The Golden Key Legacy

by AJ Nuest

  The spring-loaded recoil of a mechanical device ejected two browned pieces of bread, and he snatched them from their slots and dropped them atop the stack he’d previously prepared. The rasp of a knife edge scraped a layer of creamy butter over each of the slices, he wiped his hands on a small towel and slung it over his shoulder.

  Lifting a platter of fluffy griddle cakes, he transported his burdens to the table. “Breakfast is almost ready, though I’m not sure it’s technically breakfast at two in the afternoon.” He rounded the counter to re-attend the eggs. “Are you hungry?”

  “Quite,” she lied. A boulder of dread occupied most of her stomach, and the needles of anxiety plaguing her nerves had done the rest to displace her appetite. Yet a firm resolve remained embedded in her heart. Until she’d convinced him of the impossible or he’d outright asked her to vacate his presence, she would do her best to make the last of their moments as congenial as possible.

  She glanced toward his narrow metal closet and her red evening gown he’d draped over the top of the open door. It expressed a more formal attitude than necessary, particularly in lieu of the detailed familiarity he since possessed of her body. Yet to sit naked during their meal—or wrapped amid the linens in which they’d slated their lust—would surely distract them both.

  Her gaze fell to his white shirt lying crumpled beside the sleeping pallet, and she snaked her hand from under the pillows to shake out the wrinkles.

  The cuffs hung well past her fingertips and, as she stood to secure the buttons, the bottom half amply covered her rump, falling to mid-thigh. She rolled the sleeves up her forearms and crossed his chambers to claim a chair just as he delivered the hissing pan of eggs to the table.

  He pushed a stack of drawings aside to create some additional space, glanced at her with a smile and snapped his head around. Her skin warmed under the smoldering perusal he trailed from the base of her throat to the top button fastened between her breasts. Her nipples peaked and hardened as if they’d a will of their own—one that begged for his gifted attentions—and his eyes flicked to her naked thighs before he locked his gaze to hers.

  That calculating brow she’d come to adore inched toward his mussed hairline. “Just for the record, those goddesses and their sweet tits got nothing on you.”

  She rolled her lips to contain a smile and, at the same time, a profound sadness threatened in the skip of her pulse. A sheen of bitter tears blurred her vision. Clearing her throat, she dropped her focus to the table. “Thank you for preparing the meal. Everything looks quite delicious.”

  That a man of his means and abilities would go to such trouble spoke volumes about his willingness to care for her, and she would not ruin his efforts by falling into fits of despair.

  “I wasn’t sure if you’d ever tried scrambled eggs before.” The chair legs scuffed the floor as he tugged his seat close and joined her, reached for the juice-filled pitcher and decanted a measure into each of their glasses. “Or pancakes, for that matter.” He paused, frowning, the pitcher suspended in mid-air. “What do you normally eat for breakfast?”

  Her back hit the chair with such force, the breath was propelled from her lungs. The way he’d formed his query, ʼtwas as if he’d already determined she was not of this realm.

  That same smile of wicked delight teased one corner of his talented mouth. The mischief returned to his eyes, and she squinted. Surely, she’d misread his meaning. “My father prefers a light meal of salted fish and fruit to break our fast.”

  “Salted fish?” Rhys tipped his head side to side. “I guess that’s doable.”

  Her jaw dropped, and she planted her elbow on the table, leaning forward to better survey his face. “Meaning what, if I may so brazenly inquire?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He scooped a portion of the eggs onto her plate. “I’ve decided to meet your parents.” A second scoop and he deposited a slightly larger mound on the plate before him, glancing in her direction. “Couldn’t go any worse than last night.”

  Oh, but it could. Her hand dropped with a lifeless thud upon the table, rattling the silver, and she closed her eyes to stem the reoccurrence of her tears. As if the achievement of such a task would be as simple as climbing aboard his mechanical horse for a quick sojourn to the Austiere Kingdom. The man had no comprehension the dangers of which he spoke. “’Tis an impossibility, I’m afraid.”

