Hidden Hope (Hidden Saga Book 3)

Copyright
©
2015 by Amy Patrick

All rights are reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any fashion without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book. All trademarks are the property of their respective companies. 

HIDDEN HOPE is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, brands, media, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Oxford South Press/September 2015

Cover design by Cover Your Dreams

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You’d think it would be an easy choice between Light and Dark. I mean, who would choose darkness? It’s frightening, filled with the unknown, with unseen dangers ready to trip and capture and corrupt.

The light is warm. It’s comforting and right. No one ever questions your sanity when you step into a bright room, go out on a sunny day, turn down a well-lit street. 

But to a creature born of the dark, doesn’t it also embody a certain rightness? A sense of safety? A freedom to be who you
truly
are because no one can see or pass judgment.

And there is excitement in the unknown. Like a theater when the lights go out just before the show begins. Like a secret whisper. Like a kiss in the dark.

Anything can happen.

The first time I saw her, I thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world. It was the last time that messed me up.

*     *     *

I move silently through the treetops, taking care to balance my weight with the additional burden of the two sacks strapped across my back. Finding my footing on the rough bark, I glance up at the patches of sky visible between the thick leaves, pastel colors mixing and changing as the sun slowly sinks toward its evening resting place.

My whole life is a balancing act now—my duty to my people, my relationship with my betrothed... and those rare moments I get to spend with
her
.

Ryann will be almost to the spring-fed pool by now. It’s the natural choice for a meeting spot. It’s always been our place—the site of our reunion this past spring—the place I finally found her again after years of longing and searching, after having all but given up on my childhood dream.

But then one afternoon there she was—a vision, a miracle—bathing there, wearing almost nothing, driving me out of my mind. She was more beautiful, more perfect than I ever could have imagined.

Thinking of that day, of all that has happened between us since, my heart gains weight until it’s a stone in my chest, threatening to drag me from these branches and hurl me to the ground below. 

Don’t think about it. Keep your mind on your job.

My job today is delivering the saol water Ryann needs to make the sweet tea that saved her family’s land and my people’s home as well. Bringing her the necessary ingredient is my responsibility because the other Light Elves don’t mix with humans and don’t know how to communicate through spoken words.

And I
want
to be the one to do it—in spite of the pain. Continuing to see her like this, keeping our conversations limited to small talk and business, is the greatest torture. But it’s also the best part of my week because it’s the only time I can be close to her.

If Ryann only knew the effect seeing her has on me... well... it’s best she doesn’t know.

I reach the clearing and, as expected, she is there waiting. I should say something, announce my arrival.

And I will.

But first I take a moment to observe from the concealment of the thick summer foliage. My heart thumps hard from the guilty pleasure of watching her.

She sits at the edge of the pool, trailing the fingers of one delicate hand through the water. Her long chestnut hair drapes over one shoulder, exposing her neck on one side. She lifts her dripping hand to rub it, and the cooling water runs down over her collarbones and chest into the neck of her tank top.

So beautiful. I reach out and grasp the air just in front of me then draw my hand back to my side where it closes around the emptiness, forming a hard fist.

No. Not mine. Not anymore.

If all goes as planned, maybe all of this will be over soon. But will it be soon enough? Is it already too late? Every day she’s with Nox is another day she steps further from my reach. Is she happy with him?
Does she love him?
Sickness builds in my gut at the thought.

During the plane ride home from Los Angeles, I started to hope that maybe she still cared for me. There was
something
still there in her eyes. A wistfulness in her voice.

Or maybe it was just
wishfulness
—on my
part. Until I can tell her everything, I won’t know.

One month earlier

“You need to break up with him, Ryann.”

“What?” I had to make sure the words I’d just heard had actually come out of Lad’s mouth and not from some exhaustion mirage or in-flight-doze-off dream. After all, I’d had perhaps the longest day of my life, starting with joining Reggie’s fan pod, then being ogled, groped, and held at gunpoint, forced into a trunk, all followed by witnessing Nox being shot and then being whisked away myself to the airport for the flight home.

I glanced around. No, not dreaming. We were on the plane. The hum of the engines beneath the wings, the faraway lights below, barely visible through the night-dark windows, the sound of Emmy’s soft snore from the corner where she’d burrowed into her pillow and blanket all assured me I was neither asleep nor delusional. 

