Lilly's Torment(10)

"That I can do, though mine was so long ago I doubt I can recall it with  any true clarity. I will try for you, though, Lilly. Just be warned, it  wasn't as happy as Gavriel's. So perhaps I will share my story first  before I tell you one of his," he said, walking her toward their office.  He shut the door at their backs and nudged her forward. "Settle on the  sofa while I get the blinds."

Lilly forced herself to talk to the sofa. "If this is what you say it is  and I'm not going crazy like I am sure that I am, will we be able to do  something about it?" she asked and looked up with him, agony in her  gaze, mental and physical pain both warring inside of her. "God, I bet  that you are just really hating life because you were settled with not  only a defective human, with my diabetes, but also one that's crazier  than a june bug."

"You are not defective, and I have no idea what a june bug is," he told,  her moving around the office. He turned off all but one lamp before he  joined her on the sofa. Grabbing a blanket, Artaxias shook it out. "Wrap  up in this and snuggle in. You are perfect as you are, Lilly. You are  not crazy, no matter what they might have tried to convince you of. I  will bet everything I have that while you were unconscious, they planted  something in your head. A program of sorts that is controlling you in  these situations. Something not your fault."

"I don't know." She wanted to believe, with all her heart, she wanted to  believe that he was telling the truth, but she wasn't so sure that she  truly could believe. She was defective, and she knew it. She snuggled up  close to him and sighed. "I like that you think that I'm not, though.  It gives me hope." She had only just met this man but already he meant  far more to her than she could ever have imagined, and it was frankly  terrifying.

He pressed a kiss to her hair as he squeezed her closer. "When I was  perhaps just a few summers old, before I began my training, I was on an  outing. The woman who gave me life passed me off to one of the  nursemaids for the day, thank the Gods. She took me to a pond near my  place of birth. I won't say my home, because it never truly was. We went  for a picnic and for a swim," he said softly. "It was the best day of  my life, full of sunshine, laughter, and fun. It was also the last day  of my childhood."

"What happened?" Lilly found herself wrapping in closer to Artaxias. She  found herself needing to be closer to him, to feel him and know that he  was actually there with her. "After your day full of sunshine and  laughter, what happened, Ax?"

"I was sent to be trained in the ways of the Vhampires before me and  after. We are soldiers, mercenaries, killers by trade. We hire ourselves  out to those that have a war they want won yet don't want to waste  their own men. I was placed in a warlord's home and trained hard,  brutally hard, to be the best or to die." He gave a shrug, "I obviously  learned well. I survived many a skirmish on many a world within the  realms. Then I got my rather cushy job of watching after the precocious  Gavriel and keeping him, or rather, trying to keep him out of trouble."

"Wow," she whispered and shook her head. "Does he know that you refer to  him like that?" she asked with a grin. Moving so that she could lay her  head on his shoulder, she asked, "Does it always feel like this? This  comfort, the way that I feel with you two? The attraction and I don't  even really know you?"

"He knows, I've used the term on him more than once." He chuckled  softly. "The rest-" He shrugged. "Mates are naturally comfortable with  one another. Even when they know next to nothing about one another, the  level of awareness is there. It's a visceral knowledge of the soul of  the one that belongs to you."                       
       
           



       

"And that is something that I feel. The awareness, the knowledge that  you guys are mine. It's weird, but I know it. I know that you are mine  and I am yours. I like that feeling. It helps the pain in my head lessen  to know that you are here with me, too." Lilly liked it, too. She liked  the comfort, the feeling of well-being with being there with him. "I  have no idea what happens next, but in this moment in time, I'm happier  than I have ever been in my life."

"First we figure out what's happening with you and who is messing with  you. I know you think this is medically explained. But I honestly  believe that someone is screwing with you. I don't know why, I can't  explain my feeling on this, but I know it, deep down. I've seen a lot in  my time, Lilly, and this is not outside the realm of possibilities, at  all."

"I don't know. I really did lose my marbles there for a time, Ax. I know  that I did. Hell, why else would I wake up in a padded white room in a  straight jacket?" She barked out a laughter born of sorrow, filled with  pain. "I'm crazy as a loon, Ax, and I'm so sorry you have been stuck  with me as a mate."

"You are not crazy," he said softly, his fingers holding her chin  tightly. Not painfully, but he wasn't letting her look away from him.  "You are a sane woman in the middle of something you do not have the  defenses for. A war of sorts, where you are the casualty being hoisted  about. Someone is using you, Lilly, and when I find them … " His eyes  started to glow and his next words sounded harsh through his lengthening  incisors. "I will tear them limb from limb, piece by piece, as they beg  for mercy they will never get."

That had her shivering, but she nodded. Licking her lips, she looked up  at him and said, "I trust you. I know you would never, ever do anything  to hurt me."

Artaxias looked away and let out a slow breath. "Sorry," he murmured a  moment later when he looked her way again, his eyes and teeth back to  normal once more. "The idea that someone is hurting you without you even  realizing makes me angry. I don't tend to get angry very much. It's a  mostly useless emotion for my people since it shows a lack of control.  But for you, I'm more than willing to go through angry to homicidal."

She nodded and then frowned. "I find it odd"-she moved so that she was  once more leaning into him-"that I am not wanting to tap into my phone  at my ear. I find it very strange that I only want to go to a hard line,  not the one that I have inside of me." She didn't understand that. At  all. Why was it that she only wanted to do a hard line?

"Personal lines can't be traced unless you have the identification codes  that are over sixty characters long. The only people that have them are  one representative from the realms and one guy in an AEDA office in  California. Hard lines can be traced, new tech can't be." He was  pointing out the obvious. "They instructed you to call from a landline  because, depending on the information you pass, they then know where to  come and grab you if needed. I'll bet they even have a code word they  can throw into the conversation to put you out and leave you just laying  there waiting."

"I don't like this," Lilly admitted. "At all. I hate that I might be  someone's mole into operations here. Please promise me that if I am  unsavable you will stop me? If I try to hurt you or Gav, you will make  sure that I never do just that? Promise me?" she whispered softly.

"You won't hurt us, little mate. And you are going to be just fine,  we'll figure this out, there is no other outcome acceptable." He shifted  slightly and the lamp went out. Then his arm wrapped around her again.  "Close your eyes and rest, darling."

Lilly did just that. She closed her eyes and relaxed into him. She  sighed happily. "I think that I can do just that," Lilly whispered and  then dropped off into a very uneasy sleep.





Chapter Five




"Hi." Gavriel smiled down at her as she woke. "No, you're not crazy.  Yes, you fell asleep on Ax, but he had to go and do a few things so I  sat in for him." He gave a chuckle at his own words and shook his head.  "How are you feeling, Lilly?" Those words were serious and concerned.

"Like I have been hit by a truck," she admitted softly. "I do not have  any idea what's going on, but I do feel slightly better, so that's a  good thing, right? At least I am not all but climbing out of my skin to  make a phone call," she muttered, more for herself than for him.

"Artaxias mentioned that, and as often as it pains me to admit, he was  right about it being a compulsion. We don't know who did it, so we can't  undo it, not yet. I've made some calls to fellow Spirytes and we're  hoping that, with your assistance, we can figure out what they did."

"I don't know how much help I can be, but I will try. I want to try  because I want to be free of this … well, whatever it is." She wanted to  be free, she wanted to live her life with the men that she thought she  might be able to one day love. She already felt a bond with the two men,  and wanted more.