Vengeance (40 page)

I
shove back my hair and stare at him, searching for any sign that he
remembers.  As I do, fragments of other memories begin to flood
in.  Some are distorted.  Others vivid.  Images flash
before my eyes in what feels like a backward motion.  A
brilliant flash of light.  The cries of a child in Bastien’s
arms.  Eamon’s sacrifice.  A battle raging on a
distant planet.  Death in the swamp.  Being kidnapped.
 Lying in bed with Eamon.  My wedding. Dreams of Bastien.
 Aloysius’ death.  Bastien saying goodbye.

“Do you
remember anything before today?” I ask hesitantly.

Bastien leans in
close and winks at me.  “I remember this morning at the
falls.”

“I’m
serious.”  I push him back and stare deep into his
sapphire eyes.  “Do you remember a bright flash of light?
 A sound?  A battle?  Anything?”

He
sits up straighter.  “What are you talking about?  Of
course I don’t--” he cuts off and his gaze loses focus.
 I watch as his breathing hitches.  Slowly, like the
dawning of a sun, his expression changes.  The line of his mouth
hardens.  The planes of his face deepen and the man I knew, that
one who bore so much pain for me, raises his gaze to meet mine.

I can feel the
trembling in his arm as he turns to look about him.  “How
is this possible?”

“I
think we went back in time,” I whisper, gripping his hand so
tightly I begin to lose feeling in my fingers.  “Coen must
have been wrong about the spatial anomaly.  I think...I think I
couldn’t see my future because that timeline was done.  Somehow
my children knew that and they triggered the anomaly, using it as
some sort of time transference to send you and me back here.”

My
throat catches and a sob rises into my throat.  Bastien releases
my hand and pulls me into his chest, cradling me.  “They
said they would save me but there was nothing left for me there.
 Eamon was gone.  Toren, Aminah, Kyan, Zahra...we had lost
everyone.”

Bastien’s
adam’s apple rises and falls as he swallows.  I can feel
his pain in the tension in his hands as he holds me.  “I
was never meant to live my life in that time,” I whisper,
knowing even as I say it that it is the truth.  “This is
where I belong.  Where I have always belonged.”

“Shh,”
he soothes, brushing his hand over my hair as the tears come.

I know in my heart
that my children have given me a second chance at life.  A life
that they will never be a part of.  I clutch my hand to my
chest, feeling a wound as visceral and raw as any mortal injury just
beneath the surface.  “I’ll never hold them in my
arms,” I sob and turn into Bastien’s embrace.  

He holds me as the
tears come, until his entire shoulder has grown damp from my tears.
 “They loved you, Illyria.  This is the life they
would have wanted for you.”

“To do what
with?” I pull away and stare up at him through wet lashes.  “To
have to fight for my life?  To be forced to choose between you
and Eamon?  To become a slave to my destiny all over again?”

“No,”
he smiles and cups my face in his hands.  He brushes his thumbs
under my eyes, drying my tears.  “This time will be
different.  You are different.  You have no reason to fear
now but every reason to live.  No destiny can control you.  No
one man can tell you the meaning of your life.  This time you
get to choose your path.”

My
breath catches as Bastien’s words slip deep into my soul and I
begin to feel hope and warmth.  It winds through the chasm of
pain deep within my chest where I thought only cold and darkness
could live now.  I close my eyes, tasting the salt of my tears
across my lips as I realize that my children did more than give me a
second chance.  They gave me love.  

Thank
you,
I
whisper, knowing that in this timeline my children will never exist,
but they did in my former life.  I don’t know how I will
go on without them.  Though I only held my son for a brief
moment, I know both of Eamon’s children are a part of me.  A
piece of my soul that will always be missing.  

Coen warned that
when you alter time things change.  The course of events shift
and new possibilities open before you.  Maybe Bastien is right.
 Maybe this time I can win the coming war before Drakon even
knows what hits him.  Maybe I can restore peace to Calisted and
to Earth without ever having to marry Aloysius.  I don’t
really know what this new timeline has in store for me, but I do know
one thing with every fiber of my being.  Seizing Bastien’s
hands in my own, I tug him close.  “I choose you.”

