Serenade (The Nightmusic Trilogy Book 1)

by Heather McKenzie

  This was getting embarrassing.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked.

  I was the one supposed to be looking after him. The hour of sleep had brought color back to his cheeks, and he was ready to go, while I was turning into a mess.

  “Is it your stomach?” he asked.

  There was such a powerful twist in my gut I could barely speak. “Just really… upset… I’ll be fine,” I managed to squeak out.

  “This happens to you a lot,” he said with concern.

  “No. Just this last month. Haven’t quite gotten over a flu bug, I guess.”

  Luke stood there, quietly contemplating this, and then the strangest look came over his face. He suddenly looked pale again.

  “Um, are you okay?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said curtly, and then he turned and walked away.

  I didn’t know if I said something wrong, or if the pain meds were messing with his head, but his mood had changed drastically. Most likely, he was probably just too proud to admit he was in pain.

  The afternoon sun warmed the air and turned the snow to muck. Our packs were heavy, and we slid constantly as we made our way to the river. The beast seemed to be carrying the most weight, and I thought he must be frying hot with his fur coat and so much wrinkly fat around his neck. He still scared me—his sheer mass alone was intimidating—but when one of those shadows shifted in and out of the trees and he growled a deep, menacing warning, I was glad he was on our side.

  The pines thinned out a bit as we got closer to the river, letting in a muted, soft sunlight that for the strangest reason felt rather romantic. The smell in the air was incredible, and we were constantly front row and center to an amazing bird concert. I filled my lungs with the cleanest air you could imagine, grateful to be alive, and when we stopped to rest, I almost felt happy.

  Until I looked at Luke’s face.

  There was so much concentration and intensity about him he looked about to crack. When the beast flopped down at his feet, he didn’t even notice.

  “You okay?” I asked for probably the hundredth time in the last two hours.

  Either he didn’t hear me, which was virtually impossible, or I was being ignored. “So, what’s the dog’s name again? I forgot,” I asked as casually as I could, dying inside for any response.

  He stared at the ground, his jaw clenched.

  Seth proudly spoke up. “The dog’s name is Brutus. Brutus Jonathan Wayne.”

  “Wayne? Is that your last name?” I asked, grateful for any casual conversation.

  “Nope. John Wayne was a badass cowboy, just like my furry friend here. It suits him, doesn’t it?”

  “Uh huh,” I agreed.

  Brutus seemed thirsty. He intently watched as I uncapped my water bottle and tipped it to my mouth. “Does he need water?” I asked.

  “Yup. Call him and give him some. He’s a good ole boy; he’ll listen.”

  I thought it best to have the beast on my side, and he really didn’t seem like he wanted to rip my limbs off. I tentatively called his name and was shocked when he obeyed. I poured water into my hand in a slow stream, and he lapped it up greedily, leaving behind a slime I pretended not to care about. I touched his head and couldn’t help but smile when his tail wagged.

  “Hey, don’t be seducing my dog now, too,” said Seth with a smirk on his face.

  I laughed, but Luke’s expression still didn’t change.

  “What kind of dog is he?” I asked, determined to avoid the awkward silence.

  “He’s a Mastiff and Newfoundland mix—had his fifth birthday last week. Was gonna get him a cake, but at 190 pounds, he probably don’t need it.”

  “Yeah, he’s huge. Is that normal?”

  Seth grinned. “Yeppers, that’s why I got him. Having some useless, yappy little thing that just shits and eats is good for nothin’.”

  Regan spoke, his tone flat. “My dad used to call those kinds of dogs ‘kickables’.”

  “What? Did he actually kick them?” I asked.

  He seemed to give my question serious thought. “Well, yes—and us kids, too—whenever he had the chance.”

  I couldn’t stop from continuing. “Sounds like your dad was an asshole.”

  He smiled. “Yep, just like yours. I guess we have something in common, don’t we, Kaya?”