For the first two hours of the flight, Lad had sat alone while Emmy and I talked. It hadn’t been easy to explain what was happening without giving away too much of the closely-guarded secret, to come up with a cover story for how I’d happened to be in California at the same time she’d been suddenly kicked out of her fan pod. Or for how I had access to a private plane. Or for why in the heck Lad was there with me.

Let’s just say by the time she’d fallen asleep, I’d used up my yearly allotment of truth-stretching and creative license. Now Lad and I were, for all practical purposes, alone. And he was giving me dating advice.

“You need to break up with Nox,” Lad repeated. “The sooner the better.”

“I can’t…” My words sputtered in furious indignation. “I can’t believe you actually just said that to me. What makes you—”

“I care about you.” He took my hand and rubbed his thumb across my knuckles in tense strokes. “And I care about him. And you’re not right for each other. You need to end it—for both your sakes.”

I tugged my fingers away, folding them against my stomach. “Your right to weigh in on my love life ended on the day you sent me away and told me never to contact you again. Remember that little chat?”

His green eyes pooled with pain. “That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, believe me. I’m so sorry, Ryann. I
had
to send you away. I had no choice.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t want to do it? I’m sorry, but I was
there.
You said it was over, and you meant it. I saw it in your eyes. I
felt
it. I’ve discovered one of my glamours is emotional acuity—you
meant
it when you told me not to contact you again. You said there was
no point
. And in that moment I knew in my heart you meant every word.”

“You’re right. I did. I thought I was doing the right thing.” The admission was breathed out on a long sigh.

Lad closed his eyes. His chin dropped to his chest as his fingers clenched into fists on his spread thighs as if he were gathering strength. Finally he opened his eyes again and pinned me with a tortured stare. “I don’t know what to do, what I can say. I know you hate me—I don’t know how to fix that Ryann, but I want to try. Will you let me try to explain?” 

My heart thumped hard, and a tremble began deep in my core, working its way outward to my hands. I’d thought there was nothing Lad could ever say that would affect me again. Now, here I was, an emotional mess after a few words from him. What was the matter with me?

I folded my arms across my chest, suddenly cold in the plane’s air-conditioned interior. “So what—now you can suddenly tell me everything?”

“Well, no. Not exactly. But I can tell you some things—I
need
to tell you some things... if you’ll let me.”

My gaze left his face and drifted to the dark rectangle of the plane window as I replayed our devastating breakup. He’d said he wished he could glamour me into forgetting we’d ever met. He’d told me he didn’t have time for my “jealousy and insecurities.”

Why was he doing this to me now? Hadn’t my heart been jerked around enough? Did I even want to hear what he had to say? Screw him, I wouldn’t listen. A long moment passed in silence.

“All right. I’ll listen,” I said. “But only in the Elven way.” If he talked to me mind-to-mind, at least it would be impossible for him to lie to me. At this point, it would be the only way I could believe anything he said.

Thank you. As I told you... that day....
He had the grace to look ashamed at the memory of that brutal conversation.
It was a dangerous time. The Light Council was calling for blood. Murder is our highest crime, and the murder of a king is unthinkable. Or it was. At first they refused to consider that another member of the Fae might have been responsible.

He lifted a hand toward me.
As an outsider, a human intruder in our world, you were the most likely suspect, especially in light of the wedding. Many wanted to act first and ask questions later. There were threats on your life. When I intervened, some Council members questioned my ability to lead, in spite of the fact I was heir to the throne. They believed my objectivity was tainted because... because I loved you. For a terrible moment, I wondered myself if that were true. Because Ryann, I did love you so much I could hardly think straight.

I turned my head away, letting my gaze bounce from Emmy, to the cockpit door, to the magazines in the seat-back pocket in front of me. Hearing him say it in the Elven way was overwhelming.

Unnerved by a powerful wave of emotion, I squeezed my eyes tightly shut to hold in the threatening tears.
I will not cry in front of him. Not after what he did to me.
I rolled my hand through the air in a silent gesture for him to continue. 