“Choose me for
what?  If you’re thinking about putting me on dinner duty
when we get back to the cave you can think again. I’m the last
person you want cooking your meal!”

I laugh.  “No.”
 I smile at him, feeling lighter than I have in two years.  “I’m
trying to tell you that I love you, you dork.”

“Whoa,”
his eyes fly open wide in mock surprise,  “it was just one
kiss—a really good one I’ll admit, but there’s no
need to start throwing around the L word.”

I grin and rise up
onto my knees.  His smile falters as I reach up and place a hand
over his heart.  I can feel it racing wildly in his chest.  “You
once told me that you have never loved anyone like you love me.  That
with all your heart you want me to be yours…”

Bastien’s brow
furrows.  “I don’t remember ever being quite that
romantic.”

I press up into him
until our lips are only a few inches apart.  “Do you deny
you have feelings for me?”

“Well…”
he hedges with a smirk.

I wrap my hands
around the back of his neck.  “Just shut up and kiss me
already.”

DESOLATE

Book One of the IMMORTAL ROSE TRILOGY

Prequel trilogy to the bestselling Arotas Series

Available now on all ebook platforms

***

1690, Transylvania

Caro de carne
mea. Os ex ossibus meis. Lorem nocte in saecula saeculorum.

The words whisper
through my mind like a long-forgotten song as my eyes flutter open.
Light and dark battle around me, seeking purchase on the room. Flames
lick the wooden walls, trailing overhead to embrace the knotted
timbers that hold the inflamed roof aloft.

Ash pelts down upon
me like a livid rain, singeing flesh and hair. I cry out as I roll
away from the gaping hole above, beating at the embers that set the
hem of my dress alight.

I pause as my
fingers glide across the rich fabric of my voluminous skirts, seizing
it between my fingers to draw it up so I can see it in the dim light.
The material was once white and adorned with bits of lace along the
hem, accustomed for a wedding. It is now a dingy gray, soiled and
charred into fraying bits. The ruffled hem of my dress crumbles into
ash as I run my finger along it, fluttering down to land upon my bare
feet.

I
had slippers,
I
think as I turn to look about me, confused and dazed by my odd
surroundings.

Heat from the flames
strokes my cheek with mounting intensity. I can feel my eyelashes
beginning to mat together with sweat that drips from my brow. I swipe
the beads away with the back of my hand and realize a fever has
ensnared me.

The air hangs thick
before me, weighted with smoke and the scent of something repulsive,
as if the grave itself spewed forth its inhabitants. I blink to see
through the haze, startled to discover that when I focus, I can see
each particle of ash that drifts to the floorboards, leaving a thick
dusting on everything within sight.

“Hello?”
I call, my throat croaking from the lack of moisture in the air.

My hands tremble as
I push against the floor, attempting to rise. My leg muscles coil and
I am sent careening backward. The wind is knocked from my chest as I
slide down the inflamed wall. The scent of my burning hair stings in
my nose as I crawl forward to escape the sweltering heat.

How
did I jump like that?
I
stare down at my fingers, noting the definition of my skin stretched
taut over pale flesh.

I was never one for
hiding from the sun as some ladies were accustomed to. I lived for
the moment when I could escape the confines of my father’s home
and be free. My mother loved to scold me about my freckles and
sun-kissed skin, though as I turn my hands over, I realize the golden
hue of my flesh has been stripped away.

My gaze trails up
from my hands, pausing over the corded muscles that now lie just
beneath the nearly translucent flesh of my forearms. I poke at the
muscle, bewildered by its presence, though I have only a scant second
to wonder at the changes in my body before I become aware of the
blood that coats my upper arms, vining down to my wrists. I draw my
hands up to my face and see drying blood caked within the
half-crescent circle of my chipped fingernails.

“Hello?”
I call again as I lower my hands and stare in horror at the billowing
smoke before me. The fire has begun to spread to all corners of the
room. I hear movement in the darkened shadows; however, I cannot
decipher what causes it. “Is anyone there?”

A low, guttural
chuckle rises from somewhere within the depths of the thick cloud
before me. My stomach clenches painfully as the laughter rolls over
me like a glacial downpour.

