by Vivian Wood
“Was there a prophecy?” Kellan asked. “Tell us!”
“She needs rest,” Gabriel snapped.
“No, I just… Oh!” Cassie managed after a moment. “Oh, god. I… I saw you die, Sera. I saw you ripped apart!”
She burst into tears, and Gabriel scooped her up and carried her off without another word.
“I—” Sera started, then realized she didn’t know what to say. She just felt confused, maybe even a little numb.
“Sera,” Kieran said, taking her hand and helping her to her feet. “That’s not going to happen. It’s okay.”
“Prophecies are often figurative, not literal,” Kellan said, taking her other hand.
She looked back and forth between them, feeling like a balloon about to burst. She’d only been awake a short time, and already she’d had too much. And then there were the two men staring at her with concern, avid heat in their gazes.
“What is this, this connection between us?” she asked, careful to direct the question to both of them.
The twins exchanged a tense look, then shook their heads.
“It’s unknowable,” Kellan said. “We just have to… sort it out.”
Sort it out. An apt choice of words if Sera had ever heard one. There was, it seemed, quite a bit in her life that needed sorting out. And if this prophecy was right, she probably didn’t have much time to do it.
What the heck had Sera gotten herself into?
5
Chapter Five
“This game is ridiculous,” Kellan said with a sigh, jogging and stacking the tiny cards in his hand and placing them face down on the table. He shifted in his seat, trying to keep from rolling his eyes. “Clue? There are many clues, and few answers.”
There was a lot Kellan would do in the name of getting to know Sera, but this was a genuine struggle. Losing wasn’t something he was good at in the first place, and now he’d lost to both his twin and the girl he fancied. It was… frustrating. Almost as frustrating as sitting across the table from the woman he desired more than anything, playing nice while he and Kieran were both doing their utmost to impress her.
“You’re just mad because you haven’t won yet,” Kieran rejoined. “Sera and I have each won a game apiece, and you’re lagging behind.”
“You have so many cards,” Sera pointed out. “You should have a better chance at this round than either of us.”
“He was never much for puzzles, even as a kid,” Kieran said with a laugh.
“I can take anything apart and put it back together again. I am fantastic at chess. Poker is almost dangerously easy for me,” Kellan said, trying not to get defensive.
Sera reached over and patted his hand.
“It’s a game for kids. You’re overthinking it,” she said, her lush pink lips curving upward in a kind smile. “Just relax and pretend like you’re enjoying yourself.”
“Did you play this game as a child?” Kieran asked, mercifully drawing the conversation away from Kellan’s failure.
“No, definitely not,” Sera said, shaking her head. “My parents are very serious people. They’re both lawyers and really ambitious and driven. They raised me to be the same. No TV, no pizza parties, no boyfriends. Just studying and school-related activities.”
“It sounds like you had quite a boring upbringing,” Kellan said, his lips twitching. “Sort of the opposite of Kieran and myself.”
“Well,” Sera said, laying her cards aside. “I came out of a desperately poor family. My birth parents emigrated to Ireland, and then sort of… lost track of me. Or abandoned me, when I was a baby. Then I was in an orphanage for several years, run by the Catholic Church. My parents went to Cork on vacation one year, and they just happened to ask for directions from a nun at my orphanage. To hear them tell it, I ran out the front door making all kinds of a racket, and ran right into their shins. It took a year, but they brought me home to the States. After all that, maybe a boring childhood was the best thing for me.”
“That’s quite a story,” Kellan said. “I can see why they would want to keep you nice and sheltered. You seem to have turned out all right, after all.”
He gave her a wink to let her know he was teasing, and he was rewarded with a blush and a laugh.
“They weren’t my jailers or anything,” she assured them. “I ran track, I had friends. Just… studious friends. I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was young, so I just worked toward that single-mindedly.”
“How did you end up here, working at Sloane?” Kieran asked.
