CHAPTER FORTY-ONE-FORTY-THREE

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The next few days were sheer bliss for Count Samsidion and me. We rekindled, reconnected and shared everything as though it was the day that we were together. I know that he found all of my ramblings so unbelievable but as my memory bulleted, the stream of reminiscences came through clearly. I could hardly believe all of this. But now that I knew who I was, my skin gloved into familiar territories that left me just spell bound. Samsidion and I walked through the meadow hand in hand. There was a heavy silence between us and I wanted to broach the subject but secretly I knew what was weighing him down.

Eventually the chill was biting through my skin. I let go of his hand and linked my hands through his arm. He was a taciturn nuclear of ice but like the time I was Gabrelle, I adapted and still found him to be the gentlest man ever to walk the earth.

"Is something weighing you down my love." I was beginning to sound like the old me and he stopped to bury his eyes into mine. The love shone through and he smiled gently at me.

He took his time before answering me and my heart dropped, almost stopping to beat. "You know me so well." He was pointed in his reply but evident to being evasive. He just shook his head and dragged me down into the thickened carpet of the fresh grass. Holding me firmly into his arms, he allowed his lips to graze my hair. "I am still in the fits of shock that this miracle has happened." He was so openly in awe that I felt this frisson of emotion contour inside the volume of love that was trending inside of me.

"Now we can be together forever." I was over optimistic and even as I spoke out the words, I knew that there were too many narratives that would bind the forces into a negative.

His lips curled into a streak of ominous despondency. His eyes melded from red to dark. He only did that when he was with me. "You will have to go back home, Athena." I loved the way that he knew that I was Gabrelle but he maintained my current name. Sometimes I did drag myself into overthinking and wondered if he did not want to just ignore the fact that I was her. My heart was pounding with pain because I knew that his words were a solid fact.

"Sam," tears were welling into my eyes. "I know but it is going to be rough on me to be separated from you." He took hold of my face and cupped my chin, looking me deeply into my eye.

"For me it is going to a torture like you can never believe but at least this time I will be able to know that you will be going in a good way to people that you call your own."

I agreed with him and placed my head on his shoulder. He reciprocated and cradled me with love.

"It is Thaneus." He confessed abruptly and I shot up straight because I was concerned about my younger brother-in-law.

"What about him?" I questioned as he faltered.

My Count was stalling but I showed him the patience that he needed to open up his guarded thoughts to me. He took his time and then his confession came. "He has been burnt by the sun."

This took me by disbelief. "The amulet that I ensorcelled for the two of you." My eyes instantly fell upon Samsidion`s and it was intact.

"He misplaced his and the spare was stolen." There were glowing embers of worry as he spoke. I could not place the pieces of the spell together in my mind.

"My grandmother`s book." I spoke out aloud.

He was quick to rebuttal. "It was all confiscated by the clergy people. My mind was on over drive. Now I understood the reason that I was sent back here. Samsidion needed me but it was Thaneus that needed me more.

"Can we get it back?" It was a tall order but I had to take my shot.

He shook his head. "They burnt all of your belongings including the cottage that you lived in."

A gasp got caught in my trachea and I coughed out before I could choke. An anger that was dormant inside of me refueled to regenerate.

"I had hurt no one." I spat out. "Who the hell gave them the right to steal my life." The passion was there and I would be dismissive if I did not admit just to myself that hate was becoming my best friend.

"I feel the same darkness as you, my beloved." Samsidion had read my thoughts and I turned to face him.

"It does not matter that I am here with you now but it matters that they had robbed me off an identity that gave me a space in this century." I was power ploughing through the pile of garbage that we had to endure.

"Monsters!" He growled. "They deem to worship a God that has only love and they call my kind demons of destruction." If my Count could manifest saliva and spit then he would, instead his fiery passion ran through the vine of his words. "My kind of people have no intentions that are poor and untoward. We just want to exist until a moment comes when we have that choice surrender to an eventual finality." I heard him and I understood him fully. The dark side in me was rising from anger and at this stage I cared nothing about being a good person.

