A Thief of Nightshade (8 page)

“I feel good.” She grinned. Grant rarely, if ever, defended her in front of her parents. Not since ...

Shortly after her brother’s arrival, they were served a meal that was cooked by the family chef. They spoke for what felt like hours about one shallow topic after another, reveling in politics and pleasantries meant to pass the time. They acted civil to Jullian out of respect for the family name and little else. Finally, after they’d finished dessert, Jullian asked to address her father in private. She watched with dread as Jullian was escorted to her father’s den.

Grant, his face displaying the same dismay her father had shown upon the request, stepped in front of her. “Care to elaborate?”

She exhaled, not wanting to discuss it with him. She hadn’t worked up the nerve to tell them yet and somewhere during the pheasant dish she’d decided tonight was not the night. “You’ll know soon enough.”

“Aubrey, I understand the need for you to gain your independence, sow your oats so to speak. But you seem to be getting awfully serious with him. How long have you known him, a few months at the most?”

“I appreciate your concern and I understand your need to convey your disapproval, but—”

Grant suddenly looked like he might be sick. “You aren’t marrying him?”

“Is he beneath you, Grant?”

He laughed, but it obviously wasn’t out of amusement. “Have you thought about children, Aubrey, what life you will be giving your children if you marry someone like Dr. Sellars? Are you willing to live in a four-bedroom craftsman where you can practically touch your neighbors’

houses from the porch all of your life?

I’ve ignored the fact that you’ve moved in with him, but I figured it was a phase.”

She wasn’t aware that Grant knew where Jullian lived and she certainly hadn’t expected him to spy on her. “Does my happiness mean nothing to you?”

He squeezed his eyes shut, seemingly in confusion. “What does happiness have to do with this?”

“Everything.”

Grant leaned against the wall, fatigued. “Life isn’t that simple. I wish we only had our feelings to consider, but nothing in this world comes without a cost. The cost of being a Wright is sacrifice.”

“I’ve noticed,” she murmured.

Grant swished the drink in his hand and she watched the ice spin in his glass.

“Giving up on med school is one thing, breaking things off with ... whatever his name, well ... all of that may be tolerable, but Aubrey ... you’re meant for more than some fly-by-night marriage to a guy you don’t even know. Do you know anything about him? Is he divorced? A widower? I couldn’t find out much about him when I looked. Where the hell is the paper trail on this guy? What if—”

Suddenly, their father’s laughter rang loudly from down the hall. She turned and watched as he and Jullian came out of the den, her father’s hand on Jullian’s shoulder. Maybe Jullian didn’t ask, after all.

Mrs. Wright had busied herself with ordering the hired help to ready the living room for their arrival and had just stepped back into the dining room where Aubrey and Grant stood. “Shall we?” She motioned toward the door behind her.

Jullian, wearing a smile broader than anything she’d seen on him yet, walked Aubrey into the den and as soon as the Wrights sat, he got down on one knee.

Grant shifted uncomfortably in his chair and her father hit him on the arm. Grant looked at him in astonishment.

“Aubrielle, I love you, completely and without condition. I’ve loved you since I first laid eyes on you, knew even in that brief moment that your soul was meant for mine. In the few short months we’ve courted, my heart has opened like I never thought it could. I can imagine no greater honor, no finer privilege and no deeper pleasure than having you by my side as my wife. Will you marry me?”

“Yes, of course I will.” She numbly watched Jullian slide the ring on her finger.

Mr. Wright patted Jullian on the back, lending him a hand to help him up.

“Welcome to the family, Dr. Sellars. May I call you Jullian?”

Jullian squeezed Aubrey’s hand.

“Nothing would please me more.”

Mrs. Wright had her usual controlled demeanor about her when she spoke. “I suppose we should meet with a wedding coordinator. Free up a day in your schedule next week, Aubrielle.” She seemed mystified by her husband’s response and she wasn’t alone; Grant was beside himself.

“I’m sure Harrington has mentioned the boys’ monthly hunting trips,” Mr.

Wright said. “Jullian, as a future part of

the family, why don’t you start going with them?” Grant, at Mr. Wright’s insistence, handed Jullian one of the three cigars he’d pulled from the antique desk in the corner.

Jullian took the cigar and nodded sharply. “I haven’t hunted in quite a while.

I would love to go.”

Grant spared Aubrey a glance, his lips held in a tight smile, his eyes dull and unfocused. He cleared his throat and suggested the men go out to the lanai and have another drink while they enjoyed their cigars.

Jullian, surely tipsy from the drinks he’d had with her father and brother, sat grinning like an idiot in the passenger seat of her Land Cruiser as they pulled out of the driveway. He didn’t usually care for spirits, let alone enough to drink her brother under the table. Aubrey, reeling in the shock of how the evening had unraveled, drove.

“What did you say to him? And you might want to get used to saying ‘no’

unless you intend on becoming an alcoholic, which is fine—I’m used to it, considering the majority of my family drowns in the stuff.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t a drunken laugh. In fact, he seemed completely composed. When she stopped at the guardhouse to let the gates open, she looked at him and saw clarity in his eyes.