  “Why’s that?” He speared two of the griddle cakes upon the tines of his fork and plopped them beside her eggs, his words tainted with sarcasm. “You ashamed of me? Think I might embarrass myself?”

  “Goddesses wept, no.” That he would suspect such a limitation on her part shot an arrow of regret into her heart. And yet, the notion of transporting the son of Gaelleod inside Austiere castle walls made every hair on her body tingle with grisly foreboding. Before she’d had the opportunity to explain his appearance, he would surely be charged with crimes beyond his ken and imprisoned…or worse. “My concerns are for your safety.”

  Furthermore, the point was moot. For reasons unbeknownst to her, the veil remained closed. She could not return home even if the decision was of her choosing.

  “Oh, so you think I can’t take care of myself?” Loading a bite of eggs onto his fork, he shot her another roguish glance. He lifted the utensil to his lips and then hesitated, his brows drawing together in suspicion. “Or is there something else you’re not telling me besides the fact you’re from another time?”

  The chair legs screeched across the floor as she leapt to her feet. Shock iced her veins with such intensity, her body went stiff as a board.

  He’d uncovered the truth. Without her ever having to utter a word. What’s more, he accepted it. Sweet tits, he accepted her. Mayhap more than any other. Certainly, more than she’d ever accepted herself.

  Despite all her deceptions, regardless of her faults, he believed her incredible circumstances without a speck of proof.

  A clink broke the still silence as he dropped his fork to his plate, the food uneaten. “Sit down, Faedrah.”

  How could he do such a thing? She held her empty palms to either side of her, fingers splayed. What depth of devotion resided in his noble heart? What unwavering conviction?

  A gasp rushed her lungs; her heart splintered. She squeezed her eyes tight, pressing a hard fist to her forehead. Oh, no. No…no!

  Love swirled the delicate shards in her chest. They coalesced in a brilliant vortex and reformed—larger, brighter, piercing her soul with the purest white light. Awareness capsized her in frigid swells though she struggled to deny the terrible realization.

  She couldn’t fall in love with him. She pounded the center of her forehead. She could not fall in love with him! If she succumbed, everything between them would be lost. In returning his affections the veil would reopen. Her parents would insist she tell them all she’d learned and demand she immediately remove herself from his side.

  Her thigh bumped the edge as she spun away from the table. The glasses teetered; juice splashed. She clutched the front of his shirt, wanting to rip it from her worthless form. He unselfishly offered her a love throughout the ages and, in return, she would deal him a parcel of horrors the likes of which would destroy the very fabric of his life. He was Gaelleod’s son. For them to share one heart, meant his certain doom!

  “What is it?”

  His fingers clasped her shoulder, and she twirled, backing away from him, a flat hand held firmly in air to keep him at bay. Eliminating the threat was her only course. “I must remove myself from these chambers. Immediately.”

  He crossed his arms, jaw clenched in gritty determination. “Well, since you’re not going anywhere without me, where are we headed? Into the past or some dystopian future?”

  Dis-what? She shook her head, rallying her resolve. Whatever future or past he referred to did not matter. To declare her love for him would be the worst of betrayals. She withdrew another step, battling the longing of her traitorous heart. “I do not love you.”

 
“Yes, you do.” One lunging stride forward and he grabbed her upper arms, applying a vigorous shake. “You love me and I love you. We belong together, dammit. And no one or nothing is going to keep us apart.”

  “I do not!” The ground rumbled a warning. The windowpanes rattled in their frames. She sharply inhaled and darted a panicked glance around his chambers. No! Not the veil! If it opened, she’d be left no alternative but to abandon him…or barter his safety—perchance his very life—in exchange for that which they shared.

  She clenched his forearms, squeezing her eyes tight. “I do not love him. I do not love him. I do not love him.” The mantra fell from her lips. Tossing her head back, she railed at the heavens. “I do not love him, do you hear me?”

  Yet to speak thus was their very undoing! A sacrifice of unselfish love. She shoved out of his grasp, her heart like a heavy boulder in her chest. To the bowels of hell with Helios and his nine daughters. They had left her no escape from this adulterous cage.

