Shadow Borne (3 page)

When she nearly hyperventilated in the
middle of the lake that first afternoon, it was pretty obvious
something was wrong. I smiled, remembering how, at the time, she'd
taken a deep breath then fixed the water with a mutinous,
determined stare and confessed that yes, she was afraid of the
water. In the next breath she had informed me in no uncertain terms
that we were going swimming anyway. Yeah, that was Claire.

"Are you ever sorry?" I asked suddenly, the
mention of her native water beasts reminding me of her home, her
life before Terlain.

"Am I sorry about what?" She plopped down
next to me on the stretch of sand beneath the tree.

"You know, that you came here."

"Well." She seemed to consider her answer
and carefully choose her words. "I wasn't given much choice but to
come here, not at first, but later? No, I wasn't sorry at all. I
think from the minute I left the first time all I could think about
was getting back here. It feels like home. I know that must sound
strange."

"No, it's not strange at all."

"It's a good thing this feels like home
though, since I'm pretty sure I won't be allowed to leave again."
She leaned back and flung one toned arm over her head. "I won't
miss the sharks, that's for sure." Her teeth flashed white in the
space between us and I laughed.

"No, I wouldn't miss them either.”

"I don't know though, they probably aren't
as bad as Naule." She considered, sitting up and tossing a wary
glance at the glassy surface of the lake.

"We'll see anything before it gets within a
hundred yards." I reassured without bothering to get up. I didn't
contradict her assumption that Naule were worse than sharks, mostly
because I didn't want to scare her, but personally the thought of
sharks made my heart pound. Sure, they were much smaller than the
Naule, but they were considerably faster and there were more of
them. According to Claire, some breeds even traveled in packs.

"You're right." I watched her take a deep
breath and grin. "I'm being ridiculous tonight. I mean, I thought I
got over this silly fear-of-water thing ages ago."

"Uh, well it hasn't really been that long."
I pointed out. "Besides, I'm not sure that run in with the Naule
helped put your mind at ease."

"Oh, that." She waved the reminder away
before turning to stare across the lake to the shore. "It was so
long ago and I'm over it. Not that it was the best night of my life
or anything."

"You were lucky Mark came along when he
did." I nodded, even though she couldn't see the gesture.

"The thing is," she continued, "I'm a little
on edge tonight."

"So I am." I confessed. "I've
felt...unsettled somehow, all afternoon." I shook away the
lingering sense of uneasy restlessness and sat up then to loop my
arms around my knees. "Why are you nervous?" I asked Claire.

"I'm not nervous." she was quick to deny.
"Okay, I'm just going to level with you. I had planned to wait
until we got back to the house and surprise you, but I'm not so
sure that's the best plan."

"Claire?"

"We have some company. They arrived earlier
today." She finally replied, putting her back to the water to
regard me in silence.

"Oh?" I tried for casual indifference but
instinctively I knew, damn it, I knew what she was going to say
next.

"Ari, my family arrived today. Mike is
back."

Chapter Two

They All Come to
Grandview

Mike was back? My mind tossed the question
around like a ping pong ball on steroids but I refused to throw it
out in the open like that. Of course Mike was back. Why wouldn't he
be? After all, I'd known he was coming, hadn't I?

Claire hadn't made any secret of the fact.
If anything, I'd had ample reminders that Mike would soon be back
in Terlain. No, I mentally corrected, not just Mike, but the entire
Roberts clan. Claire's parents and sister and brother-in-law would
have been traveling with him. But somehow, in my mind the only news
that really mattered was Mike's return; it wasn't a welcome
revelation.

For months, since I had found the package
he'd left at the portal–the place in the woods east of the village
of Lerna where two worlds collided and commingled–I had been trying
to reconcile his impending arrival. And yet I still wasn't
prepared, not really, not if Claire's announcement had been enough
to rock me to the core like this.

I took a deep breath, fully aware of the
fact that I lingered somewhere between desperation and panic.
Pulling myself back to the situation at hand, I managed a tight
smile for Claire's benefit.

