by Morgan Rice
Caitlin felt such a mix of emotions as she walked with him.
Was he disapproving of her? Was he mad at her for not continuing her search? How much did he know already?
How had he found her?
In some ways, he felt like a father to her. And she was nervous to hear what it was he had to say.
Caitlin knew better than to initiate conversation. She just had to walk, to be with him in the silence. Aiden was always about being, not talking. About tuning in to what someone else was thinking and feeling it without needing to say it.
So she respected his way of being, and just walked with him. After what felt like hours, she almost felt as if she were walking alone. She was contemplating her future, wondering where to go from here, wondering if Caleb would return—wondering al these things, when suddenly, the silence was broken by the sound of Aiden’s voice:
“Does your arm hurt?” he asked.
Caitlin looked down and saw her bleeding arm, and remembered.
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Come here.”
He stopped, and she approached, and he lay his hands on the wound and closed his eyes.
When he removed them, she was shocked to find it completely healed.
Ruth whined, and Aiden reached down and with a smile, picked her up, and lay his hands on her injured paw. He then set her back down, and she walked perfectly, without a limp.
Caitlin was shocked.
Aiden sighed, turning to her.
“I had hoped to find you elsewhere,” Aiden said.
Caitlin thought about that. As usual, with Aiden, everything he said could be interpreted so many ways. It was so hard to know what he ever real y meant. Did that mean he had hoped that she wouldn’t be fighting? Or that she wouldn’t be with Caleb? Or that she would be searching for the Shield?
She assumed he meant the latter.
She thought about how to respond.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I couldn’t continue the search.”
He didn’t respond, and they continued in silence.
Final y, he said: “Maybe you’ve been searching al along.”
That, too, made her think. What did he mean, exactly? Did he mean that some part of her had never stopped the search? That she was searching inside her mind?
“Sometimes you search for an object,” he said, “and sometimes it searches for you.”
Again, she wasn’t quite sure what he meant. But it felt true to her, on some level. She had felt overwhelmed by the search, and even when she’d decided to stop searching, she had felt it was stil always there, in the back of her consciousness.
“It’s not that I don’t want to find it,” she said. “I do. And I want to help. I just…I also want to live a normal life. I was tired of running. And then… I found Caleb again.”
“And you thought it would work out forever,” Aiden said.
Caitlin turned and looked at him, searching his face for some sort of clue. Did he know what their future held?
But al she could see was his slowly shaking his head in disappointment.
She felt embarrassed, as if Aiden had known al along that it would not work out—and that she had been foolish to hope that it would.
“Some things are more important than forever,” Aiden replied.
Caitlin thought. Had she been selfish to stay with Caleb? To give up the search? Was she being punished for it now?
Was al of this, her meeting Caleb, his leaving—was it al preordained? Had she been a fool to think that she could change their destiny?
“Some things are fated,” Aiden said, reading her thoughts, snapping her out of it. “We can never change our destiny.
We can try. We can run from it. But life has a way of bringing it back to us.
“And yours, Caitlin,” he said, as they final y emerged from the woods, into an open meadow, “is a very special one.”
Caitlin looked up, feeling relieved to be out of the dark, heavy woods, into the open.
The two of them continued to walk, and she saw Caleb’s castle in the distance. Her heart soared for a moment, as she hoped beyond hope that Caleb might have returned.
Aiden shook his head.
“You haven’t listened,” he said. “You won’t find him there.”
Caitlin turned to him.
“Wil he return?” she asked. She scrutinized Aiden’s face, waiting for any reaction.
But he was expressionless, staring off into the horizon with his large, light blue eyes.
“The question isn’t whether he comes back for you,” he said. “It is what you, Caitlin, decide to do. You are stronger than one man. You are stronger than one relationship. You have a mission. A destiny. And you have free wil . It is not your place to wait for anyone. Is your place to create your fate. To take action.”
He final y stopped, turned and looked at her. She looked up at him, and was taken aback at the intensity of his eyes, which looked both prophetic and scolding.
“When wil you stop running from your destiny, Caitlin?
When wil you accept who you are?”
She looked at him, wondering.
“Who am I?” she asked. She wasn’t sure she knew herself anymore.
He stared back. “A warrior,” he said flatly.
A warrior, she thought. She didn’t always feel like it. On some days, yes. But on others, she felt just like everybody else. She had moments of courage, but she felt like they were only moments.
“A warrior is defined by moments,” Aiden said. “A single moment can make you a warrior. A warrior is also defined by decisions. By courage. But a warrior, otherwise, is normal. A warrior cannot be a warrior every moment of the day. But, a warrior’s spirit is always there.”
Caitlin thought about that. She felt flattered by the term, and the more she pondered it, the more she liked the label, the identity. But she also felt it came with a responsibility.
