I sigh, wishing he didn’t have such a guilty hold over me. The way he always begs me to come home. Begs me to stay away from boys. Prays at night that I will never leave our home. He was so wrapped up in me just disappearing one day; I had to wonder what he was hiding.
I love my dad. But he doesn’t see what his rules are doing to me. Stripping me of a normal life. With normal things and normal people. I yearn to be normal. To have friends. Maybe a boyfriend. To be kissed. To have sex! Just to be a grown up. Anything but the child my dad still sees me as.
“How about I make yer favorite meal for dinner, aye?” He smiles, his faded accent coming through, as he pats my shoulders.
“Sounds good, Dad.” I turn and head toward the door.
“Oh, and Addie?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“Happy twenty-first birthday, baby girl.”
I offer my dad a small smile. Yeah. Happy twenty-first to me. I turn and head out to work.
“Whoa. Miss, are you okay?” He catches me by my bruised and dirtied arm, and I wince. He realizes it and lets me go.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m sorry. I just have to… to…” I realize that telling him I need to call for help because I’m being chased by a mythical character from my dad’s bedtime stories sounds a bit crazy, so I lie, “—get a book for my grandmother. She is on her death bed…. Um, last rights and all. So I need a book.” I give him my best puppy dog face, because dirty or not, no one can turn down a request of a dying grandmother.
“Well… Alright. I guess I can open up the register. Please be quick though. I need to get home.” I nod quickly and dash into an aisle. I don’t even look which aisle, I just need to get my bearing’s together and figure out my next plan, which hopefully involves making sense of how he is real.
“Daddy, can you tell me the story again about the prince with the crescent moon?” I ask, as Daddy puts me to bed. Jenny Myers in my Kindergarten class told me she was a princess and I wasn’t. That I wasn’t pretty enough. She tried pulling my hair and made me cry again. I always feel better when Daddy tells me this story. I always picture the prince with the crescent mark coming for me at night, like a knight coming to rescue his princess. Then I picture rubbing it in Jenny Myers’ face. I snuggle into my bed, dreaming that maybe tonight will be the night.
“Legends say that when the princess comes of age, her prince will come and bring her home to his castle. She will be courted and if she chooses this prince, she will be married and become Queen.”
I squeeze my blanket tighter, just thinking about how wonderful it would be to be a princess.
“And how will she know it’s him? What if she mistakes him for someone else?” I question.
Daddy’s eyes always look so sad, telling this part of the story. “He will bear the crescent moon in his vision. He will come for her and she will know.”
“Are you almost done back there, Miss?” The clerk yells back, and I jolt.
Shit. I shake off the strange memory. “Um, yes! I think I may have found something,” I yell back, looking around and realizing I’m in the fairy tale section. Go figure. I grab for any random book, trying to search out the back hallway way when I hear it: the pounding on the door. I turn quickly and watch in fear as the clerk makes his way to the door. Oh God, please don’t let him in. I freeze in place, watching him point to the sign through the glass door, and I hear him recite, “We’re closed.”
The slowest two minutes pass, until I see the clerk nod and turn around. I exhale the deepest breath I was holding, feeling a huge sense of relief. I turn, making my way to the back, when the sound of shattering glass fills the store.
I turn and watch the madness. He’s inside. No! The clerk attempts to fend himself off from the man, but it’s no use. Hulk takes the butt of his knife and bashes it into his head. The clerk’s body falls to the ground, limp and unmoving. I gasp as we suddenly make eye contact, and it’s then he begins to storm my way. Yep, I’m outta here. As I turn to take off down the aisle, I grab a handful of books off the shelf and toss them, one after another at him. He swats each one away as if it’s a gnat fluttering in his path.
“Stay away from me!” I yell, picking up another book and throwing it.
“That I cannot do. Ye can come with me willing, or I can force ye.”
This guy is insane if he thinks I am just going to go with him! “You’re crazy! What are you going to do, just kidnap me?” Another book. Another swat.
“It is not kidnapping if ye belong to me.” I shake my head, not allowing his words to combine with my dad’s tales. Speaking of my dad, I’m going to kill him.
