Chapter 6
Soothing arms gathered around me and I knew without looking that they were my Mom’s. There was nothing better than a mother’s comfort when all you wanted to do was hide to avoid confronting life. “I know baby, I know. It’s a lot to take in, just breathe Shanna.”
I did, slowly and painfully, but finally I was able to draw deep steady breaths. I stood up to my full height, ashamed to have shown such emotion in front of so many strangers. My mom’s right hand slid down my arm and clutched my hand. A second later, my father was holding my left one. Together, we faced the crowd.
“Princess Cassandra? Prince Logan?”
The voice belonged to a short, plump woman who detached herself from her the crowd. Her footsteps were hesitant as she approached and studied us with warm brown eyes. My mother gasped. “Grace?”
My mother squealed and surged forward, dragging me and my father in her wake. My parents finally released my hands as they both hugged the older woman with the grey-streaked dark brown hair. They laughed and chattered for a few moments while I stood back, watching them curiously. When I felt a presence to my left, I knew it was Riley. I looked up.
“I know this is difficult for you right now, but you will have your explanations.”
“I know. It’s just that I’m not exactly accustomed to seeing so much people and it’s making me nervous.”
Riley’s grin held all the warmth of the sun as he reached over and interlaced his fingers with mine. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so lonely anymore.
“Pr – Princess Shayna?”
My head snapped to the front. The woman, Grace, was standing there a few feet away with my parents on either side of her. She was fidgeting with her hands as she studied me from head to toe. When her eyes locked on mine, I noticed they were full of tears. For some unexplainable reason, I felt my own eyes well up. What was wrong with me? Was I having an emotional breakdown?
Grace took a step forward. “You don’t remember me, do you? I was there when your mother gave birth to you and I was your nurse until the moment you left.” She took two other steps forward and she cradled my face in her hands. If anyone else had tried to touch me, my natural reaction would have been to recoil. But not with her. Strangely, this felt right.
Grace clucked her tongue. “Oh, it is unbelievable how much you look like -”
A sharp intake of breath was heard and she held her tongue. Her eyes flicked to the left then back at me. Astonished, I looked up to find my parents as pale as death. Something else that was held from me?
“ . . . Like your parents.” Grace finished. She withdrew then glanced at Riley and her warm smile returned. “Guardian Riley. Twenty-three years have passed since they left but why am I not surprised to find you still at the Princess’s side?”
I knew my eyes had widened as I turned to stare at Riley but he didn’t seem to notice. He stepped forward and hugged Grace tightly. “It’s been too long, Grace.”
My mind was reeling. Riley and I knew each other from before? Why hadn’t he said anything? To be fair, he hadn’t had the time and I was sure he would correct that soon enough. But what about my parents? What else were they hiding? Who was it I looked like? I knew I had my mother’s hair and my father’s eyes. I had always been told I was a good mix of both, that I was undeniably their child. So what had Grace meant? And why didn’t I remember anything? Granted, I was two years old when we left, but surely something would be familiar to me? Anything?
“Logan! Cassandra!” a voice boomed over the increasing noise of the courtyard. I hadn’t noticed that the crowd had come closer, each trying hard to get a look at my parents and I. I tensed nervously. I definitely was not a crowd person. Riley, sensing my discomfort, asked the crowd to back up a few feet to give us some breathing space, then he positioned me between him and my father. I smiled up at him gratefully before turning my eyes to the man with the booming voice.
The man was at least six feet tall and looked nearly as wide. He had a wide smile, white hair and twinkly blue eyes. “Logan! Cassandra!” he called out again and I had to suppress the urge to look around at who ‘Logan’ might be. ‘Cassandra’ was easier for me to associate to my mother since I had always known her as ‘Cassie’. The whole situation would take some getting used to, I was starting to realise that.
The man pulled both my parents into a hug and his laughter was as booming as his voice. My father pulled back, a radiant smile on his face. “Gaspar! It’s been a while my friend.”
“Too long,” the man agreed.
“Gaspar, you remember our daughter?” My mother beckoned me over and I dragged Riley with me.
“Oh my, Shayna, how you have grown.” His smile was warm, paternal. “You really are a beautiful by-product of your parents, aren’t you?”
