Chapter 12

Mina awoke violently. Her gasping for air soon turned into coughing as the oxygen stuck in her throat. Rushing to her side, I pulled her hair away from her face and carefully, sent my tendrils of power into her slowing down her breathing and easing her cough. Her silence didn't stop my hands from rubbing her back and hoping to calm down her sudden shock of reality. Her large gold-brown eyes turned to me and her hand reached up to trace the scar Shelia had left. A smile that would make the sun's radiance dim in comparison met my worried gaze.

"Castor, Oh god. It's you," were her only words before pulling me to her. Her mouth was insistent as her hands tried to bring me closer to her. She fell back onto the bed pulling me on top of her as she continued to try to find a way to bring me nearer to her. She seemed to want to drown herself in me as her need grew with each passing second. Her lips pulled away only to catch her breath and her eyes glittered hungrily at the sight of me.

"Mina, you've only just woken up. I don't think this is..." she stopped me from saying anything else by sealing my mouth with another deep kiss. It was a tease, a dare to stop when my own desire was making me lose control.

"Are you sure?" a last attempt at gallantry.

"I should've done it from the start," she replied as her hands found my zipper. My last thought facing my fast consuming need was I hope she doesn't regret this later.

Bliss was the feeling I had when I woke up with my queen laying on my arm sleeping beside me. Her arms enfolded my waist and her face buried itself in my chest as I tried to get up. Not sure of what her reaction was going to be when she woke up for the second time, I endeavored to get out of her grasp without waking her. It wasn't possible. I felt her power enter me as her unconscious mind sensed my escape making all of my thoughts of leaving seem inconsequential and more of a passing thought. I couldn't counteract without bringing her back up to the surface of consciousness but I didn't want to have her despise me for taking advantage of her weak moment. I tried to console myself with the reasoning she had accepted it but I knew it wouldn't be the only emotion she had upon waking. I tried to make the most of my happiness but the impending dread I felt spread deep into the sunshine of the feeling and colored it a dark purple.

"She won't hate you," the gardener's voice gently voiced in my mind and I started unable to grasp the fact he had spoken to me.

"Where are you? She'll be looking for you next," I informed him but he seemed to already know by his silence. It stretched out so long I began to believe he had left my thoughts when he spoke again.

"You must keep my identity a secret. She has to find out on her own or else she won't be able to come to terms with who I am," He instructed me. I sighed. This had been going on for hundreds of years before I had come into play but these two always made things difficult for each other.

"I will but at least give her a hint. I don't want to see her suffer," I pleaded from my creator. His silence once again fell but it seemed unhappy at the prospect of her worry.

"Fine. Tell Nil to look into the library for files on his father. No, better yet, let me do it. I haven't entered his dreams in a while. He usually has such horrific ones I can't even grasp how he's managed to survive all these years without breaking down into some pit of despair," his praise of the young Ace led me to believe he cared deeply for him. If by some chance the man had actually sired him it would led to a much greater conflict than even Mina could bring about. Shelia would be furious. Her anger wasn't a pretty thing to be ignored as time and practice had shown us.

"Protect him," was my only reply to which I felt the link recede from my mind as he left me to my personal thoughts.

Taking comfort in the Gardener's reassurance, I wrapped my free arm around her waist as she stirred to life.

"Castor?" her voice was groggy as she tried to assess the situation. Her arms pulled away from me as she rubbed her eyes in an way to wake her up some more but without any actual effect.

"I'm here Mina," I replied and she looked up at me. She blinked owlishly a couple of times before snuggling back into my chest.

"Is it nighttime?" an innocent question making me wonder if she was avoiding raising the topic of what had occurred.

"No. It's roughly nine in the morning," I answered removing my arm so that I could get up. I rolled over to search for my pants when she laid her head against my back. Stiffening at the touch, I waited for her to say something.

"Did you hate it?" her words were uncertain, melting any resolve I had of not looking at her. Turning on the light, I faced her to find her fretting over my answer.

"Not at all. I enjoyed every second of it but I didn't know if you hated it or not," I admitted. Her eyes widened and she wacked my arm with a scowl.

"I made all that noise and you thought I hated it?" she asked incredulous. The memory of her made a sheepish grin turn up my lips and a warm smile greeted it.

