Parallel Attraction Page 29

  "Hello, Thea." The front door to the small guesthouse creaked as he closed it behind him.

  "Cousin." She said nothing more, not once pointing her gaze in his direction. He strode toward her, a small bouquet of narcissus in his hands. He hated that his palms had grown damp around them, and hated even more how difficult this conversation was going to be. He loved Thea—he truly did—just not in the way that she loved him.

  "You're reviewing Prince Arienn's maps," he noted, seeing his ancestor's elegant, spidery handwriting on the paper before her.

  "Yes."

  "And you're angry with me." It was a statement, not a question.

  She blew out a heavy sigh and moved a measurement calculator over the map. "This just isn't a good time," she finally answered.

  He placed both hands behind his back, standing at parade rest with the bouquet of flowers still in his hand. "When would be better?" For a moment she tapped her finger against her lips, seemingly lost in thought, and finally he pressed her. "You won't answer me?"

  "My work here is"—she sidestepped to the far end of the table to examine another map—"important."

  "Tell me of it then," he encouraged, ambling to the other side of the room along with her. Perhaps if they could focus on what they shared in common, that would help break the ice between them.

  Very softly she began to describe a few new details she'd uncovered, becoming more animated as she spoke. She believed there were other gateway entries to the mitres, an entry beyond the one Jared had unsealed a week ago. "Prince Arienn recorded everything very methodically." She waved her hands excitedly over the open maps. "These journals are the key, Jared. I don't know why we couldn't get them before."

  Well, he knew exactly why: They'd been locked in the palace vaults, and it had taken one very clever spy to sneak them out. The Antousians held his family's palace now, not Jared, and that included all their possessions, the jewels in the vault, his parents' crowns. All of it.

  "I remembered seeing them in the vaults years ago," he told her. He'd been captivated to discover his ancestor's tales of this faraway planet, Earth, and had sequestered himself one rainy afternoon. Flipping through the pages for hours on end, he'd read in Prince Arienn's own words how he'd led his Earth expeditions shortly after the war with the Antousians began. How Arienn's father had entrusted him with their newly developed weapons system.

  Prince Arienn had been chosen for several reasons: his complete reliability at a time of great unrest on Refaria; his cultural sensitivity; and, most important, because of the power that coursed through his D'Aravnian body. Like Jared and Thea, Prince Arienn had been a dual being, and once the mitres had been fully installed, he had fulfilled his true mission by seeding some of his own power into the shielding unit. Last week, Jared had seen that remainder of his ancestor's essence when he stood within the mitres. It had been a hushed, eerie feeling to realize that the long-dead prince had successfully managed to leave a portion of his energized self behind.

  "I saw his energy," he admitted in a hushed voice. Her gaze snapped upward, her clear eyes locking with his. "It was in the coiling unit, cool now, but it was still there." He hadn't told anyone else of his discovery; no one else could possibly understand. "It was a soft blue-green, but it still glowed. His energy lives on, there in the mitres."

  She nodded, one hand fluttering to her throat. It was a tremendous revelation for each of them, to know what their power had the potential to do. If this ancestor had seeded it that way, then they might.do the same with the mitres if the time ever came. If the need became great enough. "He wrote about it in ..." She turned from him, rifling through a stack of aged, bound volumes. "Here! In this one. He meditated for three days in the chamber, praying and seeking guidance before he did it. None of our kind had ever attempted something like that." She paused, flipping through pages until she arrived at one with a thin slip of paper marking it. "Right here," she said, tapping the page. "You should take it with you and read it." She handed the book to him with a genuine smile of excitement.

  He took the proffered volume, with a royal bow. "There's much to learn from Arienn's journals. Thank you for studying them."

  Just like that, the smile died on her lips. "You don't need to try to placate me," she said with a heavy sigh. "Just take it, Jared. Take it." She moved away from him, turning to the stack of journals, and painstakingly straightened them into a neat stack. "Look, I have a lot of work to do here today, so if you don't mind ..."