I held back an eye-roll thinking it wasn’t to be used in polite company. Instead, I smiled. Gaspar patted my cheek, then put an arm on each of my parents shoulders and led them to the castle. I raised an eyebrow and turned to Riley. He grinned, shrugged and followed them. I didn’t have much of a choice but to follow; he was still holding my hand. I didn’t mind, though. I didn’t really want him to let go.
In all that was strange and different in my world now, Riley was familiar. His presence was familiar, as a dog and now as a human. The eyes still held the same warmth as they had at night when he’d guarded me and my fingers still itched to touch him constantly. So really, who could blame me for anchoring myself with him?
We walked up the stone stairs leading to the open doors of the castles and I caught sight of a flower painted on the wooden doors. A bright yellow dandelion. I shook my head then turned my gaze inside to try to find my parents who had entered ahead of us. A scene was unfolding in front of us and for a moment, I froze, wondering if my lense-less eyes were playing tricks on me. “Riley!” I whispered urgently. He followed my gaze and quickly assessed the situation. When he began running, I knew I hadn’t imagined things.
To the right of the room was a woman with short white hair running to my parents on the left of the room. Her face was intent, focused. There was no welcoming smile on her face as she raced to my parents. But it wasn’t her face that had drawn my attention; it was the knife she held over her head in a death grip.
Two things happened at once. I called out, “Mom! Dad!” and the woman noticed Riley running to her.
My father reacted swiftly to the raw fear in my voice; he pulled my mom behind me and turned to face the oncoming danger. Only, he couldn’t see it because Gaspar pushed both my parents behind him and stood looming, large and dangerous. Riley tackled the woman but not before she threw her knife to my parents with deadly precision. In my mind’s eye, I could see the damage that blade would do to Gaspar and my parents. In my mind, the knife had a life of its own and wouldn’t be satisfied with only gutting Gaspar; he would then pull out and viciously attack my parents.
I felt panic rising inside of me and visions flashed before my eyes. I saw Eric, the night he went after me with the knife, I saw Riley with his teeth on Eric’s bare throat. I saw the pink castle and the flowers. The bright yellow dandelion painted on the door seemed to surge out of my memories, imposing itself in front of my eyes. My racing heart was the only noise my ears could hear.
The fear in the room was almost tangible; I could feel it and even smell the stench of it as my eyes sharpened, focused on the image of the knife hurtling toward the broad expanse of Gaspar’s chest. I pictured a dandelion on Gaspar’s heart, protecting him. I pictured Eric’s knife turning into a dandelion, saving me from the nineteen stitches.
The panic was still rising within me but suddenly, it was tampered with something else.
Another feeling was overwhelming me, threatening to drown me. I felt powerful, invincible. Like nothing could touch me. My eyes focused on tiny things, no longer the big picture; the naked fear in my mom’s eyes, the anguish in my father’s. The look of determination on Gaspar’s face, and then the knife, only inches from Gaspar’s heart.
As the power and panic overflowed, I cried out. It was a shrill, thin sound, one that would have made Riley’s dog ears cringe with pain.
I saw the transformation but I didn’t believe it; one second, a knife was inches from Gaspar’s heart. The next, it was a dandelion that hit him squarely in the chest, then rebounded and floated to the floor. I noticed that the whole knife hadn’t changed; only the blade had transformed, the wooden hilt was still there serving as a stem for the dandelion.
My parents and Gaspar released a sigh of relief, the fallen woman was shrieking while Riley held her down. I fell to my knees and released the contents of my stomach on the plush pink carpet.
I was shaking from head to toe and I was gasping for breath. In the back of my mind, I patted myself on the back for always tying my hair into a ponytail when I went to work. If not, it would have made an already messy situation, much messier.
This time, when arms encircled me, they weren’t my mother’s; they were Grace’s. “Hush, darling, breathe in deeply. Deep, calming breaths.”
Her presence was calm and soothing and soon I was taking deep breaths. I refused to consider anything right now; I focused on her voice. While I listened to her, I could easily picture myself in the middle of the forest, sitting on a bed of leaves, my eyes closed. I could hear the chirping of birds, the chattering of squirrels. I could hear bees and flies but they did not bother me. The wind was a nice cool breeze to refresh me as the hot sun pounded on my head. I was warm and comfortable, surrounded by the noises I was accustomed to hearing. Suddenly, I was calm. I blinked and locked gazes with Grace. She smiled.
