Tethered (The Avenlore Series) (25 page)

Liam steered us toward a raised balcony reserved for my family and their guests.  Soleil was already seated there, looking at the spectacle below as if it amused her.

“His royal highness King Elias and Her royal highness Queen Isla of the House Connolly.”  The announcer man said.

My parents came down the steps, both smiling and waving graciously.  They were old pros.

Taking their places at the table on the balcony, they stood opposite of us, facing the crowd below.    When we were all in place, my father raised his hands and everyone clapped and cheered. 

When the cheers died down, my father spoke.  “After many long years, our only child has returned to us
.  It is with grateful hearts that we celebrate with you tonight.  In the world, there shall always be good and so there shall be evil.  Difficult times lay ahead.  We must remember that no matter how dark the night may be, the morning comes still.  And so I ask you, raise your glasses and join me in a toast.”  He plucked a golden goblet from the heavy wooden table and lifted it high in the air.  “To the coming of the dawn.”

“The coming of the dawn.” 
Hundreds of voices echoed my father’s words.

The toast signified that the speech part of the evening was over.  My father took his seat and tipped his cup back and around the room, others did the same.  Some chose to take to the dance floor and soon there was blur a rich colors spinning and circling slowly on the dance floor below
showing off graceful dances I wouldn’t be any good at even if I knew the steps.  It wasn’t like I had two left feet or that I was particularly clumsy…I just got so nervous that I became stiff as a board and resembled a reanimated corpse whenever I tried to dance.

The music wafted easily through the air, the tune happy and bright, flutes tooting out the melody with their high and joyful notes. 

A mass of golden curls caught my eye as I watched the people standing around the dance floor.  There she was, subjecting one of the knights and his wife to her nails-on-a-chalkboard-laugh, Brigitte.  I scanned the immediate area around her, no Nikolas.

Where could he be?

“Would you like to dance?”  Liam’s silky voice plowed into my thoughts. 

I turned to look at him
, plastering on my best smile again.  “Sure.”  Taking the hand he offered, I let him pull me from my seat and lace my arm through his. 

The music had changed to something a little slower, but still happy and sweet.  Liam placed a hand at the small of my back and guided me through the dance that involved a lot of spinning.  Me spinning by myself, me spinning with Liam and another couple like the spokes of a wheel, Liam and I spinning around the floor together
.  I prayed I wouldn’t get sick and also that I wouldn’t accidentally flog the head of some poor innocent bystander in my attempt to keep up with the steps…and then I wondered if I could get close enough to purposefully flog Brigitte. 

Liam looked so happy, more and more frequently it was happening.  And it was such a good look on him, happiness was a good look on anyone.  I found myself considering a relationship with him
, trying to push my heart in that direction.  After all, I’d been all for it before the entrance on the scene of a certain blued-eyed knight.  Maybe the best thing to do was to stop fighting this and let it happen.  Of course, I’d still do anything I could to ensure Nikolas didn’t hitch himself to Brigitte for the rest of his life, but it seemed kind of sad and pathetic to keep clinging so tightly to something that wasn’t clinging back.

All at once, I felt the tiny hairs at the back of my neck stand on end.  Something in the air was changing.  “Did you feel that?”  I asked Liam as we spun some more.

He nodded toward one of the large windows, but looked unconcerned.  “Charges fill the air, a storm approaches.”

“Oh.”  I had spun back around to face the window and could see a flick of lightening in the distance.  “How is the girl?  Annette?”

Liam’s face clouded.  “Not well, I’m afraid.  She still hasn’t spoken, aside from saying her name. She sits and stares, empty and lifeless.”

“Does she eat?”  I asked, worried she was going to starve.

“She does, but only if she’s fed.  She swallows, that is all.”  Liam shook his head, disturbed by the very thought.

“That’s awful.” 

“It is.”  Liam said.

Neither of us spoke
as we headed back toward the balcony, heads and hearts heavy with concern for the broken girl.  We made our way back and my mother drew us into a conversation about Liam’s skill with an arrow and eventually we came out of the funk we gotten in by talking about Annette.

My father had been absent from the table since we’d returned.  He stood by the dance floor now, talking animatedly with one of the guests.  Occasionally, I
could hear his laughter even over the music and chatter.

“Will you honor me with a dance, my queen?”  Liam asked.  I looked over at him where he was standing with a hand outstretched to my mother.

She smiled at him.  “It will be my great pleasure.” 

As he led her away, she shot me a strange smile, like she knew something I didn’t. 

I watched them make their way down the stairway and out onto the floor, smiling to myself at the way she welcomed him into the fold so willingly.

The music morphed from its happy and light notes to something deep and beautiful.  The strings picked up the melody, sweet and heartbreaking.  A violin solo wove its haunting notes in the air, sad and lonely and exquisite.

Then, I saw him.  Nikolas. 

His
blue eyes were on me, wild and fierce and beautiful…time slowed to a crawl.  I watched him as he slid through the crowd below, the way he moved lithely between the bodies, the way his hair swayed back and forth at his temples, the way the fabric of his pale silver tunic glided over the taught muscle beneath.  My heart nearly exploded inside my chest, desperate to be near him. 

He was the only thing that existed then, the only thing that breathed, moved, shined. 

My heart twisted, a sweet and violent sensation.  He never tore his gaze from my eyes as he ascended the stairs toward me.  He didn’t say a word as he extended his hand for mine.

Without a second’s hesitation, I placed my hand in his and my skin hummed at the contact.

He led me down the stairs, my hand in his just the way he’d held it when he led me to the overlook to view the Valley of Light for the first time.

Lighting flashed in the distance and I watched as it reflected in his eyes.

Chapter 27

Thunder rumbled in the distance. 

