Katrina, The Beginning (13 page)

I waved goodbye. “I’ll see
you later, gentlemen,” as Quinn trotted up to my side.

“You were fantastic back
there. I really thought you’d be rusty; you haven’t done targets in
at least two months,” his voice full of surprise and
pride.

“I don’t know, but since
that first battle with those two fledglings, my senses seem so
attuned, my instincts honed, my body and mind working as
one.”

I turned to look at Quinn
and found him staring at me as if he’d never seen me
before.

“What?”

“You’ve never seemed more
alive than just then.”

“Funny, that’s what the
girls say when I talk about you.”

I smiled at him and he
smiled back. We stopped to wait for the gate to open. Thomas walked
his horse right behind us, and then to our surprise Eleanor, her
Watcher, and Simon came trotting around the corner.

“Wait for us,” she called
as she waved.

We did, and she joined us
at the gate.

“I’ll stay on duty, Thomas,
it’s all right,” Simon offered.

So he and Eleanor’s Watcher
pulled their horses around so they could follow the four of us.
Thomas was all smiles as we headed out the gate.

“Sarah packed us a lunch,
but we have to be back before one o’clock so she can get us ready
for the meeting at two.”

“I swear I don’t know what
the rest of your servants do. Sarah seems to take care of
everything for us,” I shook my head.

“I know, but every time our
servants come to help, she shoos them away. They do kitchen work,
laundry, and fetch water and supplies from the stores, but she says
they just get in the way upstairs.”

“Sounds like her. Let’s go
up the river this time. The path down river has too many
memories.”

Thomas and Quinn agreed.
There was a well-worn animal path that we followed along the river.
There was a slight breeze, the temperature was mild and as the
water bubbled along I felt myself letting go of my excited state
from the target practice, and becoming more and more relaxed. In a
little while, we noticed a grassy knoll to the north. Reining our
horses in that direction, we were soon dismounting and handing our
horses over to the Watchers, who would see they had water to drink
and allow them to graze a little. As we walked up the knoll to have
our lunch, Thomas carried the leather pouches with our picnic and
held hands with El. Quinn and I followed behind, our arms around
each other’s waists. It was beautiful out here and quiet, except
for the birds’ singing. Wild flowers, daisies and blue bells, made
a lovely mosaic, one that was ever changing with the wind. Lilies
of the valley dotted the edge of the forest, filling the air with
their sweet perfume. We picked a spot at the very top of the rise;
it gave us a beautiful view of the river valley below. We ate
heartily and guzzled down water and a little wine. My workout
earlier had made me hungry and thirsty.

“You should have seen
Katrina this morning,” Quinn said proudly. “She sure put three
young men on the spear target line in their place.”

“You’ll be doing the same
thing soon, El,” I promised.

“I almost forgot, our
fathers want to make sure we’re serious about this, so our training
begins tomorrow. Plus we have to travel once every three months or
so to one of our homes to show what we have learned,” said El as
she put another grape into Thomas’s mouth. I couldn’t believe how
sweet they were together.

Quinn added, “Simon said
the same thing this morning, and I assured him you were serious,
all of you.”

Simon and Leo, El’s
Watcher, came up the knoll with the horses.

“Time to head back,” I
sighed, as I brushed off my hands and Quinn helped me
up.

We mounted and began the
walk down to the river. In the distance I could see the palace and
noticed an approaching caravan.

“That’s strange,” I pointed
toward what I had seen, which made everyone look and agree with
me.

We rode back at much
quicker pace than we had come. As we dismounted, we discovered a
coach being unloaded, with servants rushing around moving trunks
and carrying them and baskets full of goods into the palace. We
handed the horses over to the grooms who were waiting for
us.

“Who’s arrived?” I asked
the one who was to take Nulla.

“The Baroness and her
daughter,” he said.

“Which Baroness?” I
asked.

“Why, your mother, Baroness
Von Dracek,” he said looking at me as if I were a fool, which is
exactly how I felt.

“Katrina, wait,” I heard
Quinn say as I rushed to the Council chambers. I had to speak to
Father, this was crazy.
My
mother
? How could this be? I had always assumed she
must be dead, because of the pain that crossed Father’s face when
her name was mentioned or that he had forbidden me to bring up or
talk about her. But why had her existence been kept from me, where
had she been? Then it hit me. And her
daughter
? Not only had I never seen my own mother, but
it was a possibility I had a sister too! Somebody had some
explaining to do and right now! I was becoming more and more angry,
the closer I got to the rooms where I knew my father would
be.

“Father, I need to talk to
you,” I burst through the door.

He was standing in front of
his desk and turned to me as I entered.

“Ah, Katrina, what timing.
I’d like you to meet someone.” Father gestured toward the front of
the room and stepped out of the light of sight that effectively
blocked them from my view until that moment.

There smiling back at me
was a face resembling my own! Older yes, but the features we shared
made us look remarkably alike. I let out a gasp and thought I was
going to faint.
Compose yourself,
my mind
told me.

“Come meet your mother,
Katrina,” Father reached his right arm to me. I put my left hand
onto my chest hoping it could keep my heart from bursting
out.

“Katrina this is the
Baroness Elizabeth Von Dracek, your mother.”

I gazed into eyes the same
hazel as my own. Her light brown hair was done up gracefully atop
her head, and she wore a lovely green velvet dress, her cape and
hat edged in what looked like fox. She smiled and started walking
toward me. I suddenly felt sheer panic. I wanted to turn and run. I
was shaking, my palms were clammy, and my throat was suddenly dry.
When she stood right in front of me, she threw her arms around me
and started to cry.