"Vengeance is the courage that orders for a rejuvenation of peace." This was not Athena that spoke but Gabrelle. When I revisited the motions of the atrocious ordeal those monsters put me through, I knew that they should not be spared to undermine another person. More specifically I will never allow them to hurt another witch. I know my love had read my mind and he confirmed it seconds later.

"You are right my love." He grabbed hold onto me tightly in solidarity. "We need to help Thaneus first and then we deal with the enemy." If wicked was a name, it was going to my middle name. Athena needed to step back and Gabrelle was no more. I was caught up in between the two worlds and I knew that exoneration will be given.

I turned to look at my husband. "I know exactly how we going to make them pay."

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

I felt suffocated being couped up in the castle but Samsidion said that it was necessary for me to be out of sight. Even the servants in the castle where much fewer than I had remembered and when I asked the Count, he explained that it was a risk to keep people that were unfamiliar. I went into the library and ran my fingers through the spine of the books. There was a reason that my memory was tricked into coming to this array of writings but for now my explanation was stumbling. Samsidion had confessed to me the night before that Count Thaneus was on the hide out in a little cabin deep in the neck of the woods. Any exposure, he will highly likely be killed or he would die. The pressure was mounting inside of me and I knew that I was the key to saving him. If I could only remember the first line of the spell then perhaps, I could remake amulets. I also needed to formulate a spell to heal the Count`s burns. I did not want Samsidion to be subjected to the murder of his own brother neither did I want him to be caught out. I paced and paced but still nothing came to me.

"Grams," I was groaning and then an apparition, wraith like appeared before me. It was not the grandmother that I was accustomed to. Similarly, the resemblance was blanched out until a reality shook me. My current father`s mother and Gabrelle`s grandmother was one in the same. Like a poof of smoke, the apparition left me. That is how we are all connected. I was a bit sad that my, meaning Gabrelle`s mom had not resurfaced. "Grams," I whispered into the breath of air. "Just guide me through the journey." There was nothing and I sincerely did not know what I was expecting. I was still in a whirlpool called a turmoil when my Count walked briskly into the library. He took a seat right next to me and I felt him tense. This time I did not nudge him to speak out, he was self-serving.

"There is chatter in the village that a girl looking the same as the witch that was burnt roams the meadows." I sucked in my breath. This was surreal and I waited for him to finish. He took my hand and squeezed it.

"I won`t let them hunt you like an animal and destroy you for a second time." He was knotted in sincerity and I felt proud to be associated with him. I also noticed that he cared nothing for himself. "I do not think that there is anything that we can do for Thaneus." My heart somersaulted as though I was being bludgeoned by a stack of bricks.

"No! NO!!" I found an inner strength and I willed myself to be adamant. "I have come here to be of help and while I was locked once more, I was had temporarily strayed away from my mission." He saw the pleading in my eyes and the words gutted from my core. "I need a little bit of time."

He was unconvinced. "Elle," Yes there was a lump in his throat and my heart beat accelerated. He had completely accepted me as Gabrelle. Now I knew that I can never fail him. I looked him straight in the eye. I retired all the BS. I cupped his cold cheek with my right fingers.

"I need a few days and I will help your brother." He knew that I was compounded by sincerity but all I saw was worry in his face.

"I do not wish to live this life anymore." His admission was clear. "When you were gone, I took solace in my family and then my mother was gone." He paused. "Yes, she was not the best person in this world but she was still my mother." I shook my head in understanding and as his wife my support will always be there. "My brother was the only link that I have to this world and he is deteriorating." He was forlorn in spirit and I hated seeing my Count so depleted off encouragement. I opened my mouth to speak but he was not finished. "You are back now but I cannot selfishly keep you here. You need to go back and live your life with your new family."

His spat-out words hurt me to no avail and I hated the fact that he was regrouping in his own opinion to decide upon my life. I had to break through his arrogant blockade and count myself into the making of the decisions.

"In my world Sam," I used his name in short form to lay the foundation that I can now own my own identity. "The world that I have risen to gives woman rights."

"I do not quite understand." I knew that and I was prepared to adjust and explain.

"The 21st century is a house that gives woman the rights of dominance." Lol he was aghast but I kept a straight face. "She can stand up in opinion to any man and she even goes out into the world to provide a living for her family."

