by Cameo Renae
“I know, right?”
Trees twinkle throughout the gym. Everywhere I look, there are balloons, ribbons, and fabric in white and silver. Giant snowflakes and glittery stars cover the walls and hang in doorways and around the stage, where a DJ plays music. When Breckin asked me to the Yuletide Ball yesterday afternoon, I thought he was teasing.
* * *
“I probably should have asked before my soul imprinted on yours, but do you have a date for the Yuletide Ball tomorrow?”
We’re snuggled on his couch watching a movie, my head on a pillow in his lap as his hand combs through my hair. The Christmas lights Breckin weaved around the mantle earlier in the week wink at us. Elias left an hour ago to work a little angel magic at the school so my attendance reflects an early dismissal due to illness. Breckin’s father is gone, and except for a brief description of what happened on the mountain, neither Breckin nor Elias will tell me much of what went down.
I roll my head and look up at Breckin. “The ball? No, I don’t have a date. There’s a group going stag, and I’d considered it, but that was . . . before.”
“Do you want to go?”
“Right. Like you want to go to a school dance.” I laugh and roll back to my side, focusing on the movie.
Twenty minutes later, Breckin’s hand stills in my hair again. “Vivie?”
“Hmmm?”
“I want to take you to the dance tomorrow night.” My heartbeat accelerates. “Nothing about being with me is going to be normal for you. I want to give you normal. School dances, prom, ice-skating at the park—”
I fly into a sitting position. “Wait. Are you asking me to prom?”
Breckin laughs, his hand taking mine and weaving our fingers together. “I’m sorry it’s not some crazy social media–worthy request. I could plan one, if you need that.”
“Are you kidding? All I need is you. And normal is overrated, Breckin.” I pull his face to mine. “By the way, my mom is expecting us at the clinic for dinner tonight.”
“That’s reasonable. I should formally meet my girlfriend’s mother.”
“Yeah, you should,” I agree, kissing him soundly.
* * *
“May I have this dance?” Breckin’s lips tickle my ear as he steps up behind me, his hand curling around my hip.
I take the cup of punch he’s holding for me and turn into his chest. “You dance?”
“Drink, and come find out.” He winks and walks by, continuing to the edge of the floor and slipping his hands into his pockets. Waiting.
I take one sip and set the cup on a table. Zara is already on the floor, along with everyone else we’ve been sitting with, but I don’t care about them. Right now, it’s me and my angel.
His eyes sparkle as I join him. My hands slip between his waist and arms, and press his back, bringing him closer. He keeps his hands in his pockets, a smile playing on his lips. I’m wearing four-inch heels, and still he looks down at me. So not fair, but I love it. I hold his stare.
After a moment, he caves, and I’m wrapped in his arms. His unnatural heat sears through my gold velvet dress, warming my skin. His chin rests on top of my head as he inhales deeply.
“Ginger and mint,” he says with a touch of humor. His lips kiss my hair, before he pulls back. “That was how I knew it was you that day. I smelled ginger and mint, and I knew.”
I press my cheek to his chest. “What happens next?”
I didn’t mean to ask, but the questions linger. Sebastian’s words won’t let go of me. He said I had a calling. He questioned if I would stick with Breckin. He insinuated Breckin knows more than he’s telling me.
Breckin inhales deeply. “We live. We celebrate being seniors, and we do all of those things normal couples do.”
“Breck.”
“Vivie.” His fingers dive into my hair and tilt my head back. “I have found the one whom my soul loves.” He quotes a Bible verse, as though every answer we need lies in those words. “We were not put together to be torn apart. I don’t know what comes next. I wish I did.”
I close my eyes and push away the uncertainty. He’s an immortal angel. He can think that way. I’m not sure I can—I almost died once. He has until his birthday—four months—before his father returns and he’s forced to join him. What then? I shiver, and Breck shushes me, like he knows where my thoughts turned.
Shifting, he lifts me at the waist and hoists me to face level. “All I know is that you are my soul. I will do whatever it takes to keep you and to call you mine.”
Hugging his neck, I touch my forehead to his. “I have found the one whom my soul loves,” I repeat as my lips touch his.
Our paths collided eight days ago, but our souls were destined for each other. Our future chosen long before we were born. That is what I know. How? There’s no explanation, but deep within, something sings when it sees Breckin Roberts. And when I close my eyes, it tells me our story is far from over.
Epilogue
Elias
You ran out of the house yesterday,” I call over my shoulder. He didn’t make a sound, yet I know he’s here.
“Oh? Did you miss me?” Hamon asks, and I turn. He leans against the open door to my hangar, his legs crossed at the ankles and his arms crossed at his chest.
I close the lid to my toolbox and adopt my own pose of insolence, propping my hip against my work bench. “Hardly”—I snag a rag and wipe the grease from my hands—“your son might, though.”
“Breckin hates me.”
“Do you blame him?”
“No.” Hamon straightens, pushing his hands through his hair and stretching his neck from side-to-side. “You kept things from me, Elias.”
