Foretell (28 page)

Yet she knew he would be. It was said that the Constantins were considered the most attractive of the royal families.

Except they were no longer considered Royals.
A huge disgrace was brought down upon the Constantin name when they abandoned their duties long ago, after murdering several other Royals. Strangely, their abandonment was considered the worse crime. The tribes would never forgive them for their betrayal.

“Come, Mama,” she directed Serena.

“There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“This is Gabriel Constantin.” He’s the one I told you about, the one who rescued us from the slave merchant.”

Serena nodded. “It is truly a pleasure to meet you,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “I am so grateful for your actions. How can we ever repay you?”

Gabriel straightened immediately, almost nervously. In a low voice, he replied, “Liliana came to my rescue long before I came to hers. My actions were owed to her.”

Confused, Serena turned to her daughter.

“It’s a long story,” Liliana explained. “One that we’ll tell you all about over dinner.”

It was then that Serena noticed something peculiar. Gabriel’s gray eyes alighted over her daughter like a precious jewel. There was something familiar there, almost loving. Was there was more going on between them than what met the eye?

God, she hoped she hadn’t just seen what she thought she had.

The shared homecoming of the Moori sisters definitely held more excitement than Liliana and Eryn prepared for. Nearly every member of their tribe approached the girls in greeting. The old women pinched their cheeks as if they were still babes. The old men curiously prodded them with question after question about their travels. Their old friends rushed
them,
swapping stories from all the time they’d spent apart. And the children, well, they simply wanted to join in on the excitement.

Liliana was nearly breathless from all of it. The first moment she found an opportunity to steal away, she quickly took, sneaking into the outskirts of the forest to her favorite getaway: a peaceful patch of grass near the winding river running through Redwood Forest. There, she peeked through the tree branches and spotted a familiar figure looming along the riverbank.

Liliana stilled when she saw Gabriel, thrilled to discover she found a moment alone with him. After all, this was the man she’d fallen so hopelessly in love with over the last few months. Now that she’d returned home, she doubted they’d find a secluded moment like this.

Before announcing her presence, Liliana spied on Gabriel for a while, watching him skip stones across the water and stare pensively into the distance. She wondered what he was thinking about. What caused him to furrow his brow in such a brooding manner?

Gabriel heard the sounds of Liliana’s steps rustling in the brush. “Sneaking away from your people so soon?” he asked, catching sight of her.

Liliana smiled as she drew near the riverbank, then plopped down beside him. “Perhaps,” she admitted.

“Let me guess, you miss me already. Now, you’re longing for a secret rendezvous.” He grinned, a bit devilishly.

Liliana batted her lashes as seductively as she could manage. “How did you guess?”

He laughed and reached for her waist. She shrieked as he pulled her to the ground, hovering over her. “Don’t toy with me, lady,” he warned. “Unless you’re in the mood to create a scandal.”

Her laughter faded into a smile. She’d only been teasing him a moment ago, but she wasn’t quite sure there wasn’t a hint of sincerity within her feigned seduction. She reached up to touch Gabriel’s cheek. “I could think of no other man I’d like to scandalize me,” she admitted to him truthfully.

He smiled, gathering her close. His head bent down to reach hers, and their lips touched softly for the barest of moments. In that instance, everything was perfect.

Gabriel groaned as he pulled away, resting his forehead upon hers. He stayed like that for a while, before admitting something Liliana hadn’t expected to hear him to say. “I love you, you know.”

She did know.

Or at least she’d hoped. However, she never thought he would admit it to her. He was an abandoner. She belonged to a tribe. They weren’t supposed to speak to one another, much less love each other.

“Do you feel the same?” he asked, pulling away slowly.

Gabriel waited expectantly for her answer, as if his life depended on it. There was so much emotion in his beautiful gray eyes. And to think, there was once a time when she couldn’t look into their sparkling depths. He’d been badly burned in a forest fire, and was unable to open his eyes because of the wounds. Liliana had found him like that and nursed him back to health. She’d been so afraid his sight would never return. But it did return-and in spades. He could see farther than most people, with only the use of his mind.

Liliana was thankful his sight had returned. Not only for the obvious reasons, but also for the simplest of moments, like this one, and the way he was looked at her right now. Sometimes Gabriel looked at her in a way no one ever had before. He gazed at her in adoration…like she was the only thing in the world that mattered to him. The feeling it gave her was frightening, yet thrilling. Liliana wanted him to look at her that way forever.

“Lily, do not leave me in suspense,” Gabriel pleaded.

She smiled. “Of course I love you, you stupid man. How could you think otherwise?”

She felt his tension abate. “Well, you’ve never said it,” he pointed out. He sat up straight, helping her up off the ground as well.

The sound of coins jangled as she straightened her skirts. “I thought you knew, and besides, I wasn’t going to say it before you did.”

He shook his head. “Haven’t we talked about your stubbornness before?”

She grinned, embarrassed. Her stubbornness, as he put it, was the reason she was severely whipped. A slave at the time, Liliana hit Gabriel’s brother, Ralph, square in the jaw, for manhandling her sister. Her owner demanded she
apologize,
yet Liliana had refused. To make matters worse, she hadn’t revealed her identity to Gabriel, knowing he’d help her if he knew who she was. He’d been blind when they first met, unable to recognize Liliana as the girl who saved him from the forest fire. Gabriel came to her rescue anyway, but only after Liliana received several lashes. Her back still carried the scars.

So, indeed, calling Liliana stubborn was putting it mildly.

