Hearts of Chaos
Page 31
She wondered for the hundredth time if she’d made a mistake. After ten weeks of travel, Seattle didn’t seem too welcoming. A fresh start, she’d thought. A chance to find out where she came from and who she was. But the city was gray and the mountains were gray and the skies were gray. It didn’t look familiar at all.
All along the train, porters pulled trunks and supplies from beneath the passenger cars. Some travelers eagerly sized up the city, just as she had done moments before. Others looked back in the direction the train had come with a resigned sort of longing etched on their faces. There were two sorts of people who fled west: those looking for adventure and those running away from something. She still wasn’t sure which category she fit into. True, tales of the supernatural creatures that owned the Pacific Northwest had fueled her daydreams. Even the humans were said to dabble in magic. Everyone was a misfit out west; it was a place to belong, especially for a strange girl with no people to call her own.
At least that’s what she’d told herself when she’d set out with a backpack, her father’s old brass spyglass, and not much else.
Jacinda passed groups of reuniting families. Strangers waited at the station with signs that read, SMITH and VANDERLUND. No one waited for her. She almost turned around and got back on the train, but the remaining money sewed into the pockets of her pants wouldn’t get her farther than the Cascade Mountains. Tightening her hold on her backpack, she forced herself to keep walking through the station with its gorgeous tiled floors and old world chandeliers, and out the other side into the rain. The street was full of bundled-up people hurrying to get where they were going. She didn’t see a dragon or unnaturally large animal anywhere. So much for living in the open.
“Now what, Jacie?” she asked herself. The fear crept into her eyes, and she could feel her pupils slitting, the violet filling in. Out of habit, she pulled her sunglasses out of her shirt pocket and covered up. Seattle might be a supernatural city, but the rules had been drilled into her since birth: hide what you are.
Suddenly the clouds parted, and a shaft of sunlight broke through into the street. A young man dropped the hood of his raincoat and turned his face up into the light. His hair was the precise color of the sun; his face gorgeous as rays illuminated his perfect, sculpted cheekbones and mischievous smile. Gods, what would it be like to have that smile turned in her direction?
And then he turned and saw her. She braced herself, knowing what she looked like: hair and clothes mussed from weeks of travel; patched backpack; too-big sunglasses, so out of place west of the Cascades. But his eyes said he saw none of that. He gave her a long once-over, and as she watched, his irises narrowed like a cat’s. She sucked in a breath.
“Well, hello,” he said, voice like chocolate. Through the rain, she caught the scent of cinnamon. Her heart sped up. “I’m Viggo.”
“Jacinda,” she said. Seattle suddenly looked a lot more interesting.
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Copyright © 2014 by Kira Brady
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2458-3
First Electronic Edition: March 2014
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3413-1
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3413-2