“Originally I wanted to specialize in pediatrics,” she said, tilting her head thoughtfully. “But I had trouble fitting in at human hospitals, all through my residency. So I applied to Kith hospitals all over the country, small and large. Sloane offered me a job doing general medicine, which means I get to do a little of everything. It’s challenging and rewarding in equal measure, so I plan to stick around as long as they’ll have me.”
“It sounds like you’ve got it all worked out,” Kieran replied. “I hate to even ask what your five year plan is, for fear that I’ll be vastly outstripped.”
“Enough of me answering questions,” Sera said, flapping a hand at them. “First, I am going to make a guess at the murderer in the game. Then I want to ask you two questions for a while. Turn the tables.”
“Guess away,” Kellan said with a sigh.
“Mrs. Plum in the Observatory, with the Rope,” she said.
“Damn!” Kieran said, tossing his cards down.
“You didn’t even check to see if I was right!” Sera protested.
“I might have taken a peek at the cards earlier,” Kieran said with a shrug.
“You… cheater!” she crowed, tossing her cards at him.
“Easy, now. It’s all we know,” Kieran said with a laugh. “We were raised in the Faerie Court, where it was all lies, intrigue and cutthroat politics. Cheating is how we survived our formative years.”
Sera narrowed her eyes, then glanced over at Kellan, as if for affirmation.
“He’s right about that bit,” Kellan said with a shrug. “The Faerie Court was as brutal as it was wild. We were lucky that the Queen only banished us instead of killing us both.”
Kieran snorted.
“Only because she thought you’d come back and be her consort,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“Let’s talk about something else,” Kellan said.
“What? Wait, don’t skip over the juicy details!” Sera said, smacking Kellan on the forearm. “You didn’t want to be… whatever a consort is in the Faerie realm?”
“Well, for starters, the Queen is our aunt. Also she murdered our entire family, parents and cousins and uncles. And she was quite insane.”
“Oh,” Sera said, biting her lip. “She… killed your parents?”
“In the bedroom right next to ours,” Kieran said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms. “We were, I think, understandably angry and rebellious as teens.”
“And then the Queen kicked you out of the Faerie realm?”
“Yep. Kieran had gotten beaten pretty soundly, so we both landed here in the human realm with nothing but a concussion and the clothes on our backs.”
“Where did you go? What did you do?” Sera asked, her eyes wide. The compassion in her made Kellan’s heart wrench a little.
“It was centuries ago. We’ve gone everywhere, tried a little of everything,” Kieran said, giving Kellan a look. There were no terrible skeletons in their closets, but the centuries of drinking, gambling, and womanizing weren’t really what either twin wanted to tell Sera about. Kellan just arched a brow, knowing his brother would take his expression as one of understanding and agreement.
“So what kind of magic do you guys have? I’ve never really worked with any Faeries,” Sera said.
“Fae,” Kellan corrected her. “And we each have different powers. We can use a glamour…”
He summoned a glamour, a bit of magic that transformed his appearance, and made himself look exactl
y like Mere Marie for just a moment, down to her wild white hair and creamy coffee-colored skin.
“Oh!” Sera squeaked. “That’s marvelous.”
“We can’t hold it for long. We can transform into animals, though, and that we can hold almost indefinitely,” Kieran added. “Bears, wolves, big cats. Predators, mostly.”
“Fascinating,” Sera said.
“And then there’s the elemental magic,” Kellan said. He released the glamour and held his hand out, palm up.
Gentle green wisps of magic blossomed and snaked upward, twisting and climbing like vines until they formed a small green plant. After a moment, a gentle purple bud appeared at the top, then burst into flower before Sera’s delighted eyes.
“Here,” Kellan said, plucking the bloom from his palm. He leaned over and tucked it behind Sera’s ear, and she blushed when his fingers brushed the sensitive skin of her neck.
“Amazing,” she breathed.