The feeling of something off crept into her mind.

“I overheard a conversation between you and Samantha,” Jullian said. “As important as getting your father’s blessing was to me, it meant far more to you.”

“That’s the danger of eavesdropping.

You

don’t

quite

hear

the

whole

conversation.” She heard him clearly, but the feeling persisted. “You’re sober.”

He looked at her seriously. “Did you see me drink anything?”

“Grant did. He mentioned your unbelievable tolerance as he congratulated me. Jullian, he’d just lectured me with his disapproval. My parents grilled you like FBI interrogators and suddenly everything is fine? What happened in that room?” He made no motion to respond to her and as the strange feeling intensified, she pulled over to the side of the road. Had Grant been mistaken, maybe he hadn’t had anything?

“What’s wrong?” Jullian unbuckled his seat belt and leaned over, touching her gently on the arm. He didn’t seem to understand why she’d stopped the car.

She couldn’t catch her breath and suddenly felt dizzy. “What did you say to my father? Better yet, what did you say to Grant on the lanai?”

Jullian sat back, keeping his hand affectionately on her arm. “Does it really matter?”

“It does to me.”

Jullian tightened his grip, his eyes brimming with sincerity and passion.

“There are moments where you must believe in more than what is probable.

Can you, just this once, take this moment as a gift and let it be without needing to know the why?”

“Just

this

once,

Jullian.”

she

whispered, the eeriness having deepened as he spoke.

He smiled and her discomfort faded a little. He leaned over, sliding his fingers through her hair. He laid his other hand gingerly over her collarbone, right where her necklace met her skin, and kissed her on the cheek. There wasn’t the slightest hint of alcohol on his breath. “Could I take back every tear you’ve ever shed in disappointment and pain, I would.” She started to speak but he touched a finger to her lips to stop her. “Love, if deep enough, can sway a magic far deeper than that of fantasy.”

Aubrey

laughed,

despite

the

genuineness of Jullian’s words. “Love can move mountains, but suggesting that it can move Parker Wright is something I wouldn’t put much faith in. It’s been a little while since my family and I had a falling out. I suppose time changes everything. It appears that in this case it has.”

Jullian briefly toyed with the wings of the dragonfly on her necklace, his smile fading a little as he did so. “Appearances aren’t everything.”

“WE HAVE TO GO TO RHEAVON,” AUBREY

SAID
weakly. They had found temporary solace in a large rock formation and sat around a fire built in the shelter of the overhang. Aislinn and Lipsey had tended to the gashes on her back with what little they had, cleaning them with the water from a nearby spring and using the few clean strips of cloth from her bloodied shirt as bandages. She’d changed into the spare shirt Lilly had packed in her satchel.

“You aren’t well,” Aislinn said firmly. “We aren’t going anywhere.”

“The Fae know I’m here, who else would have sent the Wraith?”

Aislinn laughed humorlessly as he looked around them. “I’ve never doubted they were aware of your presence here.”

Aubrey struggled to sit up. “Then she will expect us to do nothing. She will think she has succeeded. This could be good fortune.”

Lipsey crawled into her lap and then looked at Aislinn. “She will think we can’t come for the Prince. She won’t send her spies.”

Aislinn growled, sending Lipsey to cower behind Aubrey. “Fortune? Naïve human! Don’t you get it? You will lose more of yourself with every day that passes. Every breath you take will steal from you some memory of who you once were. You had little hope in defeating Saralia to begin with—there is no chance of saving him now. If we can find a way to get you home to your world, you might pull through...”

“No, you don’t get it. My life is meaningless in the greater scheme of things.” She stood then, fragile and in need of sleep, but angry at his attitude. “Stay behind. I can go alone. I never asked for your help.” She braced herself against the rocks to her left. “If Saralia thinks me unfit to fight for Jullian, that will be my advantage. If I fail, then I fail having done everything in my power to save Jullian.”

Aislinn blocked her path. “You’ll never make it, Aubrey. The Prince wouldn’t want you to suffer, surely if you were married to him you know this. He can’t stand to see anyone he cares about in pain and your wound will only worsen. It will never heal. You’ll grow accustomed to it in short order, but it will overcome you. Let me take you somewhere you can be made comfortable.”

He’d mentioned Jullian yet again in such an intimate fashion that she had begun to suspect that he knew him ... well.

“Comfortable? I’d rather die than live the rest of my life knowing I’d given up and placed my own comfort before Jullian’s.

He wouldn’t have given up on me. He didn’t give up on me.”

“Dramatic much?” Aislinn knitted his features in concern. “Then rest for the night at least, please.”

She would have refused, but her vision blurred and she had trouble keeping

her eyes open. “Then by morning light we go.”

Morning came quickly. The first shards of light sent sharp pains through Aubrey’s head worse than any hangover she’d ever had. She pressed her forehead into her cool hand as soon as she sat up. Aislinn stirred beside her and she realized he’d curled up next to her during the night and had kept her warm. Frost covered the ground beyond the rocks, kissing the grass with ice crystals. Lipsey, tucked under Aislinn’s arm so that only his tail was visible, had started to wake as well.