by Juniper Hart
Lennox frowned at her before glancing over at Gia. “Can she be trusted?”
“I…” Gia exhaled a long breath. “I don’t know,” she confessed. “I doubt it.”
“Gia—” Allegra turned to fully face her, and her brow was furrowed in what looked like desperate hope. “I know I have given you every reason to hate me, but I can make this right! If it wasn’t for me, you would have never met Lennox!”
“If it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t be sitting in a glass box right now!” Gia yelled, her face crimson with anger. “How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
“She can’t make it any worse,” Lennox muttered. “If you try anything crazy, I will find a way to make you pay for it, one way or another.”
The palace rocked around them again, and Gia looked desperately at the high priestess.
“Do something!” she screamed. “How many creatures have to die?”
“If I do this,” Allegra told her, “you won’t remember anything about this. Everything will be undone.”
“I don’t care!” Gia bellowed. “Just reverse the damned spell! Do it now!”
Allegra swallowed visibly, and she nodded quickly, closing her eyes. Gia walked over to the glass to lean her palms against Lennox’s, and they both stared at each other with baited breath.
Gia wanted to scream at Allegra to hurry up, to shake her to make her work faster, but she held Lennox’s gaze, and a feeling of calmness emanated through the pane toward her. For a moment, she even heard his voice in her head.
It’s going to be okay, he promised her. No matter what happens, you and I got to meet each other.
That’s not good enough! she cried back. It’s not fair that we only just met and now I’m losing you!
You’re not losing me, he said. No matter what happens, I will always be with you, just like I’ve always been.
Gia found herself growing lightheaded as she stared at his face, and a devastating thought suddenly occurred to her. She recalled Allegra’s words, and only now did she truly understand what they meant.
If Lennox’s wish hadn’t happened, Gia would have never met him.
There would have been no chance encounter with Allegra, no gala at the palace. Everything that had happened had only happened because of the wish Mira had granted Lennox.
If this works, I’ll never see you again! Gia howled, but her words were lost as a gust of wind began to swirl around her. Lennox’s face was becoming hazy, and through her peripheral vision, Gia saw Allegra’s face contorting grotesquely.
Time was shifting around them. They were falling away into nothingness. Gia tried to cry out again, to tell Allegra to stop, but her voice was gone, and she was no longer staring at her fated mate in his glass prison.
Allegra had undone Lennox’s wish, for better or worse. There was no going back.
The dragons had been saved, and the cost to pay had been Gia and Lennox’s love.
“Snake oil! Snake oil and coffee!”
Gia grunted and turned on her side, pulling a pillow over her head to block out the sound of the street vendor outside her window. Every morning, they started at some ungodly hour, selling their wares through their megaphones at top volume.
And, of course, they start extra early on the mornings after I’ve worked a double shift, Gia thought ruefully, rubbing her eyes. Water dripped from the apartment upstairs through the crack in the ceiling above her head, which had gotten worse since the previous day, Gia was sure of it.
She glanced at her cell phone and blinked at the early hour. With the Trenches waking up all around her, she knew she wouldn’t get any more sleep.
Maybe I’ll treat myself to breakfast, she thought, yawning as she scrounged around the uneven floor for a pair of yoga pants, pinning her chestnut tresses into a bun.
She went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, staring at her reflection in the cracked mirror. A strange pang of melancholy hit her in the gut, and for a moment, she didn’t recognize the girl looking back at her. A wave of sadness swept over her, and Gia suddenly felt like she was about to cry.
What the hell is wrong with me? she asked herself. The problem seemed to be obvious: she was overworked and overtired. Maybe she should take a vacation. Maybe she would meet a handsome prince, and he would sweep her off her feet, and she’d never have to work again.
To Gia’s absolute shock, she began to sob in the middle of her bathroom.
She struggled to compose herself, idly wondering if she was finally having a mental breakdown.
Holy hell, she thought, hastily wiping the corners of her red-rimmed eyes. You really need a break. What would Egan say if I started bawling in the middle of my shift? I’d be fired instantly.
Whatever was wrong with her, she knew she needed to get over it. Nothing that a cup of coffee wouldn’t fix, probably.
Gia changed into her work clothes and slammed out of her crumbling apartment. As she bolted down the rickety stairs to cross the filthy street, she was roughly shoved from behind, and she went flying to the other side of the road. She fell forward on her shoulder, crying out in pain.
“What the hell—!”
A truck barreled past the spot Gia had been about to cross seconds ago. Whoever had shoved her out of the way had just saved her from certain death. Gia looked around for her savior, her heart pounding wildly in her chest.
A few feet away from her, a blonde girl sat on her knees, shaking.
“Oh!” Gia rushed over to her, helping her to her feet and hurriedly pulling her off the cobblestone street, back to the safety of the sidewalk. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m—I’m okay. What an asshole! He didn’t even stop!” the girl cried, glaring after the truck. With a frustrated sigh, she turned to Gia, smiling kindly at her. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Gia said. “I’m fine, thanks to you. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m good!” her savior promised. Then her green eyes narrowed slightly, like she had noticed something strange about Gia. “Do I know you?”