“My little girl, my
Katrina, I can’t tell you how long I’ve waited for this moment. Let
me take a look at you. She’s lovely, Fredrik!”

“She looks like you, my
dear.”

“There’s someone else for
you to meet, Katrina. This is your sister, Katherine.”

I took one look at my
newfound sister and gasped. My knees buckled, and the room turned
black. . . .

As I started to come to, I
was still groggy and not sure if I was dreaming or not, but I could
hear Father’s voice. He sounded stern and anxious at the same
time.

“I told you it was going to
be too much of a shock for her, Elizabeth. You should have sent
word you were coming, so I could have prepared her.”

“And take the chance our
enemies would find out before you did? And how was I to know you
chose not to tell her what happened to me and that she had a twin
sister?”

“Twin
sister!”
I opened my eyes and tried to focus “
Oh, my head.”
I slapped the side of it with my left
hand and let out a moan.

“She’s coming to,” I heard
my father say. “Go now; let me talk to her alone, please
Elizabeth.”

I could hear footsteps
across the wood floor and the door open and close. When I opened my
eyes again, Father was sitting beside me, a worried look on his
face.

“Katrina, are you all
right?” he asked patting my hand. “Katrina, I’m so
sorry.”

He was looking down now
shaking his head.

“Father, why didn’t you
ever tell me? All these years, I thought she was dead.”

“I never told you that,” he
said sternly looking back at me.

“You never told me
anything! What else was I supposed to think?” I closed my eyes
again and rubbed my forehead.

“I thought I was protecting
you and your mother. I told myself I would deal with my decision
when the time came, and now it is here.” He sighed, “You know I
love you, don’t you?”

“Of course, Father, and I
love you. Nothing is ever going to change that.”

“When you live as long as
we do, it’s sometimes a long time to stay with one person,
although, of course, some couples do. Over the years interests
change. Elizabeth wanted to travel the world, and I wanted to save
it. When clan wars broke out, I had to decide over and over, to
either help or stay with her. The need for Peace always won, and
your mother grew tired of watching me ride away. I chose to make
sure we could live in peace and not be driven into hiding like so
many other races. So, your mother chose to go. Neither one of us
could face losing you girls, so your mother and I reached a
compromise. You stayed with me and Katherine went with her mother.
Elizabeth found there were many others who wanted no part of the
life I and many others had chosen. So, they gathered together and
formed their own clan and went secretly to an unknown location to
seek sanctuary. Very few of us knew, and we have kept their secret
all these years. After a while people just assumed, like you, they
had died, and we just never told anyone anything different. Most of
them wanted to start a completely new life with their own laws, and
unless we found anyone was putting our existence in danger, we left
in peace. But if, however, they ever violated our territories and
our peace, they were dealt with swiftly. Remember last summer when
I had to give help to the Gomon clan? That action turned out to be
lead by some rebels coming out of hiding and trying to overthrow a
peaceful territory.

As Father’s story unfolded,
it dawned on me—Damien’s mother had also disappeared, maybe she had
chosen sanctuary too.

“I didn’t know if your
mother would ever come back again, and as no one was to go looking
for them, it would be up to them to decide whether to come back or
not. Does any of this make any sense to you, Katrina?”

“It’s just a lot to absorb,
Father. What are their plans, do you know? Are they going to stay?
And a twin sister is quite a shock you know. What does she think of
all this?”

“Well, you’ll have to ask
her. She’s known about you all along, and from what Elizabeth has
told me in the short time she’s been here; Katherine was the reason
they came back. She wanted to get to know us; she wanted to be a
part of our life. Your mother wants that too, whether she decides
to stay in Germany or not.”

“But Father, this is an
awkward time for all this, isn’t it? With all the families here,
there are bound to be a lot of questions. So why now, after all
this time?”

“Again, you will have to
ask your sister. Elizabeth says Katherine just felt an overwhelming
need to come
now
, that’s all I know. Yes, for her to come
here now, during Council’s special call and the change of
leadership is high profile. There will be questions, but we’ll just
have to take each situation as it presents itself. I hope you can
forgive me for not telling you all this sooner.”

“You did what you thought
was best for me, I know that.”

He gave me a hug and sighed
with relief, patted my back and released me. Then he kissed my
forehead.

“We still have a Council
meeting this afternoon. Are you up to it?” he asked as he
stood.

“I think so, if you could
ask Sarah to bring a change of clothes, I’ll change here. I’m still
a little shaky.”

“Of course. I’ll send for
her right now.”

Then he walked out of the
room, nodding to Quinn as he came in.

“Kat, are you all right?”
Quinn face reflected his concern as he came to my side.

“I guess so, considering I
was blindsided with a Mother I thought was dead and with a sister I
didn’t know I had. A
twin
sister at that,” I said as I tried
to stand.

Quinn helped me, but my
knees were still wobbly and I had to sit right back
down.

“I feel so weak,” I rubbed
my head again.

Quinn walked over and
locked the door. Then walked back to me, knife in his hand. As he
got close he took the point of his knife and made a slice into the
vein on his wrist. He could see the shock on my face.

“No time, Kat. Just
drink.”

He lifted his wrist to my
mouth; the smell of his warm blood combined with his human scent
was intoxicating. By instinct I grasp his arm. As I drained blood
from Quinn’s vein, I felt not only a surge of energy, but a feeling
I now recognized as having had before. The feeling built until I
was wildly aroused. This was nothing like when I had daydreamed of
how it would feel to make love. I realized now,
this
is what
it would feel like and my daydream paled by comparison. It took all
my willpower to force myself to stop. When I pulled back and came
to my senses, I realized we were both breathing hard. Quinn looked
away from me busily wrapping his wrist. This brought back a memory
from home.