Of course I knew better—I knew you had nothing to do with his death. But I had to lead my people, and I was afraid to relinquish control, even temporarily, because the head of the Council was calling the loudest to have you brought to Altum and interrogated. I had to show strength, to stand firm, to quash the fears that I was unfit to lead because of my preoccupation with a human. And I was warned that there were those who’d strongly disagreed with my father’s decision to let you leave the kingdom in the first place. In order to protect you, I made a vow to them—that my involvement with you was over.  

When I heard you’d gone to Los Angeles, my first impulse was to feel relief that you were out of their reach. Of course when I spoke with your grandmother and discovered the rest of it—that you’d gone in search of Emmy and immersed yourself in the Dark Elven world—my relief turned to fear.

I stared at him, reading the honesty in his eyes, remembering he had left his precious people behind to come after me in L.A. and warn me about Davis and my mother.

So maybe he
had
still cared for me when he sent me away. But why had he made it so permanent? Why had he stripped all hope and warned me not to wait for him and never to contact him? Why had he hurt me?

I gave him a hard look.
You could have told me all this then. I would have understood. You knew I would have waited for you until you’d found the murderer and settled everyone’s fears. I would have waited for you—forever if necessary. 

There was a flicker of deep emotion in his green-green eyes. He swallowed, making his Adam’s apple move under the smooth, tanned skin of his neck.
I couldn’t ask that of you. And moving on was the best thing—for you. It was clear that my people would never accept a human, and I could not leave them. I could no longer hold onto the childish hope of avoiding my birthright. I realized I was stuck with it—forever. There is no one else to rule the Light Court.

I searched his sincere expression, his pleading eyes. What did he think was going to happen here? That he would apologize and I would sigh and throw myself into his arms?

Not going to happen.

Good intentions or not, he had decided what was best for me without any input from me—without even telling me what was really going on. He’d hurt me too deeply. And I was building a life with Nox now.

“Why are you telling me all this? Do you expect me to say I still love you?” I huffed a bitter laugh. “I’m
never
going to say those words again. To
anyone
.”

“Ryann—”

“And you can’t really believe, after all that’s happened, that I would throw Nox aside and get back together with you.”

His shoulders sagged. “No, of course not. I’m not asking for that.”

Now that I thought about it, he hadn’t asked me to come back to him—just to listen to him.

“Oh. So... just what
are
you asking for?”

“Your forgiveness... for the things I said to you. For the way I handled the breakup... and Vancia.”

I flinched at the mention of her name. He had been minutes away from marrying the Dark Elven princess when I’d showed up in Altum that day. Somehow, they’d gotten re-engaged since then, though he now was claiming he had been in love with
me
. And then a stinging thought flashed through my mind.

“Are you still engaged to her?” I asked quietly.

Lad visibly winced and his jaw tightened, though he held eye contact. “Yes.”

Pain ricocheted through me. “I don’t understand. Why do you care what I think of you if you’re planning to marry her? Why bother telling me you loved me and that I should break up with Nox? Is it like, some kind of sham engagement or something?”

He stared at me with serious eyes. His voice was very quiet. “No. It’s real.”

A fresh wave of hurt washed over me. Why were we even talking then? The last thing I needed after this day from hell was mind games. The thing was—I could
feel
his sincerity, his desperate desire for me to understand him. We stared into each other’s eyes in a standoff of bruised silence.

I was the first to crack. 

“So that’s it? You have nothing else to say about it? You’re just going to keep sitting there looking like you want to throw yourself from the plane with no parachute. Or… maybe you’d like to elaborate a bit?”

“I can’t. Ryann, I’m sorry. Can you please just think about what I’ve said and trust me?”

I stood up and moved into the aisle. “Um... no. You’ve just told me I should break up with my boyfriend… who loves me by the way… and you refuse to explain. Not exactly trust-inspiring. And you’re an engaged man—we shouldn’t even be talking. To borrow from our last conversation in your nest hideaway, ‘I don’t have time for this.’”

Marching toward the back of the small plane, I put as much distance between us as I could manage. How was I supposed to
trust
him again? Mom might miraculously have faith in love after betrayal and heartbreak, but that wasn’t me. I was fresh out of trust these days.

Though I’d burrowed into the back row of seats, it wasn’t far enough. I could still hear Lad’s pleading words loud and clear in my mind.

Please, Ryann. There’s still more to talk about. I’m worried about you.

Worry about yourself. And get out of my head.