“Are you sure?” I asked quietly. “This is your one chance, Mark. If you write that journal, there’s no going back. You’ll have set your life on the course that brought you to this point.”
“I’m sure.” Decided, he grinned for real. “However, I’m going to spend the night with my Apache family, if you don’t mind. It will take a few days to settle things here, and I’ve missed Singing Bird’s cooking.”
Runs With Wolves chuckled at that. “My wife,” he explained to the rest of us. “She will be happy to have you, Snake Eyes. We all will. Our children have longed to meet you.” The two men fell into an easy pattern of conversation, talking about the life Mark had abandoned here as they made their way back to the treasure vault.
“I’ll organize the men,” Lomas stated, moving to follow them. “We need a thorough list of everything here.” Eyeing the sword he still held, he frowned. Then, suddenly, he held it out to me. “Take this. If you were worthy enough to do battle with it, you should keep it. At least we’ll have one thing from this god forsaken mountain to prove we actually found what we were searching for.” Still muttering to himself, he put it in my hands and left, shaking his head.
Holding it gently, I gazed back out the tunnel entrance, the rain slowly stopping.
“Are ye okay, Samantha?” Taking the weapon, Tristan leaned it against the wall and squeezed my hand.
“Yeah.” Sighing, I shook my head. “It’s my fault that Randall got away. I should have kept fighting, but I froze instead.”
“Thomas Randall with the blood of a god flowing through him.” He pursed his lips, brow furrowed. “Methinks the next time we meet we’ll discover what he can do.”
“Do you think we’ll see him again?” I asked, surprised. “He has a means of getting around that we can’t double now. If I were him, I’d stay out of sight.”
“He’ll be back,” Tristan said positively. “We’ll be ready for him. I’ll not underestimate what he’s willing to do for power any longer.”
Pulling me into his embrace, he kissed my forehead. The action made my nerves calm and I leaned against him, overflowing with relief.
We’d done it; we’d made it back to each other, despite being torn apart for so long. Tristan was still mine and I would always be his.
“Ye better enjoy the next two months while we head back to France,” he suddenly said, tilting my face towards his and kissing me softly. “We have a lot of work to do once we get back to Paris.”
“Work?”
“Aye. There are six more treasures out there, which means six more vials Randall wants to steal. I intend to stop him from getting any of them.” He grinned, some excitement returning to his face.
“Six more treasures?” Just the thought made me sleepy. But, as always, the curiosity started burning within me. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know exactly,” he stated. “But I have a few ideas.”
“Pandora’s Box isn’t hidden away any more, either.” Frustrated, I tried to think of how we were going to solve all the problems that were rising around us.
“That’s something the future will have to deal with, I’m afraid.” Moving to head inside, he towed me along beside him.
“Tristan?” I suddenly asked, laughing slightly. “Does the Order keep records of everything?”
“Of course,” he responded, slightly stunned. “Why?”
“I need to get a message to the future,” I said slowly. “And I know just who to send it to.”
Acknowledgments
As usual, I have no idea who to thank, because so many people were involved in making this book, haha!
Thank you to those readers who messaged me so excitedly after Swept Away released. I loved talking with you about the alternate history theories and research I’d done. Those conversations are part of what made me so excited to get to work on Carried Away.
Thank you to my family, for forgiving me after I completely disappeared into the writing cave for weeks on end. Thank you to Jake—I quite literally feel that I couldn’t do hardly anything without you.
Thank you to my wonderful beta readers and editors! Raquel Auriemma, Kayla Hyden, Vonnie Hudson, Julie Engle, Heather Garrison, Annie Angelich, Tyanne Romney, Kysee Weatherford, Kassidy Carter, Lacey Weatherford, and Belinda Boring. I love you all so much! Thank you for listening to my crazy ideas and putting up with all of the drafts of this story I asked you to read, haha!
~Kamery
About The Author
Kamery is not the person who grew up dreaming of the day that she would clutch her very own novel to her chest, tears brimming over the rims of her eyes as she thought about how she'd written it herself, finally! In fact, anything remotely like that didn't even happen until she was actually holding her first book in her hand, amazed that she'd written it and wondering how on Earth she'd managed to do it when it hadn't ever occurred to her to write one until months before. Surprisingly, though, it was just what she never realized she loved doing.
When starting out in life, Kamery had (and still has) big dreams to perform on Broadway. She loves music and acting very much, while she and dance have a love/hate relationship; she would love to do it and every form of dance decides it hates that about her, haha! The one constant she always had between the performing world and the book world were the stories, tales that transported her to other worlds and made her feel like she really could do anything. Finally, she decided she wanted to do that for someone else and sat down to write.
It's been a few years since she held that first book, realizing that she really liked writing and wanted to do more, but the love that blossomed in that moment has only grown. Currently, Kamery works from home in the White Mountains of Arizona, while taking care of her two adorable kids, a girl and a boy, and talking her sweet husband Jake's ear off about the insane amount of characters in her head who are ready to fight to the death for a chance at their own novels. She also gets together with other authors in the family and they all gab together, making up The Royal Court of the Queens of Romance. It truly is a wonderful life!
Where To Find Me:
Website: http://www.kamerysolomonbooks.com/
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Carried Away (The Swept Away Saga Book 2) Page 34
