Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (31 page)

“What the hell?”
Alik hollered, his eyes glowing violet as he watched his brother warily.  Farrow was at his side in an instant, standing between a hulking Alik and a glowing Evan.  Cole moved slowly, hands out, to stand between the brothers.  Creed paced, his shoulders rolling as he moved like a caged panther, eyes never leaving Evan.

“Some things have changed since you’ve been gone looking for the sister who doesn’t want to be found.”

Evan held up his left hand, showing his scarred palm. 

It was glowing.

“See big brother, I did go through my evolution, but that fire…” he shook his head thoughtfully, turning his palm toward himself.  The bluish moonlight still captured there set a hauntingly pale glow across Evan’s face.  His usually warm, hazel eyes held bluish-white flames in their irises.  “That fire in Flagstaff couldn’t have come at a worse time for me physiologically.  It left me scarred.  Changed.  I don’t know what my evolved gift would have been if I hadn’t been exposed to the intense heat and fire right when my molecular structures were going through metamorphosis.”  He stretched his scarred fingers and made a fist around the ball of blue captured moonlight.  “But my cellular makeup must have made a deal with the flames that day in Flagstaff.”

“Evan?  What happened to you?” Farrow broke the silence, confusion clearly defining her.

“Now, there’s an interesting question, Farrow.” Evan’s haunted eyes locked onto her.  Alik instinctively stepped in front of her, though his torso was hurting he was ready to shield her with his own body.

Evan ignored
the chivalrous gesture.

“The nearest I could figure is that there was a molecular change in my burned hand and now I can capture and refract light and heat from the sun using
the scarred tissue.”

His eyes slipped back to his own glowing palm as he spoke.

“Humans have become accustomed to sunlight and firelight, but something about my metahuman scar made me able to work outside the visual spectrum of light and harness not just the frequencies but the light wave energies themselves. 

“By cupping my hand to create a concave surface, I’m able to project a ray.”  He reached up to the moonlight again and in a graceful move pushed his radiant hand forward, directing a burst of light at a shrub next to the fence. 

Everyone jumped in surprise—everyone except Margo who lowered her head, heartbroken that her son was saying and doing these things.

The smell of burning foliage followed the blackened smoke and disappear
ed in the now smoky night air.   Evan stared into the fire he made with a look of reverence.  “But that’s not all I got.  No, ladies and gentlemen, there’s more.  You see, by opening my scarred palm wide, I can create a convex surface that absorbs the heat and light.”  Even as he was finishing his sentence, he reached out with an open palm and the fire seemed to jump from the burning bush to his hand and disappear into his glowing palm.

“Mother, I’m surprised at you.” Evan turned his head slowly and looked at the woman shaking with anger in her wheelchair.  “I would have thought you would have shared my little demonstration, such as it was, with everyone.  Oh, wait.  I get it,” he said interrupting her response.  “You were hoping it wouldn’t come to this,” he waved his hands at the scene.  “I would have to agree, Mom.  Who knew we had such daytime-talk-show-behavior bottled up in this family?  See, that’s just it, isn’t it?  We have a lot of shit bottled up in this family.  No wonder Meg walked out when she did.”

“Evan, why don’t you come inside so we can sit down and talk this through,” Theo offered the olive branch, one hand resting on Margo’s trembling shoulder.

“Thanks Theo,” Evan chirped in a fake happy tone.  “But I’m pretty sure that’d be a bad idea.”  He nodded obviously toward Alik, Cole and Creed who stood fists clenched and huffing.

Evan started to saunter away, but stopped and turned back halfway so his profile was visible to the shocked Winter family. 

“So let me ask you a question before I go—and this is going to be the question that’ll bake your brain if you let it: Why didn’t I tell you all this before you went searching for her three months ago?”  Evan tapped his temple with a finger of his still glowing hand, nodded softly, turned and walked back down the alley
, the same way he’d come.

Chapter 57 Morning at the House of Arkdone

Meg
was awakened from a dead sleep by a soft but persistent knocking at the door. 

She opened her eyes to look around, completely disoriented not only by the unrecognizable room, but by her position on the bed in which she lay.  She was fully dressed except for her shoes and had no memory of how she got there. 

“Who’s there?” Meg called, still trying to piece together the last thing she remembered.

“Eloise, Miss.  I’ve come to help you start your bath and brought you fresh towels.”

Meg looked around herself, frantically trying to rub her eyes hoping it would clear the fog from her brain.

“Come in,” she answered, finally.

The door opened and in walked an older woman who wore a very old-fashioned apron, stockings and old-lady shoes.  Her salt and peppered hair was pulled back tightly into a pristine bun at the back of her head.  Seeming to come from a different era entirely, she strode in the room without making eye contact with Meg, curtsied respectfully then hurried into the bathroom.  Meg heard her start the bathwater, open what sounded like a cabinet and shuffle through the content of a drawer before emerging.  When she did, she came to the bed and laid out a simple white sweater dress, leggings, undergarments, black knee-high boots and a matching belt.

“Breakfast will be served in exactly forty-five minutes, Miss.  I will come then to retrieve you.  Will you require anything else before I go?”

Meg, who had been sitting up in bed watching Eloise perform her tasks as though she had stepped right out of a black-and-white movie, shook her head no before realizing the woman wasn’t looking up at her and wouldn’t have seen her answer.

“No, thank you Eloise,” Meg managed.

The older woman, who just embodied everything stereotypical about a “housemaid,” bowed even more deeply, turned and left the room, closing the door securely behind her.

