by Lizzy Ford
Cade knelt beside her and wrapped his arms around her. She melted into his embrace.
“You will care for my sister, Cade,” John growled. “Or I will return for you when I am finished with Richard.”
“She is my heart. I will no’ allow any harm to befall her,” Cade replied with quiet resolve.
She closed her eyes, contented to be in his arms with her brother’s hand clutched in hers.
If, when she began her journey, she were to be told her fate involved seillie sorcery, a Highlander husband and seeing her brother again, she would never have believed it. God’s plan was so much more beautiful than what she imagined. Bowing her head, Isabel offered a prayer of gratitude and swore to cherish every day she spent with her enchanted Highlander.
Exhaustion and pain washed over her, but it was the flicker of joy in her heart, the thought of a fate filled with the Highland mores and Cade’s love, that accompanied her as she slid unconscious.
Epilogue
Six months later
“’Tis a dream,” Isabel breathed. Her face glowed as she gazed at the stone keep, newly finished. It perched on a bluff in full view of the sea on one side and the hills and grasses of the mores on the other. The walls and bailey were not yet started, but she had never seen anything more beautiful than what stood before her.
The early spring breeze was cold, and she shivered.
“As ye described, my wife,” Cade said and wrapped his arms around her.
She rested back against his warm chest, supported by his warrior frame, and breathed in the scent of man and dew. “Niall has been here.” She almost laughed at the amount of flowers surrounding the keep, a wedding gift from his cousin. As soon as one of the children plucked one, another sprouted in its place.
“Fer a day. He ‘as many matters t’attend to at the MacDonald’s,” Cade said. “I am assured our home will be finished before my first son is born.”
“Daughter,” she corrected him under her breath.
“Son,” he said and squeezed her closer before sliding his hands down to rest on her swollen stomach. “The next MacLachlainn chieftain and seillie protector must come first.”
“And if ‘tis a girl?”
“Then I will teach her t’carry a sword,” he said with a sigh.
Isabel laughed.
They stood in silence, gazing at their new home.
“English gold is not so bad, is it?” she teased.
He grunted in response. “’Twas a wedding gift.”
She heard his displeasure at the reminder of whose gold built their home. He had only agreed to accept the gift because it came from John and the coffers of Saxony.
“John will journey here in summer,” she murmured. “My uncle claims John is not well. My brother claims the title of Saxony but will not attend court or speak to any other noble outside of family. I fear he suffers.”
“He ‘as a brave woman at his side. Fatima will help him. In time, he will know peace, as I do now.”
She shivered again.
“Come,” Cade commanded and released her. He held out his hand. “I willna allow ye t’fall ill.”
She sighed, eyes lingering on the keep. Turning away, she slid her hand into his and gazed up at him, smiling. Cade grinned in return, his heavy features clean shaven and eyes as bright as the skies. Whenever his eyes fell upon her, warmth flooded her, and she forgot all the ill in the world and could only think of him. Mesmerized by his smile, awed by his kindness and strength, she could not fathom the idea of a life without him or how she became so blessed as to have him by her side.
“My beautiful wife,” he murmured, brushing the back of his fingers against her cheek and squeezing her hand.
“My seillie husband,” she whispered.
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Together, they walked back towards the makeshift village that had sprung up to support the clan until the new seat of the MacCossee-MacLachlainn land was ready.
“I have a cousin I want to introduce to Brian,” she said.
“Och not again,” Cade muttered. “D’ye no’ remember what happened last time ye tried this?”
She hid a smile. “I invited her to travel with my brother.”
Cade shook his head.
“If he can battle an army of Saracens, he can face one woman,” she pointed out.
“Nay, lass. When ye face a Saracen, ye ken yer at war. When ye face a woman, ye doona ken until she runs off with yer horse.”
“This coming from a seillie who creates tempests when he is unhappy?”
Cade snorted in response. He bent and lifted her off her feet. She relaxed in his strong arms, resting her head on his bicep to gaze at his strong, barbarian features.
“I think we need a storm,” he replied. “One to last a day or two. We’ll no’ leave our chamber.” His eyes sparkled with promise and desire.
Heat warmed her features. “Only two?”
“Verra well. Three days, perchance four, ‘til ye beg me fer sunshine.”
“I do not beg,” she returned. “Ever.”
“Then ‘twill storm until our home is ready or until our son is born.”
She laughed.
Pink gems sparkled in the air around them. The lights twirled around them before darting into the sky and blooming into clouds.
“’Tis the color of home, hearth and love,” he said, admiring the pink lanterns. “My magic has been this hue since the battle with Laird Duncan.”
“’Twill always be this hue, I believe,” she replied. “’Twill always reflect our love.”
“Yea, lass, ‘twill.”
Isabel sent a silent prayer of gratitude with the lanterns into the heavens and watched with a smile as grey-bellied clouds rolled across the sky.
