A Life Unexpected: Holly Nather Book One (Holly Nather Series) (26 page)

I want to bask in my awesomeness for at least a few seconds but can’t because Arlo and Luke are glaring at each other with murder in their eyes. Mallory looks scared, and I can tell she is trying to read everyone here. It is weird having this much magic around. A little over-whelming actually. I can sense magic, but it is hard to distinguish whose magic is whose. The only one that I can tell from the others is Luke’s. His magic is stronger than the others. I don’t know if that is because we are married or if it is because he is actually stronger than the others. I’ll have to ask that question later along with the millions of other questions I have.

The scene is actually pretty funny. Luke is standing like he is ready to kill. Brody, Jett, and Mason are lined up behind him ready to fight too. It’s one of those classic scenes in movies come to life—guy is ready to fight other guy with his posse on standby. The testosterone levels right now are ridiculous.

I go and stand between Luke and Arlo. Mallory is standing off,
way
off. I guess she doesn’t trust them yet either. She is staring at me, and I know she is trying to see if I have any signs of lying. If all of them don’t let their magic go soon I think they might explode. This really reminds me of when a cat meets a dog for the first time. Their fur gets all crazy, and they stand with their back bowed up ready to fight, and the tension is high.

I have had enough; this is just stupid. “Stop it! All of you!” I yell at every single one of them.

Ignoring me, Luke says to Arlo, “What are your intentions, Arlo?” Wow, I don’t know if Luke could look any scarier right now.

“To kill the Denton’s.” Arlo says through clenched teeth but manages to give a small evil smile.

“You must be specific, underling!” Did Luke just call him underling? That must be bad, because I can sense Arlo’s magic boiling. Luke’s magic is getting stronger too. I move out of the way, because standing in-between them right now might lead to my death.

“What did you just call me?!” Every word out of Arlo’s mouth is accented, dripping with rage and malice.

I go to say something else, but Brody stops me. “Holly, let them do this. They need to.” Brody whispers to me. I just shoot him a confused look, and he puts his fingers to his lips telling me to keep my mouth shut.

“Unnn...der…ling” Luke makes sure to draw the word out as he says it.

I should have seen this coming. All of a sudden, Luke almost falls back by Arlo pushing him with his magic so Luke throws his own magic back at him. The air in-between them is turning colors and rippling like water. I can actually see the magic! It is orange and red. Luke’s lips curl into an evil smile as he pushes magic towards Arlo. Arlo throws up some sort of blue smoke that makes the stuff Luke sent his way dissolve. Arlo must be doing something, because Luke is struggling to stay in the spot he is standing. His struggle isn’t too bad, though, because he isn’t moving. Luke is laughing at Arlo. Jett, Brody, and Mason are moving their hands around in a circle and have formed some sort of green liquid that is moving fast in a circular motion.
Oh, this can’t be good….

“STOP IT!!!” I scream as I go stand in-between all of them. “LET YOUR MAGIC GO! THIS IS STUPID!”

“Sorry, but your
husband
started it…” Arlo says, but he doesn’t let his magic go.

“I did not say you could speak to my wife!” Luke yells at Arlo. Since when does he get to pick who can and can’t talk to me?

“I do believe she is capable of saying who can or can’t speak to her. Besides, you should be thanking me.” Arlo says with a smile, but not a kind smile.

“I will never have anything to thank you for.” Luke says through clenched teeth. Okay, the Luke and Arlo saga is getting old, fast.

“Luke, stop it! Arlo can and
will
speak to me! You have no right to control who talks to me! I may be your wife, but I am not your child!” I say, and Arlo starts laughing. I glare at Arlo which makes him stop laughing, but it doesn’t remove the jack-ass smile off his face.

“We have way more important things to worry about than past issues you two have with each other. Can we please move on?” I ask while looking at Luke and Arlo.

“Yes.” Luke says, but mumbles something else under his breath that I can’t hear, which is probably for the best. I am not in the mood.

“I’m fine; it is your husband who has the issues.” Arlo says while pointing at Luke.

“I don’t care who is mad at who right now. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.” When I say this, Luke looks like the last statement I made couldn’t be more false. What could Arlo have done?

“I will let it go for now, but Arlo know this, I will never forgive you. I will always consider you an enemy.” Luke says this without even a glance in Arlo’s direction.

Arlo laughs and rolls his eyes. “Okay,
my Prince.
”

“Enough! Now we should probably get some rest. Can someone put a protection barrier around us?” I ask. Luke’s eyes look shocked.

“You also learned proper terms… that is much better than protection thingy.” Luke is laughing at me which makes everyone laugh.

“Yup, Arlo has been a lot of help. You really
should
thank him.” Luke moves his mouth like he is about to say thank you, but the words never leave his mouth.

“Holly, it’s already been done.” Brody says.

“Thank you,” I say and then notice Mallory hasn’t said anything while hiding behind a tree. I walk over to her. “You okay?”

“Are you sure about all of this? Are you sure you need me?” She asks while her eyes are scanning the guys.

“Yes! Don’t worry about anything. We all have the same mission in mind.” I am hoping to comfort her, but I think I’m failing miserably.

“I know, but I think Arlo and Luke may kill each other.”

