I grip Eliana’s hand so tightly that, had she been a human woman, I would have pulverized her bones. She squeezes me back as her gaze takes in her family. Arnus stands there, looking irritable as usual. Rishka is to his right, bitchy as usual with her hand resting threateningly on the hilt of her sword.
My family stands shoulder to shoulder, expressions more curious than anything else. Geseph gives me a nod and the tiniest of smiles.
Eliana clears her throat. “Thank you all for—”
“Traitor,” Rishka hisses, interrupting her sister. “Explain why your life shouldn’t end now for cavorting with a Bluff Dweller.”
Fuck, I want to strangle her.
I do believe Eliana expected this, and she’s prepared with a retort that shuts her sister up. Her hand going to her stomach to press a palm there, she says, “Because I love Ronan and I’m pregnant. I want this feud to end, and I want this baby to bring our families back together again.”
There are surprised gasps from the Bluff Dweller’s side, and I dare a quick look their way to see them whispering to each other with smiles.
When I look back to Eliana’s side of the family, her words have clearly infuriated Rishka and I’m not sure if it’s the part where she said she loved me, or where she said she was pregnant.
I tug on Eliana, bringing her closer to my side and ready to jet out of here.
“Pregnant,” Arnus asks with a menacing frown. “Just how long have you two been illegally seeing each other?”
Eliana actually rolls her eyes at her father. “What we’re doing is not illegal. There are no laws that say Meadowlanders and Bluff Dwellers can’t mate, but to answer your question… Ronan and I have been seeing each other only a few weeks.”
So many gasps at this revelation because they are all now realizing how odds-defying it is for Eliana and me to have conceived this quickly.
She seizes on this moment of shock and continues, loudly addressing everyone. “This feud is nothing more than a thirst for revenge that should have been slaked when Dahlia was killed. She took Oretell’s life unjustly, which was only fair she ceded hers in just retaliation.”
Those are shocking words for her to say. She’s essentially saying Uncle Geseph was justified in killing Dahlia.
“Father,” Eliana implores. “I get that you wanted to fulfill Dahlia’s last dying wishes that you take up arms against the Bluff Dwellers, but seriously… enough is enough. It’s time to let it go.”
I decide to add my two cents. My gaze moves from group to group. “It’s time to end this feud. To accept that justice was done and let the hate go.”
No one says anything, although Rishka’s scoff is clearly heard by everyone.
In a last-ditch effort to show how serious she is, Eliana pulls free a crystal pendant attached to a silver chain from under her shirt. It was given to her by Nimeyah.
She holds it up for both sides to see. “This was my prize for winning the arena battle in Faere at the Festival. It will grant me any reasonable request. I’m prepared to use it right now on the wish that our land can have true peace. But I’d much rather everyone come to their own senses on this.”
Finally, it’s Geseph who talks, and he does so by breaking free of his group and moving toward us. He smiles at me, then turns his attention to Eliana. “We don’t need you to use your wish for this. I’d like to welcome you into our family if yours won’t have you again. You and your child will always be welcome in our lands.”
Eliana’s eyes shine with tears and Geseph moves to her, hands to her shoulders, and kisses each of her cheeks.
I look back to her family.
I can tell by many of the expressions they are not repelled by Geseph’s offer. But Rishka is having none of it by the sneer on her face, and Arnus looks wholeheartedly dubious.
It’s Rishka who draws the line. “I wouldn’t expect anything less of such a weak clan. But neither of you will be welcome here.”
To this, Eliana’s eyes move to her father’s. “Even my child? Your grandchild?”
Arnus shifts uncomfortably but remains stonily mute.
“I have something to say,” a female voice filters from the back of the Meadowlander crowd. Someone pushes their way through, and I see it’s Eliana’s cousin, Ilona.