There was a charge in the air alright.  We were waltzing.  I didn’t know how to waltz, but Nikolas was leading me and that made it simple because I would follow Nikolas anywhere…in a dance, off a cliff, into the pits of hell…anywhere.

“You have captivated the room, as I told you you would.” 
Nikolas whispered, his breath feathering along my neck.

I felt heat burn through to my cheeks.  “No, not me.”

He exhaled.  “Very well then.  You have captivated me.  I can tell you that with the utmost confidence.” 

I drew my head back to look into his eyes
and steeled myself to say the words I didn’t want to say.  “Nik…don’t.” 

The pain in his eyes at my words set my heart to aching and everything in me wanted to snatch them back from the air between us.

A hand touched his shoulder, yanked it rather, and it did not belong to me.  I saw the perfectly sculpted blonde curls before I heard the voice that hit my ears like liquid acid.

“I will not have this.”  Brigitte bit the words out between thinned lips, nearly snarling at Nikolas.
  She looked crazed, eyes wild and angry. 

I stepped back, escaping Nikolas’ embrace, brought back down to reality with a crash and a burn.
  My heart constricted inside my chest.

Not yours, not yours.

The unwanted thought ricocheted around inside my head.

“I have said all I have to say on the matter.  It
is done.”  Nikolas spoke in a level tone, irritation edging into his voice.

Brigitte’s eyes flashed
with fury, her face turning a deep shade of red that bordered on purple.  “I will not allow it, you will not make a fool of me.”

They were close now, in each other’s faces in a bad way.  I retreated and neither noticed as they stood toe to toe.

Yeah, that spelled happily ever after.

I scanned the room, desperate to find the exit.  Relief flooded my veins as I turned to find it only a few paces away.  The guards opened the doors for me, right on cue and
I slipped out into the garden. 

Once outside, I didn’t stop.  I hit a run, or at least as much of one as I could in my beautiful and, as it turns out, hindering dress.  I ran straight to the place in the garden where I’d found Nikolas.  It was kind of ‘our place’ and I was kind of sad and pathetic for seeking it out.

I tried to catch my breath, walking in circles and trying to think of things like kittens and puppies and scary dangerous death trap horses, anything but blue-eyed knights that held my heart on a string.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end
and I stopped pacing, a sinking feeling creeping through my veins, cold and heavy like blocks of ice.  For emphasis, the sky flashed and thunder rumbled, loud and demanding, the ground trembling in its wake.

“Dani.”  Nikolas breathed.

Turning to face him, I forgot about my fearful body hair and the sinking feeling. 

I’d had enough.  He was ripping me apart, dangling in front of me like water to someone dying of thirst…just out of my reach. 

Now I was angry.

“No, no more.  You can’t pretend to be unaware of what you are doing to me!  I…I can’t keep doing this, just leave…leave me alone.”  I spat at him, gouging my fingernails into my palms to keep the tears at bay.

He looked relieved and anguished and happy all at the same time.  “No, I will never leave you.”  He said the words with a little laugh, like I was stupid to suggest it.

I huffed at him, fuming now.  “Is this a game to you?  Because, if it is, it is not a fun game, not for me!”

Nikolas stepped closer, I stepped back.

“Dani…this is no game.  Please, let me
explain…you make me feel—“

I cut him off.  “No, no I don’t want to know how…no!”  I picked up an apple from the ground and threw it at him.” 

He ducked out of the way of my makeshift missile easily and closed the space between us, never missing a beat.  He grabbed my arms. “It is over, Dani.  I will not marry her.”  He paused, watching my reaction. 

I couldn’t speak, I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him correctly, afraid to believe that I had.

He took my silence and ran with it.  “How could I marry her, how could I share my life with someone when…when my every breath is drawn for you?  It always has been and I do not know how that is even possible, but I know it is true all the same.”  He paused, trailing his fingers the length of my cheekbone.  “I have been going along in this life, merely existing, and when I looked into your eyes that day in the woods…it is as if my heart only then started beating.  Dani, I cannot…be…without you.”

“You…you…really?”  I said eloquently.

Nikolas laughed, the sound sad and happy.  “Yes.”  He breathed.  “I am captivated by you…I am lost without you.  I am yours…every breath, every beat of my heart, every piece of my soul…belongs to you.”  He wound his fingers into the hair at the base of my neck, pulling my face to his.  Foreheads touching we stood there breathing the same air.  “All of me belongs to you.”  He breathed the words and his breath feathered along my cheeks, ignited tiny fires throughout my body.

A streak of lighting escaped the clouds, connecting the sky wit
h the earth as the bottom fell out and the rain came pounding down in thick sheets.

We didn’t move, staring into each other’s eyes like we had only just been given the gift of sight.  I watched as the rain trailed down his face, watched as his gaze found my lips.  He tilted my head back and pressed his mouth to my eyelids one by one, then my cheeks and my jaw.  He brought his other hand to my face and my heart hammered so violently against my chest I worried he could feel it too.  His brilliant blue eyes dropped to my lips again and he pressed his mouth to mine, fingers knotting in my hair
, drawing me against him. 

I could swear the clouds parted and I know I saw fireworks behind my eyelids.  The storm powered on around us, fierce and beautiful and alive…just like this moment.
  I knew this is what I’d been waiting for my entire life, this space in time where I stood with Nikolas.  It was like the earth had moved to carve out a little hole where only he and I existed and there was no mistaking that in my world, the earth had absolutely moved.

The kiss was sweet and cautious and tender at first, but it wasn’t close to enough.  I parted my lips and the kiss became intense
.  We were devouring each other, clinging desperately to one another.  He was light and air and happiness and I needed him to survive.