"How is this possible?" While I loved my husband, I was not going to allow him to bully me.

I went all wry on him. "If you fight the will to live and keep your patience then one day we shall meet in that world and you can see for yourself." I felt the conviction of my words and I knew that Count Samsidion and I would always be destined to be together. "For now, I just need your trust and I will listen and keep to the confines of the castle until I can break my mental barrier to help Count Thaneus."

He was sinking in the new information but not without questions which he never voiced out. That was fine by me.

"Take me the dungeons where we performed the first rituals." I did not think that but something persuaded my mind to go back to the past. I was beginning to evolve and understand that I was made this way. Denying my craft would be a waste of time. Something nagged me to revisit what I already knew and now I knew that my grandmother`s book was needed but it was not a necessary. There was a plant that kept creeping into my thoughts and it belonged to the mythology of India. I had studied it during my school days and I knew that it kept popping into my head for a supreme reason.

"Let`s go down to the dungeons." My Count had read my thoughts and he was just as eager as I was to put a lid on the problem. The sooner I accomplished my task then no sooner I would go back home. I should be tearful and sad but something told me that this time my life would be different. We walked through easily enough with the burning torch being a beacon of light. When we got to the room it remained the same. The cauldron was not there in the middle but I suspected it was the same one seated at the corner and covered with the cloth. My eyes dilated as the memories became vivid as the silver moonlight of last night. I felt as though this moment was the transpire of the last. I closed my eyes and a shock of rainbow came swirling through me. The Countess Arabella, the two Counts and I was the one that commanded the room. Closing my eyes brought me to the realm of that life and perhaps concentration will allow for the memory of the chant to come back. I was immersed in my own thoughts but there was nothing that would tie yesterday to today. I was awakened by a gentle push against my shoulders. I was resisting but the shaking became urgent. My eye lids sprung open and for a moment I was blind. I shut my eyes and opened it once more. Count Samsidion looked at me all worried but the glow of his features made my heart hammer against my chest. How will I be able to part away from him again. In a flash my heart soared with love but the shreds and remnants of pain was inevitably there.

"What happened to you?" His concern was overwhelming. I was just for a moment and he was worried.

"I..I," My words were lost and I just wanted to cry because I was failing him. I took the palm of my hand and covered my mouth, stifling a sob. "I saw it all when the magic was awakened inside of me. Oh, Sam." I was gushing and the emptiness that I had been feeling all of my life was suddenly filling up my void. "It doesn't matter what I had been subjected to Sam. I love you and I always will. I can die a hundred more times for you." He was sinking and I helped propped him up.

The frustration of not manifesting tears had my Count in a dizzy spin of unhappiness. He cleared his throat for effect that would allow me to know how deep his feeling was. "I love you enough to know that I can never bare for you to be handled in such a poor manner. I feel betrayed by my own lack of will power."

This was the hurt that I never wanted to feel from any expression coming from him. "OH, Sam, please don't."

"Let me speak woman." He went gruff but I knew that he was covering up the weakness that he was covering up his weakness from me. "I am a Count that yields power but first and foremost I am your husband but I failed you."

I could not bear the way that he was beating himself and that had to come to an end right now. I placed my palm over his lips to silence him because I knew that guilt, he carried will suppress his urge to live. I could not allow him to retreat in doom because I wanted to meet him when I got back home. "It was out of your hands." I consoled him sincerely.

"My brother and I had a plan hatched to save you Elle but then…" he could not complete his word because he cried tearless but vocal emotive offerings.

"I know because I had heard the priest saying to the guard that they had to make my execution soon because he had heard a rumor that you planned on freeing me." It was strange on how vivid that memory was to me.

My Count looked at me strangely. "It was only Thaneus and I had known about the plan to free you." He paused, hoping that it was unbelievable that his own brother would betray him. "Surely my own brother would not do this to me." Upset scorched out of him and then I remembered one more dynamic piece of information but I could not allow him to ever know about it. I will remain mum forever.

"I can give you my word that it was not Count Thaneus that had broken his word to you."

"How can you be so sure about that?"