It was until she asked that question that Gia realized how weirdly familiar the girl looked, but she couldn’t place her.
“I… don’t think so?” she replied. “I work at a couple of bars in Sunside.”
The girl laughed. “I try to avoid Sunside as much as possible. The mortals and alcohol are a bad mix.”
“Tell me about it,” Gia chuckled. “Not my dream job.”
The blonde cocked her head to the side. “I actually work at the palace,” she said, “and there’s a party tonight. Do you want to come? It sounds like you could use a break.”
Gia let out a laugh of disbelief. “You save my life, and now you’re inviting me to a party at the palace? What are you, my fairy godmother?”
“Maybe?” the girl answered with a broad grin. She held out her hand. “My name is Allegra.”
Gia smiled and reached out to shake Allegra’s hand. “Gia.”
When their palms touched, flashing images flooded Gia’s mind, drowning her in a torrent: Allegra standing at her side in a ballgown, pointing at a staircase as a breathtakingly handsome man descended; Gia lying naked in the man’s arms, staring into his intense green eyes as he whispered his love for her; Gia and the man pressing their hands together through a wall of glass…
Gia pulled her hand back at the same time as Allegra, breathing heavily at the sea of emotions running through her.
“Woah,” she mumbled. “Did you feel that?”
Allegra nodded at her, her eyes wide in disbelief. “I think that’s a sign you should come tonight.”
With a choked-off laugh, Gia found herself agreeing. “I think you’re right.”
Epilogue
“It has been confirmed that Mira has been put to death. I’m still not sure how Wilder figured out she was leading the traitors, but we are very fortunate to have made that discovery. So, I assume that is the last order of business. Is there anything else?” Lennox groaned. “We’ve
been here for three hours!”
“These meetings were your idea, brother,” Wilder reminded him. “If you want, we can go back to how things were before—”
“No!” the other four brothers chorused in unison.
“Nice try, megalomaniac, but we’re happy with even distribution,” Owen chimed in. “Lennox is right, though. We’ve dealt with everything on the agenda today. I think he’s got something to take care of.”
Owen, Wilder, and Reef cast Lennox a knowing look, and he rose to his feet, smiling.
“Are you sure about this, Len?” Keppler asked him, not unkindly. “It seems so… fast.”
“It feels right,” Lennox replied confidently. Keppler nodded, his eyes wise.
“Somehow, it feels like she’s been around much longer than a few weeks,” he agreed. “Go get her. And congratulations.”
“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Lennox chuckled. “She hasn’t said yes.”
“She will,” Keppler said, and the rest of his brothers voiced their support. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman look at a man the way she looks at you.”
Lennox grinned at them and turned away, marveling at how much everything had changed in such a short time.
One day, he and his brothers seemed to be fighting for power amongst themselves, Wilder monopolizing both the Hollows and Sunside with his domineering ways. For a time, Lennox had been sure his brothers would enact a hostile takeover. But then, out of nowhere, Wilder had presented them with a treaty to keep the peace.
“I worry about the future of the Hollows if we’re always fighting,” he told them, an almost sheepish expression on his face. “We’ve had civil unrest before. I don’t want to invite it again.”
“What are you proposing?” Lennox demanded. A strange sense of familiarity coursed through him, as if they had discussed this matter before.
“A truce,” his brother replied, and so a truce had been brought forth. Wilder no longer took control of all matters in business, and their weekly meetings covered all their concerns and victories.
For the first time in eons, Lennox was beginning to feel like he and his brothers were bonding, even taking to the atrium to have their infamous races, which inevitably left a pillar broken as one of their dragon skulls crashed into it.
Déjà vu seemed to consume Lennox over the past weeks, and not just in the comfort of his family relationship. The feeling he had with Gia was something he had never known before, and yet he felt as if he’d always been with her, like they had existed together in another life.
From the moment he had laid eyes on her at the gala, three weeks earlier, he had known they were fated to be together, and the ring in his breast pocket was going to solidify eternity in another form for them.
Lennox knocked on the door to Gia’s suite, waiting for her to call out, “Come in!”
When he walked through the door, he was greeted warmly.
“You’re done with your meeting!” Gia exclaimed from the vanity, where she was brushing out her dark hair into gleaming strands. “How did it go?”
“No one died,” Lennox chuckled. “How was your day?”
She gestured around the suite with a manicured hand and laughed. “Three weeks ago, I was living in squalor in the Trenches. Now look at me! I’d say my day is going really well.”
Lennox pressed his hands against the bare skin of her shoulders.
“You are so beautiful,” he said. “I don’t know how I got through my entire existence without knowing you.”
“Did you?” Gia asked, her tone almost amused.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, gently massaging her shoulders. He leaned down to press a kiss to the side of her neck, and she closed her eyes, humming contentedly. “I was going to wait until dinner to do this, but I feel like we’ve already lost so much time. I know that sounds strange—”
“No,” Gia said, shaking her head. “I know exactly what you mean. What did you want to say?”
