by Emma Castle
“I’m sorry, Lord Somerset. He’s just teasing, we aren’t—”
“We are,” Thorne interjected. “Eden feels you will not approve of her belonging to me. But I will have no secrets with you. We are mates.”
At first Cameron said nothing, his face an inscrutable mask of English stoicism. Then there was the ever so slight smile that seemed to say, I won’t question love.
“If she is with you, I will accept that.”
Eden didn’t know what to make of that response. If she had been in Cameron’s shoes, she would have questioned anyone with a journalism background like hers and the circumstances in which she and Thorne had met.
“Let me take you upstairs,” Isabelle offered as she led them out of the room. Eden squeezed Thorne’s hand. All she could do was hope that this would all work out.
Cameron stood alone in the sitting room, his cup of tea cold and untouched on the table. Isabelle had taken charge and escorted Thorne and Eden upstairs, but he’d needed a minute to collect himself. It was as though the pieces of his heart, once shattered and scattered upon the winds, were truly tumbling over themselves at his feet and he was trying to collect them all and find a way to put them back together.
He had been ready to believe that Thorne was a fantasy, another well-played ruse to try to take his fortune and his home away from him, along with his hope. But seeing Thorne in person had made his heart cry out, telling him that this young man was blood of his blood. Yet still he had doubts. How could he not?
Cameron left the sitting room and headed back into the drawing room where the secret door was still partially open.
“Avalon . . .”
He whispered the boyhood nickname for his and Jacob’s sanctuary. An island of peace and healing for two boys who’d needed to escape the world, even for a short time. There was nothing quite like the bond between siblings, and he and Jacob had been closer than most. They were drawn to legends, drawn to the belief that secrets and beautiful mysteries still existed in the world. Jacob had often said to him that if he could have had one wish, it would have been to witness a legend firsthand.
Today Cameron had seen such a legend in the face of his nephew. The boy who had been raised in the heart of the jungle, and yet he’d grown up to be so like his parents in a thousand small ways. Jacob’s intensity, Amelia’s loyalty—and he’d known the magic word to break apart the walls of doubt around Cameron’s heart.
Cameron smiled and shook his head as he gently closed the door. “Sweet Avalon.” That little room contained mysteries for another day, but at least one had been revealed. Thorne was alive. Thorne was home.
15
Thorne gazed out of the tall windows of the massive bedchamber. His eyes took in the gardens below the balcony. Colorful flowers bloomed in wild, lovely patterns amidst the carefully arranged green yews and rhododendrons.
The heady scent of roses filling his nose and the delicate brush of petals as he giggled and hid from his mother while she counted to ten. Hearing her call his name as he ran through those gardens and she tried to catch him.
The more he saw of this place, the more small but powerful memories like that came back to him.
Eden came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She pressed her cheek against his shoulder, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the blue dress shirt he wore. He smiled and covered one of her hands with his.
“Are you okay? That was pretty intense.” She was always worrying about him. Even Keza had not worried this much about him. But then, these past few days had been an adventure unlike any other, in equal measures terrifying and exciting to him. Perhaps some worry was justified.
Thorne turned, catching Eden in his arms and holding her close so he could lean down and nuzzle her cheek. One of the best things about being mated was having the right to hold his mate like this. Physical intimacy, even as innocent as this, was a gift he treasured.
“I am fine,” he assured her.
“Do you want to rest or explore the house a bit?” she asked, then sighed as he nibbled her earlobe. He knew just how to tease her there.
“You have to stop that or people will think we’re sex addicts.”
“What is an addict?” he asked. He gently blew on the sensitive spot below her earlobe, and she shivered in his hold.
“People who can’t stop doing something, even though they know they should.”
“And we can’t be addicted to sex?”
“No, we definitely can’t. I mean, we should find other ways to bond too. At least until . . .” She gave up her protests and wound her arms around his neck. “Oh, fuck it.”
He grinned, hearing the soft surrender buried beneath her sighs as he kissed her. He wanted her to feel how grateful he was to have her, how glad he was that she was here with him. This world had left him feeling out of place, like a fish that had splashed onto shore and couldn’t get back to the water.
With Eden, he felt like he wouldn’t be lost in the vast currents of this new life. He trusted her guidance. His love for her grew every minute, but he had no idea how to tell her, how to make her see that what he felt for her went above and beyond the sheer bliss of her kisses or her touch or the physical act of mating. From the first moment he’d seen her, it had been something deeper, something that made him feel like he could face anything, so long as she was with him.
Thorne cupped the back of her head, deepening the kiss, enjoying her excitement and knowing he was the cause. Bringing pleasure to her was one of his great joys in life.
But she was right. Their mouths slowly parted, and he held her in his arms, breathing softly as he cherished this moment.
“We should do something else,” he said.
“No, no. I’m fine with this, really!” Eden said quickly.
“You are right. If I am always mating with you, we might not bond in other ways.”
“Well, I mean, we can always bond later.” She started to kiss him again.
“No. We should do something now.” He couldn’t resist teasing her.
“Goddammit,” she grumbled. “Of all the times to act all noble.”