  His eyes, I realized, changed with his mood. They had become a soft amber now, gold flecks gleaming in the sun like his red hair. “I guess so,” I said, actually feeling confident enough to look at him fully. “Although, it would be much cooler if our common ground was something besides having a shitty parent.”

  “I think we might have more things in common than that,” he said with a sneaky glance at Luke’s sullen face.

  We plodded down an overgrown trail, parting bushes and slipping on muddy patches. Gone was my happy feeling. Luke stayed eerily quiet even after hours had gone by, yet still he stayed close to me, uncomfortably watching my every move and always ready to catch me if I fell. My mind ran wild. What had I said? What had I done? I stumbled, lost in thought, and his arm shot out to steady me.

  “Be careful!” he snapped.

  I mumbled I was sorry. I was unraveling. The emotional and logical parts of my brain were at war, my foot throbbed, my muscles ached, and my stomach churned. Luke seemed oblivious to his own wounds and was more worried about me falling or breaking a damn fingernail than anything else. Yet his eyes still avoided mine.

  The sound of the river hit our ears well before we saw the glow of it, and once there, Seth and Regan went about putting up the tents. Luke built a fire, avoiding me completely, and I was getting nervous. Maybe those moments we had were just that: moments. Maybe he had come to his senses and remembered that I was just a pawn in his plan to get Louisa back from wherever she was. Maybe the attraction I thought he had toward me was all in my head.

  That thought hurt like hell.

  The fire crackled as daylight faded, but the air stayed warm, soft, and perfectly still. The river moved along slowly and waves lapped up onto the rocky shore as two Ospreys dove in and out to catch their dinner. The colors of the setting sun cast orange-and-pink hues behind the trees, and I leaned back against a piece of driftwood to take it all in. Soothed by the peacefulness and mesmerized by the beauty, I decided that whatever was going on in Luke’s head was his problem, not mine. I wasn’t going to let it get to me. Soon we would be going our separate ways, anyhow.

  Regan had started cooking. Things were being chopped, sizzled, smoked, and taste tested over and over. I felt like I was watching one of those outdoor adventure shows on the food network. He seemed so confident and skilled, but what I liked most was how happy he was to do it.

  “What is it?” I asked when a portion of his finished creation was carefully lifted out of the frying pan and onto a plate. The most delicious aroma wafted up my nose.

  “Paella,” he answered, “cooked the traditional way over a fire with pine branches and cones to infuse it with aromatic smoke—otherwise known as good old rabbit and rice.”

  “What? Like, actual bunny rabbit?” I asked while poking what I assumed was a leg.

  “Um, yeah. It’s good, Kaya. Try it.”

  He peeled back the steaming meat from the bone, blowing on it to cool it down. I pictured him doing this for his sister—revealing yet another soft side to Regan—and he held out a tiny piece of brown meat to me. My mouth watered.

  “I’ve never eaten anything like this before,” I said.

  “You mean paella? Well, if we were at my house, I would have added some shrimp, fresh mussels, chicken, a bit of saffron—”

  “No, I mean I’ve never eaten any sort of… animal.”

  All three men stopped what they were doing and looked at me like aliens landed on my head.

  “What do you mean?” Regan said, looking completely dumfounded. Apparently, the concept of vegetarianism was new to him.

  “Henry never allowed it. Most of our food was grown on the esta
te or bought locally. I mean, I’ve had eggs, but I’ve never eaten the flesh of an animal.”

  “What about fish?” asked Seth.

  “Nope.”

  “Chicken?”

  “Uh, no…”

  “Ham!” said Regan excitedly, and I suspected that was his favorite.

  “Well, that comes from a pig, so no—”

  “Steak? Oh dear lord, please don’t tell me you’ve never had a steak,” said Seth in shock.

  “Well, no, it was once a living creature that used to eat and breathe—just like us… so—”

  “And you do this by choice?” Seth asked incredulously.

  “Well, yes…” But then I gave that question some more thought. Did I? No, it wasn’t my choice. I had been on a strict vegetarian, organic diet my whole life. I hadn’t asked for that. It was forced upon me. “Actually, I guess Henry made that decision for me,” I said.

