Remembering Yesterday (7 page)

Her mother nodded. “I understand. And your father will see that you are not his baby anymore. Give him time. He will come around. I only ask you not to move in with Devlin until your father gives his approval.”

She drew her mother into a tight hug. Ava eased away from her. “I will
not
promise that. I don’t know what will happen. I don’t know if Devlin will even ask me to marry him again. But I promise you, Mom, the day he asks me to marry him, to move in with him . . . if I love him, I will say yes. If there is one thing I understand it is how precious time is . . . and I will not lose any opportunities because of Dad’s reluctance to accept that I am grown up.”

Her mother chuckled, and Ava relaxed. She wanted to rush over to Devlin’s place, but she reined in the need. She did not want a recurrence of December 13th. She would get some rest first and then go see him. She only prayed he would still want to give her a chance after all this time.

Yes, they’d had some great sex, and they’d talked some. But she had been so cold to him when he’d suggested that they weren’t over, and the shutters he had drawn down in response had seemed so final. It had seemed so irrevocable. And even last night, they had dance and kissed, gazed at the stars and talked about everything, but a future with them being together in it. By the time they parted, her heart had been breaking because she had been a damn coward.
No more
.

Ava wanted a chance to recapture what they had lost.

Chapter Nine

Everything inside of Devlin was focused on Ava as she walked toward him. He was at their spot. He never thought she would come there. It had been almost twenty four hours since she’d walked away from him at the park, and he had been in a torment of need to go to her. She had shut him down when he had tried talking about them, but he had decided to give her a full day, and then he would have gone hunting for her. He was not about to let stupidity and pride tear her away from him for a second time.

He had promised himself to woo and charm her, and to hell with her father. She was
not
broken, like she’d said. She was the same strong, sexy and determined girl he knew. She’d wanted answers and had trekked to his ranch in the middle of the night during a storm to face her fears. She had made love with him, with the same passion, love and wildness. He had seen it, and he had felt it. Best of all, she had spoken to him in front of the entire town, kissed him, danced with him.

Ava looked beautiful and determined as she marched towards him. She was dressed in her customary jean shorts, blue sweater and knee-high boots. He didn’t stand as she approached. He simply waited seated under the cypress tree for her to come all the way. She sank am arm’s length away from him on the blanket, tracing along the gorgeous pattern with her fingertips. Long seconds passed before she lifted her eyes to his. The stark need on her face allowed hope to finally uncoil in his gut.

“I went to the ranch house. You weren’t there.”

He smiled. “I left a few hours ago. I’ve been coming to the lake ever since I came back. Hoping I would see you here, dipping in the nude.”

Her soft laughter curled deep into the corners of his heart and filled it with happiness. He threw her one of his apples and she caught it deftly.

She grinned as she bit into it. “If I’d never been to the ranch house before now, why is it so familiar?”

Unable to stand seeing her so far from him, he tugged her into his arms. She came willingly and some of the tension eased from him. “Back when we were together, we talked about everything. Your dreams. Your passions. I knew how you wanted your house designed and I’m good with my hands. I made each piece of furniture you’d ever dreamt up for your someday-home, one by one, and shipped them here.”

She snuggled into him. “So you still had hopes for us.”

He had never thought about it like that. It had just been this compulsion he’d acted on. The need to create everything she had ever spoken of with such joy and enthusiasm. He knew, deep down, he’d dreamt of her by his side. Hoping against all logic that one day, he would be enough for her, enough for her parents, and she would give him another chance.

All of those hopes had faded when he’d thought she had discarded him. And he had lost her for a year, because he had believed the love she’d expressed wasn’t strong enough to go against her parent’s wishes.

Never would he doubt her again. Or himself, when it came down to it. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

She laced her fingers through his. “I asked my parents about the accident. They confirmed that I was coming to meet you, to leave town, when it happened. They knew about us but they kept it from me. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I have regained more memories of us being together. Of us by this very lake. I’m not sure if I am the same girl you fell in love with, though, Devlin. I hardly remember that girl. I
feel
as if I’m falling in love with you, though, and I’d like to think that tells me I never stopped loving you. But our time together is only coming back in bits and pieces. And Dr. Thompson says I may never regain that year in its entirety. Even twenty years from now, I may not have all of it.”

She tilted her head so that her head rested in the crook of his arms and met his gaze. “I want to date you, Devlin Calhoun . . .
openly
.” A throaty chuckle pulsed from her. “I think I already know I want to marry you and spend the rest of my life with you, but I thought we could start by dating, getting to know each other, reclaiming what we have lost.”