Meg stared at the closed door for a moment while the haunting melody of “Moonlight Sonata” began to echo around the chamber.  The rendition was so crisp, Meg’s eyes widened in surprise thinking it was her vivid imagination dictating a malevolent theme song at that moment.  Then she realized the music was actually coming from outside the room and not in her head.  Someone was playing the piano near enough that the tune sang through the walls.

Feeling like a prisoner preparing for the gallows, Meg shuffled off the bed, noticed her boots waiting side by side at the foot of the bed and walked toward the bathroom. 

By the time she walked out of the steamy room towel drying her hair, the music had changed to a piece she didn’t recognize.  She glanced at the wall clock and grimaced when she saw she only had seventeen minutes left before Eloise showed her creepy self again.

Meg had just slipped the sweater dress over her head when there came a soft rapping at her door.  Her eyes darted to the clock.  She should still have fourteen minutes.   Still pulling her long, damp locks from the loose turtle neck, she yanked the door open wide.  “It’s not time El—”

She swallowed her words mid-sentence when she saw who was at the door.

“Gideon?”

“We only have a few minutes,” he whispered, dark circles painted like bruises under his haystack-colored, bloodshot eyes.

“What happened to you?” she asked, stepping back to let the soldier into her room.  He ducked behind the wingback chair and crouched.  “Why are you hiding?”

“This room has cameras monitoring you.  Just keep walking around getting dressed and keep your back to the camera.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Meg muttered between her teeth feeling a deep blush crawling up her throat and bursting at her bright-red ears.  “Where is the camera?”

“At your six o’clock, so stay looking away from that corner as much as possible when you talk.”

Playing along, Meg leaned into the hallway and looked both ways to see who was around before quietly closing the door and walking back to the bed where she was supposed to be putting on the black thigh-high stockings.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Meg curled one leg up and began to slowly position the legging at her pink toes. 

“While he’s playing the piano, he’s not watching the monitors.  They’re in different rooms,” he offered, but stayed ducked behind the chair.

Meg let her long hair fall around her face to hide her eyes as she turned to get a better look at the soldier who had been her protector over the past fourteen weeks, but had become almost a friend during the last twenty-four hours. 

“What happened to you, Gideon?”

“I was punished,” he answered simply.  His voice turned gruff and quiet, but Meg could sense immediately he was telling the truth.

“By whom?  For what?” She felt a twinge of protectiveness for the man who had been her captor.

“Never mind me,” he said dismissively.  “Are you okay?  Did he do anything to you last night?”

“I think I’m okay.  I don’t remember going to sleep and my shoes were taken off when I woke, but…”

“I did that.”

“You?”

“I came to check on you and you were asleep at the foot of the bed, completely dressed.  I put you to bed.”

“Thank you,” Meg managed though her face was tight with the heat of a blush.

“I need to ask you something before you meet the Senator.” He paused as though waiting for her permission to continue.

“What?”

“Why did you trust me?”

“What?”

“You know I was the one who captured you back in Tucumcari.  Why would you leave the chateau with me?  You could have bolted at the airport pretty easily.  You had chances to get away, but you didn’t.  Why did you trust me?”

“I’m an empath, remember?”

“And?”

“And I can feel your sincerity, Gideon.”

“But I brought you back to the man who has hurt you and your family.”

“It’s the only way,” Meg sighed deeply, trying to discreetly finish pulling up her thigh-high stocking.

“What does that mean?”

“This time you’re going to have to trust me,” she risked looking over at the honey, yellow eyes of the metamonarch crouched in a corner.

“He’s going to ask you a lot of questions,” Gideon warned.

“So am I,” Meg growled, angry with the thoughts that jumped into the fore of her mind.

“Meg, you need to know he’s got some—I don’t know what it’s called—but some psychic ability, too.  Be careful of your thoughts when you’re around him.”

“So I’ve been told.  Apparently, this isn’t my first rodeo with that man.”  Meg grimaced inwardly remembering the descriptions from her brother of a psychic blast Arkdone shot at her when she tried to manipulate his thoughts.  “But thank you for the warning.”

“What are you going to say?”

“I never plan these things.  I just open my mouth and say the first thing that comes to mind.  I can’t do it any other way.  See Gideon, I’m more afraid of losing what makes me Meg than I am afraid of
him
.”

Gideon watched her as she finished zipping her second black boot, but said nothing.

“Thank you for trying to help, Gideon.  I appreciate knowing I’m not completely alone here.”

“Remember the backup plan, Meg.”

“I remember.”

“I’ll be in the room.  Rub the back of your neck like the branding still itches if you need to get out of there.”

“The branding
does
still itch!”

“I have to go.  Eloise will be here any minute.”

They listened as the piece Arkdone was playing finished.  Meg kept turning to look at the clock.  They should still have six minutes left.  Both she and Gideon exhaled their breath when the piano came back to life. 

Without another word, Gideon moved with the grace and speed of his race to the door and slipped
out of the room inside three seconds.

Five minutes later, Eloise kept her promise.  “Please follow me, Miss,” she bowed and walked down the opulent corridor.  The music had stopped a couple of minutes before.  Meg forced herself to pull her shoulders back and lift her chin as she walked through freshly stained double doors and into the dining room.

Chapter 58 Breakfast Utensils Just Don’t Come Sharp Enough

“Good morning, Meg!”  Arkdone was waiting for her with a cup of coffee in hand as he stood beside the elaborately set breakfast table.

“Senator,” Meg nodded.

“I trust you slept well?” he continued to stand, waiting for Meg to take a seat first.

Meg slipped gracefully into the chair obviously set for her
, as there were only two place settings.

“I was exhausted.”  Meg tipped her head to the side as she watched him take his seat.