“Should we not bond in other ways?” Thorne asked, pretending to be puzzled. She was frowning at him, and her face was flushed a lovely red.
“Yes . . . yes, we should,” she sighed. Then she added, “How about the house? Should we take a tour?”
“Yes.” He did wish to see more of the world he had been born into.
“Okay. Let’s go.” She stepped out of his arms and led the way, but he heard her mutter under her breath, “Me and my big mouth.”
He had to bite his lip to hide his laughter. He would reward her later for being so sweet and letting him tease her like that.
They left the bedchamber and took their time exploring the halls of the house, pausing to study paintings, which Eden had to explain were like photos made by hand.
“Someone made this?” Thorne studied the figure before them, which was surrounded by a beautiful gold frame.
“Yes, with a paintbrush and paint.”
Thorne had vague memories of finger painting with his mother, but that was so different than the exquisite portrait he was looking upon now, which depicted a young woman in an elaborate pale-blue gown. He studied the woman’s features, looking for any sense of familiarity or likeness to himself. The eyes, perhaps? Yes, she had blue eyes that were like his own.
“She must be an ancestor.” Eden leaned against his shoulder, gazing up at the portrait.
“Ancestor?”
“Your parents had parents, and those parents had parents, and so on,” she explained, using hand gestures to suggest a series of steps. “She is probably one of them.”
“It is strange to be here, to know this was once my home,” he admitted.
“I know,” she agreed. “To be told that you belong here, after where you’ve spent your whole life . . .”
“I do not feel I belong here,” Thorne said simply. Yet he wanted
to feel it. He craved that sense of belonging almost as much as he craved Eden.
“Your aunt mentioned horses and stables. Do you want to go check them out?”
That suggestion brought a smile to his lips. “I remember the horses.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” Eden laughed, and they walked hand in hand out of the house and toward the stables.
“Do you know about horses?” Thorne asked as they walked into the stables. The scent of something rich and wonderful filled his nose, creating waves of old memories.
His father sitting on a tall black beast, his mother lifting him up so he could sit in front of his father. The bouncing feel of the beast as it moved beneath him.
“I rode a little when I was a girl in middle school,” said Eden.
“Middle school?”
“School is where children go to learn things. But most girls get obsessed with horses around that time. My mom sent me to a riding school for two summers. I wasn’t a great rider, but I was all right. I still love to ride when I get the chance.”
Eden moved deeper into the stables and patted a large bundle of some type of gold grass. “I still love the smell of hay.” She plucked up a few pieces of dried grass and handed them to him. Thorne lifted them up and inhaled. The rich scent brought back such happy, vivid memories. Hay. Yes, he remembered what it was now. His father used to feed it to the horses.
“My father used to take me riding,” he said.
“You remember?” Eden asked, her voice lifting skyward with excitement.
“I see images. Certain smells make the images clearer.”
Eden tapped the tip of his nose playfully. “That’s the power of your nose. Smell can be the most powerful thing when it comes to a person’s memory.”
Thorne smiled, and he gently touch the tip of her nose back.
“Show me a horse,” he commanded.
Eden rolled her eyes. “How can you be so hot when you boss me around? I’m beginning to think I have a submissive streak in me.”
Thorne liked it when she talked, even when he didn’t fully understand what she meant. He was used to the sounds of the jungle, the chatter of the monkeys, the cries of birds, and the throaty calls of the gorillas.
But there was something innately pleasing about the sound of a human female’s voice. Eden’s in particular made his body glow like he was beneath the late-summer sun, resting between the cool water of the falls and the heat of the sunlight. It was perfect. Just like Eden’s voice.
Thorne fell in behind Eden as she approached the wooden wall with windows placed intermittently down the row. A great beast pushed his head through one of the windows. Thorne tensed, then relaxed when he realized it was a horse. He wasn’t a child anymore, yet the beast’s size still intimidated him. The horse was like Tembo, but not nearly so tall, yet he seemed more restless, more dangerous with his potential for quick movements.
“Hey there,” Eden cooed to the horse and held out her hand. The horse bumped his nose into her palm and snorted softly. Then he nickered and encouraged her to pet him again.
“Need some attention, huh?” She scratched the horse’s nose and glanced at Thorne. “Come, you try.” She waved in his direction.
Thorne drew closer, holding his breath as he curled his fingers into a closed fist and let the horse breathe in his scent. He imagined he was back in the jungle, and how easy it was to be around animals, to let them speak to him. His shoulders dropped, releasing the tension inside him, and he could in that moment feel the horse’s heart alongside his own. He smiled. The horse huffed, and his withers rippled with a little tremor. Then he calmed and nosed Thorne’s bent knuckles. He opened his hand and let the horse nudge his palm. The dark, soulful eyes of the beast seemed ancient, much like Tembo’s solemn gaze.
“I bet you’ll be an amazing rider, like your father.”
“My father?”
Eden pointed to the wooden beam above the horse, which held several shaped gold objects. “Those are riding trophies. Your father’s name is on all of them.”