"To think we've only been apart a couple of centuries and it's made us this unsure of our relationship. Such a waste of time," she shook her head and lightly kissed me before turning over to search for her own missing clothing.

Once all clothes and accessories were found and accounted for, she stretched.

"I think today's going to be a good day," she asserted and winked at my bemused expression. Leading the way out of the room, she walked towards the door only to have it fly open. Nil stood there shivering in his pajama bottoms trying to catch his breath holding an older leather bound book with yellowing pages. The Gardener had always been a quick worker.

"What's wrong?" alarm entered her speech as she took in the harried appearance of the Ace. Gesturing for him to take a seat, she sat in front of him while I took my spot behind her. She didn't like that. Her hand reached up to take a hold of my shirt and I saw her point to the seat next to her. Deciding it wasn't worth fighting over, I fell to her whim and sat beside her. Nil watched this exchange without any comment but the appearance of a smile colored his face and the worry seemed to drain away from him.

"So what's wrong?" she repeated bringing both of us back from our thoughts and into the previous unanswered question.

"I think the Gardener entered my dream last night," he said seriously. Confused, my queen frowned at him.

"Entered your dream? What did you dream about?" she asked curiosity mingling with entertainment. Amusement wasn't something the Gardener got from her but I had to agree that entering Nil's dreams seemed a bit extreme even for him however he had already told me he had so I didn't doubt his word.

"It started out like any other dream I had murder, rape, torture, and overall killing wreaking havoc but it started to change when I hid myself inside of a house. I didn't feel scared any more. Although it wasn't so much as fear that I usually felt, it was more of a sense of distance. In any case, I was inside this house, an antebellum styled one, and I started looking for something. I don't know what I was searching for but I really needed to obtain it. The first floor didn't show it so I moved to the second story. I looked in all of the bedrooms and a study before I came to the last door. Behind that door was a library. My father sat there at a chess board like he used to when I used to get home from school and he glanced up at me and smiled.

"'Nil! Welcome home! Come play a game of chess with me,' he told me and so I sat down completely forgetting what I was looking for. We didn't talk but let the silence that we used to have settle between us. He looked just like I remembered him and when he caught me staring he smiled.

'What's wrong?' he asked me and I couldn't take it any longer.

'Aren't you dead?' I asked but he only laughed at me.

'If I'm dead then how can I be in your dreams? You only dream of the living,' he replied and I knew he was right. I've never dreamed about a dead person before. Even my nightmares are focused on the living. Anyway, he just laughed and handed me this book," Nil said gesturing to the book he held in his hands. His words were tumbling out with a quickness that surprised me. One over the other and without any of the grammatical acuity that he usually took pride in. He was seeming more and more like a high school boy instead of the Ace of Spades he had so earnestly tried to be. I hadn't realized the boy could get so emotional over something but then dreaming about a dead loved one does that to you. Then again, if my original conclusion was right then his father wasn't dead but simply hiding.

"The last thing he said to me before my dream ended was that I was supposed to find him," he ended miserably. His unhappiness at having his father taken away from him yet again wasn't something that Mina could forgive easily. I saw her hands clench in the corner of my eye and hoped that I never had to leave her again. She might kill me if I did.

"Why do you think that it was the Gardener who gave you the dream?" she asked not unkindly but I could hear the skepticism in her tone.

"Because when I woke up, I found this book next to my bed with a note attached," he replied dryly handing over the piece of paper.

"Search for what you wish to find and it will come to you?" she muttered reading the words from the message. She glanced at me.

"Do you know what this means?" she asked searching my face for some sort of clue.

"I'm guessing he's supposed to look for his father," I shrugged stating the obvious.

"But why? Why would the Gardener give him this book? What does he hope to gain from telling Nil where his father is?" she voiced her concerns turning the paper over in her hands as if it would unveil the secrets to my creator's mind. It gave no such answer.

"Maybe the Gardener wanted him to find his father so that his father can lead us to him?" I phrased my hypothesis as a question more than a statement knowing that it may or may not get accepted by my queen.

"That's not a bad theory but why?" she repeated confounded. I was surprised that she didn't know the answer.

"Because he misses you."