Kathryn was falling. She wasn’t afraid, nor did she struggle against it. She didn’t remember hitting the ground, but she knew she lay among the ruins of a great stone stairway. Just moments before, it had wound around a thick-walled tower that it seemed she’d been climbing forever, struggling to conquer monotonous step after monotonous step, ever moving upward. Her eyes were always fixed toward the sky, drawn to the top of the enormous tower by a bright shimmering light that beckoned her like a moth to a flame.
Suddenly, a fierce wind swirled about her, forcing her to shield her eyes and cower against the wall for safety. She peered up at her guiding light and, for the first time, was blinded by its radiance. The wind grew stronger and the tower swayed, then crumbled, and soon she was falling, with fellow humans and great chunks of stone tumbling alongside.
She was content to plunge without hope of survival. Her struggle was over. The light to which she had devoted such effort grew dim through the debris and distance, until darkness consumed everything around her.
She woke up surrounded by rubble, unable to move. Her fellow humans seemed as perplexed as she, as they chattered on in anxious foreign whispers around her, their confusion compounded by the darkness. The voices got louder, the language more familiar, and she frowned, recognizing a distinct Creole patois. She felt a hand on her shoulder and inhaled sharply as she opened her eyes.
There were men huddled around her, with straw hats clutched in their hands. They were dressed for hard labor and had machetes slung low on their hips. For a moment, she thought they were the devil’s minions come to escort her to the gates of hell.
When she lifted her head and blinked them into focus, they backed up, as if they’d seen a ghost. A quick look around at the dirt floor and shoddy wood structure told her this wasn’t hell, but the warm temperature led her to believe it might be nearby. The room smelled sickly sweet, and though wholly out of context to her last known location, she realized that what looked like burnt bamboo stacked in the corner was actually sugarcane and the hovering minions plantation workers.
“Monsieur!” one of the men called out the door, and soon, Thierry Bouchaule burst in, bringing with him the bright early morning sun. He looked haggard. His face was beaten, shirt bloodied, and hair unkempt, but he was alive and overjoyed to see her awake. He put a concerned hand to her forehead and then to her cheek.
“How do you feel?”
“Sore,” she said, as she rubbed her bruised jaw and raised herself on one elbow. “Weak.” She was also surprised they were both alive. “Thierry, I heard the gunshot. I saw you fall.”
He nodded and patted her hand and then got up and shooed the loitering men out the door. “S’il vous plait … merci, merci.”
Every muscle in Kathryn’s body complained as she swung her legs off the makeshift bed of hay bales draped with a green canvas tarp. Bouchaule’s jacket surrounded her, and she was thankful for it, because, despite the warm room, she suddenly felt cold.
“Lie down, darling,” Bouchaule said as he returned to her.
Kathryn refused, wanting answers. “I saw you fall.”
He kneeled at her feet. “The gunshot came from Bertrand.”
“But he was—”
“Wounded but able to make his way to us. He saved our lives.”
“Donnelly and his men?”
“Dead.”
Kathryn hesitated a beat as she quickly scanned the room. “Bertrand?”
Bouchaule bowed his head. “I could do nothing for him.”
Kathryn exhaled, genuinely saddened. She barely knew the man, but he had gone out of his way to protect her and, in the end, had saved her life. Convention said she should comfort Bouchaule for his loss, but his cold, calculating plan to make Jenny disappear still burned in her memory. Intellectually, she knew Jenny was safe now, which made the doctor just a man with an unobtainable goal, like he was before, and no longer a threat. Emotionally, out of respect for Bertrand, she decided Bouchaule was worthy of pity and ran her hand through his disheveled hair. “I’m so sorry, Thierry. He was a good man.”
Bouchaule was quiet, but it was a silence born of guilt, something Kathryn recognized immediately.
“They are both dead now because of me,” he finally said.
Kathryn found Bouchaule’s remorse over the loss of his sister and brother-in-law perfectly natural and predictable, but she had no words of comfort, as the guilt of her own dead made a surprise appearance.
Bouchaule looked up, questioning her silence, and mistook her pained lost look for one of compassion. He took her hand. “You know such feelings.”
She offered a grim half-smile, to which the doctor nodded and then rested his head on her knee. “That comforts me.”
Kathryn closed her eyes and found it comforted her too. She was reminded they were both broken, dirty, and alone in the world. If he was going to be her companion for the time being, she had to know where things stood.
“What happened? Donnelly said something about the reservoir.”
