Chains of Fire

by Christina Dodd

  “Okay, so you’re talking to Isabelle,” Aleksandr said impatiently. “But you guys are in love, so that probably gives you a connection. Can you talk to anyone else?”

  “Yes,” Samuel said. “Dina.”

  The name dropped like fragile glass into their midst, and exploded.

  “You can communicate with Dina?” All John’s attention was fixed on Samuel. “How do you know that?”

  Samuel flashed him an annoyed glance.

  “Okay, that was stupid,” John admitted. “She’s a mind speaker and she can communicate with you. Are you sure you can send back to her?”

  “I can and I do, because she has answered me. Not recently. Since she left, she’s been blocking me. But she’s out there somewhere.”

  “She’s alive?” Jacqueline asked.

  “Oh, yes.” Samuel was sure of that. “More interesting, in my opinion, is that it’s a new development for her, too, to be able to hear someone’s thoughts.”

  Charisma went, “Ooh,” so she understood.

  Rosamund said, “So you’re saying that what has occurred with Dina is related to the Mayan prophecy that I translated, but I didn’t translate the whole thing, because I broke the stone tablet over the bad guy’s head—”

  “I totally approved,” Aaron said, “since the bad guy had been trying to kill me.”

  “Seemed a waste of a good stone tablet,” Samuel said.

  Aaron shot him an obscene gesture.

  “The prophecy I read concerns only the Chosen, or so I thought,” Rosamund said. “Intriguing. Is Dina one of the Chosen, or are the Others somehow part of the prophecy?”

  “All seven Chosen must succeed before the next cycle of the Chosen or we lose our gifts and the Others are triumphant, able to wreak their havoc unopposed. Think of it! In less than three years, five of us have found true love and enhanced our gifts.” Charisma bumped Aleksandr’s arm. “We’ve got a little more than four years to get our kudos. Think we can do it?”

  “Sure.” But he didn’t meet her gaze, didn’t meet anyone’s gaze, and he returned to the subject that held a firm grip on his attention. “Samuel, what about your mark? Did you get one?”

  “I’ve always had one. Marks on my scalp that looked like fingerprints. My fingerprints.” Samuel put his hand to the back of his head. He gave a tug. Just as it had in his adolescence when he received his mark, his dark hair came out in handfuls.

  Isabelle gasped.

  Aaron said, “Whoa, man.”

  McKenna glanced in the mirror. “Good heavens!” he said.

  Samuel turned his head and showed them the bare places that extended from the previous marks—the fingerprints—down to the back of his neck. “It’s no longer merely my fingerprints, right? It’s the whole palm print now. My palm print?” He held up his hand so they could compare.

  “That’s it.” Rosamund sounded as if she couldn’t wait to research his mark.

  “That is awesome,” Aleksandr said.

  Isabelle lightly touched Samuel’s bare scalp. “After we give our report to Irving, I’ll take you upstairs and shave the rest of your head. I love your hair”—she stroked his head—“but I want to fully see your mark. I’m sure it’s magnificent!”

  In a falsetto voice, Caleb crooned, “Oh, Samuel. You’re so strong and brave.”

  Jacqueline jabbed her elbow in his gut.

  Caleb doubled over.

  “Pussy. Whipped,” Samuel said to him.

  “It’s catching.” Caleb recovered so suddenly, Jacqueline couldn’t escape when he grabbed at her.

  She snickered while he kissed her.

  “You are not getting horizontal on my lap,” John said sternly. “So knock it off.”

  Caleb and Jacqueline sat up, still smiling.

  “My interest is still piqued by that building and the mural and the feathers,” Rosamund said.

  “Of course it is, honey.” Aaron put his arm around her shoulders and grinned at her in delight.

  “No, listen. It’s the building, the mural, the story, the feathers.” She waved her hands at them. “Don’t you see?”

  “No,” Samuel said baldly. He never understood half of Rosamund’s babbling.

  “Come on, Samuel. You’re being simpleminded. It’s the prophecy. My prophecy.” Jacqueline smiled triumphantly.