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“Omega” - For fans of “Divergent” and “Hunger Games” …
In a modern world torn apart by territorial Greek gods, the fate of humanity rests in the hands of a teen girl with incredible powers and her unlikely allies.
“Omega,” the first book in a young adult dystopia trilogy by award winning author Lizzy Ford, releases in October.
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Want to know more about “Omega”? Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt!
Chapter One: Alessandra
No man or woman born, coward or brave, can shun his destiny.
– Homer
For once, Tyche, could you grant me a little luck?
I slowed before reaching my favorite meadow in the forest, my heart racing and chest heaving. A grin stretched my cheeks, and I stopped to listen for the boy I’d challenged to a race. I heard … voices. Male and at least two females.
“I guess not,” I muttered aloud.
The damn nymphs had him. My giddy excitement faded. I was the one who managed to lure a teen boy from the nearby campground into our forest and, as usual, the nymphs stole him. I couldn’t compete with the beautiful women. There were thirty of them my age, all unusually perfect, feminine and graceful. Even my guardian said they weren’t normal, and we’d coined the term nymphs to describe the other girls at the isolated orphanage where I lived under the thumb of strict priests. The other girls were all my age, too, each of them destined for positions befitting their beauty, according to the priests.
It was disgusting. I couldn’t stand them.
&nbs
p; I was an athlete, uncomfortable in anything but tennis shoes and yoga pants, terrible in school and bearing a scar from childhood across one cheek. No matter how much makeup I plastered over it or how far forward I brushed my dark locks, I wasn’t able to hide it. I was always late to class, always the last to understand whatever torture the priests were teaching us, always trying to catch the first light of Aurora in the reflecting pool or scaling a hill to watch the last rays of Hersperides.
The nymphs laughed at me. I hated them for it and me for not being able to fit in no matter what I did. I couldn’t change the fact I was shorter, smaller and otherwise imperfect compared to them.
“Lose another one, Lyssa?”
“Yeah.” I heard my guardian’s approach and looked up into his scarred, ugly face. A mountain of a man with bright red hair, Herakles had never once understood why I was so disappointed to lose every guy I looked at to the nymphs.
“If a man can’t outrun you – ”
“– I can’t bring him home with me. House rules. I know.” It was a stupid rule. Surely there had to be one man somewhere who shared my deer-like agility.
My guardian chuckled.
“He was so handsome!” I whined with a sigh, recalling the gorgeous brown eyes and smile of the teenage boy I’d met today. When he had looked at me, my insides turned fluttery and warm. “He almost outran me, too.”
“Only because you slowed down.”
I rolled my eyes and spun away, headed towards the compound in the middle of a forest where we all lived. “So what? Everyone here has kissed a boy and I can’t even look at one without the stupid nymphs taking him away. They just bat their eyes and the boys fall all over them.” I made a show of shaking my hips and blinking rapidly in mockery.
“I’ve never kissed a boy.”
“You know what I mean!” Herakles was a jerk sometimes. His rules were designed to prevent me from ever having a boyfriend. My interests generally lay in martial arts and sports. If not for the nymphs conspiring to steal any boys I lured away from the campground and always taunting me about everything, I wouldn’t look twice at a boy. But I shared one sole trait with the nymphs: competitiveness. I wanted so badly to best them at something and earn enough respect not to be bullied every day for the rest of my life.
“You could try studying harder,” Herakles suggested.
“Right. Like that’s going to get me a boyfriend.”
“There is more to life than boys and whatever else it is your head is full of,” Herakles reminded me. “You don’t need a man anyway. You can take care of yourself. I’ve trained you to survive anything.”
“I know I don’t need one. I want one so the nymphs stop laughing at me. Just for a day, then I’d let him go like you free the rabbits I catch.”
“You noticed.”
I arched my eyebrow at him. “I figured it out after I caught the same one every day for a week when I was, like, sixteen. You know the nymphs don’t have to hunt rabbits, don’t you? They don’t have to run every day or build their own campfires and shelters on the weekends. They get to go to town, Herakles, and see movies!” I sighed, tortured by my miserable existence. “Can I be normal? Just for one weekend?”
“Normal people aren’t prepared for their world to change or to face the trials awaiting them.”
“The zombies apocalypse isn’t coming. The priests say the world has never known a time of greater peace and prosperity and the gods are happier than ever.”
“An apocalypse is not required to announce itself,” he stated.
I bit my tongue. I knew better than to argue with Herakles. He was of a singular mind and convinced the world was going to end any day. Nothing I’d ever said over the past twelve years had dented his obsession with self-reliance and survival. I learned to hunt game bigger than me, forage for berries, survive in extreme weather conditions and other skills the nymphs – and even my teachers – often ridiculed. Sometimes he blindfolded me or hobbled one leg or arm so I had to survive for a weekend alone in the forest with simulated physical impediments. He first dropped me off in part of the forest alone with no compass when I was nine. I bawled for a day until he came to get me. Instead of taking me back, we stayed in the forest, and he taught me to navigate by the stars.