“I just . . .”
“Shanna!”
My parents ran to me, a look of concern and worry on their faces. Grace helped me stand when I stumbled and nearly landed in my puddle of puke. For such a short woman, she was surprisingly strong. My parents hugged me tightly and began talking but were interrupted by the white-haired woman’s screeching.
“You abandoned us! You left us here to rot and die!” Two guards had relieved Riley and they helped her up, tightly restraining her. She was kicking and screaming, “What is it? You couldn’t keep your own child safe so you couldn’t care less if someone else’s was killed?”
My mother gasped and pressed her hands to her stomach. Furious, my father turned to the woman, “Shut up Margery! You think we willingly went? You know we didn’t! We wanted to stay and fight! The council decided otherwise and we had to leave.”
The woman’s face was ravaged with pain and grief. In any other circumstance, I might have felt pity for her but she had just tried to kill my parents. I glanced at Riley who was tense and alert, ready to interfere if Margery tried anything to escape her guards. As the woman went limp, I realised she probably didn’t have any fight in her left. She looked much older than she probably was with her white hair and wrinkled face. Her body was thin and frail and she looked sick. I wasn’t sure the sickness was entirely physical, judging by what I had seen so far. Then again, I had never lost anyone I truly cared about. How would I react if I lost one of my parents in such a brutal fashion as murder?
I shivered. I didn’t want to picture myself without my parents, especially after such a close call. Granted, Gaspar would have been the one hit, but if he hadn’t reacted the way he had, by protecting them, and if I hadn’t . . . Hadn’t what? What had I done?
I shook my head. I wasn’t going to think about that right now. My whole body began shaking violently and my father was the only reason I was standing upright. I was dizzy and my legs felt weak. My father, sensing my trembling, scooped me up in his arms and turned to Gaspar. “Is there a free room where I could lay her down? I think she’s going into shock.”
Gaspar nodded and turned briskly. My mother followed, running to catch up to my father’s long-legged stride. I worried for about half a second that my father was carrying me around like an overgrown baby but I figured that if he felt he could pull it off, I could trust him. I tucked my head under his chin and closed my eyes.
* * *
I woke in the middle of the night to a soft mattress and warm blankets. For a minute, I felt like I was home and that I needed to wake up to get to work. I pulled my right arm out of the warmth and reached over to my nightstand, searching for my glasses. Nothing. I blinked, squinted and realised I could see the time perfectly, without my glasses. Everything came back to me in a flash and I groaned. My arm fell back atop the covers and my hand touched warm fur.
I jerked up in bed. “Riley?”
He whined, reached over and licked my hand.
I smiled. “Are you supposed to be sleeping on a bed?” I teasingly scolded.
He whined and rose, dropped down to the floor and padded away.
“Riley, I was kidding!” I called to him, suddenly panicked at the idea of him gone. A second later Riley, man, appeared.
“I know you were kidding, Shanna, but I had to change back if we were going to talk.”
I searched the darkness to see if he was naked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He sat on the bed, in front of me, wearing a pair of dark pyjama bottoms. No top. I thanked the moonlight profusely for shining in my window and giving me glimpses of half-naked Riley.
I tore my gaze away from him, arranged a pillow behind me and leaned against the headboard. I threw a pillow at Riley who leaned against the baseboard, looking quite comfortable and at ease on my bed.
As I regarded him silently, an amused smile began spreading across his face. “What?” I asked, wondering what was funny. I had just woken up; did I look like Frankenstein’s bride? I self-consciously ran a hand through my hair but didn’t find it unusually dishevelled.
Riley chuckled. “There’s nothing wrong with your hair. I was expecting to be bombarded with questions and I was just waiting for them to come.”
“Oh.” I laughed and let my hand drop. “Well, I was going to but I held back; I don’t know if you’re a morning person or not.” I smiled sheepishly.
Riley glanced outside at the full moon. “This isn’t what I’d consider ‘morning’. It’s the middle of the night, which means that you’re safe whether I’m a night owl or a morning person.” He grinned.