If the wide eyed look she
gave me was anything to go by, she wasn't fooled, not one bit. But
then, I hadn't expected her to be. She knew I was less than
thrilled with the idea of running into her only brother again. And
we
would
run into
one another, I realized with a pang.

"Aries?" She caught her bottom lip between
her teeth for a second before taking a deep breath and spreading
her arms wide. "I can't change the past." she began in typical
Claire fashion, going straight to the heart of the matter. "But I
know that my brother won't care about any of it."

"You can't know that." I argued before
quickly looking away, focusing my attention on some vague distant
point on the shore that I hardly noticed. I was very much afraid
that right then, pain was naked in my eyes for all the world to
see.

"I do know it." she insisted gently but
fervently, letting her arms fall to her sides and taking a step
forward.

I glanced at her then, silently telling her
to stay where she was. When I was hanging on by a thread was the
last time I wanted sympathy from anyone, even Claire, though I knew
she would only be put off for so long. Sooner rather than later,
she would hug me. I frowned and folded my arms across the blue
green lace at my chest, cold all over in an instant.

Our eyes clashed and memories of the night
we were taken by Kahn's guards stretched between us, bonding us in
an odd sort of way. We had become good friends, kindred spirits
even, in the time that had elapsed since the nightmare had
passed.

Logic dictated that we would have become
friends on some level regardless, even if we hadn't gone through
hell and back together, because I'd been in love with her older
brother, with Mike. Hopelessly, stupidly in love. Even if by that
time he'd already been long gone.

But not
anymore
. The whispered thought flowed
through my consciousness like a flower unfurling toward the sun.
No! I narrowed my dark eyes and lifted my chin a notch. It didn't
matter one damn bit that Mike Roberts was back. I wouldn't let it
matter. He wouldn't hurt me a second time and I...I had nothing to
give him now, even if I had been dumb enough to be so
inclined.

"Give him a chance." Claire suggested in the
same hushed, easy tone that plainly said she held out hope I would
listen to reason.

Wasn't she in for a surprise, I snorted
rather uncharitably, in control of my emotions again and not in any
mood to play nice and be reasonable.

"I think I'm ready to call it a night."

"Sure." She nodded. "We can head home
now."

"No," I shook my head ruefully. "I think
I'll stay in the cottage tonight."

"But–"

"Claire, I'm just not ready to see him. Not
yet, okay?"

"I guess I already knew that." She sighed
and bent to palm a small intricate purple shell before plucking it
from the sand and slipping it into one of the satiny cups of her
bikini top. "Either way, you don't have anything to worry about
tonight. They won't arrive at our house until sometime tomorrow
morning, so there's no reason why you can't come home and have
dinner. You have to," she rushed on when I would have opened my
mouth to form some polite refusal. Clearly, she had no intention of
giving me the chance to beg off.

"I thought you said they've already come
back, that they're already here."

"They crossed the portal today but decided
to spend the night in Lerna. Mom and Dad are tired and I guess
Megan isn't feeling too hot, either." Claire explained. Her voice
was tinged with worry. "She hasn't had the baby yet, you know."

"She's close though, isn't she?" I asked,
easily recalling past information Claire had shared with me about
her sister's due date and doing some quick math. I winced. Megan
Roberts was damn close.

Claire nodded dismally. "I think they were
trying to wait until she delivered. Obviously that wasn't
possible." She bit her lip again. "I hope crossing the portal
hasn't hurt the baby."

"I'm sure the child is fine." Or at least as
sure as I could be without ever having crossed the portal myself.
"Ashley didn't suffer any ill effects from crossing and she's done
it twice." I pointed out with calm logic. "And she was four the
first time, wasn't she?"

"Five." Claire corrected absently, gazing
out over the lake. "You're probably right, of course. But I think
I'm pretty much doomed to worry about them all night, especially
since they're spending the night in Lerna." she sighed.

"Well, I have to agree with you there. Lerna
isn't the safest place to seek lodging for the night. Still, it's
safer now that we've secured it." I shrugged.