Love crashed inside of him as he stared at the honest hunger in her eyes. He thought of the experiences they had together. They had had hundreds of experiences together which she might never remember. A soft pang went through him. He would recreate what he could for her, thrill her with the things he had done in the past, and also introduce her to new things. He would do everything in his power to ensure her happiness, and he would love her, whether her memory returned fully or not.

“I love you, Ava Kane, more than I thought it was possible to love another being. You may not be as wild for me yet, but I promise you will get there.” He pressed a soft kiss on her forehead.

“I know, Devlin . . . I know. I’m already halfway there.”

He drew her to him, and she climbed onto him, straddling his lap.

He pressed a soft kiss to her lips, and Ava could feel the pieces that had been broken apart inside of her for so long, mending. Happiness surged inside as she sank into him, deepening the kiss.

For the first time in months she felt the possibility of being complete, of making new and beautiful memories. The possibilities were endless, and she was looking forward to each and every one.

Thank you guys so much for grabbing a copy of
Remembering Yesterday
! I really appreciate your support. This was my first contemporary romance, but there will be many more. I also write sensual Historical romance, and the love of my heart is Paranormal Fantasy Romance. I invite you guys to read the first few chapters of
Eternal Darkness
below!



Happy Reading!

Chapter One

Amagarie

102 years After the Second Great War

Boreas—Kingdom of Winds and Mountains

Princess Saieke El Shyokara fought the mortified blush trying to climb her neck. Deliberately allowing her lips to crease into an unconcerned smile, she lifted her hand to the Grand Duke of the house of Bayuka, Lord Augustus. Cold lips brushed her fingers, and she fancied she could feel the chill through her gloves. He had spouted empty flattery about her wit and beauty while Saieke could feel him suppress his lust for her body.

“You cannot know the sorrow I feel on rejecting your wondrous charms,” Lord Augustus said as he smiled, regret keen in his light blue eyes. There was also the merest hint of amusement in his voice, as if he had been fully aware of her plans for seduction when she had cut in on his dance with the Countess of Azul.

“Yet you have done so with such ease.” Saieke chuckled ruefully. Lord Augustus had presented himself at court several months past. They had taken a few carriage rides and had even trained together on a few occasions. She had not mistaken the lust that had leaked from him. Her only error had been in believing she would succeed in seducing him tonight. Saieke had taken such care to attract him, donning a lavish golden ball gown embedded with more than a hundred precious gems. Her hair was plaited into a pearl entwined coronet, to put the arch of her neck, and her plunging décolletage on shocking display. When she had descended the wide marble stairs above the grand entrance of the ballroom, a hush had fallen over the throng, and desire had brushed her senses from those who hadn’t been able to control the lust from leaking through their chakra.

Lord Augustus had followed her with his eyes all evening, and yet he still resisted her charms. What was she doing wrong? Remembering the explicit instructions from her closest friend Raikae, Saieke stepped closer to Lord Augustus, pushing her chest flush to his.

This was her fifth attempt of enticing a lord to her bed, and from the cool caution settling on his face, her fifth failure.

Kings’ teeth
. “I can feel your desire to bed me through your chakra, so intense is your need.” He was a powerful lord; his control of his life energy should have been absolute. Only the untrained or civilian class should have been leaking their energy so easily. It did soothe her to know his desire was great enough to pierce his famed discipline.

She stroked the tip of her finger over his lower lip. “It is my right to take a consort, and I will have you, Lord Augustus.”

Saieke’s stomach knotted at her dangerous ploy. There were deadly consequences to taking a lover if one was already blood bound. But the man’s grasp she was trying to escape, King Ajali Haddin of Nuria—the kingdom of eternal fire, would never accept an impure bride of royal lineage. The purity of the bloodlines had to be protected. It was her only way out of the betrothal.

Need and fear warred in Lord Augustus, the emotions evident in his eyes. With a soft groan of defeat, he pulled her to him and dipped his head. Saieke parted her lips on a sigh, hope flaring to life.

Kiss me
, she implored silently.

Then he pressed his lips to her.

With an eager moan, he kissed her deeper, and she searched herself for a response. She was frustratingly blank. Saieke tipped her chin and twined her hands around his nape, tugging him closer, mashing their mouths together. She parted her lips to his entreaty and did not protest when he cupped her bottom and drew her even closer. Disappointment stabbed in her heart. Where was the passion Rai spoke of?

With a muttered curse, he wrenched away, thrusting fingers through his hair, a frown splitting his brows. “To want you is to court death for my family,” he snapped.

