Amy's Advantage (17 page)

“My mate need not explain anything to you,” Amdyn said.

Siriyn’s eyes narrowed as he cut a glance to his oldest
cousin and back to Ellen. “Is he always a tyrannical asshole where you’re
concerned?”

“Arrogance and despotic tendencies seem to be birthrights all
Kilth heirs share,” she responded drily.

Siriyn’s easy smile returned with a conciliatory nod.
“True.”

Irritation bristled in Amdyn’s stance. “All of this is
interesting,” he said, “but it doesn’t explain why you’ve refused to claim your
rightful mate.”

With a frown, Siriyn stepped back and held up his hand
again. “This is what I need explained to me.”

The orb of fire returned to his palm, only this time it
formed much faster and the head and shoulders displayed were not sketched in,
but fully fleshed out. From her position, Ellen could see the back of a woman’s
head. She was finger-combing strands of long, curly red hair backward to catch
in a ponytail.

Amdyn had a better view. He frowned and leaned in closer.
“That’s Amy,” he said.

“I thought so too when Amy first arrived. She looks like
her, but she’s not the woman sitting in the living room. But she
is
my
mate.”

A cold, bottomless pit opened in the bottom of Ellen’s
stomach. A low roaring started at the back of her brain as she stepped closer
and leaned around to see the woman’s face. The roaring grew louder as she saw
what Siriyn and Amdyn were looking at. The woman looked
exactly
like
Amy.

“Who is she?” Amdyn asked.

“I don’t know,” Siriyn replied.

“Then how are you sure she’s your mate?”

“The same way all of you have known. I just
know.
”

The men’s voices were swallowed by the roar rushing through
Ellen’s head. As the woman tipped her head forward and secured the long
ponytail into bun, the air around Ellen began to swirl with heat. The woman
turned sideways and then began to rub lotion into her upper arms. She twisted
to reach her shoulder and Ellen noticed for the first time that there, high on
the back of her right shoulder, was a birthmark in the shape of a star.

The vision pulled away from Ellen as if being swept down a
long tunnel. Her lungs refused to work as bright flashes of white light spotted
the room around her.

“Ellyna.” Amdyn’s voice was harsh, loud. His hands were on
her arms, holding her up, pulling her close. She swung her fists up to brace
against his chest and pushed away.

Glaring at Siriyn, she demanded, “Is this some kind of sick
trick? Who put you up to it?”

Siriyn balked. “What?”

Though an icy chill sank into her bones, her face felt
fever-hot. Amdyn was pushing into her mind, searching, asking, trying to force
a calm over the rising currents of roiling emotions inside of her.

“How did you do that?” she demanded, advancing on Siriyn as
she used the power of her emotions to counter Amdyn’s probe.

Siriyn glanced uncertainly back and forth between Amdyn and
Ellen. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”

Erupting anger catapulted Ellen across the few feet that had
remained between her and Siriyn. Engulfed by a blinding fury, she cursed him
and struck out with a flurry of blows, scratching, slapping, punching. Reason
and words had deserted her, leaving only a raw, ravening rage.

Stepping back, Siriyn diverted and blocked her blows rather
than engaging. She didn’t care. With a hoarse cry of anguish, she threw herself
into the attack, her vision colored by crimson-stained rage. Her assault
continued unabated for the few moments it took for Amdyn to get close enough to
wrap his arms around her and lift her off the ground. Though he’d pinned her
arms to her sides, she still twisted and kicked until Amdyn’s tightening
constraint began threatening her ability to breathe.

Unable to draw in a full breath, Ellen scraped the edge of
oblivion and had to concentrate on drawing in air instead of attacking Siriyn.
As the overwhelming tide of fury rolled back, she could clearly see Siriyn’s
complete shock and bewilderment. Even with the set of scratches across his
cheek and another long one down his left arm that was beginning to bleed, there
wasn’t a hint of anger or offense in either his posture or expression.

Still unable to connect his present attitude with what he
had just done, she asked, “Why would you do that?”

Siriyn shook his head and looked for guidance from Amdyn.
“Do what?”

Slowly, gingerly, Amdyn set her down, but didn’t completely
release her. “Ellyna, you’re not making sense. What do you think Siriyn is
doing?”

Ellen started to shake, the ice in her bones winning over
the heat of anger. Her knees buckled and she would have dropped to the floor
save for Amdyn’s hold on her. He guided her to the couch and sat down beside
her.

Resisting the temptation to sink into either the couch or
Amdyn’s warmth, Ellen blanked her mind of all the swirling emotional thoughts
and drew in a long, deep breath as she counted backward from ten to one,
forming each number’s image clearly as white against a calming gray fog. When
the last number faded, her heart was beating normally and she was once more in
control.

Folding her hands loosely in her lap, she asked Siriyn, “Who
is she?”

