Waking Eden (The Eden Series Book 3) (31 page)

T
he Eden Series
(Contemporary Fantasy)

Unexpected Eden (Book One)

Healing Eden (Book Two)

Eden’s Deliverance (Book Four - Coming November, 2016)

S
tand Alone (Contemporary
)

What Janie Wants

A
human will stand
as judge, one versed in both races and injured in similar kind to the one wronged this day.

Brenna staggered down the castle’s darkened hallway toward the servant’s staircase, echoes of The Great One’s booming proclamation dogging every unsteady step. Streaming tears and the vision she’d unintentionally shared with Ramsay blinded her to the thick, maroon rugs in front of her. Even now, awake and alert, the flashback burned as bold as real life in her mind’s eye. The gold and silver flecks amid a rainbow-laden sky. The standing stones. The ancient Myren warrior who’d brought the prophecy to pass—and his dead human mate splayed across his lap.

She couldn’t be the judge The Creator had referred to. Surely God wouldn’t put the weight of all races on her shoulders. Not after all she’d been through. Not now that she finally had a chance at peace.

The vicious knot at the base of her throat blossomed thicker and larger, the specters of her past clawing their way free and unleashing her buried terror until she could barely breathe. She shook her head and hurried forward. The dead woman she’d seen wasn’t her. The vision was of the past, and she was alive. Safe. Free from the bruises and shameful way she’d been used. Maxis was dead and couldn’t hurt her anymore.

Her footsteps quickened and her blood raced. The room spun around her, hazy and out of focus, but the cool stone walls were steady beneath her palms, guiding her to the soft glow ahead. Air. She needed air. And space.

Freedom.

Grasping the wrought iron stair rail, she padded down the gray stone steps, careful to silence her sandaled steps. Fresh baked bread and cinnamon weighted the air, and muted feminine chatter drifted from the kitchen. Orla and the other morning castle workers, maybe even Lexi and Galena, preparing for another day full of hungry warriors and family members. Compassionate people who’d saved and sheltered her, but came with keen eyes and probing questions.

Skirting the voices, she cut through the formal dining room and angled to the main foyer and the massive gardens beyond. Mid-morning sunshine slanted through the open two-story arched windows, and the salt-tinged ocean breeze swept her tear-streaked cheeks. Her heart kicked at the scent, luring her as it had since she’d first awakened here. Calling as it had all those years ago with her parents. The day before Maxis kidnapped her and destroyed everything.

She shoved one of the two thick mahogany doors wide, gasped, and staggered backward.

A warrior, backlit by the rising sun, towered in her path. A big one, dressed in full warrior garb of black leather pants, boots, and silver drast. He caught the door before it could shut in a quick, easy grip, and stepped out of the sun’s glare.

Her lungs seized. Not just any warrior. This was Ludan Forte, right hand and somo to the malran. Six foot, six of pure intimidation with twice the muscle mass of his peers. Framed by the brilliant light behind him, he loomed like an avenging legend come to life.

He cocked his head and assessed her head to toe, a wayward strand of wavy, blue-black hair falling across his forehead. His mouth tightened. Framed by his closely cropped beard, his frown reeked of menace.

“You’re crying.” An accusation and a demand for information all rolled up into one, as crisp and gruff as everything else he did.

“I…” Her thoughts fizzled, any hope for words dried up on her tongue. She ducked her head and swiped her cheek with the back of her hand. Her feet refused to move, frozen beneath his searing ice-blue gaze. “I’m fine I just—”

“Ludan, you going to let the poor girl by, or glare at her until she keels over?” Ian Smith’s raspy voice drifted from behind her, his heavy tread sounding on the main foyer staircase. A perfect distraction.

