“Get me Amara, now!” she shrieks, green eyes damn near bulging from her pretty face.
“Kara,” I rush to her side, placing a gentle hand on her knee. “I’m here, I’m here. Release the pretty blond.”
As soon as Kara’s eyes flick to me they look normal size and the rage in her seems to dissipate. “Amara, you’re here.”
“Of course I’m here.” I take her hand into mine and damn near flinch from her heat. “Kara, I’m here. We’re here.” I glance at Theon and back at her.
Theon moves to her other side, pressing a kiss to her temple. “How are you doing, my love?” he asks her delicately.
“I tried to wait. I tried, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t wait.” Kara stammers out, panicked.
“What is she talking about?” Theon asks me.
“Ah, it’s December seventeenth.” I tell him. “The last day for the babies to be born Serpentarian. She was hoping she could hold out one more day.”
“Not because I don’t love my Serpentarians.” Kara assures him, caressing his hand softly. “But I…”
“You think that if our son isn’t born with nether magic he’ll be less likely to fulfill the prophecy.” Theon guesses. Kara looks back at him guiltily. Theon kneels at her bedside, tucking her hand away in both of his. “Sweetheart, I understand you’re scared, but I promised you we would figure this out together and we will.”
His words seems to calm her. She nods and he brushes the hair sticking to her sweaty forehead back. “You’re right.” Her eyes move to mine. “It doesn’t matter. They’re ours. We’ll protect them.”
“You know it.” I give her an encouraging smile.
“And about what I was gonna tell you before you knocked me unconscious.” she says to Theon. “I know I shouldn’t feel this way. I know I should hate you for what you did to Tristan.” Theon flinches at her words. “But we’ve all done things we regret.” She tugs his hand into hers. “I don’t wanna regret this too.” She pauses. “You’re gonna have to lean down to kiss me. Every time I move they get mad.” Theon leans down laughing, but his laughter breaks when she seals her mouth over his.
I allow their moment to tick on for a time before my mouth can no longer take the awkwardness. “Where the hell is the doc?” I say and Theon and Kara laugh.
Kara grimaces, looking like she’s just run laps around the palace. “She says I’m not fully dilated yet.”
“And your contractions?”
“They’re close.” As if answering her call, she winces through a contraction, clutching her swollen belly beneath a thin white blanket. She grips Theon’s hand tight and he is content to let her.
I grab a chair and pull it up to her bed, getting as close to her as I can. Then I take her free hand into mine. “Alright. Give them to me.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “The names. Come on. We gotta get your mind off the pain and you have not mentioned any names to me this whole pregnancy. I know you got them. What are they?”
“You haven’t mentioned any to me either.” Theon cuts in.
Kara smiles. “For the boy I was thinking…Elian.”
“Elian.” I smile over the name. “I like Elian. And for the girl?”
“Alina. It means beautiful, but it also means light.” She looks down, cupping her belly. “I’ve seen what twins can do for each other.” She lifts her gaze to me. “I’ve seen what you and Aaric do for each other. You balance each other out, you move together like magnets. You keep him level and he keeps you level. I think she can do that for him, ya know? I think she’ll be his light.”
It takes hours, but those babies finally come. First Elian, and then Alina. Theon lets me cut the cord to Alina, which is easily the most disgusting and amazing thing I have ever done. The nurses wrap Elian in blue, Alina in pink, and hands one off to each of them.
Alina’s the fussy one. She whimpers and kicks in Theon’s arms for a time before she finally settles into sleep. But Elian, he is as calm as his father. He cried when he came out, but settles into his mother’s arms calmly.
After they switch I wait a few minutes before I inch toward them, desperate to get one of them in my arms. “Can I hold one?” I ask gently.
Theon laughs. “Of course, love. Here.” Theon moves closer, delicately placing little Elian in my arms. He makes a small frustrated sound as if we’ve disturbed him, but he settles into my arms almost instantly.
“Theon, he looks like you.” I say, brushing a strand of curly ash blond hair out of the baby’s face. He has his hair color, his nose, and his lips.