“We should change the subject,” Liliana suggested. “You know, bad memories and all.”

“How convenient for you,” he told her, smiling.

Liliana absently reached for a nearby dandelion, plucking the stem from the ground. “Someone once told me these were for wishes.”

He arched a skeptical brow.

“You’re supposed to blow on the flower,” she continued.

“I’m almost positive that’s a weed you’re holding,” he pointed out.

She waved that aside. “Regardless, you’re supposed to blow on it and make a wish.”

“And what, it carries your wish with it to the land of magic and fairies?”

Liliana ignored his sarcasm, and held the dandelion up to the sky. “Exactly,” she stated. “I’m going to try.”

Gabriel watched as she closed her eyes and fervently blew on the dandelion. The soft breeze carried the white seeds with it downriver, majestically floating through the air. The simple act was so lovely and innocent, he could almost believe Liliana’s wish did go to an enchanted place.

“What did you wish for?” he asked her curiously.

Her answer was without hesitation. “To stay with you forever.”

He turned back to her, surprised by the candid answer. In that moment, his expression turned serious. “I would pay any bride price for you,” he declared.

She smiled. “That’s good, because my brother will surely demand the highest price imaginable.”

“Will they let me have you?” he asked, fearing they might not agree to the match.

She scooted closer to him, and snuggled into the crook of his arm. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Because I’m already yours.”

Serena stood from a distance, watching her daughter embrace the former Constantin prince. It was clear Liliana was in love.

Serena sighed. It was bittersweet, seeing the two of them together. On one hand, her daughter looked happier than she’d ever seen her. On the other, Serena could no longer propose a marriage to Marcellus in good conscience. She refused to take away something as precious as love.

Even Serena couldn’t take love for granted. She’d never actually found such a thing, in all her lifetimes. The only love she’d ever been certain of was her love for her children and for her sister. Of course, Serena came to care for the children’s father. He was a good, decent man, worthy of ruling their little tribe. However, she’d never felt the love she’d seen in her daughter’s eyes while Liliana gazed at the Constantin abandoner. That kind of love was rare and meant to be cherished.

Serena sighed again, distraught. Marcellus would not be happy about this.

She considered running, but she knew it would be pointless. There was nowhere she could run nor hide. Not from Marcellus de Clemente.

He sought her out after dinner. She presumed he would.

Serena inhaled a deep breath, praying she’d be able to get through this. “My daughter is in love with someone else. I cannot ask her to marry you.”

“You mean the Constantin abandoner?”

he guessed. He didn’t wait for her answer. “Forget him. You have good reason to deny a union between them.”

“I won’t deny it,” she countered.

Marcellus flinched, taken aback by her obstinacy. Serena would bet it was the first moment it occurred to him she might actually turn down his request. No one ever risked the wrath of a witch.

They could do things gypsies didn’t understand, could live unnaturally long lives and make things happen that shouldn’t. Their magic was something altogether different than gypsy sight.

“Punish me how you’d like,” Serena continued bravely. “You can take my life if you want, but I won’t let you take my daughter’s.”

Marcellus had been standing on the other side of Serena’s large tent. He moved closer to her, tension building in each stride.

Just a breath away, he warned her in a low menacing tone. “Do not cross me, Serena. I guarantee you’ll regret it.”

The harshness in his voice made her wince. She stood tall though, keeping her shoulders straight. She wouldn’t be a coward.

“Ask me for anything else,” she said.

“Please.”

“You think to beg your way out of this?”

He laughed bitterly.

“There must be something else you want.”

“No,” he barked. Marcellus wasn’t the type of man who raised his voice. Immediately, he lowered it. “Liliana is a rarity. She is educated, and she can adapt to any culture.”

“She is beautiful. You want her as your trophy.”

“There’s that, too,” Marcellus admitted.

“You cannot have her,” Serena said stubbornly.

“Be that as it may, you will wish you had given her to me.” There was color showing in Marcellus cheeks. She must of hurt his pride. Serena began to realize how much she had angered him. A knot of fear coiled inside her stomach.

“I have the perfect punishment for you, my dear,” he said, looming over her. “Since you cannot give me what I desire, you’ll be forced to give everyone whatever
they
desire with just the touch of your hand. For eternity.”

The words seemed to hold weight, sounding ominous in Serena’s ears.
That was it? That was how he intended to punish me?
She’d considered everything from torture to a slow, agonizing death. Not some cryptic statement about desires.

With just the barest of smiles, Marcellus had spoken those haunting words to her,
then
vanished from her sight. She ran out of the entrance to her tent, thinking Marcellus had tricked her and intended to do something more horrid, but he was nowhere to be found.

He was gone.

Serena went back inside her tent, shaking her head, and puzzling over Marcellus’s strange words. She felt no different; everything seemed normal.

Liliana could marry her Constantin, Serena realized. She nearly laughed as all the pent up anxiety she’d carried over the last fifteen years released itself from her body.

Serena couldn’t believe how fortunate she was.

Part Three

Redwood Forest

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” –Marcel Proust

Shades of light danced before my eyes, indicating pockets of sunlight beaming down over me. I hadn’t yet opened them, too afraid of where I’d find myself. Was I still alive? Or would I awake to whatever came after dying?

A gentle breeze stirred and the sound of children’s laughter came from the distance. I bravely slit my eyes open.

I was lying on my stomach with my head turned to the side. The first thing I noticed was the color of a deep burgundy pillow. I prodded my eyes open a little wider.