I need to think. I throw another book, trying to buy some time. I’m almost to the end of the aisle. I just need to get to the back door. If I can just throw a book, catch him off guard, and ru— “Ahh!” I squeal as he lunges for me.
Any chance of escape is useless because he has an unnatural quickness to him that I don’t stand a chance against. He takes me to the ground, covering my head before we hit the floor. I go to scream my bloody head off, but he’s faster, placing his hand over my mouth.
“Ye will stop yelling or I may think of taking out yer tongue. I am sure my brother would be just fine with a mute wife.”
Wait, what? Brother?
“Who are you?” My voice quivers.
“Ye know who I am.”
“Wren, you’re the son of Wren,” I crazily admit.
“Very good, sweet girl. It seems yer father has done well, keeping his precious offspring educated.”
“But how are you here? You’re not supposed to be real. I don’t understand.”
“I think ye know why.” He grabs for my wrist, twisting it until my palm is facing upward. His thumb brushes against the birthmark that’s been on my wrist since day one. It heats immediately. “I would hate to bore ye with the details when ye already know,” he says.
“That what, you’re a psychopath, who just almost killed two people and are now trying to kidnap me?”
“Ye mean those hooligans who were about to rape and possibly kill ye? Should I have left ye there? Would that have been a better outcome? And him?” He nudges his head toward the poor store clerk. “He will be fine. Just a bump.”
“Please, just let me go. I’m pretty sure you’ve got the wrong person. I’m just a normal girl. No one special, I swear. We can forget this happened. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
He rubs this thumb once again over my birthmark, the heat almost scorching. “Do ye feel that? Do ye feel how the mark ye bear ignites when I touch it? That means ye are most definitely the right girl. And trust me, ye are very special.”
The stories that I begged for my dad to retell, time after time, are coming to haunt me; the moment when the Prince of Wren comes to claim his princess. But in my dreams it is nothing like this. It is beautiful. He is kind and wistful. And I am willing. Right now I’m scared, and regretful that I ever wanted those dreams to come true, because this reality is anything but magical.
“I won’t go with you. I owe you nothing,” I bark in his face.
“It’s a shame yer father has already made that decision for ye.”
Before I have a chance to argue back, he is sprinkling something sweet smelling over my nose, and everything goes black.
When I begin to come to, I hear the desperate pleas of my father.
“Dad?” I groan, realizing I’m in my house, on the floor. I search for my dad and spot him sitting on the couch with his face tucked into his hands.
“I’ve searched high and low for ye, Richard McAllister of Wren. I have to say, it took great courage to return home after all these years.”
His words confuse me. Home? I whip my head toward my dad. If this is all true, that means home is Wren? “Wren is your home? Dad, what’s going on?” I try and stand up, but I am dizzy on my feet. Hulk catches me, holding me steady.
“Oh, Addie Bear, I’m so sorry,” he begins to cry into his hands now.
“F
or what, Dad? What’s going on? Please tell me none of this is real. They were stories, right? You were just telling me stories!”
He doesn’t speak. He dips his head in shame. “Dad, you said—you said in your stories, that the only way to return home is if the magical skeleton key appeared for you. But… but it would only appear for the princess. How did you get home?” I sound like a looney toon asking such things. I dare not admit any of this is happening, but if tidbits of my dad’s story are playing out, then that means…
“Did the key appear?” I ask, my eyes going wider.
He continues to weep. “I’m so sorry. I had to, Addie Bear. I had to use it. Yer mom. She was so sick. The doctors weren’t helping her. She was dying. And I couldn’t let her die. I know they would come for ye. I had to make a choice.”
“To save Mom.”
He nods.
“Then I don’t understand. Why is he here?”
“She doesn’t know, does she, Richard? Ye deny yer daughter the right to know her future? Her destiny?” Hulk’s anger sets a chill to the room. He takes a menacing step toward my father.
“No, that’s untrue. She knows.” He turns to me, guilt pouring from his eyes.
“Dad, I know what?” I plead to my dad as he dips his head.
“Tell me!” I raise my voice, my heart beating like mad.