Lennox dropped to one knee, and Gia’s eyes widened in shock as he removed the ring box from his pocket, popping open the red velvet container.
“I never want to be without you again, Gia,” he told her. “I can’t get over the feeling that I had you and let you go, and I want you to know that I will never make that mistake again… if you’ll have me.”
Her face twisted into an expression of absolute joy, and she nodded her head.
“I’ll have you,” she promised, her voice wet with emotion and her eyes damp with tears. “Every which way you’ll allow.”
Lennox chuckled, blinking back his own tears. He had never been an emotional being, but things were different with Gia. There was so much she had shown him that he had never known existed.
He pulled the ring out to slide it over her finger, and Gia pressed her lips to his.
“I’m going to take care of you,” Lennox whispered, their mouths still together, their eyes locked and full of love. “For all of eternity.”
She nodded through her tears. “I know you will.”
And he knew she believed it.
THE END
Preview: Fated Mate
Preview
Fated Mate
by Juniper Hart
Sometimes, when the winds settled, Nora would sit by the window in her studio and stare into the blinding snow, losing herself in the whiteness for hours. It seemed such a contrast to the dark images on her canvasses, the bloody reds and blacks melding together in a splotchy mess.
It was easy to do when Jerome was gone and she was left alone with no one but the house staff and her thoughts.
How many years have we lived in this forsaken place? she asked herself that morning, but she immediately dismissed the question, refusing to fall into the pit of despair threatening to consume her. She didn’t know where this melancholy had come from—she only knew that it was slowly starting to pile atop her shoulders.
The more Nora thought about it, the less she was able to remember a time before their escape to the alps. Though the fact depressed her greatly, there was no one she could speak to about it; no one but the white canvasses around her, which turned black with her innermost thoughts.
Sighing, she turned away from the endless falling snow and gazed at her supplies, wondering if she would get any work done soon.
It is not as if anyone is waiting on me, Nora thought with some bitterness.
It had been quite a long time since a deadline had created a light of excitement in her soul. Gone were the days of agents and accounts. Then again, there had never truly been any people waiting to purchase one of her pieces.
Now, instead of the promise of business, all that remained was the icy, but beautiful, Swiss days and the long, starlit nights where she pined for a different time.
I can’t stay here, she thought mournfully. I will lose my mind.
Slowly, Nora rose from the cushioned window seat and reluctantly headed toward the door, her silk nightgown swirling around about her slender ankles as she moved. Tentatively, she opened the door and peered into the corridor before slipping out into the brightly lit house.
“Ah, mademoiselle!”
Nora froze in her tracks, slowly turning to address the woman who had called out to her: Collette, the housekeeper.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, smiling kindly. “I will fix you some breakfast, if you’d like.”
“No, thank you,” Nora said, immediately shaking her head.
Collette’s green eyes narrowed, and Nora could tell she was about to be lectured.
“Mademoiselle Nora,” she began, “you have not eaten properly in days. I realize that artistes are a different breed of person, but you are still a person, are you not? You must eat something! Monsieur Charpentier will be displeased when he calls for your update and I tell him you have not touched a morsel of food.”
Nora bit back a scathing remark and lowered her dark eyes toward the Calamander wood of the floor beneath her bare feet.
If Jerome has s
uch concerns, he can deal with me himself, she thought to herself, but of course, she said nothing to Collette. It was not the housekeeper’s fault that she had been named babysitter to Nora while Jerome was gone. Why did she even require a babysitter in his absence? Was there something wrong with her? Did Jerome not trust her to be alone?
“I will fix you whatever you please, chérie,” Collette continued, eyeing her pleadingly, and Nora stifled a sigh. It wouldn’t do either of them any good, and she didn’t want to get Collette in trouble.
“Whatever you want, Collette,” she replied dully. “I just want to shower and change first.”
The older woman’s face exploded into a look of relief so great that Nora felt guilty for having been locked up in her room.
I am not the only one who is trapped under the thumb of that unbending brute, she thought, but she was again consumed with shame. Jerome loved her, and he only wanted what was best for her. How dare you think of him so rudely? You are lucky no one can hear your thoughts.
“What shall I have waiting for you, mademoiselle?” Collette pressed as Nora turned to leave.
Nora sighed to herself. “I… I will decide as I bathe.”
There was never enough quietness for her to get some peace of mind—not unless she sat inside her studio and lost herself in the snow globe of her life, disconnected from the rest of the household.
She ascended the floating staircase to the second floor of the chalet, vaguely aware of the skylights emanating weak, gray rays onto the pristine interior of the place she had called home.
Living in the alps had been Jerome’s idea all those years ago, and Nora tried to recall the excitement she experienced when he had first suggested it.
“Just imagine, chérie,” he had said, his blue eye glimmering with the prospect. “You and me in our own paradise, separated from the scandal of the rest of the world. No judgements, no distractions. Only each other and our art. We can finally live the life we have always dreamed about.”
