Skye
Prophecies, magic, power, rule. Where did these things come from? If a future was seen, if an entire life played out according to a prophecy, could one still control their own destiny?
What was mine?
As though in answer to my questions, Xander tapped on the door and entered my bedchamber. I fell back on my bed with a dramatic sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“For your feistiness?” he asked with a chuckle, the click of his boots hinting at his progress across my room. “Do not apologize, milady. I quite enjoyed it.”
Of course he did.
The steps stopped and Xander took hold of my hands and pulled me to my feet. “You’re frustrated. I understand, and so does Ri.”
His hands brushed their way up my arms to cup my face. His soft eyes drawing me in. “We will win this. I believe in us.”
The marking on my cheek came alive at the touch of his thumb along my jawline. I took hold of the edge of his black tunic and steadied myself. My fingertips traced the embroidered pattern along the length. “I believe in us too, but what if—”
His unexpected kiss swallowed my words. His hold on my face tightened, keeping me close, as his mouth took control. He didn’t have to manhandle me; I was going nowhere. My greedy hands slid beneath his tunic in search of warm skin. Xander hissed when I skimmed the smooth skin along the waist of his pants.
“There are no buts,” he growled against my lips. He drew back enough to release me and yanked his shirt off in one swift move. My mind went blank. “Touch me here,” he gently ordered, taking my wrist and setting my palm over the markings which spiraled across his ribcage.
My gaze fell to the shimmering swirls. The symbol of our bond. “Now, look at me.” His voice softened as he once again took hold of my face. “We will not doubt this, Skye.”
His fingertips caressed my marking as mine did his. Without looking, my thumb traced the arc of the lowest swirl by memory. Xander’s eyelids lowered, as though my touch was an agony of the greatest kind. And it was. It must be, because for me his touch was akin to a million fireworks exploding across my skin. Each one bursting with so much emotion, there were no words to describe the feeling. The rush of blood, the euphoria.
His forehead dipped to mine. “Tell me you love me.”
“You know I do.” I couldn’t speak the words. They were my last defense against complete heartbreak if I couldn’t have him. If something happened. Saying them now…
The tip of his nose nudged mine before he dragged his lips across my cheek and nipped my sensitive earlobe. “Tell me.” His heat suffocated my skin and shivers broke out across my body.
My nails sank into his skin. “I’m scared,” I admitted.
The door to my chamber ricocheted off the stone wall as Mother rushed in with Thomas on her heels. “Tell me about Amandalyn,” she ordered frantically.
Thomas spoke at the same time. “I tried to stop her, milady. I—”
Xander and I jumped apart but not before they took us in.
“Um, we—” I stuttered, at a complete loss of words for how to explain the scene they’d walked in on. Xander grabbed his discarded tunic. Our private moment forgotten in the pale face of my mother and Thomas’s watchful eyes.
Mumbling an apology, Thomas backed out of the room and closed the door behind him. Mother’s face was haunted.
“Kerra? What’s wrong?” Xander pulled his clothing on and rushed to her side.
Her graceful hands balled into tight, shaking fists at her sides as she stood inside the doorway. Fear curdled in my stomach at her demeanor. What type of terror had caused the torment displayed on her colorless face? Snapped out of my earlier embarrassment, I ushered her toward a chair and coaxed her to sit.
She clutched my forearm. “Amandalyn? Who is she?” There was a plea in her words.
Xander and I exchanged confused glances. “She was an orphan who McClintock took in at a young age. Nickoli said her mother was a servant here. A cook, I believe?”
“How old is she?”
Xander rounded the chair and knelt at her side, his cool blue eyes meeting her damp brown ones. “Has something happened? Something we should know?” he asked in his soothing voice as he took her hands.
“How old?” she repeated with more force.
Xander looked to me.
“Um, sixteen,” I said. “She turned sixteen recently.”
A strangled cry passed her lips as she jerked back like I’d slapped her. Turmoil was etched across her face. Her thin shoulders shaking as she asked, “What does she look like?”
“I don’t understand."
Xander touched my hand, his focus entirely on my mother. “Kerra, you don’t think?” he asked in a whisper.
Her gaze locked on his and I faded into the background while they shared a silent conversation. His blue eyes shaded with worry, her brown ones wide and … What? What was it I saw in them?
Her dark hair fell over her shoulder when she nodded. Xander inhaled through his nose. “Why? Why would he?”
“Maybe I am crazy, but the dreams, Xander. I keep seeing her.” Her low voice was a confession. A confession to something neither of them had let me in on.
“Okay.” He patted her arm and stood.
When he faced me, a million questions filled my mind, but the unease on his face kept me from asking.
Xander shoved his fingers through his hair. “Skye, would you describe her for us?”
I bit my bottom lip in worry and envisioned Amandalyn. “She’s my height, brown hair, a little darker than mine. Brown eyes.” They hung on my every word. “I don’t know what else to tell you. There’s nothing particularly identifiable about her. Maybe if you could tell me what this is about?”
Mother lifted her face to ours, a faraway smile on her lips that made my pulse kick up a notch. “I have had these dreams for years. They are so vivid, so real. At first I thought they were about you. I relished them, using them to feel connected to you, though I knew they were false visions. Nothing more than dreams of moments I wished I could be a part of. But, as time went by, I wondered if they were not about you at all.”
I wasn’t following. “Who do you think they were about?”
“I think”—she paused, her lips rubbing together—“maybe it was Amandalyn.”
Dread twisted my stomach. “Why would you dream of Amandalyn?”
Her pale face flushed and I knelt on her level. “What am I missing? What are you not telling me?”
Her gaze slid to the left. “I was with child. When McClintock stormed the castle.”