“Excuse me.” Her breathy words barely registered as she ducked beneath Ludan’s arm and stumble-scurried across the castle’s veranda. Her sandals slapped against the stone. Her lungs burned with the need for a full, unimpeded breath, and her heart slammed against her sternum in time with each footfall. Just a little further. Around the castle’s edge to the cove and the ocean’s peaceful rhythm. Then she could stop. Re-evaluate. Smother the past so it couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t blemish the tiny scrap of good she’d finally found.

Rounding the final corner, the wind whipped her loose, dark hair and tangled her simple sapphire gown around her ankles. The bluff’s waist-high wall stretched along the cove’s crescent edge, gray and taupe stone blending with the perfect azure and rainbow-laced Myren sky. Chocolate wood gates marked each quarter mile interval, the closest one unlatched and open, welcoming her escape.

She trudged across the vibrant green grass, the color similar to what she remembered from her home in Evad, but tinged with silver that glinted off the red-rimmed Myren sun. Memories from before her capture barely registered anymore, only foggy snippets remaining where there were once finite details. So much lost. Her family. Her future and any hope for tenderness or love. No man could ever want her, not with her tainted past. And now this? Thrust into the middle of a prophecy hinged on the very cruelness that shaped her life? It wasn’t fair. At the very least she deserved a fresh start. Peace and contentment, if not solace.

Below, the turquoise waves crashed against the powder-white sand and black stone walls. As deep as the soaring three-story castle was tall, the turbulent waters seemed forever away. She inched closer to the edge, the toes of her sandals lining the bluff’s rocky edge.

The dead human from the vision wavered in the forefront of her mind, her twin not just in appearance, but in the fate they’d suffered. Except that Brenna had lived.

That’s not the only difference.

The snide, biting thought razored across her heart and left a frozen wake in its path. That woman had been loved. Her mate mourned her death. Avenged the damage brought upon her and offered his gifts to protect those like her. She had no one.

A pebble slipped from beneath her feet and bounced off the black stone walls once, twice, then free-falled to the water below. All this time she’d believed. Clung to the hope of going home and finding her family. Kept the faith and believed she’d someday set her misfortune behind and build something new and fresh. For what? To have the weight of all races thrust on her unwilling shoulders?

The wind whipped faster, and reality blurred, only the back and forth of the waves below in focus. In the distance, a larken trilled a string of sing-song notes. Fifteen years she’d suffered, no choices left to her but life and death.

No more.

She was done with accepting what others thrust on her. If she didn’t want this role in the prophecy, she didn’t have to take it. Didn’t have to play the parts deigned appropriate by others. This was her life. To build however she saw fit. Myren laws and prophecies be damned. No one else could force her how to live.

Lifting her head, she focused on the horizon and sucked in a deep breath. She could do this. For once, she’d stand up for what she wanted and make this life her own. Voice her demands. Her needs.

She shifted to look back at the castle.

The rocks beneath her crumbled, and her body pitched to one side. Her feet slipped past the bluff’s edge and she flailed her arms, barely catching the ledge. Wind whipped her gown and tugged her dangling legs. Straining to pull herself up and over the ledge, she dug her work roughened fingers into the damp earth and pushed with everything she had.

The clay fragmented, slipped between her fingers, and surrendered her to the water below.

* * *

S
he’s not your concern
.

Ludan tightened his grip on the castle’s thick mahogany door until he thought the wood would snap. He’d fed himself the same damned mantra since the first time he’d seen Brenna, over and over in an endless loop.

Along with all the other voices.

Ian ambled up beside him and stared down the veranda in time to see Brenna disappear around the far side of the castle. “What the hell did you say to her?”

“I didn’t say anything.” Forcing his fingers free, Ludan let the door slip shut. The land on the far end of the castle was quiet. No other energy patterns registered near the ocean where Brenna had headed, nor in the forest beyond. Only blinding mid-morning sun and the bold blue Myren sky filled the quiet landscape in-between.

He still didn’t like it. Too much weirdness had gone down in the last few months. Serena and Angus’ page, Sully, disappearing. The Spiritu. The prophecy. He glanced at Ian beside him. “Go find Lexi. Have her take you to Evad today. I’ll find Brenna and bring her back.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

The bite in Ian’s tone cut through Ludan’s focus. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Because you looked like you were an inch away from ripping her head off.”