  “The prophecy. Of course!” Caleb quoted, “‘Some must find that which is lost forever. For rising on the ashes of the Gypsy Travel Agency is a new power in a new building. Unless—’”

  Jacqueline’s voice joined his.

  “‘Unless this hope takes wing’”—they both emphasized “wing”—“‘this power and this building will grow to reach the stars, and cast its shadow over the whole earth, and evil will rule.”

  “See? When you put the pieces together, it’s easy,” Rosamund said.

  “I don’t think it’s exactly easy.” John was a stickler for detail. “We don’t know the location of the second feather, and the first one is entombed in concrete under that building.”

  “The concrete has not contained the feather Osgood entombed beneath the building,” Charisma said. “It’s working its way down through the concrete to the earth.”

  Samuel remembered the way Charisma had been feeling up the marble columns. Now he knew why. And he took the next logical leap. “But you’re wrong, John. We do know where both feathers are, and that’s a start.”

  Isabelle followed his thought and looked at him, wide-eyed, startled, worshipful. “Of course. That’s brilliant. The second feather. That’s what’s in the Swiss safety-deposit box!”

  Chapter 59

  “It’s time.” Aleksandr offered Charisma his hand.

  She looked at it, realized what he intended, and instinctively objected. “But Irving’s not here. Or Martha. Or Dina. And McKenna’s driving!”

  “Mr. Shea, Martha, Dina, and I are assistants to the Chosen Ones and their mates,” McKenna sternly rebuked and, at the same time, reassured. “If it is time, then you do what you must.”

  “It’s time,” Aleksandr repeated.

  Charisma quieted, observed the youth she had known for almost three years, trying to see what was different about him. She hadn’t been paying attention, but now that she was, he felt . . . older, the last vestiges of his youth vanquished by . . . by anxiety. Or resentment. Or emotions she had never imagined this open-faced, pleasant, well-balanced guy could experience.

  “All right,” she said uncertainly. She rolled her bracelets up and down her arms, trying to read her stones, to catch some hint of the discontent that plagued him. “We can always do it again later when everybody’s with us.”

  She put one hand in Aleksandr’s, another in Samuel’s. Samuel took Rosamund’s. Rosamund took Aaron’s. And so on around the line until the Chosen and their mates were linked.

  John lifted his hands, and Genny’s and Jacqueline’s at the same time. “Here’s to you two. We are so glad you’ve come together at last.”

  Hands tightened.

  Warm, bright, and hot, a sizzle of lightning rippled through the circle, lighting their nerves, their minds, their hearts.

  The sensation was, as always, the proof they sought that all things had transpired as they should.

  Everyone irresistibly laughed.

  “Approval from above!” Aaron turned to Rosamund and kissed her.

  John kissed Genny.

  Caleb kissed Jacqueline.

  Samuel kissed Isabelle. And kissed her. And kissed her.

  Aleksandr looked at Charisma. He didn’t reach for her to share a kiss; he merely shrugged.

  So she shrugged in return.

  Samuel and Isabelle were still crushed in each other’s arms, and it was getting pretty intense.

  “Hey, you two.” Charisma jostled them.

  Samuel cradled Isabelle to his chest. “When we get back to the mansion, I don’t care what kind of crisis occurs. I don’t care if Jacqueline predicts the Cubs will win the pennant. I don’t car
e if Davidov decides to hold a Tupperware party and invite every vampire and elf he knows. I’m taking this woman upstairs and we’re going to have sex. Not in the window seat. Not in a tent. Not on a desk. In a bed!”

  The Chosen Ones laughed.

  Looking into Isabelle’s eyes, he said, “I would rather be miserable with you than happy without you—but we can do better than that.”

  “I love you,” she said. “I saw you today in Osgood’s office while he dangled your deepest desires before you, and now I know . . . I can trust you. With my heart, with my soul, with my life. You make me laugh, you make me cry, but always, always you have loved me.”

  “This time it will be happily ever after,” Samuel vowed.

  Charisma had never seen anything so sweet as Isabelle dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief—leave it to Isabelle to have a handkerchief stashed in a catsuit—while Samuel smiled all doofy at her.

  Digging an elbow into his side, she murmured, “You bought her jewelry.”