"Because it was I that had told the priest that you planned to stop my execution and for him to speed up the process.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Count Samsidion looked at me with an incredulous look. That was not all; there was pain on his expression as though someone had sliced his cheeks. Without having any blood, he was bleeding. Before he could say anything, I catapulted his scolding by intervening.

"Please spare me your lecture. I had my reasons." I kept it short and brief. While I displayed a sensation of cool poise, only I knew that pain I endured to hurt the man that I love. If I told him the cruel truth then that would break him and I rather he hated me. "We need to keep our focus intact Sam." I tried my best to pacify him and I hoped that he would forgive me. I went to him and linked my arm through his. "Count Thaneus is counting on us." He nodded but not too a broad spectrum. He was still smarting over the fact that I had sabotaged his plans to save him. I wished that he could think of the consequences had I not diluted his plans. I was counting on the fact that my Count knew me all and he knew that I was not as vindictive as I was projecting. We left the dungeon and as we were heading up the stairs he paused.

"Did being down there awake your memory" He was anxious as I was because from what Samsidion said I gathered that his brother was not doing too well.

I did not feel the need to crush his hope altogether. "Some and I am hoping that it will all come back to me." He just plain nodded and we went up to our bedroom. At the door, he paused. "I will send your lady in waiting with your dinner tray." He had gone aloof on me, and it was killing me. I did not like it when he was this aloof toward me and I know I deserved his poor treatment.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" I did not mean to sound harsh, but I snapped at him.

"No but I thought you would want to have your meal in peace."

I gave him this look that said I was annoyed. "In that case I don't want to eat." Then as a gesture of testing him I added. "Let`s go lie together." Even though Samsidion knew now fully that I was Gabrelle, he made no move to touch me. This was playing havoc with my mind, and I was tempted to ask him if I have been replaced. I remembered that time when he brought that woman to the church gallows to meet me. Perhaps he had taken up with her. I kept quiet as I did not want to spoil for a new argument. I needed to calm down and pacify my Count. Once I complete my task, I would have to return home. It was the law of life. I was lucky to have found this golden opportunity to come and help him.

"You need to keep your strength." He gently let go of me and strode away. I wanted to cry, and I truly wanted to tell him the truth but opening old wounds will solve mysteries, but it will allow for a wound to seep. And for what. It would be all for nothing and totally unnecessary. I went to his bed and sat down. I know ever since he had turned into a vampire, he did not sleep nor did her eat the foods that humans ate. He fed on human blood. That still irked me, but he had promised that he did not kill any human. As promised my Count did send me dinner and it was delicious. I had once asked him in my old life if the servants were not suspicious that he and his brother did not eat. He just grinned at me and said that every now and again they did manage a bite or two, but it gave them no sustenance. It was all for show. I finished up my meal and like clockwork my lady in waiting came and took away the tray. A nondescript female in an ordinary black flowing dress with a hearty apron tied over her chest and stomach. Her hair was covered in crisp white bonnet. She looked young but unfortunately, she was not born with a smile. No matter how much I tried to find chatter with her, she just dismissed me with one-word replies. I had moved on from there and decided that it was best that I did not engage with the help. Samsidion also disapproved of me engaging with the help. I waited for him, but he never came. Tonight, the moon slept and hid away from me, but the lamps lent a shade of welcome to my room. Eventually I decided that I should just go to bed and sleep. My Count was still licking his wounds and trying to keep his distance. It did not take me long to fall into a lifeless sleep until my dreams came alive. I hated the burning part because I had no control over it. Tonight, I was seeing my parents and not my current ones but as Gabrelle. I am always blessed to get good people in my life. As they were bidding me goodbye my pain flowed in the form of tears and soon, I was sobbing to my heart`s content. The etches of Count Samsidion and his brother were coming in like little sketches. I was so smitten and so in love with him. I saw his mother, the Countess Arabella and I smiled at her, but she snubbed me off. It was as though she did not recognize me in the dream. Then the raging inferno of the fire engaged my dream in horror. There was something out there, but the smoke was too thick. The pain was horrifyingly slow and as the fire was sucking at my feet my organs were fighting for survival. It was the same dream that was killing me in my current life. I just could not understand it and I thought it belonged to someone else. Naïve girl that I was I could not fathom it. Now as I fanned out my life, I knew that I was the girl in the nightmare and as bad luck would have it; it was no ordinary reality, it was a real-life occurrence. The fire was hungry and thirsty at the same time for me. He sucked greedily until there was nothing left of me. I screamed my pain that was grown off a stem that had physical excruciating agony, but the emotional turmoil still garnered a replenishment almost three centuries later. I was writhing around, punishing my body by fisting my chest and screaming as loud as I could. Then a pair of strong arms encircled me. There were murmurs of soothing words, but my mind was shut in a deep nightmare. Until an incessant tumbling off my body brought me gasping awake. I was alive and I was in my husband`s arm. It took me a few minutes to grasp the urgency of my existence and then I remembered it all again. This was my second attempt at life. I grabbed onto Samsidion and I sobbed.