“Well at least Alina looks like Kara.” Theon looks down at her and she kisses his lips softly.
I move away from them across the room to give them their moment before the others demand to come in and see the new members of our group. I stop in front of the window, looking out at the world around us. As I hold this baby I can’t see what Reverie has, what she’d shown Kara. I don’t know how something this tiny and innocent could turn into what they think he will.
“It’s okay, little prince.” I whisper to him. “My name’s Amara. I’m your godmother, and I’m going to protect you, I swear it. I’ll protect you with everything that I have.”
“We all will.” Theon moves to my side, placing a hand down on my shoulder. “Thank you, Amara, for taking a chance on me, and letting us have this moment, together.”
“You’re welcome.” I say softly. Suddenly there’s a few different knocks on the door. “Looks like the riffraff is here.”
Kara chuckles. “Let them in.”
“Only a few at a time.” Taya says authoritatively.
We do as she says and let three in at a time. We rotate out until there’s only one person left who hasn’t come inside. Someone who doesn’t think he’s allowed.
“Kara,” I say to her, hoping her current state of joy will allow her to see beyond her hatred for her brother. “Keenan’s here. He’s out in the hall.”
“He doesn’t deserve to see them, Amara.” Kara says fiercely.
“You’re right about that. He doesn’t. But I think you know he thought he was protecting me. It was wrong, he knows that. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone. He just wants to see you. Because he’s leaving tonight.”
“He is?” She sounds sad, as if she thought he’d wait around forever for her to change her mind.
“He’s got a kingdom to run, love.” I tell her.
Kara thinks on it a moment and then meets my eyes, deadly serious. “Clear the room.” Everyone exchanges confused looks, but starts to obey immediately. No one is going to mess with a girl who’s just given birth to twins. “Not you.” she adds to me. I stop and suddenly it’s just me, Theon, and the twins, fast asleep in Mom and Dad’s arms. “Let him in.”
Theon obeys before I can. He’s out of the room for a minute, which tells me he’s given Keenan a firm warning before allowing him in. His blue eyes slide to me as he enters.
“Amara,” Kara says sharply, voice commanding. She offers Elian to me.
I take Elian from Kara’s arms. Theon takes Alina from the crib, bouncing her gently until she falls back to sleep. Keenan’s eyes follow me, but Kara quickly puts a stop to that.
“Don’t look at her.” she says. There’s a chill in her voice, a mother lioness prepared to do whatever she needs to protect her cubs. “Look at me.” Silence falls over us for a time while Kara decides what she wants to say. Finally, “You beat me into a miscarriage.”
Keenan visibly flinches. “I know.”
“You nearly raped my best friend.”
This time he swallows, but says nothing.
“You allowed Haven to be tormented by that parasite. You let him torture Amara, the girl you claim to love, all in the name of what? Protecting her?”
Keenan doesn’t respond at first. He’s not sure how. Finally he says weakly, “I thought I was. Everything I did, I did because I thought I had to, to protect her.”
“Your methods sucked.” she snaps.
“You’re n
ot wrong.”
More silence befalls us. Kara chooses her words carefully. “If you could go back, do it over again, what would you do differently?”
It’s not a trick question, but a test. Keenan recognizes that right away. That’s why when he answers I know it’s the truth. “If I could go back I’d do a lot of things differently. I’d never take Amara to that party. I’d never trust Bastian Beaugrand’s vulgar promises. I’d trust Amara more than I did. I’d get my head out of my ass long enough to see what Bastian was doing to Haven. But most of all I never would have blindly followed his orders, to hurt you. It is my greatest regret and I’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to make it right. I swear it.”
I watch as Kara turns his words over in her head, deciding whether to believe him or not. Then she gestures me and Theon over. “It’s a start.” she says, pulling Alina into her arms. “This is your niece, Alina, and your nephew, Elian.”