“My magic is a bit… different,” Kieran said, breaking into the moment and earning Kellan’s fiercest glare. Kellan could see his twin trying to think of a nice spin to put on his dark powers. Then Kieran grinned, spreading his hands wide, and looked upward.
Snowflakes began to fall, showering them in a gentle layer of soft white powder.
“Holy crap!” Sera said, hand flying to cover her mouth. “That’s so cool!”
Kellan rolled his eyes, but Kieran had done his magic masterfully.
“The Light Prince, and the Dark Prince, at your service,” he said.
“That’s what they called you?” she asked, her brow puckering. She shivered, and Kieran made a gesture that killed the snowfall.
“It is what we are,” Kieran said simply, reaching over to brush the snow from her shoulders and hair. “Kellan, warm her up.”
Kellan reached out and touched her wrist briefly, sending a burst of warmth through her body. She gave him an appreciative grin.
“Well, this evening has been most illuminating,” she said.
Kellan wondered what she meant by that. Was she closer to understanding the Gray brothers, to perhaps choosing which one she wanted more?
Sera yawned and rose from the table.
“Would you two mind packing up the game? I’m a bit tired, and you’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said, stretching.
“Of course,” Kellan said. Kieran’s expression had gone stormy, but Kellan guessed that his twin was just impatient and hungry, just as Kellan felt.
“Goodnight, then.”
Sera headed upstairs to bed, leaving Kellan and Kieran alone.
“The suspense is killing me,” Kieran said. “She won’t give me the slightest hint as to which of us she is drawn to more strongly. I’m going to go mad with it.”
“You and me both,” Kellan said as he watched Sera’s retreating back.
Sera was a mystery unto herself.
6
Chapter Six
Serafina stood at the stern of the majestic ship the General Goddard, watching the coastline of her native India slowly slip from her view. Behind her, the ship was abustle with the activity of the crew, half a hundred men crawling all over the sails and decks making everything ready for the eight month voyage ahead.
The salty wind whipped her tightly braided hair and tugged at the numerous layers of her clothing. Sera pressed both hands to her stomach, fingers tracing the stiff boning of her corset. She was only just becoming used to the British mode of dress, so different from the comfortable, colorful saris she’d worn her whole life.
She felt cramped and confined in her new garments, but it was for a good cause. She was going to be a British lady, after all, with a fine house in London and all the fripperies that came along with it. A little discomfort could be withstood in order to fit in with her new life.
It was all ahead of her, just as her homeland was behind her.
Sera tilted her head back, inhaling deeply. More than just the sea air, she could smell the tea and spices that were crammed, cask after cask, into the ship’s hold. The aromas of the merchandise that her new husband was taking back to Britain, fulfilling his contracts as a captain in the Honourable East India Company.
“Sera.”
She turned to find him standing behind her, looking every bit the title Captain Thomas Foxall in his starched and formal navy uniform. Tall, dark, and handsome, he was everything she’d ever dreamed her future husband could be. That his skin was pale mattered not to her, nor the fact that he insisted that Sera move back to London with him.
She’d go anywhere to be with her beloved Thomas.
“Darling,” she said with a smile. She intentionally worked to suppress her accent, copying Thomas’s dulcet English tones as best she could.
“Getting better,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “You’ll be a proper lady by the time we reach the Continent, I should hazard.”
“I thought you liked me because I’m a wild heathen,” she teased, reaching out to clasp his hand. She wanted to kiss him, but she knew he wouldn’t like her to make a scene in front of his men.
Terribly conservative, her Thomas.
“Is all in readiness for when we reach London?” she asked, turning back to watch the dark, shifting water all around the boat.
“My letter announcing our marriage should be arriving within the month,” he said with a soft smile, knowing the answer she sought. “I have instructed them to expect a foreigner.”
Sera reached up to brush back a lock of dark hair that lay across his forehead, then grinned.
“Perfect.”
Thomas opened his mouth to say more, but just then they were interrupted by the cries of a dozen crewmen. Sera couldn’t make heads or tails of what they were shouting, but Thomas’s whole body went stiff.