“No one will ever know,” she said, knowing in her heart his fear was a reality.

“You are the blood oath queen to the king of Nuria.”

Anger snapped through her. “Not by my will or desire.”

“If it is made known I became your lover after King Ajali has made his claim…” Lord Augustus grimaced. “I ache for you Princess Saieke, but the threat to my family is too much.”

“I have been promised to man I will never desire, a man who you should hate to be our kingdom’s ruler,” she said hoarsely.

His eyes roamed her features. “And do you want me?” he asked softly. “Or is this only about saving our kingdom?”

She moved even closer to his warmth. “Everything must be about saving our people.”

“Do you want me?” he grounded.

No
. “I am not sure,” she admitted softly.

Lord Augustus stiffened and then stepped away. He made as if to speak, then with a stiff bow, he flashed away, using his chakra to speed his movements so that he was a blur. Nothing of his presence lingered, not even the scent of oak moss that had twined itself around him like a cloak.

With a sigh, she flashed to the high balcony overlooking the grand ballroom of Castle Windhaven. Hundreds of lords and ladies danced below, and the life and laughter of the people in the ball pulsed through her. Men and women lounged idly on cushioned chaises, eating fruits and drinking mulled wine.

She could feel the varied emotions leaking in the air: a sharp bite of lust, amusement, pity, and even sorrow, but the most prevalent was joy. It was not only her mother’s ability to sense people emotions Saieke had inherited, but also the power to control water and wind. She was tempted to draw the wines from their goblets and dump it over their heads, and then used her wind to freeze them in their false hope. If they only knew how soon their comfortable world could be burned to ashes. In three moons, King Ajali would travel to Boreas to lay siege to her unwilling heart and to their kingdom’s way of life.

Duty, my child…It must always be duty before self
.

The wise words of her grandmother filled Saieke’s heart. Her parents would not understand her resolve to never marry King Ajali. They would expect her to be above all else dutiful. And the cruel irony was that Saieke would resist all of his advancements because of the love and duty she felt to her people. She could not allow such known cruelty into their kingdom. There had been a time her grandmother had placed her own needs before the people of Boreas and hundreds had died.

Saieke would never make the same mistake.

It seemed she must think of another way to unchain herself from King Ajali. The only other option was to flee, and she did not want to contemplate taking such an action. No, she would find another way to save her people. She had twelve weeks before he would arrive on her castle steps, and she would continue to scour the great archives for a solution. She leaned into the balcony railing, at a loss at finding a way to make her parents see reason.

Saieke did not consider Boreas weak as her father, the Ricarkri—ruler and king of their realm did. She saw the strength, will, and beauty of Boreas. Their kingdom was located in the middle of the other kingdoms, a position her father believed made them vulnerable to attacks from all sides. Boreas had been the meeting ground for warring factions, and they had paid dearly with lost lives and broken spirits. With rumors of another war, her father wanted a bond forged in fire with the power to withstand enemy attacks.

An Allegiance.

Allegiances could only be formed through marriage or through might, and it was that fight for power—to subjugate and conquer kingdoms—that had led to the first Great War. No current allegiance existed within Amagarie. No king or queen would relinquish the right of rule from their bloodline and hand it to another. It was unthinkable. Yet her king had made a blood-oath to remove the right to rule from the El Shyokara bloodline, and wanted to hand it to a man known in the seven kingdoms as the tyrant. A man who had invaded their kingdom during the second Great War and had left death and despair in his wake. A man reputed to be remorseless and unforgiving.

With a soft growl, she flashed from the balcony through the massive corridors of the castle. She needed to feel the wind on her face, feel the power of her Kuns—powerful four legged beasts—beneath her as she rode across the rolling lawns of Windhaven.

She stopped, overlooking one of the cliffs at Windhaven. The castle was located in the inner most part of Boreas, embedded deep inside one of their most imposing mountains. The soft chirping of birds carried on the frigid air, and heavy waterfalls roared as they crashed off the mountains. She inhaled, letting the breeze and fine mist of the waterfall flow into her.

The leaves on the ground rustled. She spied her closest friend Raikae, a human. She was just one of many Otherworld beings who had accidentally crossed through the portal gate and had remained in Amagarie.

“You failed with the Grand Duke,” she said, not wasting time with niceties.

“I did.”

Raikae laughed, and Saieke could not help smiling.

“You are hopeless,” Rai said, joining Saieke at the mountain’s edge. “What will you do now? I think it is safe to say your attempts as a temptress must end. I have even heard whispers in the court of your pitiful attempt with Count Jarneck. It seems you were the only one unaware he held no desire for women.”