Siriyn hadn’t made a move toward the seating arrangement
until she spoke and even now approached warily. He didn’t sit, but came to a
halt standing behind the chair facing Amdyn and Ellen.

“I was really hoping you’d know. At first I thought she must
be Esraina. She has the same coloring as you and your sisters and looked enough
like Brooke and Bethany for me to make that assumption.”

“When did you first see her?” This from Amdyn, the only one
in the room who looked relaxed, enough to be convincing if the intensity in his
eyes were ignored.

“Less than a month. And then when Amy got here,” he threw up
his hands in frustration, “it was her and it wasn’t. Only now I know it’s not.”
Siriyn looked at Ellen. “And your reaction kind of freaked me out.”

Ellen glared at him.
She
freaked
him
out?

“I was hoping you’d know who she was,” Siriyn said.

“Why would I recognize her?”

Siriyn shrugged. “When you left Ilyria, you were old enough
to remember our homeworld and people there. I thought seeing her might spark a
memory because I have no idea where to start looking for her. Maybe she’s a
lost cousin or maybe Amy has something like a dimensional twin?” He jammed his
hands into the front pockets of his pants. “I have no idea what the fuck is
going on. I just know I need to find her.”

“You recognized her,” Amdyn said to Ellen.

She shook her head, refusing to look at him. “I was
mistaken.”

Amdyn leaned back and spread his arms across the back of the
couch, giving Ellen her space. When he lifted a hand to skim a light caress
down her cheek, Ellen jumped. “You’re acting like you’ve seen the dead
walking,” he said gently. “Tell me what’s going on.”

An old shame swept through her and rammed at the wobbly
supports of her control. She couldn’t go back there. Couldn’t return to
memories she’d fought so desperately to be rid of. A tremor started in her
chest and she had to keep her jaw clenched so her teeth wouldn’t rattle. A
black hole opened in her mind, a gaping maw of oblivion urging her closer.

“Enough.” Amdyn’s harsh command jerked Ellen back to the
room.

Her eyes flew open, and with a jolt, she realized she didn’t
remember closing them. Hadn’t noticed Amdyn moving closer, cupping her face
with both hands, turning her toward him.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s time for you to stop
carrying it alone. Tell me.”

Ellen stared into the resolute blue eyes of a man she knew
she should trust. Images and emotions rolled over each other in a bid to smack
through the walls and barriers she had established over long years of regret.
If she knocked down her own seawall of defense, what would keep her from
drowning in the released flood?

“I don’t know how,” she said simply.

Chapter Ten

Jordyn crossed his arms and leaned back from the kitchen
table, his mind clicking through the information Amdyn had just shared with
him. His coffee cooled in front of him as the sound of a new pot brewing made a
poor attempt at filling the heavy silence in the kitchen. It was late and most
of the others were asleep, gathering rest for the possibility of a long day
tomorrow. Even Kirry had bid a quick good night after making sure the two of
them needed nothing more than coffee.

“How did Siriyn take the news?” he asked finally.

Amdyn shrugged. “Like Siriyn. When he found out that Esraina
had had a twin that no one knew about, I thought the damn boy was going to
explode. He and Ellyna spent some time tracking down her possible whereabouts
earlier on the computer. He was still searching when Ellyna turned in and I
left to find you.”

“It’s hard to imagine she had no idea her sister was still
alive after the amount of researching it took her to find and track the
others.”

Amdyn ran his hands roughly across his face and sat up
straighter in his chair, his expression grim. “It never occurred to her to
think otherwise. Hell, her memories of the night they jumped from Ilyria are
buried under so much grief and pain that it took even me a while to get to the
truth. She had so many defenses layered under, over, and around those memories,
sometimes I wasn’t sure what was truly remembered and what was reimaged by a
six-year-old child trying to cope with an impossible situation.”

Jordyn took a sip of his coffee and thought of Chloe. She
was younger and protected, but incredibly open. Ellyna was older and had had
some training by the time her mother took them all through the portal, but no
young child had the emotional and mental arsenal it took to survive an ordeal
of that magnitude without major psychological repercussions. Most adults would
have a terrible time of it, not to mention a child. Ellyna had suppressed many
of the memories most of her life, but they had to be a driving force that
explained much of her distance and distrust.

“Since she wasn’t actively resisting me,” Amdyn said, “I was
able to search through most of those memories without bringing them out of her
subconscious. With everything else going on, I don’t know if she’s ready to
deal with the entire reality of that night right now.” He shook his head and
fell into a brooding silence once more.

Knowing him as he did, Jordyn understood that it would take
some time for his commander to settle his own emotions after seeing through her
own eyes what his mate had endured. Like nearly all the Kilth he had known,
Amdyn bore in him a loyalty and devotion to family and especially to their
mates that emulated religious zeal at its most fervent.

“Bethany and Brooke never remembered having twin baby
sisters?”