  The floor pitched, and she and Rhys stumbled to the side. He lurched forward and whisked her close, one hand protecting the top of her head, his arm cinched tight about her waist. Dusty particles sprinkled down from the ceiling. A glass skittered to the edge of the table, and he spun her away as juice sprayed and jagged shards exploded across the floor. She pounded a fist against his chest, yet he held firm, his thighs two immovable buttresses, shoulders hunched to safeguard her within the shelter of his body.

  A sob of misery scored the back of her throat. Her understanding had come too late. Sweet goddesses wept, it had come too late. She wrapped her arms about him and hung tight. How could she let him go? For all that it would lead them to the tortures of heartbreak and ruin, she did love him. More than she would ever love another. Regardless of the years or distance or dangers which would war to keep them apart.

  The earth gradually shrugged off the last of its grumblings, yet she and Rhys remained linked, chest to chest, heart to heart, the top of her head tucked snugly beneath the haven of his chin.

  “Holy shit.” His rigid hold on her relaxed, and he pressed a fierce kiss to the black strip which marred her blonde hair. “That was no boxcar, but two earthquakes hitting Chicago in less than a week? What are the odds?”

  She expelled a muted sigh into the delicious skin of his neck. “’Twas no quake of the earth, my love. ʼTwas the opening of the veil.”

  He seized her shoulders to bring her away from him, the glittering striations in his gaze sharp and alive with a hope that nearly re-fractured her heart. “What did you just call me?”

  A gentle huff left her lips, yet she smiled. “Only through the sacrifice of unselfish love shall the veil be opened. I had forgotten, you see. ʼTwas many seasons past my father related the story, when I was but a child.”

  “The veil…” He squinted, searching her face. A snap of his fingers and he pivoted toward the table, shuffled the stack of drawings hither and yon until he came upon the one he sought. He scanned the page before flipping it round to face her. “It’s the mirror isn’t it?” The sheet wavered as he tapped a rendering of the armoire. “The veil is the mirror. That’s why Forbes freaked out when I touched it.”

  The strength left her knees and she stutter stepped forward to pluck the drawing from his fingers. Her other hand rose to cover her mouth, her focus riveted to the sketch of her, tumbling through the veil, her hair a tangled disarray of white streaks, naked breasts displayed for all the world to see.

  She snapped her chin up. Whilst certainly, he’d honed in on her the same as a divining rod veered toward water, for Rhys to have drawn her arrival with such accuracy defined an omnipotence worthy of Fandorn. Her pulse deepened with dread. Or the clairvoyance of Wizard Gaelleod. “How? How has this come to pass?”

  He stared at her, the potential power inherent in his father’s legacy brewing deep within his gaze. “I keep telling you, Faedrah. We belong together. That picture you’re holding proves it.” Without breaking from her face, he reached down and crumpled the remaining sketches in his fist. “Do you believe me now? Or do you need to see the rest?”

  One imbalanced stride forward, and she placed her hand over his. She harbored not one doubt their lives were destined for each other, yet to ignore he may hold the clues to where her purpose might lead would be a terrible risk.

  Cupping her other hand along his bristled jaw, she skimmed her thumb along the dark strip of hair beneath his lower lip. He could not ask her to abandon her duty to her kingdom. For all that she longed elsewise, too many lives were at stake. “Rhys. You must show me.”

  His nostrils flared and he shook his head, but the tension in his fingers eased under her palm and he lifted the pages the between them.

  A musical chime sounded from her beaded bag and they froze, each of them clasping one edge of the drawings like some suspended tug of war.

  Rhys slowly lifted his eyes to hers. “Forbes?”

  Goddesses’ tits. The veil. Darting to the wooden crate beside the bed, she flung the pages to the rumpled coverlet, tugged open the cinched string on her purse and slapped the device to her ear. “Uncle?”

  “Ah, yeah. I’m not sure what’s going on over there, but over here we’ve got one extremely pissed off king and queen demanding to see you. Like, right now.”