She moves to stand on the other side of Arnus and smiles first at me, then at Eliana. “We are not governed by Arnus or Rishka. While Arnus is overlord, his job is to see to our safety, not make rules. Our ruler is Nimeyah in Faere, and if she were standing here, I’m sure she’d tell us we’re being stupid by not ending this feud. Because I am free to make my own decisions as a Meadowlander—something I wish I could have done a thousand years ago—I have the right and the pleasure to welcome you two in my home anytime you want. I suspect other Meadowlanders feel the same.”
“How can you even say such a thing?” Rishka snarls at her cousin. She points a finger right at Eliana. “She took your wings.”
Ilona nods. “And that forgiveness is between your sister and me. It’s none of your business. I happen to feel that Eliana is not the same person she was all those centuries ago when she did that.”
Looking away from Rishka, Ilona’s gaze comes back to Eliana. “I suspect that many of us are not the same people we were centuries ago. Time has changed us. There is no good reason for this feud to continue.”
Geseph steps forward, giving a solicitous bow to Ilona. “Your cousin speaks wisely, Eliana. I would like to know who among these representatives from both sides on this rock would vote to end this feud here and now.”
Every Bluff Dweller’s hand goes straight up in the air, and I smile broadly at them as a group. On the Meadowlander side, the vast majority quickly go up, with a few lagging behind undecidedly. After a moment, the only two whose hands remain down are Rishka and Arnus, and my heart squeezes for Eliana that her two family members can’t let go of the hate for her sake.
But then, Arnus clears his throat, his gaze going briefly down to Eliana’s stomach. When his eyes come up, it’s to move past his daughter and over to Geseph. “It’s over.”
“But Father,” Rishka practically shrieks.
“Enough,” he booms, head whipping her way. “I said it’s over, and that means it’s over. If you can’t accept that, it’s time for you to leave Brevala.”
Rishka pales, and I have to bite my tongue not to laugh.
Arnus turns to the Meadowlanders. “Anyone who can’t accept the feud is over can leave. Pass that on to all the others when you return to your homes.”
Rishka silently fumes but holds her tongue. Arnus moves to Eliana, and like Geseph did, puts his hands to her shoulders and kisses each cheek. Pulling back to stare into her eyes, he says, “You and your child are welcome in my home anytime.”
Eliana glares pointedly at her dad.
He sighs, then looks to me. “You as well, I suppose.”
“Can I call you Dad?” I ask with a grin.
Eliana elbows me in the ribs and Arnus presses his lips flat, refusing even to acknowledge my question. He gives a short glance at Geseph, and while I know they’ll never be friends and most likely always enemies of the heart, they will abide by the freedoms that were just afforded by ending the feud.
Arnus leaves, and the Meadowlanders follow. Ilona stays behind to hug Eliana and me, and then we’re alone with Uncle Geseph and the handful of Bluff Dweller representatives he’d brought.
“I’d say that we need a huge celebration,” he says to Eliana and me. “Think you two can stay for a few days?”
“We’d love to,” Eliana accepts without consulting me, but okay… I’d really love it, too.
Except…
“We have to return to Paris briefly and check out of our hotel,” I tell my uncle. “Give us about an hour to return.”
* * *
An hour later…
I roll off Eliana, having just experienced the motherlode of all orgasms. I think it was the combination of pride in my woman for takin
g on two warring clans, the fact she’s carrying my child, and well… she’s a hellcat in bed and pushes every one of my buttons in the right way.
She rolls, moves into my side, and cuddles into me. Her arm goes over my stomach while mine holds her close to me.
“Should we move back to Brevala?” she asks.
“Fuck no,” I reply resoundingly. “We can visit any time you want, but I want to travel the world with you. And when we get done traveling the Earth realm, we’ll travel to other AltVeritas. I want to show our son—”
“—daughter.”
“Whatever,” I continue. “I want to show our kid everything there is.”
“Imagine taking her—”
“—him,” I cut in over Eliana.
“Whatever,” she continues. “Imagine taking our kid to the Coliseum in Rome to show her—”
“—him.”