“None of them remember much at all. It was a long time ago
and they were very young. They all made the portal jump less than a week after
the babies were born and most of those days, Magdalyne had stayed in seclusion.

“Though I haven’t pushed as much as I’d like, in all the
daughters, any of their memories that I’ve found or worked with are heavily
repressed. As children, they were running away from a fierce attack one moment
and the next stepping into a dark and scary cave. A short time later, a
Predator shows up and kills their mother.”

Jordyn took a drink of his coffee. Even as a child himself,
he’d been impacted immensely by the panic that swept through Ilyria when
Magdalyne and three matched mates of the Royal Heirs disappeared. He remembered
his grandparents daily lighting candles for each House. Regardless of the
territory and personal loyalty one might feel toward a particular House,
prayers and incense for all Houses rose and fused as one above every city and
town in their world.

Amdyn shook his head and pushed back a long strand of his
light hair. “The more I learn of that night, the more I realize that Ellyna
getting all her sisters down the mountain and to a road is a small miracle.
Brooke carried Amy and Ellyna carried Bethany with Amy’s twin wrapped up in a
makeshift sling and carried on her back.”

“Any idea why Magdalyne never bothered to tell anyone that
she’d had two babies and not just one?”

“I don’t remember much about that time except that the Sleht
were making inroads to the capital. My cousins and I had all been moved from
outlying territories and I spent much of that summer in hiding with my mother.
Magdalyne and her daughters were already a target and everyone knew she had
another prophesied Mystic on the way. I don’t blame her for not making the
twins known. It wasn’t announced that she’d given birth until days after the
event. Right before she disappeared.”

“Did Ellyna remember the baby’s name?”

Amdyn shook his head. “She just has memories of the child
being called Lala. Probably a nickname.”

“Why did she think Lala was dead?”

Abruptly, Amdyn picked up his coffee mug and stood, his
chair scraping the hardwood floor. “When they were picked up and the man took
the baby off Ellyna’s back, Lala had blood smeared all over her face. Ellyna
remembered falling at one point on their way down the mountain and put that
together in her mind with the blood on the baby, blaming herself. The memory of
seeing the baby covered in blood is strongly tied in her mind with the belief
that she killed her sister.”

Jordyn sat up straight in his chair, eyes narrowed. “All
these years Ellyna has lived with the belief that she killed her sister and
hasn’t told anyone?”

Dumping his cold coffee into the sink, Amdyn said, “Not a
soul.” He refilled his cup with fresh coffee and leaned one hip against the
kitchen counter as he turned back to Jordyn.

“I think it was probably her own blood that soaked through
her clothes from the gash on her back but that wasn’t even a possibility in her
six-year-old mind. The man who found them had a wife whom Ellyna only had fond
memories of. She fed and cleaned them up and comforted them until the police
got there. In her mind, Ellyna was extremely protective of her because the
woman accepted them and protected her and her sisters after their ordeal.”

Jordyn nodded. “That’s a natural reaction.”

“Except the woman told her that the baby had died. She told
Ellyna that she wouldn’t mention the baby to the police when they got there so
Ellyna wouldn’t get in trouble for killing her.”

A cold, deathly anger settled in the room, finding a home in
the two men who faced each other. The fury that focused and fueled both action
and aim became more starkly defined juxtaposed against the warm, cheerful
kitchen. Their thoughts running parallel paths Amdyn said, “I’ve already
checked. The couple died nearly a decade ago in a house fire.”

Amdyn shook his head and put the full cup of coffee on the
counter without taking a sip. “I think one of the reasons Ellyna is so
reluctant to go back to Ilyria is because she’s always feared being questioned
about what happened to her sisters if she does return. She didn’t realize that
no one knew about Amy being a twin.”

Leaning forward to rest his arms on the table, Jordyn tapped
the side of his coffee mug, thinking. “So what happened to the baby?”

“That’s what Ellyna and Siriyn were working through on the
computer earlier. The woman who cared for them had a sister in the rural
Northwest. Right around the time Ellyna and her sisters were found, she moved
from Portland, Oregon to a house their uncle had left them on the outskirts of
a little town in Washington. In Portland, records show the woman’s sister as an
older, single woman. But all the records in Washington indicate she arrived in
town as a new mother to a baby girl. Not a lot to go on there. At least from
computerized records. But it’s a hell of a lead for Siriyn.”

The heaviness that had been bearing down on him since Amy
had pushed away from him that morning in the snow bank shifted sideways inside
Jordyn. “When is he leaving?”

“Soon. I’m going to check on his progress before turning in.
Ellyna left him to it after cracking through a few firewalls to get to some of
the information he needed.” He glanced down the hall toward the library. “He
might already be packing.”

Jordyn stood. “I need to wrap up a few ends for Amy and
Chloe’s portal jump tomorrow and then I’ll be in the barracks if you need me.”