“You need to choose,” Aiden said. “You can stay here, give up the mission, and live a very happy domestic life with Caleb. It wil be a life of the heart. But not of the spirit. We are brought to this planet to choose between two lives: a life of the heart, or a life of the spirit. Our heart can tie us down to domestic matters. But our spirit must soar. It must fol ow its cal ing.
“You’re cal ing, Caitlin, is to find the Shield. To help save us al . To find your father. And most importantly, to find out who you real y are.”
Caitlin stared at him, her mind reeling with al the implications.
“But what if I never find the Shield?” she asked.
“What if the Shield is not something to be found?” he asked back.
She looked at him puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“You assume that the Shield is an object.”
She was baffled.
“Of course I do. What else could it be?”
Even as she asked the question, her mind spun with a mil ion possibilities. Was the Shield something else? And if it wasn’t physical, what else could it be?
But Aiden didn’t help. He stared, expressionless.
“I’l tel you this,” he said, final y. “A warrior’s mission is never about finding an object, or completing a task. It is about the journey. It is not about what you find in the journey, but about what you become.”
She looked at him. “What am I becoming?”
But Aiden turned and continued walking in silence, and she fol owed him, al the way up to Caleb’s castle. The door was wide open, and she looked and saw that it was clear he had not returned.
The two of them stood there, before the open door.
“The price of being a warrior is leaving behind family.
Home. The ones you love. It is the journey that every warrior must take. And one you must do alone.
“The choice is yours,” he said. “You can go inside, and stay here, and live happily. Or you can come back with me. And train. And fulfil your mission.”
Caitlin stood there, thinking. On the one hand, the thought of
leaving Caleb broke her heart.
The thought of him coming home and not finding her saddened her beyond belief, as did the thought of her giving up what could be the perfect life.
On the other hand, she felt something deep inside her stirring. It was her warrior instinct. She felt a primal urge to train. To become whatever it was she was meant to be.
As Caitlin stood there, staring back at Aiden, she felt as if this were one of the peak crossroads of her life. She felt how monumental the choice was before her, and felt how it would irrevocably change her life forever.
And strangely enough, she, in a flash, felt certain of her decision.
She knew, deep down, what she had to do.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sam walked the grounds of Versail es alone, trying to col ect his thoughts. He walked down an ambling path, twisting and turning its way through perfectly trimmed hedges. Ever since he’d met Kendra, he had been able to think of little else. There was something about her: she was so young, and her skin was so smooth and flawless, and her aqua eyes completely hypnotized him. When she looked at him, with the ful power of those eyes on him, he had been able to think of nothing else.
And even now, after an entire day had passed since he’d seen her, he stil could think of little else. He was intoxicated by her.
He had been shown his room, and was stil waiting for Aiden to summon him, and in the meantime, he didn’t know what else to do, other than wait. So he had shown himself the grounds.
He had stopped and watched for a while, with interest, as his fel ow vampires sparred. He admired their techniques.
But even as he watched them, he felt his own strength surging within him, and he knew that he was stronger than them al .
Then why hadn’t Aiden summoned him? Why had he been kept waiting here, on the sideline?
Sam walked, trying to remember his sense of direction.
Caitlin. He had come back to find her, to help her. Then that Pol y girl had appeared, and had led him to this place. Sam sensed somehow that Pol y and Aiden might be connected to Caitlin. He felt intuitively that he was here for a reason, and exactly where he should be.
Yet stil , he was antsy. He wanted to find her. To help her, if need be, especial y on her mission.
He wanted to find his Dad. He had a feeling that Aiden might know where she was, and he was anxious for him to summon him. Without that, he didn’t know where else to even begin to look for her.
In the meantime, while waiting, his thoughts of Kendra had overtaken him so much, he was having a hard time trying to stay focused on finding Caitlin. He found himself, instead, dreaming of Kendra, of wanting to be with her, wanting to see her again. He even found himself daydreaming of staying here with her. Of not even searching for Caitlin or his father anymore.
He chastised himself for even having the thought. How could a girl have such an impact on him so quickly? How could she affect him so much to make him feel loyal to her, over his own family?
Whatever it was, he could not understand it. He felt that when he was around her, he was in the grip of something more powerful than himself, something even he didn’t understand. He felt that it was dangerous.
At that moment, Sam resolved not to seek her out again, and not to spend any more time with her. If she looked his way, he would look away, and if she tried to talk to him, he would ignore her.
That was the only thing to do with someone like this.
At just that moment, as if the universe were playing tricks on him, Sam looked up to see Kendra standing there. He stopped in his tracks, shocked. There she was, standing on the outskirts of the crowd, out of sight from everyone, on the edge of the woods. She was sitting proudly on a horse, looking down at him, and loosely holding the reins of a second horse beside her. She looked down at Sam, expressionless. She wasn’t smiling.
But then again, she was looking at him.
Despite himself, he found himself approaching her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“I’m going for a ride,” she said. “Women are not al owed to ride around here. At least not the way I would like to ride.
So I take my horse of sight from the others.”