  Blessed tears of the nine. Squeezing her eyes tight, she pinched the bridge of her nose. ʼTwas exactly as she had feared. Her parents would most assuredly command she return to the castle, and she had neither the desire nor fortitude to trade quips with them regarding her actions.

  Straightening her shoulders, she dropped her hand and glanced toward the man who had captured her heart. No. She would not scurry to do her parents’ bidding like some disobedient child. For better or worse, Rhys was her future now, and she would not be persuaded to desert him until every other path before her had been explored to its fullest extent.

  Her gaze fell to the sketches strewn across the blankets and she bent at the waist, selecting a sheet that had wafted toward the pillows. A shudder wrenched her shoulders. Those ghoulish eyes…the sunken cheeks…the hard slash of Rhys’ hand across the bottom, naming the portrait as that of his father.

  Regret capsized her heart in such anguish, she lowered to the edge of his sleeping pallet.

  “Sweetie, are you there?”

  “Yes, Uncle, I am here.” And here is where she planned to stay. In Rhys’ chambers, safely ensconced within his love, until she’d conveyed to him everything he must know about his father’s place in Austiere history. The unending evil, the torture her father and king had suffered by Gaelleod’s hand, the blight which threatened her realm and how Rhys must make a choice. Every soul throughout the ages depended on his compliance to rid their worlds of Gaelleod’s malicious presence. Hers and his most of all. “Please express my sincerest apologies. My return to your chambers shall be regrettably delayed.”

  * * *

  This was complete bullshit. What had started as the best day in all-time history, had deteriorated into a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

  Rhys jammed his key into the lock on the freight elevator, twisted it to the right and punched the button for the bottom floor. He might as well have strapped on a pair of concrete boots and waded straight into Lake Michigan.

  The elevator lurched into its creaking descent, and Faedrah stepped close to curl her index finger around his pinky. An affectionate tug, and he tried to reassure her with a smile but, based on the wide-eyed blink she offered in return, the tight stretch of his lips came off more like the odd-toothed leer of a jack o’lantern.

  Shit. After everything she’d told him, the last thing he wanted was her carrying the responsibility for the sucking black hole of his existence. She was the one bright star he had left. Besides, if anyone had wedged him between a rock and a hard place, that blame rested solely on Leo’s shoulders.

  Once she’d hung up with Forbes, Faedrah had calmly sat both of them down and laid out her entire story. Yippee and fucking yahoo
. In the frigid silence that followed, Rhys had received an up close and personal understanding of the phrase “ignorance is bliss.”

  Christ, what a mess.

  He lifted the back of her hand to his lips, deeply inhaling as he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. Most of her life sounded like something straight out of Brother’s Grimm, and though every answer she’d given him was reasonably logical, a lot of what she’d said tested the limits of his imagination. Not that it mattered. Regardless of the details, he wasn’t about to hand her a big old pile of doubt in exchange for doing exactly what he’d been asking for since the day they’d met. Jesus Christ, if what she told him was actually real, it was a miracle in its own right she still trusted him. No way was he going to fuck that up by arguing her points or saying he didn’t believe her.

  His brain might be struggling to assimilate, but he wasn’t stupid.

  The elevator shuddered and his knees bounced as they hit the ground. He slid his hand from hers to lift the gate, wheeled his bike onto the street and plugged the key into the ignition. “Oh shit, I almost forgot. I got you something.”

  He flipped back the buckles on one of his saddlebags and pulled out a small helmet— brand-spanking new and glossy white with a black stripe painted down the center. The play on her hair had been his sarcastic slant toward a joke, but with the underlying tension so thick between them, most likely his attempt at humor would fall flat on its face.

  “Oh!” She clasped her hands together under her chin, bouncing on her toes. “How wonderful. Rhys, I adore it. You have my utmost thanks.”

  The glacier creeping across his heart receded under her sunny grin. The shame squeezing his chest slacked off, and he fully filled his lungs for the first time in over an hour. God dammit, he was over the moon for her. One fucking smile…knowing he was the cause for putting it on her pretty face…and everything got better, easier somehow.