He lifted his head and then shifted to the side as he leaned back against a hay bale, his hands in his lap and his shoulders slumped in defeat. “It is gone. I wanted to protect it, but it is in their hands now.”
Bouchaule went on to explain how Donnelly had brought him the blood sample to verify as the reservoir’s. He knew the Irishman needed him for their work, so he felt safe in confirming the sample as genuine. He planned on spiriting the reservoir away before Donnelly could get a hold of it, thus protecting it from people like Donnelly’s group, who had nothing but dollar signs in their eyes.
Bouchaule seemed appropriately distressed for one who had just lost his Holy Grail, but he also seemed sincere in his desire to shelter the reservoir from harm and spare the world the inevitable weapon made possible from its eventual vaccine.
Kathryn took pleasure in the doctor’s mistaken assumption that Donnelly’s group had Jenny. It meant one more wild goose chase for him as he plotted to get her back.
“What will you do now?”
Bouchaule smiled and pushed himself up from the ground to sit beside her, his swagger returning. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he clasped his hands together. “I wait. Someone will contact me.”
She raised a doubtful brow.
“I have been giving them false data,” he said. “In my absence, they will soon realize this and they will be back. Without Donnelly, and without my research, they are lost, the reservoir a mere medical curiosity.” He smiled confidently. “They will be back.”
It occurred to her that Daniel Ryan, hoping to protect his daughter, must have employed the same tactic. “Clever man,” she said, as she leaned her head on his shoulder and put her arm through his, wondering if the outcome would be the same.
As Bouchaule took her hand, Kathryn looked around the room, noticing the details of the long storage shack for the first time. It was filled with harvesting tools and discarded cane mill parts. Large cast iron sugar kettles sat empty, longing for their sweet brew. An odd piece of equipment on the far wall had her perplexed. “Is that a still?”
Bouchaule laughed. “Rum.”
“Where are we?”
“Martinique.”
“Martinique? That’s almost two thousand miles away. How long have I been out?”
Bouchaule squeezed her hand. “Long enough. You did not miss a thing. Horrid flight.”
Kathryn mindlessly rubbed her sore forearm.
“Are you all right?” Bouchaule asked.
Kathryn nodded as she exposed her arm to inspect Donnelly’s handiwork. She was bruised from his needles, but his weren’t the only ones. When she looked closer, she saw a new needle mark.
She raised her eyes accusingly at Bouchaule, her anger building. “And what did you find?”
He raised his hands in defense. “Please understand—”
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. As before, I found nothing.”
“Don’t tell me nothing! I saw the virus injection myself. I felt it invade my body.”
“And your body has been fighting it all night. Your fever broke this morning.”
Kathryn ran her hand through her hair and found the truth in its dampness. She had survived another encounter with the virus, cheated death again, and wondered when she would run out of lives.
“That doesn’t make sense. There’s no fighting this. The cells that saved me before have long since left my body. You told me that’s how it works.” She pointed at her abused arm. “This should have killed me.”
Bouchaule looked vaguely aside.
“What does this mean?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“You are immune, obviously, but it is not in your blood. The original infection has … it remains, but it is part of you now.”
“Part of me? What does that mean?”
“I cannot explain it.”
“Well, you’d better try.”
“I cannot. It has changed you … your physiology … yet I can find no abnormality.” His frustration sharpened his accent and movements. “We do not have the means to see it,” he explained. “It must be in your organs, your tissue, somewhere … I do not know! You are alive. That is all I know, and the answer is not in your blood.”
“It’s not possible, though, is it?”
Bouchaule offered no further explanation. “Yet here you are, proving it to be so.”
If there was any doubt before, it was clear now why the doctor had taken her with him. It would have been so much easier for him to travel without her, but she was the next best thing to his precious reservoir, and there was no way he would leave her behind now.
“I see,” she said with disdain, strangely disappointed that his heroic flight with her at his side was inspired by his head and not his heart.
Kathryn could see her scorn reflected in his wounded eyes, and she saw him absorb her distrust like a knife to his heart. He vaguely shook his head and exhaled in disbelief as he stood. His decision was swift and without reservation.
“We part ways here. I will make arrangements for your journey home, or you may stay here if you wish.”
As she watched Bouchaule walk away, she didn’t think for one moment he was serious. This was part of their game. He would expect her to protest, do anything to stay close to him, and he would react to her protest with indignant objection, but in the end, he would give in, satisfied he had proven himself a noble creature, capable of thinking of someone other than himself and his work.
