Aurora's Promise (12 page)

Shy glanced at him, narrowed her eyes in warning before
returning her gaze to Amdyn. “Shut up, Kayn. This isn’t any of your—” Suddenly
Shyrana’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she sucked in her breath.
She spun on Kayn, her hair whipping around her shoulders. “
You!
”

Kayn’s eyebrows rose as he crossed his arms and leaned back
against the counter. “Me?”

“You knew Ellyna had arrived with Amdyn this morning. That’s
why you—” She stopped abruptly as color rose in her cheeks. Then, slowly, she
straightened, tucked her hair behind her ears and turned her back on Kayn. “What
are your plans from here? Do you wish me to ask the Elders for an emergency
portal or reinforcements?” She directed all her questions to Amdyn.

“No, that’s not necessary. Everything has been taken care
of.”

“But—”

“This conversation is over.” The authority in Amdyn’s voice
was heavy with dismissal.

The sudden imperious demeanor he effortlessly cloaked
himself in brutally and ruthlessly disallowed any argument. There was no
remnant left of the laid-back, sun-worshipping beach boy Aurora had been
reminded of earlier in the day. Covertly, she stole a quick glance at Ellen but
she appeared unsurprised by Amdyn’s abrupt transformation.

Emotion cleared from Shyrana’s expression as she nodded at
Aurora and Ellen. “Nice to meet you. If you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.
The Council needs to know of the final two sisters’ safe arrival.”

When she started to walk out of the kitchen, Kayn grabbed
her arm to stop her as she passed him. “Amdyn said that it’s not necessary to contact
the Elders.”

Shy looked down at his hand and then glared up at him. “Don’t.
Touch. Me. Again.”

Kayn didn’t move immediately. Instead, he stared down into
Shyrana’s face and something passed between them, a current so strong Aurora
could feel the ripples of electricity from where she stood.

“Shy.” Kayn’s voice rumbled in a low warning but Shy jerked
her arm out of his hold.

“Ever,” she hissed, “again.” She didn’t look back as she
left.

The kitchen was quiet as Kayn glared at Shyrana’s retreating
form and everyone else stared at Kayn.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Amdyn asked Kayn.

Pushing himself away from the counter, Kayn returned Amdyn’s
look. “No.” The icy condescension he carried in his eyes echoed the sharp
disdain of his answer. He stepped around Amdyn and toward Aurora, his eyes
still hard though his tone softened. “We haven’t met. I’m Kayn Kilth. Second
Heir to the First House.” He reached toward her but Connyn grabbed him by the
wrist.

Connyn’s sinister growl surprised Aurora. “She’s mated,” he
said.

Fury, instant and intense, branded Kayn’s gorgeous face as
he shook off Connyn’s grip. “I was welcoming her into the fold,
cousin
,
not trying to fuck her on the kitchen table.” He turned his attention back to
Aurora. “Welcome to the Royal family.” His smile was grim and faintly
threatening. “You have my condolences.” He nodded to include Ellen. “Both of
you.”

Turning, he stalked out of the kitchen, leaving Aurora and
Ellen alone with Amdyn and Connyn once more.

“What the hell was that?” Aurora glared up at the man who
had claimed her.

Connyn frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you overreacted when he offered to shake my hand.
Is that kind of reaction normal for you? Because if it is, we’re going to have
a serious talk about acceptable social interaction.”

With a short laugh, Amdyn shook his head. “Acceptable social
interaction has never been high on Connyn’s priority list. But to be fair, my
brother is a special case. He’s a bigger pain in the ass than our younger
cousin Rordyc.”

Connyn snorted and exchanged a look with Amdyn.

“Normally,” Amdyn amended. “But your lecture will have to
wait. We have a portal to catch.”

* * * * *

Connyn led the way across the frozen floor of the Colorado
forest that surrounded the farmhouse. They’d been walking for nearly thirty
minutes and wherever Aurora’s body was covered with coat, hat, gloves or boots,
she was warm enough to start sweating. Her nose and cheeks, however, felt like
they were about to break off in the cold and the occasional gust that whipped
snow into her eyes made it difficult to take anything more than quick, stinging
breaths too shallow to easily keep up with Connyn’s pace.