  Regan shook his head, his expression almost comical. “Well, I’m gobsmacked. What the bloody hell is Henry’s problem?”

  “He’s obsessed with my health and always rants on about how chemicals will ‘mess up my insides’. He’d go on about it for hours. Chefs were fired if they were caught with even a speck of ‘unapproved’ foods in the kitchen.”

  “Ah,” Regan said with sudden clarity. He sat back and ate the piece of rabbit that had grown cold in his fingers. “Well, of course. Henry would know better than anyone about the effects of toxins on the human body.”

  “Why is that?” I dared ask.

  “Because Eronel Industries is responsible for some of the most damaging toxins in history, like polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxin, as well as antrixon, a chemical used in pesticides that is linked to female infertility.”

  “But Eronel makes medicine…”

  “It didn’t when your granddad ran it. When he gave it to Henry, the company was a smoking gun—about to be exposed to the world for the horrific damages it was causing. I’m sure he never dreamed his son-in-law would bring Eronel up from the ashes and turn it into a billion-dollar corporation aimed at curing the very disease it created.” Regan looked at me curiously, as he perfectly arched an auburn eyebrow toward me. “How can you not know this?”

  Luke looked up from his plate. I could tell my answer was important. “I just don’t. I don’t know… I…”

  “According to Isaac Asimov, ‘the saddest aspect of life is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom,’” Regan said and shoved a heaping spoonful of paella into his mouth.

  I felt stupid. I had refused to pay any attention to the news, or any of Henry’s business-related rantings because I really just didn’t want to know. Avoidance was my defense against the hatred aimed toward me because of my family.

  Regan piled more food on his plate and kept talking, but all I could hear was Henry’s voice churning in my head. The lectures, the lunges at my plate if I’d happened to have been served a piece of bread, the dismissal of the guard who bought me candy at Christmas, him grilling the chef about every ingredient and where it came from before I could even taste the meal that had been prepared. How many times had Henry said to me ‘your body has to be clean so you can have a child someday’… a thousand? A million?

  An Olympic pool sized dose of reality dumped on my stupid head.

  Regan had moved on to discuss the health benefits of meat, but I’d tuned him out. Instead, I was feeling the full effect of Luke’s gaze from across the fire. His face said it all: everything about Henry was true. Henry knew what he was giving those women—what he was selling them. Fertility was his passion, his expertise, his business—and his business was his everything. His company had created the illness and the remedy. ‘I tried to find a cure for the crazy in her head,’ he had said so often of Lenore…

  And what were his motivations for expressing such great concern over my reproductive health? What did it matter to him if I ever had a child? Why did he care? Unless, maybe my producing an heir to the family holdings was important somehow…

  The inheritance.

  I clutched my stomach.

  “It’s all natural,” Regan was saying, “there are no chemicals to worry about out here.”

  I made a run for the bushes and dropped to my knees. There was no food to bring up, which made the whole process that much more awful. I choked and coughed on stomach acid and thought briefly that I might die. I could see the headline flash before my eyes—girl dies from puking in the bush.

  Then, the nausea was gone again as quickly as it had come. Just like that. I stayed on my knees, ignoring the pebbles digging in to my bones and the strange, tall reeds of grass tickling my nose, until I thought it was safe to move. I carefully sat back on my heels, but my muscles felt unsteady. My head was spinning too, not just from retching, but from the horrible confirmation that my father really and truly was a monster.

  Luke had made his way over with water. Apparently, he was no longer ignoring me. I took the cool metal bottle from him and forced down a sip to quiet the acid burning in my throat. He knelt beside me and reached for my hand, but I pulled away—I was annoyed with his hot-and-cold behavior.

  “Kaya, I’ve been thinking about this all day, and, well, excuse me for being blunt, but is there any chance you could be, um, you know…” he said, his eyes looking into mine, searching for an answer to an unclear question.

  “Could be… what?”

  “When was the last time you, uh… when was the date of your last—”

  “Good lord! What are you asking me?”