“I hope not…Do you know what their problem is?” I ask, and she looks at Luke and Arlo and then back at me.

“You may want Luke to explain that to you. I am not the person that should.”

“Okay… so are you going to make a tent?”

“No, I’m staying with Arlo. I don’t really want to stay alone.” It is so obvious they still have feelings for each other. I don’t know why they don’t just make it official and date again. Oh well, none of my business.

I walk over to where Luke is standing with his hands in his pockets, alone by the fire. Everyone else must be in their tents trying to rest. When Luke sees me walking up, he smiles. Once I get close enough, he grabs my hand and pulls me close to him.

“I know you have only been away from me for a short time, but it felt like forever.” He says as he kisses me on the cheek and then down my neck. There are the butterflies I love.

“I know. It was terrible. Thank you for telling me the truth, and I’m sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“I don’t blame you for not believing me. I am sorry I wasn’t up-front and honest from the very beginning.”

“So what is the deal with you and Arlo?” I ask.

“Holly, do we have to talk about this now? I’m so happy to see you, and I don’t want to ruin it. We are going to be in the middle of war soon, and I just want to enjoy our time together right now.”

“But…. I want to know.” He shakes his head and runs his hands through his hair and sighs. “Let’s go to the tent. We really should get some rest.”

When we get in the tent we snuggle up next to each other, and he says, “You know he was my trainer.”

“Yes and that is all I know.”

“ARLO WAS ALSO
my brother’s trainer.” My mouth falls open. Brother? There are so many secrets about Luke I don’t know.

“You have a brother?” I ask in shock.

“I
did
have a brother.” I hear his voice crack a little.

“What happened to him?”

“Arlo took his training very serious. If we would slack, he would only push harder. My brother was strong but not as strong as I am. It bothered my brother that I could do more, and Arlo always made it very clear that I was better. Eventually my brother cracked, he went crazy. He wouldn’t sleep or eat, he would just train. My brother would try to fight me to try to become stronger than me, and he always lost. It became an obsession, a lifestyle
.
I always thought about just letting him beat me in a fight just to make him happy, but he would have known if I did that, and it would have just made him madder.”

“So, what happened? What did Arlo do that was so bad that you will never forgive him?”

I can tell he doesn’t want to answer me, but he does. “He killed him. He killed Paul.”

“What! How? Why?” If someone killed my brother I would probably be as mad as Luke and if I ever found that person I would kill them!

“When Paul went mad he went on a killing rampage. It was like he wanted to prove to everyone that he was strong. He killed so many innocent people and then he went to kill Arlo. He thought if he could kill the best trainer in Terre, he would be considered the strongest. He tried to kill me, but he couldn’t. When he and Arlo were fighting I tried to stop him, but Arlo was stronger than him. Arlo killed him. In self-defense, but still, he killed my brother. That is unforgivable.”

“Luke, he killed him in self-defense. It sounds like your brother brought it on himself.” Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, because now Luke looks mad at me. I am saying the truth, though.

“Holly, how would you feel if someone killed your brother? Even if he brought it on himself?” Okay, insert foot in mouth… he does have a point.

“Well why didn’t you guys lock Paul away and get him some help? Or take away his magic?”

“You know how my parents are. They didn’t care. They wanted all the underlings to fear us, and they didn’t care who got killed because of my brother’s insanity. My dad wanted Paul to be strong and if he went mad doing it, he didn’t care.” His parents really suck.

“But you said your brother tried to kill you! How is that okay?”

“I didn’t say it was okay and that I wasn’t upset with my brother, but Arlo had no right to end his life. Arlo is the best trainer, and he knows how to restrain himself. He could have simply held my brother off of him with his magic; he didn’t have to kill him.” I didn’t answer him when he said that. I can’t say that I blame Arlo. It sounds like Paul was out of control, and something had to stop him. I just hope one day Luke will be able to see that Arlo was just doing what he had to do to save himself and others. If he was killing innocent people he should have been sentenced to death, in my opinion, or stripped of his magic and locked away.

“So what is an underling?” I ask. I figure giving my opinion about the Arlo situation isn’t the best thing to do; so I change the subject.

“That is Versipellis that are not of royal blood or part of the Poyen.”

“So that is everyone besides you, your parents, family, and the Poyen?”

“And you.” After he says that I roll my eyes.

“So they are your slaves?”

“Yes, and yours.” I roll my eyes again.

“Luke, that is terrible! That is something that needs to be changed!”

“I know. Let’s stop talking about all the depressing stuff; I just want to enjoy this time with you.” He says and smiles a smile that lets me know
exactly
what he wants to do, and it has nothing to do with sleeping.

I wake up and realize Luke isn’t in the tent with me. It must be pretty early, because the sun is just barely in the sky. I sit up and stretch and realize I am not wearing clothes. I hurry and grab my clothes and put them on. I really could use some clean clothes. As I walk out of the tent I see Luke and the guys talking.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask as I sit down on the ground next to Luke. Luke kisses me on the forehead and whispers he loves me in my ear. I smile and lay my head on his shoulder.

Brody rolls his eyes at me and Luke. “We were talking about what we should do first. We probably have people looking for us who are intent on killing us all. Do you two have to act like that in front of everyone?”

I laugh and whisper to Luke, “What’s the deal with him?”