  He glared at her meaningfully. “I will give it to her later. When we’re alone.”

  “Ah, you guys.” Charisma dug her elbow into his side again. “You make me believe in fairy tales.”

  “Yeah. Fairy tales.” Aleksandr slapped the back of McKenna’s seat. “Hey, wait! Pull over! I’ve got an appointment at the courthouse.”

  “What kind of appointment?” Aaron asked.

  “I’m going to get married.” He glanced at his watch. “And I’m late!”

  Everyone in the car laughed.

  Everyone except him . . . and Charisma.

  Opening the door, he jumped in the direction of the curb.

  Charisma turned and watched as he hurried toward the courthouse, toward a girl standing at the top of the stairs by the pillars, her blond hair blowing in the breeze, a welcoming smile on her face.

  She was gorgeous.

  Again Charisma ran her bracelets up and down her arm.

  She didn’t understand why, or even how, but her feel for Aleksandr was changing, twisting, fading. She couldn’t reach him through the stones; she couldn’t hear the earth sing his name.

  She faced forward.

  In all of her senses, the Aleksandr Wilder she had known faded from existence.

  Read on for an excerpt of

  New York Times bestseller Christina Dodd’s

  sparkling new historical romance

  TAKEN BY THE PRINCE

  Coming from Signet Select in April 2011.

  England, 1837

  “So, Grimsborough, this is your little bastard.”

  Eleven-year-old Saber stood on the thick rug in the middle of the big English room in the big English manor. He glowered at the tall, elegant older woman with the sneering mouth and the pale yellow hair. She stood in front of tall shelves filled with more books than he had ever imagined, and she dared to insult him. In his native tongue, he said, “In Moricadia, I kill people who call me names.”

  “What?” The woman frowned, angry and alarmed. “Grimsborough, what did he say?”

  The shadowy figure behind the wide polished desk did not look up from his writing.

  Five brightly dressed girls, ages five to twelve, stood lined up by the fireplace, and one of them, the skinny one in the middle, said in awestricken tones, “He’s so dirty.”

  “And skinny,” said another.

  Saber shifted his attention to them. Soft, silly English children.

  They stared at him as if he were a trained dancing bear, and when he scowled, the littlest’s eyes filled with tears; she popped her thumb into her mouth and slid behind her sisters’ skirts.

  “Look, he’s tired.” The oldest spoke with authority. “He’s swaying on his feet.”

  Then, in unison, the four biggest girls smiled at him. Kindly, sweetly, as if nothing ugly or brutal had ever touched their lives.

  Saber hated them. He hated the lady, hated the tutors assembled to meet him, hated the uniformed servants standing at attention, hated them all. Most of all, he hated the evil man in charge, the man behind the desk, the one he knew must be the English viscount . . . and his father.

  Again in his native tongue, Saber spat, “Stupid English wenches.”

  “What did he say?” Again the sneering English lady looked between Saber and the viscount. “What did he mean?”

  For the first time, the man spoke. “Bring him to me.”

  Two of the man’s absurdly dressed servants grabbed Saber’s arms and propelled him around the desk to face the man.

  Grimsborough gestured the candelabra closer, and when the light played across his face, Saber thought he looked like the older woman. Not in his features, which were sharp and strong, but in his attitude: in the aristocratic lift of his chin and contemptuous curve of his mouth.

  The English lady drew in a sharp breath. Because although Saber didn’t realize it, he and Grimsborough looked alike, also.

  Grimsborough examined the skinny, filthy, tired child as if he were a bug to be squashed beneath his shoe. Then he reached out a pale, long-fingered hand and slapped Saber across the face with his open palm.

  The sound of flesh against flesh echoed like a gunshot.

  At the impact, Saber fell sideways.

  One of the girls gasped. One whimpered.

  The woman smiled in satisfaction.

  And cheek stinging, Saber lunged for Grimsborough.

  The servants caught him, dragged him backward.

  The viscount waved him forward again.

  The servants didn’t let go of his arms this time.