His voice is filled with a deep-seated weariness. How much are his alliances requiring of him these days?
“I’m doing what you asked all those years ago,” I say, recalling another night, seventeen years ago, when he also appeared in my hangar.
* * *
June 2000
* * *
The echo of footsteps in my hangar stills my hand. He’s been missing for months, but I can’t look at him—my anger is too strong. Yet, I have news.
“Phaedra’s descendent had a child.”
He stops walking. “A girl?”
“Aren’t they always?”
“The father?” he asks as he rolls his broad shoulders back.
The question hits a nerve, a reminder of my failure, and I don’t reply.
“You have watched over her line for two hundred years, but this you do not know?” He sneers.
“I was dealing with the mess you made, Hamon. I left her unprotected.”
Stretching his neck from side to side, he steps farther inside, his wings bristling in the light breeze. Months gone and that’s all he wants to know? His inability to speak of Phaedra’s descendants aggravates me, but his unwillingness to ask about Breckin sets my blood to boiling.
I don’t hide my irritation. “You have no other concerns?”
“Is her child the same as the others?”
“Human? Yes, she seems to be.”
He stuffs his hands into the pockets of his dress slacks and releases a long exhale. “And Breckin?”
It’s about time.
“Obviously, he is half angel. He is healthy.” One of the Nephilim, not something Heaven likes having around. “The woman I hired seems nurturing. You should stay in Havenwood Falls for a while and spend time with him. He is your son.”
“He is nothing. You’ll watch over him as you do Phaedra’s blood, and when he comes of age, he’ll join the ranks.”
I clench my jaw. “You will let him choose, though. Won’t you?”
“The way we chose?”
Always this.
“We had a choice, Hamon.”
“We were given less choice than man. We were locked out of Heaven.”
Inhaling through my nose, I close my eyes and pray my words sink into his blackened heart. “There is time for redemption. You can ch
ange your ways. The wars will never stop. You can be on the right side.”
“Tell that to Phaedra.”
Everything comes back to Phaedra. I swipe the wrench I was using before Hamon arrived from the table.
“A demon killed her,” I remind him needlessly.
“Because she was powerless.”
We’ve had this fight for years. It is still pointless. I turn my back and return to working on my copter. Hamon’s steps resume, and I peek over my shoulder, finding him walking to the open doorway. Leaving already.
“What is the child’s name? Phaedra’s blood?” He asks at the entrance.
“Vivienne.”
His head bobs as his wings stretch out. “Watch over her. Watch over them both,” he says as he jumps into the air.
* * *
I return to present day when a grunt escapes Hamon’s lips. “I suppose we should have expected this.” He pauses, and I twist the rag and wait. “Them. Vivienne and Breckin,” he finishes almost reluctantly. “More punishment—”
“Maybe it’s His way of righting a wrong. His apology,” I interrupt.
“Nothing good can come of them being together. What is she? A human with angelic ancestry? Something else?”
“She is your son’s soul mate, and she is Phaedra’s great, plus a few, granddaughter. She is family, Hamon.”
“She is a complication. She will make him weak.”
Like Phaedra made you weak? He has to be thinking it. It’s in the way his muscles flex and tense. He’s angry, because he sees himself as he was years ago.
I toss my rag down and meet him halfway across the hangar. “Stay in Havenwood Falls. Be his father and help me figure out what this all means.”
The suggestion pulls a long sigh out of him, before he turns toward the exit. “I have a job to do, and so do you.”
“Hamon?” He’s leaving as he always does. Ignoring the salvation that knowing his son could offer him. Ignoring the forgiveness Breckin brings.
Hamon’s dark wings spread wide as he stops. “I’m not ready, Elias.”
“I’ll watch over him, then. I’ll watch over them both, until you are, old friend.”
Without a response, Hamon leaps into the night, his wings an ebony shadow against the snow-covered trees as he leaves Havenwood Falls.
* * *
Breckin and Vivienne’s story will continue in July 2018.
* * *
About the Author
Michele writes novels with fairy tale love for everyday life. Romance is central to her plots, where the genres range from Coming of Age Fantasy and Realistic Fiction to New Adult Romantic Suspense. She is the author of the bestselling From the Wreckage series and co-writes the Paper Planes series with author Mindy Hayes.
Having grown up in both the cold, quiet town of Topsham, Maine, and the steamy, Southern hospitality of Mobile, Alabama, Michele is something of an enigma. She is an avid Yankees fan, loves New England and being outdoors, and misses snow. However, she thinks Southern boys are hotter, Alabama football is the only REAL football out there, and sweet tea is the best thing this side of heaven and her children's laughter!
Her family, an amazing husband and three awesome kids, have planted their roots in the middle of Michele’s two childhood homes, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
* * *
Website: http://www.michelegmillerbooks.com/
Email: [email protected]
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMicheleGMiller
Twitter: https://twitter.com/chelemybelles
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/chelemybelles/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/chelemybelles/
Acknowledgments
I’m so grateful to the people who support me through the book process and life:
My husband and kids deal with me forgetting laundry, dinner, carpool, emails, and the list goes on. How they put up with me I’ll never know!