  He grabbed my hand and placed it on my stomach. “Think about it,” he said softly.

  He thought I was pregnant.

  “What? Hell no! I started taking the pill a few months ago, and the doctor said I had just missed a few periods from all the training for the race and it was perfectly normal, and—why the hell am I telling you this anyway?”

  He looked like he’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. “Oh my God, you are late—by how much?”

  I thought he might pass out right there in front of me. Is this what he had been so moody about all day? Because obviously he’d given the situation a lot of thought.

  “Kaya, answer me. How late are you?” he said, his eyes huge.

  “This is ridiculous; I can’t be. The doctor checked. I had blood tests done a week ago.”

  “Maybe they were wrong.”

  “Stop it!” I hissed.

  This was insane. I had only slept with Oliver once and I’d been on the pill, so no, I couldn’t be. I stood and angrily backed away, almost tripping over my own feet.

  “Kaya, wait, I’m sorry.”

  “Leave me alone!” I snapped, marching off toward the river and cursing my wimpy tears for being so close to surfacing all the time. Me, pregnant? There was no way. It wasn’t possible. Dr. Ellis put me on the pill, and I was committed to it—never missed a day. I trusted him. He had been my physician since the day I was born, and he was Henry’s oldest and dearest friend—Henry’s oldest and dearest friend…

  Oh. My. God.

  “Soap,” she demanded.

  With her hands on her hips and her bottom lip jutted out, she reminded me of Louisa.

  “Wha—” Regan began to ask.

  “I need soap,” she insisted, clearly upset.

  “Um, we don’t have any,” Regan answered.

  She seemed about to break, and I knew it had nothing to do with soap. “I think I might have some,” I said and got up to dig around in my backpack. Regan quizzically raised an eyebrow. “You know, for dishes and such,” I said defensively.

  I put a half-used citrus-scented bar in Kaya’s delicate hand; it was the same one I had used at a truck stop a few weeks ago.

  “Please save my dinner for me. I’m going to wander down the river bank a ways to wash up first,” she said, speaking mostly to the fire, the flames reflecting in her eyes.

  “No. It’s way too dangerous,” Regan said. “There are bears, cougars, possibly
men with guns, and who bloody knows what else lurking about.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter to me. I just don’t want to make you all uncomfortable. I’m going in that river to wash up, get completely naked, and scrub off the vomit, the blood, and the dirt…”

  “Ooh, show time,” said Regan excitedly, giving me a lewd wink.

  Even though he was joking, the thought of him or anyone looking at her naked body made me feel insanely crazy. “Listen,” I said softly, not wanting to upset her even more, “go ahead, but not too far out of view. Regan is right; it’s dangerous.” Then I added, “Please?”

  Before anyone could protest, she marched off without saying a word. I felt sick. All day long I had thought about the torture I would endure when I had to let her go. Just having her out of my sight for a minute was unbearable. And since I was pretty sure she was pregnant, I felt an even deeper and overwhelming sense of duty to look out for her well-being.

  I stared at the flames, the blue and orange licks crackling and fluttering as it sent columns of smoke up to the treetops. The air was still, the birds were singing, and I wished I could take in the beauty of the place—so wild and untouched, not destroyed by human hands—but I was too miserable.

  I felt Seth eyeing me. “Everything all right?” he asked in a fatherly way.

  “Nope,” I said honestly.

  “Are you in a lot of pain?”

  I put my hand over my heart. “In so many ways.”

  “The feeling is mutual, you know. The way she looks at you is intense. She was like a mama bear protecting her cub today when we came back to camp. I think she—”

  “Don’t say it,” I said, rudely cutting him off, “it will be easier to let her go if I can convince myself she wants nothing to do with me.”

  Regan pretended to be pre-occupied with feeding the fire, but he glanced toward the river too often. “Come on, now,” he said, “we don’t have to let her go.”

  “You can’t hold someone against their will, Regan, and it was wrong of us to even try. I promised I would get her back home, and I will do it. Or, I’ll at least keep her safe until her fiancé finds her.”