A memory seizes me:
my family, perched resolutely in long wooden pews. My brother Petru
sat beside my mother, stiff backed and vexed to silence. Storm clouds
brewed along his handsome features, darkening his eyes. His hair was
combed and slicked with mother’s cooking oil, a look that would
have brought tears to my eyes had I not been so preoccupied with my
own ordeal.

My sister Adela sat
beside him, prim and proper in her beautiful dress and ribbons. Her
hair shone like waves of summer wheat in the candlelight and her
heart-shaped face lit with excitement. This was her first wedding.

Ahead of me had been
an altar of glossed wood and gold, achingly familiar from my mornings
spent in this very room for weekly service. A large crucifix stood
atop the altar and an aged, cracking leather Bible rested atop its
polished surface. I fixed my gaze on the likeness of Christ, praying
for deliverance, though none came.

I can remember
hearing my feet whisper across the wooden plank floor as I slowly
made my way down the aisle. My father’s rotund stomach jiggled
as he nodded at each of the guests seated nearest the aisle.

My cousins arrived
just this morning for the wedding, all the way from the southern
province of Wallachia. I had not seen them since their youngest, a
wee pig-faced runt of a boy, was added to their rather excessive
litter. My entire family gathered from near and far for the occasion,
nearly fifty people in all. My father had seen to that.

It is not every day
that a Dragomir marries into such a highborn family.

I remember the feel
of my intended’s hand as he clasped mine in his. His flesh was
supple with youth and oddly warm to the touch. If I had reason to
care, I would have questioned him as to his health, though I dared
not. Not after I met his eye.

Hunger… that
is what I saw when I looked at him for the first time, not one moon
past. It was as obvious as it was appalling. His dark gaze made my
skin crawl and my fingers tremble from within the confines of my
skirts when my father presented me to him.

There was something
indescribably evil about my betrothed. Why was I the only one to see
it?

I suspect that Petru
knew, yet he was too busy chasing skirts to think much of it until
Father announced a deal had been struck. I was sold like cattle in a
market. My pleas did little good. Nor did my tears.

I believe my mother
knew of my distress, although she had learned long ago that no one
defied my father’s wishes. His word was law in the Dragomir
household, and to many without. My sister, dear sweet Adela, knew of
my fears. She would cradle me in the night, just as I used to do for
her when nightmares plagued her as a child. She would whisper to me,
plotting our escape. We would head to Wallachia and marry farmers and
be blissfully happy. Childish dreams, still I prayed for them
nonetheless.

When Vladimir
Enescue seized my hand before the altar, I wanted to pull back, to
run and hide in the woods so I could not be found, although his grip
was far too tight and my father’s reprove fierce.

I was trapped.

I
do so pledge.
My
own damning words echo endlessly through my mind as I crawl forward,
my hands flailing about before me in search of the pews my family sat
upon. Heated splinters easily burrow into the flesh of my palms as I
hunt, drawn inexplicably toward a sweet yet oddly tinny scent.

My hand touches
something damp and sticky and I rear back. My knees ache from
kneeling upon the hard floor, yet I dare not move. “No,”
I moan as I stare down at my mother’s corpse. The flesh of her
throat has been shredded, as if a rabid animal tore at her
repeatedly. The front of her gown is a blanket of crimson. It clings
to her like a vile sludge.

I turn away as my
stomach contracts. I know I am about to be ill; however, my
convulsion stutters to a halt as I spy my father’s hand just
beyond my mother, sticking out from behind the second pew. Only his
hand. I cannot see where the remainder of his body has gone.

Beyond him I see
piles of my fair-haired relations strewn about the room, some
dangling over the backs of pews while others have been carelessly
tossed aside in the aisle. Their clothes are alight from the embers
that flitter down from the crumbling ceiling.

The scent of death
rises in my nostrils and I gag. Bile burns in my throat as I peer
through the smoke that now escapes through the charred hole in the
roof to see my brother’s body hung from the double doors
leading into the church. A rusty nail impales through Petru’s
shoulder so that he slumps to one side, his chin propped against his
sunken chest. Blood coats his wedding clothes, dripping from the tips
of his shoes. The sheath at his hip is barren, his sword lost among
the carnage.