Hardly. A hopeless junkie would surrender his fix before he’d hurt Brenna. Not that Ian would know that. None of them would. Ever. “I had things on my mind.” Like how anytime she got within fifteen feet of him the non-stop racket in his head downgraded to a more tolerable decibel.

Ian cocked his head and anchored his hands in the pockets of his jacket, studying Ludan with a level of scrutiny that probably came in slow-mo precision. The son of a bitch was too damned perceptive. Cops, or former-cops turned PI in Ian’s case, usually were.

“Track down Lexi,” Ludan grumbled before Ian could latch onto any ideas. “The sooner I find Brenna and you’re in Evad running reconnaissance, the sooner I can get back to work.”

He strode away and shook the weight of Ian’s stare off his back. This whole damned place was one giant microscope lately. Suspicious stares. People digging into his personal life and asking questions they had no right to ask. Ian could think whatever the fuck he wanted. Tracking Brenna and making sure no other shit storms were on the horizon was just common sense, nothing more.

Justify it however you want, but you’d follow her with or without a prophecy.

His conscience’s uppercut nailed him square in the gut and yanked him to a halt at the castle’s edge.

Beyond the stone safety wall, Brenna stood staring down at the cove. Her dark hair whipped in the heavy ocean winds while the rest of her stood still as a statue. In the past few months, he’d watched from the sidelines as she’d fought her way back from near death. Seen her creep from the timid shell she’d survived behind after fifteen long years with Maxis. Studied how every day her posture got a little taller, her shoulders squared and her chin had raised a fraction higher.

Today was different. Something in her near-black eyes seemed fractured. Broken. Off in a way that tripped all kinds of warning bells.

Pushing his Myren senses out along the cove, he gauged for any disturbance he might have missed. A larken swooped and sang high overhead, his deep blue body a near perfect match to Brenna’s gown. Except for the bird and Brenna, no other forms of energy stirred. No visible threats, which meant whatever plagued her had already happened, or originated in her head.

He should leave her be and get Lexi. Combat and stealth were all he had to offer. If either were worth a damn when it came to emotions, he’d have slain his own demons years ago. Histus, even Ian would be better at this than him. At least Ian shared something in common with her. Two humans whose lives had been turned upside down by Maxis Steysis.

A memory surged to the forefront of his mind and his knees nearly buckled. His mother, bloody and battered. Defiled and broken in a way no woman should ever know. Her screams roared above all the other memories battling for space in his head, sending painful shards between his temples.

He shook his head and focused on the grass beneath his boots. How the silver on the bold green blades sparked on the morning sun. How the rich, dark soil beneath it was still damp from storms the night before. It was just a memory. The worst of all the ones he had to relive, for sure, but in the past. This was now.

Brenna still hadn’t moved. She probably just needed time alone, a concept he of all people understood, but he could check on her without making her uncomfortable. Pulling his mask into place, he blended with the elements, hiding his form as he took to the sky, and circled up and over the cove. A desperate, almost palpable propulsion urged him faster, directing him no more than twenty feet in front of her.

She stared out at the sea, her gaze empty and unfocused. He knew that look. Resignation and defeat. Had staggered beneath the weight of both for too damned many years. Her hands were fisted tight at her sides and her toes touched the bluff’s edge. Surely she wouldn’t try to take her life. Not now. Not after all she’d survived.

As if in answer to his thoughts, Brenna’s head snapped up and her focus sharpened on the horizon.

The muscles along his shoulders uncoiled and he huffed out a relieved exhale. Whatever had gripped her was gone now. Even her energy sparked brighter than moments before, as if the ocean’s breeze had slipped beyond the confines of her skin and swept the sleeping monsters from her soul. Still, he’d be smart to keep an eye on her.