I also glanced at the moon. It was so white and beautiful and pure in a land that was mostly dead. Seeing it like this, tall and proud, hanging in the sky, looking down at the land gave me hope. Hope that this land could be healed. That my parents would look at it and recognise it for what it used to be. I also felt hope for my own land, for Terra. If Rydon could be healed, then Terra would follow suite. What would it be like, living there and no longer having to worry about being mugged, about crimes and rapes?
“Penny for your thoughts,” Riley said softly and I could feel him searching my face.
“When I started working night shift five years ago, I had a difficult time adjusting. It was very unnatural to sleep during the day and wake for the night. For two months, I slept twelve to thirteen hours a day and on weekends too. I tried to flip my life around on weekends so I could have some kind of a life and see my parents but it was hard.” I turned and smiled at him. “Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Now that my secret is out, I’ll be able to go back home and buy myself a house. But I will keep the schedule I have now. It won’t be conducive to having a life but I’ll get a lot of writing done this way.” My smile spread. I hadn’t ever thought that one day I would be able to live freely of my writing.
“But what about when you marry and have children? Won’t they cramp your lifestyle?”
My head snapped to him and I searched for a trace of sarcasm, irony, but there was none. His face glowed in the moonlight, earnest and curious. I relaxed and my gaze shifted to my hands resting in my lap. “I don’t plan on marrying any time soon. I’ve never had much opportunity to make any boyfriends, even while working in public. The customers quickly realised that I have one hell of a temper and I can’t be persuaded to look the other way, to forego the rules.” I shrugged. “It didn’t make me very popular with the men or women.”
“Maybe you’ll meet someone here.” There was a trace of something in his voice as he pronounced those words. Wonder? Curiosity? Hope?
I raised my head and searched his gaze but I couldn’t read him. “Maybe but what would be the point? I’m going home after. Do you really think he’d follow me there? To Terra?”
Riley hesitated. “I think that if he truly loves you, he will.”
This was decidedly a strange conversation. Why bring up a husband and children? Of course I wanted some of both but where would I go to meet them? A club? A bar? Considering my rather slight phobia of crowds, I could not picture myself in those places. On the internet, a singles site? No thank you. The grocery store? The library? Maybe.
I shook my head and changed the subject. “Do you actually mind if I ask you some questions?”
“Considering how you just asked me the first one, I’d have to say no.”
I held back a smile and stuck my tongue out at him instead. He laughed and settled himself more comfortably on the pillow.
“Okay. So why does it matter that Baldy touched you?”
Riley’s eyes widened. “Huh?”
I searched my memory. “Mace, the bald guy who entered the store. You told my mom that he had touched you and you could be traced. What does that mean?”
“Before I explain that, there’s a few things you need to know about Rydon. You already know that it’s a magical land, similar in many ways to Terra. What you don’t know is that we’re all born with magical abilities. Some of them are genetic, like mine. The men in our family are all guard dogs, mostly assigned to the Royal Magicals.”
“What about the women in your family?”
“The only women are mothers and grand-mothers. For some reason, maybe because of our genetic code, there aren’t any sisters or nieces, not on the men’s side.”
“And does the mother have to have some special magical ability for you to become what you are?”
“Not in our case. The men pass down the gene and it doesn’t matter if the mother is a RM or a maid.”
“What about your mother?” I had heard my parents mention his father and I was curious about his mother.
“Her name was Hannah and she was a one of the first Royal Magicals to get killed.”
I gulped and whispered, “I’m sorry Riley.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “It was over twenty-five years ago, I don’t remember her much. I just recall her soft eyes when she sang to me.”
“The one you sang earlier? The one that helps you concentrate?”
He nodded.
“It’s beautiful,” I said truthfully. Then, “How old are you? I thought you were my age but if it was over 25 years ago and you remember her a bit . . .”
He smiled. “I’ll be thirty in a few months.”
I gaped. “Oh my god, you’re ancient!”
He gasped mockingly and threw his pillow at me. I caught it, laughing, and hugged it to me. It smelled like him.
“So? The trackers?” I prompted him.