Bidding him good night, Amdyn exited the kitchen. Jordyn
frowned and wondered what other surprises Destiny might have in line for the
Ilyrian Heirs. It had been a long road to get them here and everyone had
finally begun to breathe a little easier, seeing the end in sight when Amy had
been found. But evidently, the fates still had some blind corners and twists
laid out for the Royals and their mates.

He grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair, shrugged
it on and shrugged off the questions he couldn’t answer. He had a job do to and
that was the only thing that needed his attention. The rest was up to the gods
and the Royals.

* * * * *

The bedside light was on when Amdyn entered the room and she
knew he’d look at the bed first. It was as it had been when she entered an hour
ago, the heavy comforter laying in place without so much as a wrinkle in it,
all the pillows perfectly placed. She didn’t move from her position at the far
end of the room, staring out the window, arms crossed and body stiff.

Gently, Amdyn closed the door behind him. He was being
carefully quiet and softly searching out her thoughts as he entered, but in the
silence with only her thoughts for company, she’d heard the turn of the
doorknob as loudly as if he’d knocked. The door closed with a soft
snick
and she felt rather than heard Amdyn move closer until the heat from his body
radiated against her back.

Amdyn’s hands settled on her shoulders, their warm weight
thawing a thin layer of the ice she’d wrapped herself in to freeze emotions
that otherwise threatened to become too overwhelming to contain. “I thought
you’d be asleep by now.”

“I have a lot on my mind.”

With his thumbs, he rubbed small circles on the tense neck
muscles bunched at the base of her neck. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” She knew her answer had been too quick and too bitter.
When she glanced up, his blue eyes were laser sharp and searching. “Not now,”
she amended. She didn’t know what to
think
about the reality shift her
life had undergone tonight and had no idea how to talk about it.

With an unaggressive rebuff, she pushed his mental probe
aside. “I’m fine.”

“Fine is a very broad term.”

“Take it however you want to.”

“Which part of this whole situation are you fine with? That
a woman you thought you could trust stole your sister and told you she was
dead, making you believe it was your actions that killed her, or that she hid
her from you for twenty-five years?”

Her vision clouded with hot tears and she blinked them away.
“The important thing is that she survived. That’s she’s okay and out there
somewhere.” She took a deep breath. “She’s probably leading a perfectly normal
life that’s about to get blown to pieces the moment Siriyn steps into it.”

“Or she might be in danger, lonely and wondering why she was
abandoned and what her family was like.”

Ellen glanced over her shoulder at Amdyn. “Way to put a
positive spin on the situation, Kilth.”

Amdyn’s breath puffed past her ear on his irritated sigh.
“Siriyn believes he might be able to locate Lala within the month if any of
your leads pan out. She goes by Laura now?”

With a murmured
yes
, Ellen dropped her head forward
as Amdyn went to work on massaging a knot high on her right shoulder. “Laura
Smith. At least she did when she was a child. I wonder if the woman named her
Laura or if she thought that was what I was calling her.” Her shrug fell right
back into place under Amdyn’s hands.

Anger swelled in her chest, a vise closing around her lungs
and threatening her ability to breathe. She forced the emotion down and lifted
her head to focus the scene outside, on a star blinking just above the jagged
black line of silhouetted trees. “It’s not as if I can remember what her real
name was in the first place,” she whispered.

It had been good to help Siriyn with his search to find her
baby sister. Engrossed in hacking challenges, even low level ones, had allowed
the initial shock and emotional charge to dissipate enough to allow her to
function somewhat normally.

Out of over a hundred possibilities they’d started with, she
and Siriyn had narrowed it down to about a dozen. Records from rural areas were
often sketchy to begin with and Katherine Smith, the woman who had raised Lala,
seemed to have gone to some pains to stay off the grid whenever possible
without pushing it to where she might be red-flagged as an extremist.

Katherine’s avoidance of digital footprints seemed to have
carried over to Laura. Even googling variations of her name for images was
surprisingly unsuccessful. She had left Siriyn wading through dozens of
profiles on different social networking sites when her eyes refused to focus on
the screen for one second more.

Within her, the shocking joy of finding her sister alive
after believing she’d killed her twenty-five years ago warred with the
seemingly limitless rage that someone would take a child from her family like
that. Ellen balanced on a knife edge of emotion. What kind of person would tell
a six-year-old child she had killed her baby sister, knowing that that child
would live with that guilt for the rest of her life?

Over twenty-five years later, she could still hear the
woman’s slightly nasal voice whispering in her ear as she showed her Lala’s
unmoving body and face covered in blood.
You must be brave, no crying. Don’t
tell anyone about your sister. If you tell, they will take you away from your
other sisters. You’ll never see any of them again because they will lock you up
with the other killers in this world and throw away the key.