  He paced toward the fireplace. "We need to talk."

  "I know that you mated with her, Jared, so don't bother trying to let me down gently."

  His fist tightened about the flowers. How in All's name had she known? Everyone in the damnable compound seemed to know. With a quick downward glance he checked himself for telltale signs of the mating. The day had turned quite warm already, and he wore only a light turtleneck, the sleeves pushed halfway up his forearms, but one quick inspection confirmed what he already knew: Nothing glowed. The luminescence of his mating with Kelsey had faded by morning, or he would have thought twice about even leaving his chambers. He didn't exactly want to parade the evidence in front of all his soldiers, even if he would soon be formally married.

  She answered his unvoiced question with a shrug. "I knew the moment she arrived that you would mate with her. I just didn't realize how fast it would happen, although I certainly hoped it would be longer. But this morning when you came upstairs, I could tell it had happened."

  "It doesn't show," he argued lightly.

  "Jared"—she cut her eyes at him—"I'm an intuitive. Trust me, it shows. Your energy has altered, it's surrounding you differently. It shows. And it shows all over her."

  "I'm sorry." It seemed ridiculous to apologize, and yet there was nothing else he could say. He knew it had to hurt her.

  She kept her focus on the maps, hiding her eyes from him, and for a long stretch of moments they were each silent. Jared dropped the white bouquet on the table between them. "Those are for you."

  "I get the flowers and she gets the guy?" she said, spearing him with her gaze. He made no answer, for there was none to give. At last Thea spoke again. "I won't pretend you're here for my approval."

  "I'd still like to have it."

  "Why bother?"

  "Because you matter to me a great deal, cousin. You know that you do." She sniffed in disdain. "You matter to me very much, and I also believe that you and Kelsey could be friends—very good friends."

  "I don't see how. Why would it matter to her anyway?"

  "She would treasure you. You know that she would, or I wouldn't have mated with her."

  "I'm not sure I'd like it myself," she admitted, her voice cracking. "Or have anything in common with a human."

  "She's strong and spirited like you, and filled with life, like our kind has almost forgotten to believe in."

  "I won't ever accept her or welcome her here. You should know that, Jared. I won't make this easy for you," she said coldly. "Not when it's the end of your line. One thousand years of unbroken succession, Jared!—have you really thought about those consequences? Or at least thought about your people? You have an obligation to them, you know, and you've utterly disregarded it by mating with that human!"

  At last, his temper flared. It was one thing if she admitted that he'd hurt her, but quite another to insinuate that he'd failed his people in any way. "Disregarded my people?" he hissed, circling the table. "Shirked my obligations?"

  "You still have—no, excuse me, had—time to provide them an inheritor to your throne. But you chose your own path."

  "I have lived every day of my life for the Refarian people!" He pressed fists into his thighs to try to quell his hot fury. "I've never once lived for myself. Never—"

  "Except in this that mattered most of all," she said softly.

  Jared slammed his open palms down on the wooden table, and the entire room shuddered at the impact. "I have served none but my people," he gritted. "In kingship an
d war and battle and torture and life and death, I have served them." She stared at him, her hand pressed against her cheek, obviously waiting for his explosive tirade to continue. He shook his head. "I never thought to hear such things from you, cousin—even when you were hurt."

  "You've always wanted the truth from me. Good leadership requires honest advisers."

  "Sometimes"—he hesitated, meeting her gaze to be sure she truly heard him—"it would be nice simply to be a man. Not a king. And sometimes, cousin, it would be nice to have my only living family member treat me like a mortal, not a god."

  With those words he spun from her, storming out of the room.

  Didn't he understand that she loved him? Thea wiped at her eyes, staring at the door Jared had just slammed. She wanted to shout after him, to run up the trail, crying it over and over, Don't marry her! Love me, as I have always loved you. As I love you now. Please, Jared, love me.

