of the Unified House.

I could never, in any implausible scenario, be able to call Viggo de Babineaux mine.

It wasn't fair to either of us, especially since I couldn't remember him from our childhood.

Viggo loved me and had been in love with me for his entire life, but I couldn't remember him at all.

What kind of person does that make me?

When I admitted that I couldn't remember him, Viggo didn't take offense.

In fact, he wasn't even surprised. He told me things were not as they seemed, just as Majandra had warned me of, so I suspected they had talked about that, and he requested that I never apologize to him for that which I cannot control.

It was unbelievably romantic of him to say, but it made me unbelievably paranoid that he knew something I didn't when it pertained to me and my memories.

Even though I couldn't remember anything about our past and childhood, I knew in my heart that I loved Viggo.

I loved him more than I knew I was capable of loving someone, and that led me to believe that I couldn't remember him because someone did something to my memories, tampered with my mind somehow, but they couldn't keep him entirely veiled from my heart.

The moment I saw him step around that tree, and our eyes met, my heart knew the missing piece was finally back where it belonged.

No amount of Devilry or Thaumaturgy could completely take him from me.

Viggo wouldn't confirm if I had asked him, I knew, so I didn't press it because I didn't want to ruin the morning together.

The sad reality was, even if I could remember him, we'd still have a verboten love.

How cliché was that?

Perhaps not being able to remember him and our childhood would prove to make it less painful when the arranged marriage was fulfilled. A blessing in disguise in a matter of speaking?

I wish I could say it should, but it wouldn't.

Regardless of not remembering our past together, my heart solely belonged to Viggo de Babineaux from the moment I first saw him...

Each of the first times I saw him, and nothing and no amount of time would change that.