“Go belowdecks,” he hissed, pulling Sera from the railing and pointing her toward the entrance to the captain’s cabin. “Don’t leave until I come get you myself.”
“What’s happening?” Sera cried as he rushed toward the ship’s center mast.
She had no need of the answer, because just then a terrific crack rent the air, and the whole ship jolted violently, causing Sera to lose her footing. She grasped the rail with both hands, shaking.
Thomas didn’t stop moving, running to the mast and grabbing one of the ship’s only floating vests. Even as the thunderous sound of the ship’s underbelly cracking and splitting filled the air, he returned to Sera and fitted the vest over her head, cinching it tightly around her.
“If we go down… find a piece of wood that’s big enough to support you. I will find you, my love,” he told her, his expression serious as the grave.
“Thomas, wait!” she cried as he began to turn away again.
He paused, reaching into his coat, and turned back to her. He grasped her by the waist and kissed her, hard and desperate. When he stepped back once more, Sera felt the cold weight of metal in her hand.
“A pistol?” she asked, confused.
“Do not use it unless no one else is left alive,” he told her. “If the ship breaks, I want you to jump and swim as far as you can. Otherwise the ship going down will suck you under. Do you understand?”
Sera could only nod.
Satisfied with that, he whirled and charged toward the ship’s bow. Sera tucked the pistol under her floating jacket, then braced herself against the railing again. The great, tall mast that held the ship’s sails wavered and tipped away from the rest of the ship, ripping a great crack through the middle of the vessel.
Trembling, Sera knew that she must follow Thomas’s instructions, that she must jump and swim as far as she could, even if the ocean’s icy black water didn’t offer much better chance of survival.
She would not fail him. She would never fail her husband, never.
With shaking hands, Sera pulled herself over the ship’s railing and stared down at the inky depths of the water below. She sucked in a deep breath and closed her eyes, sending out the briefest of prayers.
&
nbsp; No matter what happens, please let me stay with my Thomas.
Sera braced herself, choked down a sob threatening to wrack her body, and jumped.
Then she was falling, falling, falling….
Sera sucked in a strangled breath, thrashing against her tangled bedsheets. Had she drowned? Had her body broken as she hit the water?
But no, no. She was safe and sound, lying in a warm bed. It took her several long moments to situate herself, but eventually she did. She was staying with the Guardians. She was at the Manor. She was herself, not some sea captain’s exotic treasure of a wife.
Flinging the sweat-soaked covers away from her body, she pressed a hand to her pounding heart.
It was just… it had been so real. She felt this way sometimes, waking up from dreams about her life in ancient India, or her life as a sixties housewife in New York. The dreams were always so detailed, so accurate… it was eerie.
But they were just dreams, right? The fact that they reeked of Kith magic, surely that was just a product of her imagination. Wasn’t it?
Sinking back against the pillows, Sera closed her eyes and tried to calm her wild heartbeat.
It’s nothing, go back to sleep, she chided herself.
Only it didn’t feel like nothing…
7
Chapter Seven
Kieran had never been so hard up for anything in his long, long life.
Just now, he stared at Sera from the windows of the downstairs lounge as she stood in the backyard chatting with Cassie. Staring her up and down, up and down, admiring every single delicious curve. She wore these amazing jeans that were absolutely unfair, and a filmy white shirt that gave just a hint of the dark, lacy lingerie she wore underneath.
“You’re drooling,” Kellan said, coming up to stand beside him.
“Like you aren’t?” Kieran said without taking his eyes from Sera.
She laughed at something Cassie said and tossed her the long, dark-chocolate curtain of her hair. She glanced over at Kieran and Kellan, once and then again. Even from this distance, her blush was evident. Kieran could almost smell her arousal every time he was close to her. Goosebumps on her skin, a flush on her cheeks, the way she bit her lip and stared back at him a little too long…