Siobhan was fine on her own with her adventures, but what she really wanted was someone to share it all with, particularly now that she saw her friends so happy with their partners. Ronan was gone frequently, trying to find them answers, and Siobhan had spent quite a bit of time alone over the last few months.
It was the hope that the person fated for her was just around the corner that kept Siobhan from getting discouraged by all her alone time. They had all concluded that it was destiny at work for them, with the universe helping the Dragon clan by sending them people who were meant to become part of their world. Siobhan was sure she was next, and she couldn’t wait. She was so ready.
She just needed him to walk into her life.
“What are you daydreaming about?” Kean asked, elbowing her as he walked up beside her. “You’re all glassy-eyed.”
“I was just waiting for you two to stop sucking face,” Siobhan retorted, elbowing him back and finishing off her glass of hard lemonade. “You ready for a rematch before everyone gets here?”
“Too late.” Siobhan turned to see Moira walking past Kean and Dhara’s new house to join them on the tennis court, a basket weighing down her arm and Grady close behind her with a basket of his own. “We’re here, and we brought food. Where’s the picnic? This looks more like Wimbledon.”
Siobhan checked the watch on her wrist. “You’re early. Wimbledon is still on, and I’m winning.”
“Well, excuse me for arriving in the midst of your victory.” Moira laughed, hugging her and motioning for Grady to come over. When he did, she lifted the towel that covered his basket and showed Siobhan. “Look, we made crème brûlée. In little ramekins and everything. We’re very fancy now that we’re rich.”
Grady cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I’ve been rich.”
Siobhan laughed, knowing that neither Moira nor Grady were being serious. When Moira had first started falling for Grady, the fact that he’d had money had really bothered her, as Moira was a very simple girl. But she was slowly adjusting to her new lifestyle, and Siobhan was more than happy to reap the sugary-sweet rewards of Moira’s new life.
“Looks amazing,” Siobhan told her. “But how come there are only six of them?”
Dhara walked over, peering in the basket too. “Eamon called earlier. Anna has a cold, and Autumn got called in to a shift at the ER because of some major accident, so Eamon is staying home with the two girls.”
“Oh,” Siobhan said, scrunching her nose. “Poor Anna. Poor Autumn. Poor Eamon…”
“I thought they wouldn’t come,” Moira said, covering the basket back up as Kean wandered over to put his arms around Dhara from behind, his chin resting on her head. “Anna’s been trying to get sick for a little while now. And Ronan is out of town again …so, it’s just the five of us, and the extra crème brûlée…I guess it goes to whoever wins the tennis match.”
Kean kissed the back of Dhara’s hair. “I don’t know. Now that we’re all here and I’m seeing all that food, I think that it’s time to eat before we play any more matches.” He rubbed his stomach, eyeing the baskets. “I’m a hungry man.”
“I’ll allow it,” Siobhan agreed, her own stomach growling. “But just know that I was winning.”
As a group, they walked back to the front of Dhara and Kean’s house, heading inside to the living room that was only partially unpacked, given that they had only moved in the week before.
“You could have at least cleared a path for us,” Moira told Kean, teasing him as she wove her way around boxes and furniture.
“Hey, you’re lucky that we even had you over,” Kean said, leading her and Grady into the kitchen as the two continued to banter back and forth.
Siobhan hung back with Dhara, looking around the large room and envisioning how it would look once everything was in place. Her own apartment was relatively sparse, largely because she didn’t spend much time there. She wasn’t the sort of person to set up house or accumulate many things to keep around her. Siobhan liked to be on the move, and the less time she spent at home, the better.
“You have an interesting look on your face,” Dhara observed, setting the pitcher of hard lemonade down on the dining room table that had been set up already. “Something on your mind?”
“Not really,” Siobhan said, walking over and running a finger over a box marked Family Photographs. “I’m not a patient person, Dhara. You probably can tell that, even just knowing me for a few months.”
Dhara laughed slightly. “Yes, I suspected.”