Blood rushed through me, filling my ears and making me dizzy. I fell back on my haunches as Mother reached for me.
“I did not know, Skye. No one did,” she said with urgency. “It was too early.”
My father died not knowing he was going to have another child? My throat burned. Warmth brushed across my back and I looked up as Xander moved behind me. His hand settled on my shoulder while Mother continued.
“There were complications. McClintock told me the child died.”
“You think—” As quickly as the thought rushed to my head, the blood drained and nausea overwhelmed me. Amandalyn's face, so like mine. So like Mother’s now that I knew her face as well. The larger picture focused. “Oh.” I blinked away the shock. “Oh! I have a sister. She must be yours. She is so like you. Like me.”
Mother’s red-rimmed eyes widened before she doubled over with a sob.
Xander squeezed my shoulder and knelt by my side in front of her. “Are you sure?” he asked me as he drew her into his embrace. My Guardian, my love, comforting my mother.
I nodded silently and held his stare. There was no doubt Amandalyn was the child my mother mourned.
“You knew?” I asked, keenly aware of his lack of surprise.
“We shared a lot of stories on our way back to you,” he said evenly, but his look finished the story his words didn’t tell. He kept her secrets and she kept his. And he was sorry.
I nodded again with understanding. Xander had died, or nearly died, and she had suffered who knows what at McClintock’s hands. They had bonded over their shared horror, and I could not fault them for it.
“There you are.”
Xander’s voice pulled my attention from the incomplete braided length of leather I held to where he stood in Amandalyn's doorway. I’d wandered across the hall from my bedchamber to Amandalyn’s while he escorted Mother to her chamber for some rest. Turning from his gaze, I looked around her space with new eyes—seeing the girl who might be my sister, instead of the young horse lover who wanted nothing more than to fall in love and have freedom.
Unyielding sadness crept over me. “Do you think it’s true?”
He stepped further into the room and closed the door behind him before silently coming to my side. I nearly sighed aloud when his hands closed over my arms and drew me near. “It would make sense.” His gaze fell to my hands fisted in the space between us.
I lifted the material I held. “Cillian showed Manda how to braid the leather to make belts. She’d admired Emeline’s when they first met.”
Xander’s fingers pried one hand loose from where I clutched the belt and guided my arm around his waist, pulling me tight. “Your sister has good taste.” The weight of his chin rested on the top of my head.
My sister.
McClintock stormed our castle, killed my father, forced me into hiding, and held my mother prisoner. Yet, that wasn’t enough for him? He had to kidnap an innocent infant and hide her from her family for sixteen years, too? A sob threatened and I cleared my throat and buried my face in Xander’s chest. “That’s why he came back and grabbed her, isn’t it? He knew I’d find out.”
“Most likely.”
His calm tone rubbed me the wrong way. “Most likely?” I scoffed and shimmied out of his embrace. “We need to find her. She’s a child who doesn’t have anything to do with this. Where did you find my mother? He could have her there.”
He looked away. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” I pushed at his chest. “Stop trying to keep your secrets, Xander. You found her, you rescued her, you returned here. Obviously you know the way.” My voice rose with each word and I slapped at his chest a second time, my frustration growing. My jumbled emotions gushed to the forefront like a tsunami, and he was smack dab in the middle of the path taking the brunt.
“Skye,” he said my name like an adult speaking to a wayward child.
“Don’t you dare use that condescending tone on me,” I warned, choking on the lump lodged in my chest.
Xander’s jaw hardened. He reached for me and I slipped from his fingers, shaking my head and moving across the room. I refused the truth. It was easier. This was a mistake. A lie.
A lie. A lie. The idea whirled in my mind as I paced the floor. A side-by-side picture of Amandalyn and Mother formed in my mind. The timeline matched, the looks matched, the way I warmed to Amandalyn so quickly matched. “I need to speak to McClintock. I need to know why.”
I aimed for the door with every intention of marching to the dungeon and tearing the man apart until he admitted every bit of his treachery.
Xander crossed his arms over his broad chest and blocked the doorway. “Not a chance.”
“Xander, move.” I reached around him, slapping at his hip in my quest to grasp the door handle.
His fingers wrapped around my wrist. “You’re not going down there.”
My head snapped up at his firm refusal. “Move out of my way, Guardian.” I shot so many daggers at him, my eyes ached.
“I respectfully deny your request, Your Majesty.” The back of his free hand swept across my cheekbone. I suppressed the urge to remove a finger. Surely, he wouldn’t miss one. “McClintock won’t provide the answer you seek, which will only hurt you more. I won’t allow that.”
The despair lodged in my chest worked its way to my throat. My sister. My breathing became choppy and difficult. With dizzying speed I was back in Xander’s arms, my tears wetting his chest.
“I know. I know,” he soothed, his hand holding steady against my head. “I’m trying to save you pain here. Please, believe me. If I thought he would help us I’d be down there right now, but I won’t let him hurt you. Not again.”
“It’s my fault,” I sobbed.
“No. You said Tabor had some sort of obsession with her. Perhaps—”
“It doesn’t matter.” I clung to his tunic as though holding on to him was the only thing keeping me upright. “She’s another person hurt because of this prophecy. We don’t even know if Tabor is the one we’re fighting. I can’t do this, Xander. We have no direction; we have no understanding.”
I rubbed my face against his chest and took wobbly breaths. It all seemed so futile.
“Then we find it.” He broke our embrace and opened the door. “Come on, let’s start with the books. We will read through every last one until we find the answers we seek.”
I looked at his beloved face, firm with resolve. I could cry and admit defeat, or I could search for clues.
I took his outstretched hand.
I’d never liked quitters.