The thought of a connection to his father filled him with a secret joy. There was so much about this life he didn’t know, yet he wanted to. But he feared that the more time he was here, the more he would be expected to stay here forever. To abandon the forest. To give up his life with Keza and Akika. It was an unfair choice between two different worlds, and the world he had left in the jungle was still in great danger.
“There you are!” Isabelle appeared in the doorway of the stables, a warm but cautious smile on her lips. “I found some old photo albums and some videos of you and your parents. I thought you might want to see them.”
Thorne nodded. He longed to see his parents.
They left the stables and met Cameron in a cozy library that had a large screen. Cameron had laid out a collection of books on a nearby table and was flipping through them. He grinned as he saw them enter.
“Thorne, come in! Sit.” He nodded at a chair beside him.
Thorne sat down, and Cameron slid a book in front of him. It was full of photos of himself. No, not himself—his father. The handsome man stood next to a horse and wore a set of white clothes covered in grass stains and dirt. The rakish grin on his father’s face reminded Thorne of how he felt whenever he outwitted a silverback from a neighboring band if he strayed a little too close to their territory.
“He was a master polo champion, your father,” Cameron said with pride. He pointed to another man beside him. A happy looking man with laughing eyes. “That’s Jordie Lofthouse. We call him Lofty. He was a dear friend of your father’s.”
Isabelle laughed. “Lofty is such a darling scamp, isn’t he, my dear?”
“That he is,” Cameron agreed with a laugh.
Thorne saw a dozen more photos of his father before coming across a large photo of a woman in a white dress. She was half-hidden by a large bundle of flowers that she held in her arms. Roses. The deep-scarlet blooms were a brilliant contrast against the white of her dress.
“Your mother on her wedding day.” Cameron chuckled. “Your father made an utter fool of himself trying to win her over, though one could hardly blame him. We men should all be fools in love.”
She was beautiful, so beautiful that a bittersweet ache filled Thorne’s chest. It was the face in his dreams, the face that had given him comfort in the dark nights of the jungle in those early days.
“I remember her,” he confessed with quiet awe. “I remember them both.”
His mother’s smile. His father’s gentle chuckle. It was all there, buried deep within him. Thorne turned page after page of the pictures in the album, trying to capture more of these memories. When he was done, he looked at Eden, who stood next to the TV with Isabelle.
“Do you want to see the videos?” she asked.
Throat tight, Thorne nodded and stood before the screen. Eden had explained how this worked before they had left Uganda. A TV was like a camera, only the pictures could move and talk. Cameron joined him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder. The screen suddenly flared to life, and he saw a little boy frolicking on the grass. His mother was laughing as she chased Thorne.
“Catch him, Amelia!” A rumbling voice came through the TV’s speakers. It was his father’s voice.
“He’s such a cheeky little thing,” Amelia giggled. She caught the child in her arms and carried him toward the camera. Thorne could now clearly see his own face in the child.
“Give him to me, darling,” Jacob said. The camera shook, then righted itself, and Jacob was holding Thorne in his arms now, and Amelia must have been holding the camera. The look upon his father’s face as he looked at Thorne was one of pure love and devotion. The face of a man who’d been born to be a father.
Thorne had lost his whole world at an age where he could barely remember it. No one should have to face this type of loss. The pain was too great, too cruel.
His breathing changed into deep, harsh inhalations. His fingers curled into fists. Rage swirl
ed within him with a tornadic energy. He had to get out of this house, had to vanish into the wild before he went mad with grief.
He fled the library, ignoring the calls from everyone to stop. He barreled out into the front gardens and toward a distant lake. He needed to be near something familiar, something he understood. A place to catch his breath and think.
He skidded to a stop at the wooden dock that extended into the lake and stared at the murky water. Without a second thought, he dove into the water and swam deep down with long strokes until his lungs began to scream. He wanted to drown the memories, erase the dark moments of his past, but he couldn’t. Those painful memories were tied too intimately to the moments of joy they had given him.
When he broke the surface, Eden was standing at the water’s edge, and the setting sun lit her hair like gold from the ancient cave. He stood waist-deep in the water, gasping for breath.
Eden threw herself into the lake and swam toward him until she had him in her arms. He buried his face in her neck, holding on to her as he cried. His body shaking, he let the grief of the child he had once been and the man he had become bleed into the water around him. His hate, his sorrow, all of it seeped out of him, leaving him hollow inside.
“It’s okay, Thorne,” Eden whispered in his ear. “I know it hurts. You have to let it out so you can let it go.”
She was right. But he didn’t want all of the memories to go, just the painful ones. He wanted the happy memories of his parents to return. The rage and the violence that had threatened to consume him eased and started to fade.
“They should not have died.”
“No.”
“They were murdered.”
“I know.”
“I hate the men who killed them. I will find them, and I will kill them.”
“No, Thorne. They don’t deserve your hate. Hate is too great a burden to carry. Choose love instead. The love of your aunt and uncle, the love of Bwanbale and his family. Of Keza and Akika. They deserve your love.”
“And you,” he added. Thorne cupped her face in his hands and gazed into her leaf-colored eyes. “I carry love for you too.”