Not that Connyn had a pace she could keep up with on her
best days. She was
definitely
not the outdoorsy type. “Damn portal,” she
muttered. “What’s wrong with crossing over in Laguna Beach or Tucson?”

Connyn glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

“Nothing. Just mumbling.” She took a couple hurried steps to
keep from falling too far back and having Amdyn growl at her again from behind.
“So what’s the deal with these portals?” she asked. “Are you the only one who
knows when they open?”

“No. Once a home base is established, each heir is given the
coordinates and time table for a rotating portal.”

“So why was Shy upset if you all know the time and place?”

Connyn had stopped and was looking at her. She came to a
grateful stop next to him and covered her nose with her gloved hand, trying to
make sure it was still there. It was so numb from the cold she could barely
feel the pressure of her palm.

“What’s wrong with your nose?” Connyn asked as Ellen and
Amdyn came up from behind them.

“It’s frozen. And,” she said testing her bottom lip with her
teeth, “my lips are going numb.”

For a second Connyn’s eyes heated as he stared at her mouth,
but then he turned and pointed at a small clearing to their left beside a creek
that was iced over. “There’s where the portal will open.”

Amdyn nodded and took Ellen’s hand to guide her over several
large boulders separating them from the clearing.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Aurora said when Connyn
reached for her hand to give her an assist up as well.

“The times and coordinates are coded. Each heir has his own.
Although anyone can use the portals as long as they arrive in the right place at
the right time and are willing to go through, we don’t share the information. A
precaution suggested by Wyc’s captain after several attacks on Bethany. This
portal will open in my family’s section of the main palace in Vystral, the
central city of our world. If we were using Amdyn’s coordinates and time, the
portal would open in his family’s sector.”

“But how do—”

“Later. We need to be ready for the portal when it opens.
They don’t last long.” He put his hands around her waist, picked her up and set
her up on the boulder. “Follow Amdyn.”

Her boots crunched over the ice-crusted snow as she stepped
carefully around and over rocks. Ellen was quiet and stood with her arms
crossed, staring out over the frozen creek. Aurora rubbed her nose again trying
to bring back some feeling to its tip. It didn’t work.

“So what does a portal look like?” she asked scanning the
area.

Connyn pointed toward Ellen. “Like that.”

A small, shimmering circle appeared in the air to Ellen’s
left, just on the edge of the brook. It grew and wavered like the mirage on an
overheated southern highway in the middle of summer. She could still see the
other side of the creek through it, but it was as if she were looking through a
pane of old-fashioned rippled plate glass that distorted the images.

“Oh.”
Holy shit!
It was really happening. She couldn’t
stop staring at the shimmering circle of air. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t
pick up her foot to step closer. The whole of her reality suddenly telescoped
into that one spot of wavy light. World jumping.
Holy fucking shit!

“Aurora?” Connyn put his hand on her back. His touch was
firm and steady and didn’t help her nerves one little bit. “Just step through.
I’ll be right behind you.”

She really wanted to make a smartass remark, but her heart
was beating so loudly the drumming drowned out all coherent thoughts. Twisting
to look over her shoulder, she found Ellen watching her.

Nodding, Ellen said, “Go ahead. It will be all right.” Her
lips lifted in a brief, poignantly wry smile. “Have hope.”

Aurora stepped around Amdyn to give her a quick, hard hug. “Have
faith,” she whispered back.

Ellen nodded. “See you on the other side.”

Turning back to Connyn, Aurora took a deep breath. “Okay, so
what do I do?”

“Just step into it. You’ll be stepping onto the floor on the
other side but won’t be able to see in that dimension until you’re completely
through.”

Moving toward the bank of the creek, she took the hand
Connyn extended to help her balance. It looked as if she were getting ready to
step onto the ice. But when she stuck her foot into the shimmering air, it
disappeared from view though she could still see the other side of the brook,
its wavering image where her foot should be. “That’s just damn freaky,” she
muttered under her breath.