Tears are streaming down his face, “The skeleton key appeared for ye, on yer nineteenth birthday. It came for ye, and I wasn’t ready to let ye go. Yer my little girl. I promised I was going to tell ye, but I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t let them take ye.” He pauses, choking up on his words, but the man glares at him to continue, “Instead of guiding ye home, I took it. I knew if I used the key to see the sorcerer of Wren, she could save yer mom.”
I’m having trouble keeping up. “And that’s why Mom suddenly got better? You got what you wanted from the sorcerer.”
“Yes. But I also lost something, too. I lost ye.” His words throw me off guard. Shock me, even.
“Dad, how did you lose me?” He shakes his head. Lowering his eyes back to the ground.
“I was seen. He saw me.” We both look to the man standing in our living room.
“Him.” I confirm to my father.
“Lockelan MacCowen. The first Prince of Wren. I recognized those eyes right away. Ye look just like yer father.”
“And?” Lockelan takes a lethal step forward.
My dad cowers, unable to make eye contact with either of us, but he answers. “Because ye bear the crescent moon in yer vision. I saw it that night. Yer family is bonded to mine.”
“And please, do remind me what happens when a family goes unbounded, Richard?” His anger rising.
“They are unable to make Court. If the chosen are unable to wed with the bonded family, then that lineage suffers. Wren is without their next King and Queen. There is no sound government to rule. The whole entire land suffers.”
I gasp at that. I look from Lockelan, who is staring down at my father as if his looks can kill, and my dad, who is unable to lift his eyes to meet his fate. What does all this mean? For my dad? For me? For Lockelan and his family? “Dad, what have you done?”
“Yer father abandoned his village is what he has done. He was a warrior in his time. The best. He was given the supreme privilege to travel through realms to gather information and supplies to better our lands. Until he never returned.” Turning to my father. “Love, was it? Love for a woman who holds not a single ounce of Wren blood in her? What did ye think of when ye knew the damage ye would cause by never returning? What did ye think of yer betrothed when ye never returned?”
Wait, what? “Wait, you were married before Mom?”
“NO! No. I was betrothed. Engaged. It was an arranged marriage. It was not for love.”
“And so since ye were not in love, ye risked an entire Kingdom!” Lockelan bellows out, ready to attack.
I jump in front of my dad, blocking him. “Don’t hurt my dad,” I beg, but he quickly dismisses me.
“Ye left a woman bereaved for a husband. And ye left a village with no future queen. No possible heir.”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Lockelan. I know what I did was wrong.”
“Richard McAllister, I am here to claim what is rightfully ours by the power of Wren. As presented, ye birthed a daughter, first known princess of the McAllister family. This is our right to take ownership of her and suit her with the chosen son of Wren.”
Oh, hell no. This is where I draw the line. “I’m not anyone’s property! You can’t just take me. Dad! Tell him!” I turn to my father, who refuses to make eye contact with me. “Dad, tell him!”
“Lockelan, please don’t do this. I’m sorry for what I have done. But please, Adeline is not bred for life in Wren. She is not one of us.”
Lockelan steps closer, grabbing for my wrist. I am not as quick, so he latches on tightly. He turns my wrist, almost snapping it. “Tell me she is not one of us. She is half of ye. Tell me the birthmark of the crescent moon on her wrist is not telling enough for ye?” My eyes go wide. I throw my eyes to my wrist at the faded birthmark. What? It can’t be.
“Please! Don’t take her. She is my only daughter!” My dad begs, trying to stand but is pushed back down to the couch.
“Ye chose this path. Ye chose to return. Ye should have given the key to yer daughter when it came for her. But ye are a selfish man, Richard. Ye have wasted a lot of my time. And now it is our right to claim what is ours.” He turns and faces me. “It’s time. Say goodbye.”
I take a few shaky steps back. “You’re nuts. I’m not leaving with you. I don’t care about some old ancient promise. You can find a Stepford bride elsewhere!” I turn to run, but he catches me. Pulling me to him, he lifts me up, my feet leaving the ground. I begin to scream, hitting him in rock hard chest while my dad sobs, begging for forgiveness. From me or Lockelan, I’m not sure.