“I’m ready for my life to start too.”
“What makes you think it hasn’t?”
Siobhan looked over at her and lifted a shoulder. “I don’t mean it that way, I guess. I’ve done a lot, and I’m not even thirty yet. A lot of adventure. A lot of experiences. I just…I’ve been watching my closest friends this year, and one by one they’re falling in love and giving their lives true meaning with partnerships and big decisions and…companionship. I want that.”
Smiling, Dhara sat down at the dining room table and crossed her legs. “You’re ready to settle down.”
“No,” Siobhan said quickly. “No, I’m not. But I’m ready to have someone to adventure with. And I just keep thinking that, if all of this is really fate, and the Dragon clan is changing, then it must be my turn soon. First Kean, then Moira, and then Eamon. It’s either me or Ronan next, right?”
“So you really think that all of this is orchestrated by fate?”
Siobhan sat down next to the woman, toying with the ends of her long ponytail. “Orchestrated isn’t the right word. But I think that the Dragon Clan has gone several hundred years being very exclusive, and now, in the span of six months, everything has changed. We’ve brought you and Grady and Autumn into it, and it’s only brought about good things for us. I have every faith that Ronan will figure out how to make it so that you and Kean can get married and have children. I don’t know what those children will be like, but they’ll be perfect regardless. And I just…I want to be part of it all. I don’t want to be on the sidelines. I hate the sidelines.”
“You like to get into it and get your hands dirty,” Dhara agreed, her wide brown eyes warm as they focused on Siobhan. “It’s understandable. If I’m honest, I would like to be able to move to the next stage of our lives too. We would like to get engaged…start planning a wedding.”
“Why don’t you?”
Dhara lifted a shoulder, tucking her long dark hair behind her ear. “Because Kean is loyal to his clan. Even though we know we’re going to be together, he wants to wait until he gets the official word from Ronan that arranged matches are a thing of the past. Not—of course—because he would ever accept an arranged match at this point, but just to have that official go ahead. For a while, we talked about just getting married anyway, but it didn’t sit right. And that’s okay. I understand, and I want to wait until it feels like the perfect time. But of course, we’d like to be husband and wife.”
Siobhan looked around their new house, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have ever predicted this for Kean a year ago, but I’m happy for both of you. And I know that someday you’ll be living here as husband and wife. I believe in Ronan, and I know he’s committed to this. It’s the only way the clan will be able to continue.”
“Then trust that your time is coming soon,” Dhara said, pouring them both another glass of hard lemonade and clinking them together. “Here’s to finding your fated partner.”
“Here’s to that,” Siobhan agreed, sipping her drink with a smirk. “And here’s hoping that he’s gorgeous, rugged, and loves adventure.”
Chapter Two
Julian
“Buongiorno! Welcome to Metropol! We’re very glad to have you here, sir. Did you have any trouble finding us? Here, this way to your table.”
Julian Giordano nodded politely at the maître d’ who was greeting him with the eagerness of a young pup hoping for a scrap of food. “Thank you. I found the place easily.”
T
hey walked toward a table near the window, and Julian took in the white linen, the gold charger beneath the white plate, and the elegant vase holding one long-stemmed lily. As a food writer, he would make note of such things in his article, describing the environment in which he enjoyed—or didn’t enjoy—his food as thoroughly as he described the food itself.
“Do you, perhaps, have a table that is not so close to a window?” Julian asked, smiling politely at the man holding out a chair for him. It was just after eleven in the morning, and the restaurant was clearly empty, aside from him, but he still didn’t presume that any table was available to him. “Unfortunately, I’m getting recognized more often than I’d like, and I’d rather sit at a table that can’t be seen from the street.”
Again, the maître d’ was all eagerness. “Oh, of course, of course. I understand. You have become quite the celebrity, Mr. Giordano.”