“Do you wanna hold him?” I ask Keenan. I take Kara and Theon’s silence as permission to let him. Keenan only nods. I walk over and place the baby into his arms, putting his hands where they need to be to hold him properly. “There ya go.”
“He’s so small.” Keenan says nervously.
“He’s just a baby, Keenan. It’s up to us to help him grow right.”
“I have no doubt you and Kara will.” he says, meeting my eyes.
We smile stupidly at each other for a time. Then I sigh. “I guess you can go home, but I want word sent to me the moment you get there so I know you’re safe, and alive.” I say narrowly.
Keenan smiles. “Yes ma’am.”
“I’ll miss you.” I confess.
“And I you, Amara Boudelaire.”
“We do need to have a conversation before you leave though.” I tell him. He nods.
We wait until Kara and the twins are asleep before Theon, Keenan, and I bring Aaric to the council chambers. The whole palace is asleep. The walk to the chambers is dead silent.
When Theon and I arrive Aaric looks annoyed. He has been for nearly a month now, ever since the Hunter battle, ever since he feels that I’ve betrayed him by not telling him the magic to the Nexus was being put into Theon.
He stands across the room, arms folded over his chest, leaning against the wall. He’s got an annoyed scowl on his face. “What are we doing here?”
“We need to tell you something.” Aaric scoffs at the word we. He doesn’t like how close Theon and I have gotten. I wouldn’t exactly call us close, or friends even. But we are something. We share a kinship. We share a cause. We’ve both been burned by the hatred of other Zodiacs. He’s made mistakes. So have I.
“Before you do that I need to ask you something.” Aaric says. He sounds irritated, like whatever he’s about to ask me is a challenge for keeping yet another secret from him.
“What is it, Aaric?” I ask, not bothering to hide the irritation in my voice.
“Back in Baal do you remember being at Cambridge Manor and opening that old storybook you and Clea used to love?”
“Tales of Cambridge Manor.” I say. “It’s why Clea and I named that old house Cambridge Manor to begin with.”
“Right, but that book had had the middle cut out of it. Now we know Dariella is the one who left that message inside it when we went there to look for the Nexus. You’re Too Late, but we know it wasn’t the Nexus that was concealed inside that book because it was too big to fit. You had that book that night we were there, Amara. What did you take from it?”
I remember the day he’s talking about. We were inside the Manor looking for answers to Clea’s cryptic journal entries. I found the storybook and picked it up. There was something inside. I pocketed it before Aaric came in and comforted me as I cried over missing Clea.
I dig my hand into my pocket and pull out the object. A silver chain with a little orb pendant made of fire and ice gemstones. I’ve carried it with me ever since. “You mean this?”
“This is what you found?” Aaric asks, sounding surprised and maybe even a little disappointed.
“Yes. Were you expecting a bomb?” I ask sarcastically.
“I was expecting…a reason, for Dariella leaving her note in that book. She knew we’d look in there. That’s why I assumed whatever was inside would be important.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, brother. Can we get back to what we came here to discuss?”
“What is it, Amara?” Keenan asks, voice laced with worry. He fears this has something to do with the prophecy. I can’t imagine holding that baby was easy for him, to hold in his arms the very thing he’s been trying to protect me from. Perhaps that’s why he’s so eager to leave. To not be around what he fears will be my downfall.
“There’s a reason I didn’t tell you, Aaric, that the Nexus magic was going to Theon.” I explain to him, praying he’ll understand once he has all the information. “There’s a reason he and I didn’t tell anyone. There’s a reason only the four of us are standing in this room. Because this information needs to be contained or it could cause a panic.”
“What information?” Aaric demands.
Theon and I share a look strong enough to cut bone. Then we flick our gazes to Aaric and Keenan. “It’s about Bastian.”
“What is it, Amara?” Aaric demands, sounding equally nervous and angry.
I pause, preparing for the words that are going to come out of my mouth next. Seven words that, when I first heard them, chilled me to the bone. They do no less when I speak them aloud for the first time since Theon told me months ago. “He’s alive and he’s coming for us.”