“Well, the trackers were born with special tracking aptitudes. They usually differ from one to the other but basically once they’ve gotten a whiff of you, they can follow you to the end of this world. And I mean that literally; Mace touched me in Terra and so he can only track me in Terra. Once we transported to this realm, the trace went dead.”
I straightened in alarm. “So they know where we are? They can find us here? Is that why you’re here, in my room?”
“Chances are they know we’re in this realm but they can’t get to us. They wouldn’t dare come close to Kimera; they know they’d be outnumbered. Besides, they may actually still be in Terra, making sure they didn’t lose the trace because we put much distance between us and them, such as by plane or train.” He held my gaze. “As for what I’m doing here; I thought you would appreciate the comfort of a familiar face when you woke up in this unknown room.”
My insides melted, liquefied. My heart beat accelerated and a huge grin was spreading across my face. A blush was also creeping up my neck and cheeks and I was grateful for the cover of darkness. He was here, in my bed, because he cared for me. For me! He didn’t want me to worry! I felt like jumping up and hugging him but didn’t want to give him any wrong ideas, considering how we were both on my bed. He seemed to be reading my thoughts again and he smiled softly, tenderly.
“Thank you,” I said simply, hoping he would understand that I meant those two words from the bottom of my heart.
He nodded, smiled and said, “Any more questions?”
“Thousands more. How exactly did you find us? You said you had your own methods and didn’t have to ask my agent.”
“With a tracker, actually.”
“I don’t understand, she’s never touched me.”
“Well, like I said, they don’t all have the exact same abilities. Some of them need to touch you to track you, others only have to touch something you’ve touched as well. Others can keep your name and description in mind, and pick up a trace of you.”
“So, how did you do it?”
“We had Travis transport us to your agent’s office and we went through her files. Although almost every transaction is done by computer now, you still had to sign some papers over to her for the sale of your manuscript. We had a tracker with us when we found your papers but it was quite unnecessary; the address where to reach you was right there at the top of the page. We arrived here to find it was a store and while we tried to figure a way in, we saw Quinn and his master leaving and we got an idea. The rest you know.”
I thought of what he said and wondered if it bothered me that I had been tracked down. I decided that not really. They hadn’t invaded my privacy, per say, but they had found a way to find me and my family. Thankfully, it had been the good guys who had been on scene first. I shivered as I picture what could have happened if Mace had been a guard dog working with me. He could have easily killed me in the back store and walked out without anyone knowing the truth.
“Can I ask you some questions now?”
My eyes widened in surprise. “Sure, what do you want to know?”
“I found out while looking for you just how well you succeeded with the sales of your books; how did you manage to remain completely anonymous? Don’t you have mandatory tours or book signings to do? Why was your mail directed at Shelco? And why were you living in your parents’ basement when you could easily buy three houses of your own?”
I laughed out loud. “Is that what I’ve sounded like these past twenty-four hours?”
Riley grinned and waited.
“Okay, well. When I finished writing my book, I knew it would become a best-seller. Knew it like I knew the sun rose in the morning and slept at night. I decided that to keep my identity a secret I needed to be straightforward from the start. I researched and found that Julie Banning was known for her discretion and for backing her clients completely. I sent her a query letter and a synopsis and told her that before I sent her anything else, we needed to be clear that I was not giving her my real identity and I planned on keeping it that way.”
I stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock beside my bed. It was almost three in the morning. I might be an night owl but I’d had a difficult week and it was finally catching up to me. I sunk lower in bed, my head the only thing remaining upright against the pillow.
“I spoke to David, my boss, and explained my situation to him. Just the basics because I didn’t want him to have a bad opinion of me or my parents but he suggested I get my mail sent here. No one knew about it except for him and I.”
I yawned more loudly and widely and I thought I heard Riley chuckle. My eyes closed on their own accord and I suddenly felt myself drifting off to sleep. There was a shifting of weight on the bed as Riley set foot on the ground and I immediately forced opened my weary eyes. “Please, don’t go.”
“I had no intention of leaving you.”
I drifted off to sleep until I felt a shifting of the mattress again as Riley climbed back on. Only, he had transformed back into his dog self and I sighed contentedly as he pressed the warmth of his body against the length of me.
Here I go....