“Julian,” he corrected, following the man to a more secluded table. “And no, not really. But my editor insists that my face be all over the blog, and it’s becoming problematic. Thank you.” He took a seat, placing his napkin on his lap. “Here, sit down for a moment. I’ll explain how I usually go about reviewing a restaurant.”
After a moment of hesitation, the maître d’ sat down, looking around hesitantly, as though the owner of the swanky new restaurant might catch him and be displeased.
Julian tried to set the man at ease. “First of all, let me tell you that I don’t work like a food critic. I’m a food writer, which means that I’m not here to tell you all the reasons that the restaurant doesn’t meet my standards. I’m here to experience your food, your environment, your service, and then I’m going to write an article about it that will, hopefully, make people want to come here.” He smiled. “Assuming, obviously, that I want to recommend you. I’m sure I will. I have heard good things.”
“Oh yes, I hope so,” the maître d’ said, smoothing his hands on the linen. “Mr. Bernard is very hopeful that your article will make this place take off.”
“So he said on the phone,” Julian replied. “And, as I told Mr. Bernard, I prefer not to meet him while I’m here. I want to experience the restaurant without anyone influencing my opinion. That’s why I like to come before you officially open, so that I’m here completely on my own.”
The maître d’ nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes.”
Julian smiled again, taking out his tablet, on which he would make his notes, and picking up the menu that the maître d’ had laid down on the linen. “Perfect. Then why don’t I take a few moments to make my selections, and we’ll begin?”
The maître d’ stood up immediately. “What would you like to drink?”
“Water,” Julian told him, assessing the rather dismal cover of the menu. “And a peach tea. Please. Thank you…” He looked up, searching the man’s lapel for a nametag.
“Omar. My name is Omar.”
“Thank you, Omar.”
The maître d’ hurried away from the table to retrieve Julian’s requested drinks, and Julian used the time to look over the menu in front of him. He would try most of the appetizers and several of the entrees, then at least two of the desserts. Not all of his assignments required such a production, but the restaurant had specifically requested a write-up on what was quickly becoming the most prestigious food writing online column in Boston. In the past, Julian had just written about food that he tried or liked or read about, using his sense of humor and perpetual tongue-in-cheek style to create engaging articles. Now, it seemed, people were seeking him out, and his bosses were more than thrilled.
As long as it meant that Julian got to keep eating and telling people how much he loved food, he was more than fine with it. It might even mean that he could quit his day job as an accountant, which he had wanted to do since the moment he had graduated with a business degree and taken a job as an accountant.
Julian ordered the stuffed artichoke hearts, the blue cheese and pear tartlets, and the butternut squash ravioli as his appetizers and went classic with his entrees, ordering the surf and turf as well as the pasta with zucchini blossoms. Omar disappeared with his order, and Julian sat back in his chair, his stomach already rumbling, despite the early hour. He could eat any time of the day, and it was only his rigorous workout routine that kept his stomach flat as an ironing board, and just as hard.
Sipping at his iced tea, Julian began to look around the restaurant, taking note of the atmosphere in great detail. The décor was rather basic, and he would have chosen a warm color palette instead of the cool blue and white theme that bled from the walls onto the linens and wall décor. But it wasn’t a bad space, nice and open and airy, with plenty of light coming in from the wall-to-wall windows. The bar was large, and looked more elegant than lively, which was right up Julian’s alley.
He turned to his tablet and began making notes of all of his observations, but as he stared down at the screen, the restaurant around him suddenly faded away and he hovered in a dark, blank space for a moment before getting thrust into a completely new scene and looking through eyes that he knew couldn’t be his.
Trapped within the psyche of someone else, Julian stared into the terrified gaze of a young woman who was bound to a pole with zip ties at her hands and feet.
“Please …please …please …don’t. Don’t kill me. I won’t tell anyone. You know I have children …I have a husband …I have parents who are sickly. This won’t make any of it different. Please …”
Her voice was in his head, and he was looking directly into her eyes, but he wasn’t really there. Although it looked like it, his hands were not the hands that reached out to grab her around the throat and shake her into silence. His foot was not the foot to rear back and kick her, and it wasn’t his dark laugh that echoed when she whimpered in pain.