“Put me down, you big ol’ jerk!”
“That I cannot do, princess. In winter’s light, for one god to unite, show me the portal of Wintesfill blight.” I hear him chant a few more non-English words and with a blast of wind, a gust of color appears in the center of our living room. My mouth drops open as I become stone still at the vision before me. In front of my eyes, a tornado of iridescent appears like a blast in the solar system. Gaping at the color of fog coming together, I realize it is forming into a door.
“What in the…” I exhale, unable to grasp what I am witnessing. He twists me around, giving me a little push. “Now go,” he demands pointing towards the door.
Nope. “No way, man.” I am not going through that. Wake up, Addie. Wake up. This has to be a dream. I did not just witness a door magically appear in my living room, because that’s impossible. It’s when I am swiftly lifted off my feet and over Locke’s shoulders that I kick back into action. I begin jerking and banging on his back to let me down.
“Aye, ye are. And if ye don’t stop kicking, the second we get home I am going to tie ye up and gag ye until ye learn to be a good little girl.”
“You big ugly ogre, put me down! DAD!” I scream and scream and scream. The closer he gets to that glowing door, the more I panic. I’m struggling to breathe. I know if we walk through that opening, I am done for.
“No! Please, take me! Take me, please!” My dad cries.
“Dad! Let me go, you beast!” I yell, taking my fists and beating on his back, fighting to get free. Startling me, he quickly flips me upright, sliding my body down his hard frame. My feet are barely dangling off the ground as he brings our faces together. His warm breath hits my nose as I steady my vision to connect with his. Still in his tight hold, I make contact with his frightening, but strangely familiar, eyes. I’ve stared into these golden orbs a million times over. But how? Was it in my dreams? So many nights after I would lay my head down and lose my day to sleep, I would dream about a man. The one who would come for me. Every morning, when I woke, I would fight to keep the image with me but his face would fade,
and so would the emotion that I felt when he came for me. An acknowledgment deep inside awakens in me. This cannot be real. I break our connection, trying to break from his clutch, back to struggling in his hold. His grip only strengthens.
“That is yer last warning, sweet girl. My patience is running quite thin with ye.”
“Well then, maybe you should let me go,” I say, trying to act brave. I bring my eyes back to his, silently begging the strange feeling inside me to go away.
“Now why would I do that? I am becoming quite fond of yer fiery mouth and the way yer tight little arse keeps wiggling in my arms. There isn’t a chance now I would even think about letting ye go.”
It’s then I notice he is right. Our bodies are pressed tightly together, and his heat is radiating into me. His chest feels tight. Pure muscle, I would imagine. He bends down so his lips are brushing my earlobe. “Ye are just making it better for me, princess,” he hums. My eyes close, the familiar scent of spice and leather assaulting my nostrils. Stop, Addie. I’m starting to scare myself. You don’t dream of someone, and then they show up in your house. I rip my eyes away from him, breaking our connection. I don’t do myself any favors though by staring at the beating pulse in his neck.
“Enough ogling, it’s time to go.”
With not a second to spare, he walks through the door.
Land of Wren, Lifetimes ago.
I wake up with a start. My body flies upward, and the dizziness sends me straight back down. I grab for my head, in hopes my brain will stop spinning. Once the dizziness fades, I make another attempt to sit up. Slowly this time, I raise my body to an upward position and take in my surroundings. I’m in a room. A weird room. Nothing that screams Ikea has been here. The air is different. Heavier almost. The smell is nothing like my own living room.
And then I remember.
“That big ol jerk!” I breathe as I look around. Lying in the center of a gigantic bed, I brush my hands over the finely woven material. The furniture in direct view is beautiful, but ancient looking. A thick wooden dresser sits against the wall, a chest in the adjoining corner. As my mind begins to clear, I slide off the bed to the wooden floor, cold under my bare toes. Where are my shoes? I scan the rest of my body and realize I have been partially undressed. I’m missing my hoodie and am just in my tank top and jeans, my socks and shoes removed. I scan the room once more and realize I’m alone. I walk toward the gigantic wooden door and turn the knob.
Unlocking Adeline (Skeleton Key) Page 3