Not one to disappoint, Kathryn sprang to her feet. “Don’t you dare leave me, Thierry. You promised!” She should have been more careful, considering what she’d been through, but she stood without thinking and found the world spinning, as she collapsed back onto the canvassed hay bales, placing her hand on her suddenly perspiring forehead.
Bouchaule was there instantly to catch her, and he sat down beside her. “Here, lie down.”
She felt nauseated. “Shit.”
“Lie down. Please.”
“I’m fine. Just give me a minute.” She closed her eyes and cursed her human frailties for interfering with her scene.
“Kathryn—”
“I’m fine!”
He lifted his hands from her in surrender and gave her the minute, but no more, before addressing her anger.
“What would you have me do? We had love and trust, and you have disregarded both. My trust cannot stand alone, and I will not have my love thrown in my face.”
Brother, he’s pouring it on, Kathryn thought through her swimming head, and she dismissed his self-serving declaration with a withering glance. After the events of the last twenty-four hours, she was weary of their game and had no interest in massaging his wounded pride, real or manufactured. She had no patience left, and the truth rose easily to the surface.
“Please, Thierry,” she said, as she put her head in her hands and prayed for her equilibrium to return. “It’s obvious why I’m here. We both know you only care for your work.”
Bouchaule stood but didn’t say anything, causing Kathryn to look up into his decidedly disgusted glare.
“There is nothing I can say if you do not already know my feelings,” he said, as if their breakup was all her fault. He walked away, pausing only to reiterate, “I will make arrangements for your passage home.”
Kathryn let him go this time. The look in his eyes held a sadness that comes with the final disappointment at the end of an affair. She stared at the closed door as her mind entertained the possibility he was sincere. A man that obsessed with his work would never just let her go, not when he needed what he perceived as her unique physiology more than ever, but he had let her go, and she was left wondering what his game was now.
She didn’t believe he was actually in love, but explanations were scarce, and that one rang truest.
Perhaps they were indeed alike, more than she ever imagined. She had fallen for Jenny and walked away to save her. Could the same be true for Bouchaule?
She got a chill when she remembered his desperate cries to spare her life as Donnelly’s man moved in with his needle. He even revealed the location of his hidden papers, compromising his precious work, the very thing he had said meant more to him than her life. That was no game.
He loved her. He was letting her go. She had a moment of panic when she feared she might actually lose him. She scrubbed her face with her hand, wishing her mind were clearer. She had a disconcerting realization that part of her needed to be with him. Unable to face her life without Jenny, or a purpose, he had been her savior. It was a moment of weakness … a crisis of identity she knew would pass.
She raised her chin. Bouchaule was still her assignment, and it was her duty to follow where that assignment led. That’s what she told herself. In truth, hiding Daniel Ryan’s work from the government was treasonous. It made her a fallen agent, drowning in her own legend. But her body was a part of this medical mystery now, and she was still in position to determine the progress and scope of his project.
She took a calming breath and put her mind to the next move.
She pulled the yellow silk display handkerchief from the breast pocket of Bouchaule’s jacket, and a slow smile formed as she ran it through her fingers. She used the handkerchief to corral her unruly hair, just like she would now use Bouchaule to corral her unruly emotions.
She prepared her surrender speech, stood as quickly as she dared, and then followed his path outside. She found him standing beside a large sedan ready to take him to the gleaming silver DC-3 waiting on the private airstrip in the valley below.
Bouchaule conveniently finished with the driver when he saw her approach and met her at the passenger door.
“Go back inside, Kathryn. I do not want you with me.”
Her brow knit in confusion as Bouchaule became a man she didn’t recognize. She’d seen glimpses of him in his moments of anger or discontent, but now the transformation was complete. She reached out to him.
“Thierry—”
“Go back, Kathryn,” he repeated, his voice cold. “I do not want you with me.”
She pulled back, searching his eyes. There was no love, no hate, no distrust, no future. Nothing.
“You need me.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “There are more with your particular affliction where I am going, so, sorry to say, I no longer need you for my work. But thank you for showing me there is something there to find.”
Kathryn raised a brow at his obvious lie. “So, I’ve an affliction now, is it? I see. Tell me, if you no longer need me, why did you bring me this far?”
“I could hardly leave you to wake among the bodies.”
His words came with a tidal wave of memories of waking up in a cold, dirty cell with the bodies of her executed friends at her feet.