“—her where we fought each other.”
“But we’ll leave the part out where we nearly destroyed the secret passageways with the rough hate sex,” I reply with a laugh.
“It’s hard for me even to remember that we hated each other.” Her voice is soft and tender, and, as my heart squeezes, so does my arm around her.
“Love is far more to my liking,” I say before turning my head to kiss her. “We should probably head back to Brevala for our welcome-home feast.”
“We won’t have anything like that from my side,” Eliana notes a little sadly.
“Sure we will,” I say. “Because we’re going to set the example. They’re going to see how deeply we love, and, once we have our kid, they’ll be clamoring for us to visit.”
Lifting her head, she looks down. “I’m a lucky girl.”
“And I’m a lucky guy,” I agree.
“We can still battle each other at the games in Faere, though, right?” she asks, one eyebrow cocked.
“Damn straight. It’s our first tradition, after all.”
Eliana laughs and kisses me. “And it won’t be our last.”
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Learn more about Carrick Byrne in The Revelation of Light and Dark, book one of the Chronicles of Stone Veil series!
Unknown dangers lurk within the shadows of Seattle, threatening to undo the world as we know it. Carrick Byrne, as mysterious as he is handsome, knows a prophecy is imminent. What he doesn’t know is how to stop it, with the exception of one thing—Finley Porter, the fiery and strong-willed barista who wants nothing to do with Carrick or the tales of doom he is spinning. But Carrick knows he must convince Finley to believe, for the fate of the world rests squarely on her shoulders. CLICK HERE for more details on The Revelation of Light and Dark, and keep scrolling to read chapter one!
Chapter 1 of The Revelation of Light and Dark
Finley
Opening my bedroom blinds, I glance outside. It’s a glorious morning in Seattle with blue skies peeking through clouds that are white and fluffy on top, and flat as pancakes with a touch of gray underneath. That may or may not mean rain, but I don’t need to look at the forecast. I always carry an umbrella attached to my backpack because rain is a fact of life in the Pacific Northwest.
My eyes catch on my neighbor, Mr. Pelman, as he rolls his garbage can out to the curb for collection. He’s old and stooped and I should really offer to do it for him, but I don’t.
It’s not that I’m a rotten or uncaring person. On the contrary, I try to help anyone I can—my weakness is handing out money to the Seattle homeless whenever I have some on hand. But Mr. Pelman happens to be one of “those” and being in his presence for too long or staring at him too hard causes bad things to happen, and my neuroses will go into overdrive. I’ve worked far too hard to get my mental health in a good place, and I take great care to avoid any of “those” that threaten to make me unstable again.
My father would be proud of me, accomplishing that which he could not. His mental health issues ultimately led to his demise.
I take an extra moment to let my gaze roam my neighborhood, avoiding Mr. Pelman. It’s a mishmash of different types of small houses with tiny yards. There are no sidewalks, the grass growing right to the edge of the road, and most of the driveways are pea gravel. It’s been my ‘hood since the day I was born almost twenty-eight years ago, and I was literally born in this house, right on my parents’ bed. Situated on the northwest side of the city within spitting distance of the Puget Sound, I’m sandwiched between the Broadview and Bitterlake neighborhoods on a street filled with rhodie bushes and tall evergreens.
My home is like most others, a Cape Cod-style built in the late forties. It’s covered in light blue vinyl with dark blue shutters that could use a new coat of paint, and it has a small, uncovered stoop at the front door. The front yard is plain except for a square patch of grass leading to the road and boxwoods along the front foundation. The backyard is where we hang out on nice days as Dad had built a large deck that holds a grill and a four-piece table and chair set along with a flimsy chaise lounge I like to read books on when it’s warm enough and overcast, as my pale skin burns easily. At the bottom of the deck stairs, there’s a rose garden my mother had planted and which my dad and I valiantly tried to maintain over the years, but neither of us have green thumbs. It’s pretty sickly, but I can’t bear to tear it out as I don’t have much of my mother left.