My amazing crew of readers, bloggers, and friends on Facebook and “in real life” keep me sane. You make this solitary life a little less solitary, and a lot more lifelike. Thanks to Mindy Hayes, Jessica Surgett and Jo Pettibone for providing feedback on this story when it was new, sparkly, and still being fleshed out.
My core reader group over on Facebook, Mindy and Michele’s M&M’s: Thanks for being a sounding board when needed, book pimps when needed, and friends always.
To the Havenwood Falls family: This group continues to grow, but their generosity, creativity, and enthusiasm for this project astounds me. I’m so lucky to be able to write, and collaborate, with these amazing creatives.
More specifically, thanks to these ladies for creating and sharing your characters with Viv and Breckin:
Randi Cooley Wilson: Graysin Ravenal, Everett Weston, and Zal Purser
Kallie Ross: Scarlet Howe, Willa, Kase, and Ric Kasun
Kristen Yard: Nikki Morris and Max Cooper
Amy Hale: Mr. Zander
And of course, a final HUGE thank you to Kristie Cook for creating Havenwood Falls and making this all possible. I am in awe of your business savvy and ingenuity.
Bound by Shadows
By Cameo Renae
About This Book
Welcome to Havenwood Falls, a small town in the majestic mountains of Colorado. A town where legacies began centuries ago, bloodlines run deep, and dark secrets abound. A town where nobody is what you think, where truths pose as lies, and where myths blend with reality. A place where everyone has a story. Including the high schoolers. This is only but one . . .
Eris Blaekthorn can’t believe what she and her father find when two strangers come knocking on their door. According to the visitors, a memory spell caused them to forget a place called Havenwood Falls, including their life there and all the people in it. But when the strangers remove the spell, secrets from the past start to unravel.
Eris learns she has an older brother in the small Colorado mountain town. He’s trapped in a coma caused by dark magic. But they don’t know who did it or how. Her father agrees to leave their home in New Mexico and return to Havenwood Falls—a place he left to keep Eris safe. There, she learns about her family history and who she really is, which becomes the biggest surprise of all.
She also meets Rylan Gilles, a senior at Havenwood Falls High, and her brother’s friend. He’s beautiful and snarky, and their attraction to each other can’t be denied. As events start to spiral and danger rises, Eris turns to Rylan for help in finding the person who spelled her brother so she can save his life.
Other Titles By Cameo Renae
The Hidden Wings Series (Complete Series)
Hidden Wings
Broken Wings
Tethered Wings
Gilded Wings
Wings of Vengeance
* * *
Midway Series (Hidden Wings Spin-Off)
Guarding Eden
Saving Thomas – Coming Soon!
* * *
The After Light Saga (Complete Series)
ARV-3
Sanctum
Intransigent
Hostile
Retribution
In My Dreams Duology
In My Dreams
In My Reality
This book is dedicated to all those who embrace their weirdness.
Keep life interesting and entertaining.
Keep it real.
Chapter 1
Change was coming. I not only knew it—I felt it. Not just because New Year’s was a few days away, but because of the newly gained sense I’d acquired when I turned sixteen a little over a year ago. So I wasn’t hugely surprised when the doorbell rang in our quiet neighborhood on an uneventful Saturday night.
“I’ll get it,” I said, placing the last clean dinner plate in the dish drain, then wiping my hands dry on a dish towel.
My dad’s watchful eyes were on me as I strode for the door. He was overprotective, and although I felt suffocated at times, I understood. It’d been just the two
of us for as long as I could remember.
My father had chosen our neighborhood in New Mexico because it was safe and filled with dozens of cautious, watchful eyes. Especially the pair that belonged to the old lady across the street who moved in a few weeks after we did. She used to babysit me when I was younger, but not since I turned sixteen and pleaded with my dad that I was old enough to watch myself.
Old Ms. Gingrich—the Grinch—was a stiff and nosey woman who smelled of mothballs and strong herbs. She was strict and watched me like a hawk.
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was the one who rang the doorbell, hunched over, her wiry white hair in a tight bun, with some odd request for my dad. It happened so often, I wondered if she was going senile and thought he was her son.
As I reached the door and pulled it open, it wasn’t the Grinch who greeted me, but two unfamiliar faces.
The first was a pretty woman with pale skin and short brown hair. The man standing next to her was tall with broad shoulders, dark brown hair, and chocolate eyes specked with gold.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“Eris?” His eyes widened like he knew me. As he stepped forward, I stepped back.
He knew my name. How?
His strong scent wafted to my nose, woodsy and musky. A powerful smell for a powerful-looking man. I couldn’t help but stare at him. There was something oddly familiar I couldn’t put my finger on. The woman, I was sure I’d never seen before.
Footsteps pounded behind me. “I’m sorry, but we don’t accept solicitors here,” my dad said firmly.