“If I cannot make mother and father see sense, I must leave Boreas.”

Raikae stiffened, her golden eyes darkening with fear. “You speak recklessly.”

“Do I?”

“Yes,” she snapped.

“To remain and refuse to honor my father’s promise would mean conflict between Boreas and Nuria. If I disappear no assumptions can be made as to my intention without direct proof.”

“And where would you go? Which kingdom would aid you?”

“I would travel to your realm.”

Rai gasped. “You would escape to Earth?”

“If I must.”
Duty to our people above all else
.

“You will be hunted.”

“Yet they will not find me.”

“I hear the doubts in your voice.”

“It is alive in my heart. Leaving my people is not something I wish to do. I promise, I will do all in my power before I even consider such an option. I have twelve weeks before King Ajali arrives. I hope I will find a way out by then.”

The blood-oath was binding, and the only way for Saieke to legally not honor it would be to find a consort. The law allowed for the breaking of a blood oath if she had a consort before the promise was entered into, not after, but she could find no man willing to risk the wrath and threat of death from Nuria to lie with her, and then pretend as if they had been lovers before King Ajali’s preposterous claim.

The air stirred, and on a burst of wind, Thyon, one of her protectors, the second ranked of her Queen’s Blades appeared.

“King Ajali heads to Boreas,” Thyon snapped, his handsome face appearing unduly harsh in the fog shrouded courtyard.

Saieke frowned. “We already know this. Father has—”

“His convoy was spotted east of the Mist Mountains. He will arrive with the dawn.”

Her stomach cramped. “How many?”

“More than two hundred warriors and advisors.”

For precious seconds, Saieke could not speak. “Meet me on the parapet of the west wing within the hour,” she ordered. “Summon Kamu.”

Thyon flashed away.

She spun to Rai, grief settling heavily in her stomach. The Nurian king’s unexpected arrival could only mean one thing. “Rai I—”

“Do not tell me. I cannot reveal information I do not have. Do what you must.”

Saieke tugged her close, and they hugged fiercely. Saieke flashed through the castle with speed searching for her parents. Within seconds, she located her mother in the Queen’s chambers.

“Is it true?” she asked, hating the fear swirling in her veins.

“Darling,” Queen Izumi greeted with a strained smile, patting the chaise beside her. Her mother referred to as the jewel of Boreas. She was petite, with a mane of waist length silver hair and eyes of startling green, which now glowed with apprehension.

Saieke sat. “The wind whispered of King Ajali’s imminent arrival.”

“You knew he would come.”

She gripped her mother’s hands. “In twelve weeks. Not with the dawn.”

A guilty flush travelled up her mother’s cheek. “Your father did not reveal the true date of his arrival, not wishing to cause you undue discomfort. The masquerade ball in three days time is being held in King Ajali’s honor.”

She froze. How could they?

“Meishan,” her mother said softly.

Anger surged through her veins. “I am not your heart!”

Her mother’s lips flattened. “You cannot think to break a pledge that your father has made.”

Saieke remained silent, her mind shifting through her options with icy clarity.

“Reports from your attendants says that you visited the ancient archives in hopes—”

“Father has people spying on me?”

Her mother’s face softened. “Not spying, Meishan…after your argument, he was concerned.”

“Concerned?” Saieke demanded. “He sold me to the tyrant king.”

“We need an allegiance. There are many things you are not privy to about the danger and politics that surround this court and the other kingdoms. Your father had to make terrible choices.”

“Then tell me,” she pleaded. “I am schooled in court life. Let me be a part of—”

“There is no need to trouble yourself with the intrigues of court. When it is time for you to inherit, your father and I will impart all you would need to be queen.”

She wondered if her mother was so wonderfully naïve. “If this blood oath is formalized mother, I will never be queen. King Ajali will be the ruler of our realm, and his law will be absolute. He may very well murder me after I have sired his heir to brook no opposition.”

Her mother flinched. “I am sure King Ajali will treasure you. He pursued your father most ardently for your hand. In time, your union will blossom to love.”

Love
? She was not interested in loving King Ajali or any other man. Love bred selfish desires…ones that could only bring ruin to her people. “We are speaking of the man who murdered three thousands of our people in one blow,” Saieke snapped harshly. “There will be nothing in my heart but enmity. He wants to rape our kingdom because we possess the elixir springs. He is a brutal king who will change the laws, will and spirit of our people. And when he does, my blade will pierce his heart.”