“How very thoughtful of you,” she managed evenly before stepping away to hide her cracking façade. She moved awkwardly, her heels sinking into the damp, soft earth. Her vision was replaced by atrocities too easily accessed, and she couldn’t see where she was going. As she stumbled away, she pleaded with herself to hold it together. Breathe.
Suddenly, Bouchaule was at her back with steadying hands on her shoulders, and she found his touch a grounding reminder that she was far from the horrors of her past. She felt lightheaded again and allowed him to carry her to the car and into the sedan’s roomy backseat.
“Sorry,” she said, as she put a hand to her forehead. Pride gave way to purpose, and she was no longer angry at her human frailties.
“You need to rest, Kathryn. I will send someone to look after you. You will be fine here, and when you have recovered, you may go where you like.”
His words were gentle, but his eyes were still those of a stranger. She turned to face him and put her hand on his thigh, redoubling her efforts to bring him back to her.
“I know what you’re doing. What happened last night scared the hell out of you and you’re trying to protect me. Well, it scared the hell out of me too, but separating is not the answer. We’re stronger together than we are apart. Don’t you remember what it was like? The constant worry, the sleepless nights?”
He was unresponsive, and she straightened with a disbelieving tilt of her head.
“Or was that just me?”
Bouchaule ignored her questions and brushed some dirt from his trousers.
“Look, if you want me to apologize—”
“I want you to go, Kathryn,” he said sternly. “That is all I want.”
He was leaving no room for negotiation, and it only made her more determined.
“I know you need me for your work, and I’d like to think you need me for more than that.”
“Well, I do not. For either.”
She knew he was lying, but she also knew his mind was set on leaving her. She had nothing left to lose, so she went all in.
“I haven’t the strength to play the game any longer.”
He seemed offended by the suggestion. “It was never a game.”
“It was always a game. It started the moment you asked me to Tango so you could get close to Marc Forrester.”
That got his attention, and Kathryn smiled at his narrowing glare. “I didn’t mind,” she went on. “You were an attractive man, and I despised Marc Forrester. When that game was over, another began when someone decided to use me as bait to lure you back, and here we are, with you running away again but, this time, for a different reason.”
“I do not know what—”
She silenced him with a raised hand. “Don’t. Not now. We’ve been through too much.”
It was time to draw him out, expose what he thought he had concealed so well.
“You didn’t trust me, and I didn’t trust you, so we tested each other constantly. How far would the other go to get what they wanted? We both gave as good as we got, but underneath it all, there was something else, something between us that you can’t deny. I understand what you’re doing, because we’re alike, just as you said … but much more than you know.”
Bouchaule laughed. “While I find a confident woman quite attractive, I find an arrogant one a fool and a desperate one rather revolting.”
A nerve had been struck. Kathryn smiled and leaned back. His insult was merely the table onto which she would play her final hand. “Continue playing your game. Maybe that’s all you know. All you trust. I know that feeling too. But I’m free of that now. I’m offering you the same.”
Bouchaule was silent, and Kathryn ducked her head slightly to catch his downturned eyes.
“When was the last time you felt free?”
He tried to remain still and nonchalant, but the flex of his tense jaw gave him away.
Kathryn smiled. “I couldn’t remember either, but it feels so good.” She held out her hand. “Let me show you how it feels.”
He wasn’t giving in, and, for a moment, Kathryn was surprised at his resolve, but they were alike after all, and she thought back to her stoic breakup with Jenny, when she had given up everything to ensure her safety.
Perhaps it was the same with Bouchaule. Perhaps he loved her too much to carry her into the pit of vipers that was Paris under Nazi rule. She had a strange affection for his conviction. It warmed her battered heart that there was love like that in the world for their kind.
She looked at Bouchaule’s indifferent figure and withdrew her hand. He’d made up his mind. She leaned in to kiss his cheek in farewell, but he pulled away. That brought a smile to her lips, because she had done the same to Jenny when she reached for her at the end, avoiding the straw that would have broken her back.
That was it then. She had lost Bouchaule.
Failure was a new consideration, but gone was her anxiety of being alone. The world was waiting, and there was much to do. Returning to the OSS would require more lies, she supposed. The murders at the estate afforded her ample material for any story she wished to make up about her disappearance and whereabouts. She could say she awoke alone and Bouchaule was gone. Assignment closed.