"You mean what's left of it." she
muttered.

"Yes."

It was a shame. The town of Lerna had once
been a thriving middle class community that rimmed the forest where
the portal was located. Quaint shops had lined a red brick paved
downtown surrounded by peaceful, friendly neighborhoods and
landscaping that boasted careful attention to detail and pride of
ownership. Nowadays it looked like a bomb had gone off in the
center of town. Concrete sidewalks had literally been scoured and
left to litter the streets in crumbled, broken heaps.

The stores no longer glittered in the
evenings with antique gas lights and warm laughter. Kahn's men and
his beasts had raided the town more than a year past and cut a wide
swath of destruction through the once beautiful wooded city. What
they hadn't broken or killed had been looted. Thinking about those
early days of the revolution was enough to start a slow burn in the
center of my chest. I took a deep breath and forced my hands to
un-clench at my sides.

"Your family isn't alone I take it?" It
stood to reason that Claire and Mark had sent people to meet the
Roberts and guide them in. After all, how else would Claire be
aware of their arrival in Terlain?

"No, they aren't alone. Mark and a dozen men
are with them. I think some of the nymphs are with them, too."

"Oh?" I covered my surprise with a
well-practiced nonchalance. None of the nymphs had mentioned making
a trip to Lerna to retrieve Claire's family.

Claire smiled. "Everyone is curious about
the man who stole your heart."

I spared her a single glance before turning
back to the lake and jumping in.

"I have no heart."

***

Claire gamboled along the path, trailing
behind me much of the way back to Grandview. The town square was
still alive and kicking, even at this late hour. The town of
Grandview had undergone so many changes in the past year. Two years
ago, no one would have considered Grandview the middle of nowhere
by any means but over the past four seasons I'd watched it go from
a mid-size town that rolled up the sidewalks at dusk, to a full
fledged city that, most nights anyway, would still be going strong
at midnight. But it wasn't a wild and crazy type of place. Not by a
long shot.

The bulk of the city's more recent occupants
were refugees from places like, well, not Lerna–if anyone had
survived that massacre, we had yet to find them–but certainly
further south and east, places like Oxborough and the old auction
hubs.

As if she could read my mind, Claire caught
up and came to a stop beside me on the cobblestone sidewalk that
ran parallel to the black and silver bricks that paved the
street.

"I still can't get over how much this place
has changed. It almost looks crowded now." she mused, echoing my
own thoughts.

"Yeah," a corner of my mouth quirked up,
"eventually they all come to Grandview." It was true enough. Our
hometown was a lot like the last frontier in Terlain. Well, not my
hometown. The nymphs lived in a carefully guarded forest between
here and Lerna and while I couldn't say exactly how many years our
kind had occupied the lush paradise tucked away in the middle of
the woods like a hidden gem, I knew it was a long time.

At least seven generations had been born and
raised on the sacred ground that was our birthright. It was one of
the few places in that region where Kahn hadn't been able to tread,
loot, and destroy.

"If you want to stop off for coffee first,
we've got plenty of time." Claire offered, staring at her favorite
corner cafe with a look that spoke of abject longing.

"You and your coffee." I sighed, but started
across the street toward Mae's Cafe, resigned. I still didn't
particularly want to see anyone but the dip in the lake had managed
to work out the worst of my tension, at least physically. Mentally,
I was too keyed up for comfort. Slightly less so than when I had
thought Mike would be waiting for me at Claire's house.

Maybe even standing on the front porch like
I'd pictured him at least a hundred times in the last few months,
ever since he'd left that note to let Claire know he and the rest
of their family would soon be crossing the portal. But no, I shook
my head and snapped back to reality with the jangling of bells
above the door Claire and I passed through. It was better not to go
there.

The cafe was nearly empty; only four other
patrons sat at the dozen or so wrought iron and glass tables placed
around the diner. A man and a woman who looked to be deep in
thought occupied the table at the very back. The old woman and
teenage girl sitting at the table closest to the cafe's single
restroom barely spared us a glance.