  She shook her head and slowly turned back to the work-table. Jared had never understood what he was to her— well, to any of them, really. Because if he truly understood her feelings for him, he would never have treated that love so lightly, and he certainly would never have disappointed his people. For him to allow his line to end, and in the midst of such war and turmoil... it didn't even seem true to his character. His heart of compassion was one reason they all served him with such ardent devotion. And yet on this one topic he had never relented, not once in all the years that they'd fought together, and no matter how much pressure the elders applied, he refused. Plainly, unbendingly, he always refused.

  She wiped at her eyes again, pacing this way and that about the small lodge room. There had to be some way she could stop this wedding. Perhaps if she spoke with the elders herself... Yes, that was it. She could use her persuasive powers with them, and they would then talk sense into Jared!

  Reaching for her sweater, she made to leave, and only then did she notice the small bouquet of white flowers that Jared had left behind. She'd been so upset with him, she'd never bothered to ask about it, and had forgotten until just now, when she noticed it where he'd knelt by the hearth. It was a neat, elegant bouquet of white narcissus, obviously tossed aside in anger. She dropped low and carefully retrieved the haggard blooms, and a wave of intuition whispered in her ear. He'd held them tight in his hand, almost crushing them, he'd been so upset. Closing her eyes, she lifted the tiny flowers to her nose and smelled them. Fresh as the morning air all around these mountains, she thought, and maybe it was the purity of the bouquet—maybe it was the intense separation she felt from her cousin—or maybe it was just realizing that she truly had lost him forever, but she pressed them against her heart and began to sob. Flowers. Why did he have to pick a bouquet of white flowers?

  When Thea had been but a small girl, her mother had brought her to the capital city of Thearnsk, where the main palace stood in the city's center. She'd been eight that day, much too small for her age, and with unusual fair coloring, qualities that often made her feel alone even in large groups. Her mother had held her hand tightly as their transport had stopped inside the royal compound at a security checkpoint. Only two years had passed since the assassination of Jared's parents, and with the war reaching a bloody crescendo, the palace—the whole city, actually—remained under a very high security warning. Their transport was brought below the palace guard station, and at least seven of the king's military guard questioned them, searching the gifts they'd brought, opening them and ransacking them, much to Thea's youthful disappointment. And even though both she and her mother bore the D'Ashanian royal seal on the inside of their wrists, it took retinal scans and other identification before they were finally allowed inside, the palace to visit the young king.

  Thea's heart pounded and she clutched the only present they hadn't ruined, at least in her tender estimation: a bouquet of white flowers. Cessanaram, they were called, and she'd cut them from her mother's country garden. She was, after all, a country girl. It was her first visit to the sprawling, mammoth city where her cousin made his home. Everything she'd seen on the way to the palace had awed her, frightened her, thrilled her. But nothing about that day could possibly compare to finally meeting J'Areshkadau Bnet D'Aravni. She'd been promised to marry her cousin and king since she was just a baby. Everyone knew it. One day, she would be his wife.

  The guards ushered her into the throne room, and there by the window, high atop a dais and seated in an engraved silver chair, sat the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. Unlike her, he had shiny black hair, straight and worn just to his shoulders, black eyes to match, and lush, dark skin. But the thing she noticed most of all, even more than his flowing robes of D'Aravnian purple and gold, was the way he stared out the window, as if transported away to somewhere else, a place so special only the king himself could see it.

  The guards cleared their throats to signal their arrival with quiet whispers of, "My lord, sir," and when he realized they were waiting for him he stood abruptly. The embroidered robes billowed around him like a regal cloud as he took the steps down to where they stood waiting. Thea clutched the Cessanaram blooms in her small hands, praying that she'd be able to breathe. He was so beautiful. Special. The king! Her fingers trembled, her throat went dry, and from behind her she felt a slight nudge from her mother.