With Bouchaule out of her reach, and a mole in her government likely, she would remain silent about Daniel Ryan’s books. They belonged to Jenny now, along with all the decoded documents she’d stashed in a safe deposit box. Dominic would have given Jenny the key the night she went under.
She could hope the OSS would assign her overseas, but with her recent history, and now the dramatics with Bouchaule, a post in the war zone was doubtful. The OSS was keeping her out of the fight, and it was time to part ways. It would be easy to claim mental instability and leave the agency. No one would doubt it had all been too much for her. She would make her way overseas on her own.
On the home front, she had standing instructions to dispose of the contents of her apartment should she miss her rent payment, save the photograph of her as a child with her mother, the piano, and the painting above it, which she requested go to her brother. She hoped Clayton would retrieve the items—the piano especially, for Stephanie.
Martinique was as good a starting point as any other. She would work, singing preferably, until she had enough money for passage to Lisbon. From there, she would join some resistance organization and do her part. She opened the car door and stepped into her new life.
“Adieu, Thierry.”
She had barely straightened to her full height when he called to her through the open door.
“I think we both know what I wanted. What did you want?”
Kathryn looked out across the roof of the car, excusing herself from her future for a moment, and exhaled before ducking her head inside. Bouchaule’s penchant for games was a hard habit for him to break, apparently. She was through with the game though, so she told him the truth.
“I wanted my loved ones safe from Forrester, from you, from the government, and from madmen like Donnelly.”
Kathryn saw the slight lift of his brow and wondered if he was surprised she had spoken the truth or offended that he was on the list of threats. If he was offended, he got over it quickly.
“And are they safe?”
“Yes, they are.”
He gave her a sympathetic smile, as if he appreciated everything she wasn’t saying.
“That must have cost you a lot.”
“It cost me everything, but now I’m free.”
Bouchaule balked at the notion with a derisive chuckle, and Kathryn decided to leave him with all he was giving up.
“Deny it all you like, but it’s not as hard as you think to let go.” She shut the door and shed his jacket, folding it over the open window to prove her point. He pulled the jacket inside, accepting her point and her silent goodbye.
As she walked away, Kathryn loosened the yellow silk scarf from her hair and let it flutter away in the early morning breeze, taking Bouchaule along with it. She welcomed her first breath of freedom and was only moderately disturbed by how easily she dismissed her responsibility to the OSS and her assignment. She felt lighter, absolved, cleansed. She would begin again. Become someone new. Make the world safer for Stephanie. For Jenny.
Jenny.
Love and longing threatened to well up in her. She tamped it down but gave one last thought to their parting. Did Jenny still hate her? She hoped not. Or maybe she hoped she did. Their separation would be easier that way. Jenny would make a new start too. The truth was hers now, and her life was her own. She nodded, satisfied she had done the right thing.
The Frenchman called out for his driver, and shortly after, the car drove away. She smiled—another chapter closed, but this one felt good. She lifted her face to the awakening day and closed her eyes, drinking in its promise of new horizons and new hope, when she heard a voice from behind.
“Freedom is an illusion treasured by those who do not realize it is defined by its boundaries.” It was Bouchaule.
Kathryn opened her eyes. The morning no longer offered the future she imagined. She gazed into the never-ending blanket of blue sky before her and felt she was gazing through a window into a world beyond her station. She wasn’t upset. In fact, it made her smile. It was only right.
Bouchaule’s return left her pleased she hadn’t lost her touch. She turned to face him, chin held high and ready to meet the challenge. “I’m well aware of the boundaries of my freedom. Are you?”
The doctor, a macabre dandy, with his bloodstained shirt, bruised face, and expensive jacket slung casually over his shoulder, approached until they were standing toe to toe. His eyes swept over her face, and he reached out and caressed her cheek with his hand, once again the gentle lover. “My freedom begins and ends in your eyes.”
Kathryn laughed out loud at the corny line, sincere though it was in its delivery. She quickly apologized for her outburst.
To her surprise, Bouchaule was grinning from ear to ear. “Too much?”
Kathryn laughed again. “For that moment? Perfect.”
He smiled and swung his jacket around her back, settling it onto her shoulders, as if that was where it belonged. She smiled her thank you and tucked her hair behind her ear, fighting the breeze at her back. Bouchaule produced the discarded yellow silk handkerchief from his pocket, a flag of truce. She took it—tethered once more—and while she tied back her hair with it, Bouchaule put his hands on his hips.
“I do not know what to do with you, Kathryn.”
Kathryn was going to make sure he knew exactly what to do with her. “Since when?”