Shutting her eyes and half praying she wasn’t stepping into
the last and biggest mistake of her life, she threw herself forward. The scream
that she had managed to keep quiet was pulled from her throat, flash-frozen
into brittle shards and flung into the void sucking her body forward. In the
moment it took to step from one world to another, she felt like she’d been
melted down to thought and sieved through the fine mesh of time before being
sewn together again by lightning.

The moment both feet landed on the other side of the portal,
a surge of electricity streaked a path from the core of her being to the edge
of her skin. The sparking sensation was not unfamiliar, but up until this
moment, had only happened when she was extremely angry or when she was choosing
to use her gift. And never had it felt so powerful. It vibrated through her in
a steady pulse and looking down at her hands, she half expected them to be
glowing.

Suddenly her stomach lurched and she felt sick. Like she had
just stepped out of an amusement park ride that did nothing but spin so fast
you were plastered to the side. She’d ridden one like it only once and had been
so violently ill afterward she’d never attempted anything like it again.

Forcing herself to breathe slowly, in through her nose and
out through her mouth, she tried to take her mind off her stomach and did her
best not to vomit by glancing around at the place she had landed in. It was a
small, triangular room with its floor, ceiling and all three walls carved out
of the same black rock, cleanly cut and polished to a near mirror shine. A soft
light spilled from bowls set up on three pedestals positioned one per corner
and a steep stairway led up and around the wall opposite from the portal.

Nervously, she flexed her fingers and then pointed to the
closest bowl. “Brighter,” she commanded. Covering her eyes with a startled
shriek as a blinding white light exploded from the bowl, she came close to
stumbling back into the portal. With a quick wave toward the light, she hissed,
“Return.” The bowl immediately left off its supernova blast and once again the
room was bathed in a soft glow.

“Oh my god,” Aurora whispered as she tried blinking the huge
floating spot from her vision. “What the hell have I done?”

She turned to look back from where she had come. On this
side of the portal, she could see Connyn moving through the dimensional doorway
with the watery images of Amdyn and Ellen behind him. The dimension jump didn’t
seem to unsettle Connyn at all as he stepped into the room.

He immediately looked around and frowned when his eyes
settled on her. With the tips of his fingers, he tilted her chin up and scanned
her face. “You’ve gone deathly pale. Are you going to be sick?”

Still blinking and with her stomach pitching, she shook her
head. “Just my first time world-hopping, that’s all.”

“It’s just new to you. You’ll get used to it.” Gently, he
took her arm and guided her a couple steps away from the portal. They both
turned to watch the undulating forms of Amdyn and Ellen, waiting for them to
step through. Neither did. They were arguing, or rather, Amdyn seemed to be
arguing. Ellen was simply staring up at him with her arms crossed over her
chest. Then she turned away from the portal and walked out of sight.

“What is she doing?” Connyn asked, absently unzipping his
coat.

“I don’t know.”

Amdyn turned and stared into the portal. It was beginning to
flicker, sputtering and then fading around the edges. Though Aurora was fairly
certain Amdyn couldn’t see them, he seemed to be looking straight at Connyn.

“Amdyn said that Ellyna is refusing to go through the portal
but won’t tell him why,” he said. “She’s blocking his mind and he wants to know
what she said to you.”

“Nothing. Just to have hope and that she’d meet me here.”

“That’s it? Are you sure?” The portal was definitely shrinking
now.

She gazed at the dimming image of Amdyn. With a ray of
winter sun lighting up his white-blond hair, the haze of blinding snow behind
him and his blue eyes glowing bright with anger, he looked like one really
pissed off archangel. Aurora didn’t envy Ellen the fight she was facing. “I’m
positive.”

The portal opening began to flicker erratically for a couple
of seconds and then completely disappeared. Aurora waved her hand where it had
been, but there was nothing there. She had done it. She had stepped into
another world. Another life.

A sharp pang of excitement and loss seized her, making her
shiver and feel light-headed. Suddenly she was enveloped by two strong arms,
pulled close against a warm, muscled chest. Sliding her arms under his jacket,
she held on tightly for a moment, keeping her eyes firmly closed and pressing
her cheek into the softness of the cotton knit jersey he wore. The absolute
reality of the solid mass of his body next to hers calmed the jitters that had
started a mind-blasting campaign for control.