—EPILOGUE—
HAVEN
The Picnic
Father is smiling today.
That usually means he’s getting his way. We’ve always been in good standing with Vakrov, trading goods and weaponry. But he wants more than that from the large, northern country. He wants an ally against whatever threat Theon Beleros poses to Limacore. That means an alliance.
That means my time is up.
Roman has a scowl on his face as the three of us exit the palace to join the visiting prince at the picnic, to do our royal duty, though all I can think about is when I can break away from them and find Aaric. My eyes search the picnic the moment we step out into the cool March air. I spot him with Keenan Volterra. His eyes, still so blue even this far away, have already found me the moment I step into his line of view. His presence almost brings a smile to my face, until Father leads us over to where the prince of Vakrov waits.
He’s a handsome man. Twenty six, twenty seven if I had to guess. He resembles Amara in features. Soft copper hair, pale blue eyes, strong smile. Bastian Beaugrand, only son of Caius Beaugrand, and soon to be king of Vakrov after his father’s untimely death, details of which have yet been disclosed to us. Or to me anyway.
At my side Roman curls his fingers around mine. My big brother, the empath I like to call him. He’s always had a way of knowing when someone is nervous or scared, especially me. He holds tight, allowing me to draw strength from him. So when I force a smile for Bastian after my father and him embrace, it’s for my brother, not the handsome prince.
“Bastian, this is my daughter, Haven.” My father breaks away so that Bastian and I are face to face.
With Roman’s support I manage a convincing smile and say politely, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.”
Bastian flashes me a convincing smile of his own. “The pleasure is all mine, princess.”
I can’t breathe.
Understand that for a Gemini, an air user, that is quite an odd sensation to have. I can generate air all on my own, but I have these moments where it feels like the air is being ripped from my lungs, like my own ability is turning in on me. This is what Bastian Beaugrand does to me.
Ever since I got out of that hellish prison I’ve done little more than sulk. Live in my own head. Dwell on memories I can’t refute. Can’t forget.
I can still see him, laughing and taunting and charming. Even Amara felt
it. His charm. Even I can admit that he was. Charming smile, charming words. It would have been easy for anyone to believe his lies. He didn’t just captivate us in his lies. He caught Keenan in his web for a while too.
“Haven,” Amara’s panicked voice is suddenly in my ear, shaking me from today’s nightmare. I have so many of them, every one a memory pulled from a time in my life I wish I could forget. I gasp, trying to grasp for basic breath that, most days, comes so easily to me. “Haven, I’m here, I’m here. You’re here with me, not him.” Amara coaxes me.
Her voice levels me, almost as if she is commanding the air back in my lungs. Her fingers curl around my shoulders, dragging me back to her chambers. My eyes fly open and settle on hers, blue as the Khandraki sea. It’s odd the different shades of blue between her and her brothers. Aaric’s is a pretty sky blue while Aaren’s is more like a royal blue.
“Haven,” Amara says again, waiting for me to speak, to let her know that I’ve recovered.
I reach for her hand and the fear in her eyes slowly dissipates. “I’m okay.” I assure her. She looks hesitant to pull away, to leave me to my own devices so I give her a smile. “I’m okay, Mar.” She smiles at the nickname.
Amara and I grew close in Vakrov. We had to. We were the only thing we had to hold onto. But ever since we got to Llìria we’ve grown closer. It’s inevitable that we would, given our sleeping quarters and the fact that we move together like magnets. That’s why she waits until she knows I’m okay before she stands.
“You know what you need?” she says, crossing our shared chambers to put a brush through her hair, which seems to have grown two full inches in the last few months.
“What’s that?” I stand as well, letting the silk sheets fall to the bed. I grab a chunk of my golden brown hair, pinning it up and out of my face.
Amara turns back to me with a playful wink.
“I get goosebumps every time you look at me like that.”
Amara giggles. There’s so much life inside of her still, even after everything she’s been through. After the torment and the heartbreak. I hope one day I can feel the same.
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