  "Darling," her mother whispered under her breath, "you must go to him."

  He continued in his path toward her, a gentle smile on his lean, dark face, but she could think of nothing to say, not a single right thing to do, as he closed the distance that separated them. All her protocol training seemed to fly right out of her mind until at last he stood just before her. And then, unbelievably, he bowed to her! The Refarian king placed one fist over his heart and dipped low.

  "My l-lord," she stammered, bowing herself, unsure how to respond. Then, for lack of a better idea, she dropped to her knees before him, trembling from head to toe. "It's an honor to meet you, my king," she managed thickly. She noticed that he wore boots of the softest, most perfect leather, high up to his knees. No one, not even her father, had boots so polished and fine.

  With an elegant flick of his wrist, he waved her back to her feet. "Please, my cousin," he urged, his voice as warm and peaceful as the hot-spring brook that ran behind her parents' home. "I am quite pleased to meet you." She gaped up at him, feeling so very small next to him. She was only just eight years old, and everyone knew the king was nearing his thirteenth birthday. At last he extended one graceful hand. "Here," he offered gently, and helped her back to her feet

  When at last she stood before him again, speechless, he reached for the flower bouquet she clutched in her hand. He must have known she was struck absolutely speechless; otherwise he surely would have waited; "Are these for me?" he prompted gently. "I love Cessanaram, you know. My mother used to grow them in our garden." His eyes filled with sadness for just a moment, his gaze wavering from her face as he lifted the buds to his nose. But then he smiled. A glorious, true smile, the sort little girls dreamed of when they imagined kings. "They smell like my mother," he said, closing his eyes for a long moment.

  She smiled too, because while so many agreed that the young king had lived a life of only tragedy and loss and hardship, she'd done something to make him happy. And for reasons she couldn't begin to fathom, she was glad that she had. It would be years—many long years—before she understood exactly why.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The silvery-blue image of Jared's lifelong mentor and adviser, Councilor Aldorsk, wavered before his eyes, finally taking shape in the council chamber.

  "My lord," the elder said, his deeply lined face breaking into a genuine smile. "Are you well?"

  "Yes, Councilor," Jared answered coolly, "but I've never been better—we've business to discuss."

  Gray eyebrows shot upward in curiosity. "Just the two of us?"

  "It is private business, Aldorsk."

  An imperceptible shadow passed across the elder's features. "As always, I am here to serve you
, my king."

  "Fourteen years ago, you accompanied me on a mission to this planet—I wish to know what happened then, that summer I came of age." Jared hadn't soldiered for so many years without being a preeminent strategist. In this case, he would not hesitate out of respect for his mentor; he pressed forcefully ahead. "And I wish to know why I remember so little of my time here on Earth."

  "I am not sure why you don't remember more, my lord." The man's voice quavered, and he blinked rapidly. "You were still quite young."

  "Oh, Aldorsk," Jared whispered with a melancholy sigh, "I never thought to hear you speak lies to me. Not you. Not ever."

  For long seconds they regarded each other in silence; Aldorsk knew now that Jared had discovered the truth, but he clearly wasn't sure just how much of the facts Jared had ferreted out.

  "You erased my memories of Kelsey Wells—did you not?"

  Aldorsk dropped his head, but made no answer.

  "Did you not, Councilor? Answer me!"

  "Yes, my king," came Aldorsk's hoarse, quiet reply, his eyes still downcast.

  "I could expel you from this council for treason." Jared had always put his people first. Except in this one thing: his love for Kelsey. And in return, the man before him—the man he'd trusted more than any other—had taken that love from him.

  "I had to protect you. It was my role to watch over you."

  "You were not my protector—you were my councilor."

  Aldorsk dared to lift his head, and Jared glimpsed something in his eyes, but only for a moment, before he quietly said, "Sabrina was gone and you had no other protector in her absence— it had to be me."

  "So this was not the council's doing?" Jared asked.