  Grimsborough brought his narrow patrician nose so close it almost touched Saber’s, and his soft, deep, menacing tone raised prickles of fear up the back of Saber’s spine. “Listen to me, lad. You are nothing. Nothing. My bastard by a foreigner, and if I had had another son, your filthy feet would have never sullied the floors of my home. But God in His infinite wisdom has blessed me with nothing from this marriage but daughters.” He glanced at the girls, so colorfully clothed, so sweet in their innocence, and he despised them with his gaze. “Five daughters. So you will live here until you’re fit to be sent to school. And never again will you speak of your betters in that insolent manner.”

  Saber shook his head, shrugged, and gestured helplessly.

  “Don’t pretend with me, lad. Your mother spoke English. So do you.”

  Saber didn’t quite have the guts to swear at Grimsborough, but he spoke Moricadian when he said, “English is for the ignorant.”

  Again Saber didn’t see the blow coming, but the impact of Grimsborough’s palm against his cheek snapped his head sideways so hard his neck cracked and his ear rang.

  “Never let me hear you speak that barbaric tongue again.” Grimsborough’s voice never rose.

  Saber lifted his chin. “I hate you,” he said in clear, plain English.

  “I hate you, sir,” Grimsborough said with chilling precision.

  Saber loathed him with his gaze.

  “Say it.” Grimsborough’s frigid eyes held nothing: no spark, no interest . . . no soul.

  Saber glanced toward the elegant, sneering woman. She stood terrified, looking at her husband the way a mouse looked at a snake.

  Saber glanced at the girls. Four of them stood with their heads down. One, the middle girl, stood with her hands clasped at her skinny chest, was staring at him, and when their eyes met, her lips moved in appeal. “Please.”

  He looked back at Grimsborough. This man who was his father scared him—and he wasn’t afraid of anything. But he couldn’t give in. Not quite. Straightening his shoulders, he said, “I hate you, sir, but my grandfather told me I had to come to this damp, cold island and learn everything I could in your savage schools about mathematics and languages and statesmanship so I could go back to Moricadia and free my people from cruel oppression.”

  The oldest girl stepped forward as if he interested her. “If you want to free your people, shouldn’t you learn how to fight?”

  He swung a c
ontemptuous glare on her. “I already know how to fight.”

  “You’ll need an army. Do you know how to lead an army?” She looked him right in the eyes, not at all impressed with his bravado.

  “I know how to lead,” he retorted. Then grudgingly he added, “But I will have to learn military tactics.”

  “Then we are in accord in one thing: You will cease to be a little beast and become a civilized gentleman.” Grimsborough gestured to the servants. “Take him away. Clean him. Give him over to the tutors and tell them to use any means necessary to teach him what he needs to know. I will see him here in six months. Please note: I expect an improvement, or I will be unhappy.”

  Saber felt the little shiver that raced through the room at the idea of incurring Grimsborough’s displeasure.

  Picking up his quill, Grimsborough turned back to his desk and his papers, and ignored the servants, his wife, his daughters, and Saber.

  “We will begin with a bath,” Lady Grimsborough said decisively.

  At the mere idea of this woman seeing his naked body, Saber struggled, lunging against the grips of the servants.

  The second-to-oldest girl, a pale, soft, silly thing dressed in pink and ruffles, begged, “Mama, he’s so skinny. Please, can we feed him first?”

  “Do you not have a nose? Can you not smell him?” Lady Grimsborough waved her lace handkerchief before her face.

  Saber had learned to fight in a hard school, and he swung on one servant’s arm, knocked the feet out from beneath the other, broke free, and raced toward the door.

  The head servant, the one who was dressed in black and wore white gloves, tackled him around the knees. The two footmen leaped on top of his back, crushing him into the flowered carpet.

  His father’s unemotional voice intoned, “A few good canings are in order. Thompson, I trust you’ll handle the matter.”

  The man in black and white helped haul Saber to his feet, then dusted his white gloves. “Yes, my lord. Immediately, my lord.”

  “Clearly, the little bastard will survive without a meal for a few more hours.” Lady Grimsborough eyed Saber as if he were a plucked chicken ready for the pot.

  Grimsborough’s cold, clear, emotionless voice intoned, “As of now, his name is Raul. Raul Lawrence.”