No one understood why he made me do these things, least of all me. I obeyed him because, above all else, I loved my Herakles, as weird as he was. While we were accepted here, we didn’t fit in at the school filled with nymphs and priests. We had to stick together, two dented peas in a misshapen pod.
“The man you want will be able to outrun, outhunt and outsmart you. When you meet him, you can marry him. Until then, no man will do,” Herakles said.
“I don’t want to marry anyone,” I said. “I just want to kiss him.”
“Then you can kiss the man who catches you.”
His conditions for me seeing someone were impossibilities. Herakles alone was the only man who could keep up with me. It was his way of saying I’d never have a boyfriend as long as I lived under his roof.
I glanced up at the green canopy overhead. The blue sky resembled puzzle pieces from this angle, and not a cloud was in sight on this warm spring day. What torture did he have in store for me on such a beautiful Friday? I had to climb a rope or navigate whatever obstacle course he built before I was allowed to go to bed at night. Weekends were worse. I was exiled to the forest for more survival training until Sunday night.
He was conditioning and preparing me for something. I had no idea what, and I suspected he was just a little off. A former Olympian, Herakles was the toughest, most honorable person I had ever known. He swept the annual Olympics for three years in a row before he stumbled upon me, rescued me from the house fire that killed my parents and brought us here. He didn’t respect anything but physical prowess. He could barely read, and he had an almost allergic reaction to discussing anything regarding emotions.
But he was my hero in every sense of the word.
To this day, I was unable to recall what exactly happened the night I turned six except it involved Herakles catching me when I fell from the sky. Why or how I was flying, I didn’t know. I still occasionally dreamt of falling – but no fire. My life changed that night. Herakles was unwilling to talk about it even after I turned eighteen and was considered an adult by everyone but him.
Herakles tugged the sleeve I’d tucked under my bra strap back down over the strange birthmark on my bicep that looked eerily like a double omega. The omega was the final letter in the Greek alphabet, or, according to Herakles, a sign of Armageddon. “Keep this hidden,” he reminded me.
“I know.” I pulled both sleeves down so I didn’t look stupid with only one up.
Picking my way through the forest back towards the compound where we lived, I considered the topic I’d been meaning to broach to him but hadn’t quite figured out the best way yet.
“We haven’t talked about graduation,” I started. “It’s in three weeks.”
“The world might end tomorrow. You should not think too far beyond today.”
“Omigods, Herakles! I’m eighteen, and I’m graduating in three weeks! I want to go home!” Too late I realized I’d told him what I had hoped to discuss in a calmer manner. I didn’t look back at him but focused on the path at my feet.
“You know there is nothing for you there.”
“So you’ve told me every time I asked. But I have to go somewhere,” I pointed out. “College. Waitress at a fast food joint. Holy Zeus, I’d become an initiate at a temple.”
“No temple would have you.”
It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that, either. The priests didn’t consider me disciplined or selfless or motivated enough to refer me for a position in the elite initiate corps. Half of the nymphs were headed to temples of the Greek gods. The others were being sent to the households of influential politicians and nobles around the world. I could speak English, Greek and French like they did – a requirement to become an initiate – but
my grades were sorry and my temperament deemed too unsuitable to be placed in a position where diplomacy and manipulation was required.
“You have more freedom here than the average person living beneath the thumb of the Supreme Magistrate will ever know,” he said. “Why do you wish to leave?”
“Because that’s what kids who graduate high school do. They get a life. Join the real world.”
“Where did you learn this? Television?” He was genuinely confused. He rarely spoke of his childhood, but I’d assessed over the years that his own upbringing had been very different. “I must talk to the priests about censoring the programs they let you girls watch.”
“They already monitor everything we watch. I guess I just want to know … where do we go next? Because we are leaving, right?” I asked, sensing I was doomed to work at a fast food joint the rest of my life, if he let me leave at all.
“We are. But I’m not yet certain where.”
“You’ve only had twelve years to figure it out,” I shot back with some exasperation. “I want to see the world, Herakles, or at least somewhere beyond this forest.”
“Until I know for sure –”
“– stay inside the boundaries.” I wasn’t allowed to travel beyond the red cord lining the perimeter of the priests’ quiet property. Since arriving when I was six, I had never left. The nymphs went to town every weekend to shop or watch movies or eat food and whatever else they did that Herakles didn’t approve of. It had to be more fun than navigating the forest in the rain with nothing more than a poncho and a knife. Meanwhile Herakles timed how long it took me to get home to make sure I wasn’t slacking before the inevitable end of the world.
We reached the edge of the greens where the compound proper started. Daydreaming about what was to come when I finally graduated, I missed Herakles stiffening.
“This isn’t good,” he said.
Blinking out of my thoughts, I stopped to see him staring at the long driveway leading from the road to the massive manor house that acted as our home and school. The priests had erected two small temples, one for a Titan god named Lelantos and another for the Olympic goddess Artemis, behind the school, beside the stables.