Bouchaule smirked but hesitated a beat before answering. “I do care about you, and because of that, I cannot take you with me. It is too dangerous. I will not risk you. I’ve lost too many to them.”
Well, that wouldn’t do. She stepped forward and took his hand. “It’s dangerous everywhere.”
“You do not know, Kathryn. The things—”
“You think I don’t know what I’m in for? Men have died over your work, and I’m not so naïve as to think you didn’t have something to do with some of that.” He glared at her, obviously offended by the accusation, and then tried to pull away, but she wouldn’t let him. “I don’t say this to upset you. I only want you to see I know the score. I mean, my God, look what’s happened to me over these past months. Do you think what’s left of Donnelly’s operation, or my government, or whoever else has a stake in this, is just going to forget about me because you disappear?”
Bouchaule closed his eyes, his conflict exposed. “What they did to you … I wanted to kill them with my bare hands. Instead, I could do nothing. I am powerless to protect you.”
She grasped his tense arms. “We’re here, we’re together. We should stay that way.”
“I cannot show up with an American in tow. It would cause undue attention, and I cannot afford—”
Kathryn pulled his hands around her back and situated herself in his arms, addressing his concerns by responding in his native tongue. “No one would have to know I was American unless you told them.”
He smiled, giving in to her close proximity and her flawless language skills. “You are a wicked temptress.”
Kathryn grinned and raised an expectant brow. “On to Paris then?”
He deliberated, but only for a moment. “To Paris.”
She kissed him again. It didn’t matter if he truly loved her or was just using her for his work—she suspected a little of both. She had regained perspective, found her purpose. She was in the spy business again, only this time, she was a free agent, and she had a ride to Paris, where she would charm the occupying devils until it was time to strike and repay her debt.
Colonel Holmes sat alone in his office with the phone to his ear and moved the receiver aside to exhale in frustration as he crushed his cigarette into the full ashtray under his hand. He’d been there all night, and every report was worse than the last.
“I understand that,” he said into the receiver, “but we may have to face the ugly possibility that Miss Hammond has gone astray. Someone warned Jenny Ryan, who has disappeared without—”
He was interrupted by a knock at the door.
“I’m on the line,” he barked.
The secretary bravely entered anyway.
Holmes impatiently pressed his hand over the mouthpiece and shouted, “Didn’t you hear what I—”
His jaw clamped shut as his secretary stepped aside and Jenny Ryan entered the room.
“Good morning, Colonel Holmes,” she said with a pleasant smile. “I think I have something you’ve been looking for.”
Rendering the British colonel speechless was a crowning achievement in a week that featured Jenny making the biggest mistake of her life—and that was saying something, considering her track record. It took ten minutes of arguing with Holmes’s secretary to gain access to him, but it was worth every minute to see his usually smug expression slide off his face when he lifted his eyes to her mid-shout.
He eyed the leather briefcase she hugged to her chest, and his smirk was back. She allowed it this time without disdain. She would need every ounce of indifference in the days ahead.
She knew Kathryn would think this was the biggest mistake of her life, but for Jenny, that was the moment she let Kathryn walk up the stairs of her father’s secret lab and out of her life.
It didn’t take long to realize what Kathryn had done for her. The anger over her perceived affair with Marcella paled to the anger over Kathryn’s lack of trust in her ability to handle the truth. But even that anger had dissipated by the time she emerged from the tunnel under the greenhouse and heard Kathryn gunning the Cord’s engine down her street.
After the second car followed and disappeared, she was left cradled in the nocturnal sounds of the surrounding woods. It was in this soothing thrum that the weight of the last hour took her legs out from under her.
Kathryn had sacrificed herself—sacrificed their love—to save her. Tears should have come, as everything she’d lost filled her with regret, but regret was drowned by Kathryn’s love for her, and determination straightened her spine instead.
She’d once asked Kathryn if she was sorry she’d learned the truth about her mother’s death. Kathryn said yes, she was sorry she’d learned the truth. She could now see that Kathryn was trying to spare her from the same fate. She loved her for trying, but she knew the truth now, and she would use whatever she could of it to win the war. Then she would find Kathryn and prove to her that, once and for all, they belong together. Forever.
Kathryn and Jenny’s story continues with In the Shadow of Victory (Shadow Series Book 4), available for preorder now at your retailer of choice. Projected release date, late 2023.
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review so that other readers can discover Kathryn and Jenny as well. Thank you so much!
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