Sam looked over and saw the vacant horse beside her, and saw her stil staring at him. He couldn’t figure out her expression; she was just too hard to read. Was she inviting him to join her?
Or was she waiting for him to walk away, to leave her alone? And if so, who was the second horse for?
“I hope I’m not intruding,” Sam said, trying to figure it out. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I’m never startled,” Kendra said. She stared at him, then looked away, as if watching something on the horizon.
“I’m going for my afternoon ride,” she announced, then suddenly turned her back, and began walking away on her horse. She dropped the reins of the other horse. “You can join me—that is, if you’re unafraid,” she added, her back to him as she rode off into the woods.
Sam looked at the vacant horse, and he could not believe it. Had she just invited him to join her?
Was it a date? She sure had a funny way of asking. Maybe she was just too proud, too embarrassed to real y ask him.
Whatever it was, he didn’t want to miss his chance. Despite his new resolve, when he was actual y in her presence, al his resolve went out the window. He had to be with her. It was a physical thing, something he could not stop if he chose.
He hurried up to the horse, jumped on, and kicked it, so that it was trotting after her. Within seconds, he caught up.
She broke into a trot, and moments later, the two of them were trotting through a broad, winding forest trail.
*
It felt like they had been riding for hours when Kendra final y stopped. It had been a chal enge for Sam to keep up with her, as she was so unpredictable: at some points, she had broken into a gal op, across open fields, without notice. At other moments, they had trotted together beside streaming brooks, in and out of the forest, clearings, meadows.
Final y, she had turned and taken a narrow path up a gently sloping hil , covered in fields of flowers. She’d found a spot under an ancient tree, and had dismounted and tied her horse to a branch. Sam did the same, and as he saw the wel -worn marks in the branch, he guessed she had been to this spot many times before.
Ignoring him, she turned her back and walked to a bubbling stream nearby. She knelt and splashed cold water on her face. She ran it through her hair and as she did, she pul ed her hair out of its bun and let it fal around her shoulders.
Sam watched, mesmerized, as the sun shone through her hair. He had never seen anyone more beautiful. He could not believe his luck in being here right now. Why had she chosen him? She hadn’t exactly invited him, but she hadn’t exactly told him not to join her either. And even though she did a great job of ignoring him, and had barely said a word to him the entire afternoon, he stil sensed that deep down she liked having him with her. He only wondered if it was because some company for her was better than no company at al , or if she real y wanted him there.
Kendra turned to him.
“I’d like to sit in the grass,” she said. “There is a blanket in the saddle.”
Sam at first didn’t realize what she was talking about; but then he looked over at her horse, and saw a large silk blanket sitting in a pouch. He realized she expected him to unfold the blanket and lay it out for her.
It annoyed him a bit. He was not her servant. At the same time, he just figured that this was the treatment she was used to, and he didn’t want to rock the boat over it. Plus, he real y didn’t mind. So he took out her large, pink blanket, and laid it out on the grass.
Kendra walked over and sat down gingerly, smoothing her skirt, and lay back, resting her head in her hands, and staring at the sky.
Sam looked down, and saw the big empty space on the blanket beside her. He wondered if she wanted him to join her.
&nb
sp; “Um…” he began, “can I sit with you?”
He watched her shrug, ever so slightly, as she stared at the sky. His legs were hurting from al that riding, so he decided to take that as a yes.
He went over and sat on the blanket beside her, and laid on his back beside her, resting his head in his hands, too.
The sky was beautiful from this perspective, a crystal clear blue, with smal white clouds, broken into a mil ion pieces, drifting overhead.
They both lay like that for what felt like forever, and Sam final y wondered if he should say something. The silence, he felt, was a bit awkward.
“That was fun,” he said. “Thanks for bringing me.”
“I didn’t bring you,” she answered. “You brought yourself.”
Sam was indignant. He’d had enough of this, and he felt it was time to confront her.
He sat up.
“Okay then,” he said, “I’l leave.”
He was preparing to stand, when he felt a cold hand on his wrist. He turned, and saw her staring at him.
“Don’t be so dramatic,” she said. “I didn’t tel you to leave.”
He stared back at her, puzzled. Clearly, she wanted him to stay. But why couldn’t she just come out and say it? Was she afraid? Was she nervous? Was she that proud?
Everything inside of Sam screamed at him to leave, to go back to the training ground, seek out Aiden, and stay focused on his search for Caitlin.
But something inside him, something he could not control, forced him to stay.
He slowly lay back down. This time, he propped himself on his elbow, turning and looking at her.
She went back to laying on her back and looking up at the sky.
Sam couldn’t stop staring at her sculpted features. They were perfect.
“I come here, to this spot, to get away from Versail es,” she said, after a while. “There are no humans here. No vampires. No one to gossip or slander me.” She turned and looked at him. “Have you heard them talking about me?”
Sam shrugged. He had, indeed, already heard things—