"Please don`t let me go." I was begging his forgiveness without asking him directly. He held me tighter; almost crushing me until I winced in pain, and he released me a little.

"Never my Elle," he whispered against my ear and then kissed me on my head. I moved my head so that my face could meet his lips. I was going in for a kiss when he pushed his head back. "Elle, I can`t." Just those three utterances had me broken. What I have suspected was coming to par. My husband had moved on after my death and now I was left in the cold. I pushed him away rather fiercely and walked to the huge window. Moving away the curtain I was greeted with nothing but cold darkness. It was so frustrating, and my knees buckled, and I fell onto the hard floors sobbing an unmanageable ray of cries. Count Samsidion was at my side almost immediately and he picked me up. I fought him and thrashed at him as hard as my little fists could bang against his chest.

"Elle don't do this." He was so loving, but I knew that he was just trying to be nice to me.

I pushed him away. "I don't need your pity Count Samsidion." I brushed my tears with the back of my hand, but they were welling as fast as I was wiping them away. "And don't call me that name. Gabrelle was a foolish girl that was seduced by aristocracy." I wanted no strike that I needed to hurt him as he had hurt me. "I might be her, but I am a different woman now." I punched him hard but as he was made of steel; it was my hand that hurt like hell. I squealed in pain and tried to massage my hand, but he pulled it away and rubbed it with gentility. The room was softly lit by the glow of just one lamp. His eyes were pained while mine wept with disillusion and rejection.

"Just leave me alone." I tried to get my hand back, but his strength was in no comparison to my feeble métier.

"You are behaving like a little child." There was no anger spiking out of his tone. He was trying to appease me the best that he could. "You have to know how much I love you, Lady Athena." He gave me his warmest smile. He had used my current life name in the same sentence as love. It must be true then that he loved me.

I had no words and only managed to squeak out tiny. "You do?"

He let out a bark of laughter that held no thread of sharpness. Instead, he was amused, and he wanted me to feel his love for me. I needed to ask him.

"What about the "Lady" that you brought with you to the basement of the church on the day before my execution?"

"Nothing but an acquaintance." He took a pause and I guess he then realized that he should furnish me with the truth. "Well, before I met you, she came with some benefits."

I wanted to ask him if those benefits were that of her blood or her flesh, but he stopped in time by planting his lips firmly on mine. His kiss was not passionate but affectionate. This was my opportunity to take advantage of the Count. I pressed myself against him and opened my mouth to him. At first, he took what I was offering and relished it until he was hit with the realization. "Lady Athena I cannot. Not now."

"Do you not want me?" My question was so innocent that he bit hard on his knuckle as a growl seized him.

"How can I not want you?" His demand was low but aggravated by passion. "How can I not desire you?" All these were rhetorical questions. "You are my wife. When I look at you, all I want to need is to spread your legs apart and fill you up so that you can be wholly mine." His words were turning me on and I took his hand and placed it inside of my legs. He tried a mini resist but once his fingers felt my juicy flesh, he was enamored by my passion.

"Sam, I need you. I have to have you now or I fear I might die from need." I was raw with need and as I arched my body to his, he hissed out his anguish, scooped me in his arms and carried me to our bed.