My twin sister Fallon and I inherited this house when my father died. We were only sixteen, and were fortunate to continue to live here under the guidance of a distant aunt who came to live with us until we turned of age. He had enough life insurance to help pay off the mortgage, cover the utilities and other expenses related to two teenage girls, with enough left over to give us both a significant boost to pay for college.
At almost twenty-eight years of age, Fallon now lives downtown with her fiancé in a luxurious condominium, the epitome of success, and I live in this square box of a family home that I love dearly with three cool roommates.
Smiling, I turn from the window, knowing I need to get going. Layers are required in Seattle, because while consistently temperate, the days can start chilly and end warm. It’s the first week of June, which means early fifties in the morning and lower seventies by midafternoon. I shrug a jacket on over my long-sleeved tee, which is under a short-sleeved t-shirt, take a moment to lace on my white low-top Chucks, and head out of my bedroom.
I cross the hall to Rainey’s room—formally my parents’ bedroom—and knock on it loudly. “This is your wake-up call. Rise and shine, princess.”
She mutters something back, but I don’t wait around to try to decipher it. This has been our routine for about the entire four years we’ve been roommates here, and she’ll stumble out for a cup of coffee in a few minutes. Rainey’s in my parents’ bedroom because I never felt the need to move out of the one I’d grown up in. Even though her room is larger, there’s something about being in the room where my parents were intimate and I was born a squalling mess on their bed, not two minutes after my twin Fallon, that just weirds me out. Of course, that bed is long gone, but still… I’m happy in my childhood bedroom. Even on the cusp of turning twenty-eight, I still have a Foo Fighters poster on the wall above my bed, my hardback set of Harry Potter books I’d saved up for and purchased myself on my shelves, and a small Tiffany butterfly lamp my dad gave me on my sixteenth birthday that sits beside my bed.
It was his last gift to me as he died less than a week later.
In the kitchen, I find Myles at the round table that seats four, head bent over his laptop. He’s in IT and gets lost in coding with a dopey look of pleasure on his face. He’s cute by any woman’s
standards with dark hair that’s shaggy and unkempt, with locks that fall adorably across his forehead. His brown eyes always shine warm and inquisitive through his black-framed glasses, and he rarely shaves, so there’s always scruff on his face. It’s not thick enough to grow into a full beard, and at twenty-six, that’s probably not going to change at this point. But still, it presents a roguish kind of cute that totally works.
There’s a bagel on a plate beside his laptop, and I nab it as I walk by.
“Hey, Finley,” he gripes, head popping up. “That’s my breakfast.”
“And it was feeling completely ignored.” I bat my eyelashes to help plead my case for absolution, but he just rolls his eyes at my efforts. Myles has been secretly in love with Rainey for about the same amount of time I’ve been knocking on her bedroom door to wake her up, and he couldn’t care less if I bat my lashes. In fact, I could probably prance around naked, and he wouldn’t give me a second glance. Myles was second to move in after Rainey, and he has been here for just about four years, too.
“I’ll make you another one,” Adira tells Myles quietly from behind the small kitchen counter where she’s pouring me a cup of coffee.
Adira’s the last of my roommates, but she’s only been here a year. While Rainey, Myles, and I have the three bedrooms on the second floor, Adira has settled into the small hobby shop my dad had converted from our detached garage many years ago. He installed baseboard heaters and a small working bathroom with a shower, and he spent a lot of his free time puttering out there—fixing broken things and making little pieces of furniture that were wobbly and adorable at the same time. When I considered adding Adira as a roommate to boost my rental income, I sprang to have the room carpeted for more comfort. She brought her pull-out couch when she moved in, keeps her personal belongings in milk crates, and has been happily, but quietly, living with us since.
She pushes the steaming mug across the counter to me—strong and black, the only way to drink coffee in my opinion—and grabs the bag of bagels to toast another for Myles.
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