Through the eyes of the person torturing the small blonde woman, Julian watched in horror as she was struck again and again, then left to catch her breath, then struck once more. Black, blue, and shuddering with fear, the woman hunkered down at the base of the pole, sheltering herself as much as she could with her hands bound together.
Although Julian was screaming for help within his head, the sounds had absolutely no impact on the woman or the person whose eyes he was seeing out of. He could do nothing to stop what was happening before his eyes, and no way to look away from the sickening sight. He was trapped, forced to watch the abuser take out an inner rage on the helpless woman before him until she finally went limp, her eyes closed and her head lolled back at an angle that turned Julian’s stomach.
Just as abruptly as he had fallen into the moment, he fell out of it, his consciousness returning to his own body that still sat in the restaurant he was supposed to be reviewing. Before he could even catch his breath, his eyes locked with Omar’s, and he was once again staring at the face of a horrified person. He had the sickening realization that, while his shouts and protests had made no difference whatsoever to the fate of the woman he had just watched being beaten, they had echoed around the empty interior of the restaurant, causing Omar and the seven line cooks behind him to rush to his table to see what horrible force was causing him so much pain.
“Mr. Giordano…?” Omar’s voice shook slightly. “Mr. Giordano, you were…screaming. You were shouting. Can we…? Can I get you something? Do you need me to call someone?”
“No,” Julian said, getting to his feet, the napkin that had lain across his lap falling to the floor. Face flushed and hands shaking, he tried to gather his things while trying to somehow explain himself. “I…I’m not well. I wasn’t feeling well. I’m afraid I have to go. Your restaurant …it’s very nice. The blue—well, never mind. I’ll call. I’ll reschedule.”
Without waiting for a response—how could he expect one under the circumstances?—he hurried from the restaurant and onto Boston’s busy sidewalks, his heart still pounding so hard in his chest that he felt lightheaded.
Why did this keep happening to him?
It was the ques
tion he’d asked himself over and over again over the past six months, and he never had a good answer. These visions hit him out of nowhere, leaving him shaken to the core as he witnessed the most terrible things happening without being able to do anything to stop them. At first he had thought it was PTSD, after what had happened to him, but as the months went on and he had no other PTSD symptoms, he began to have the sickening feeling that the things he was witnessing were real events happening in the darkest corners of the world and shown to him for some purpose that he didn’t understand.
He couldn’t help them! What was he supposed to do?
The fact that he’d just humiliated himself in front of someone he was supposed to be working professionally with was hard enough to deal with, but the crystal-clear memories of the woman’s agony by hands that had looked like—but weren’t—his, were far more horrific.
Julian knew that he couldn’t keep ignoring what was happening to him—these visions from hell that he was having. But he didn’t know where to go for help. If he went to someone and told them that every few weeks he was thrown into a vision of someone being murdered or abused or suffering a fatal car accident, he was sure that they would put him into a mental hospital and throw away the key.
Maybe that’s where I should be. Maybe I’m going crazy.
“Mr. Giordano, are you sure you’re all right?”
Omar was behind him, looking concerned, and Julian turned slightly toward the man, giving a quick nod. “Yes. Fine. Thank you. I’m just fine.”
It was clear that Omar wasn’t comforted, but the man stepped back and nodded, letting Julian walk away from the restaurant with whatever dignity he had left. As Julian made his way to his parking spot a few blocks over, he knew that, whatever was happening to him, he couldn’t just keep ignoring it, especially if there was any chance that what he was seeing was real.
Chapter Three
Siobhan
“Has anyone seen Ronan?” Siobhan asked, poking her head into Kean’s office, where he and Moira were sitting with their morning cups of coffee, chatting. “He wasn’t in all day yesterday, and he’s not in again this morning. Was he supposed to be out of town again? I thought he just got back…”
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