Amalia Dillin - Forged by Fate

“Ethan was not exactly the man he led you to believe he was. It’s no fault of your own. My brother has always been brilliant at games of deceit.”

There was absolute silence. Eve could feel them absorbing her words, and then winced at the white-flare of their shock. After fighting against Adam’s invasion of her thoughts, filtering out their emotional responses took more effort than she had the patience for. She pinched the bridge of her nose against the throbbing behind her eyes. It had been a very long time since she’d had to exercise those particular muscles.

“We had no idea, Abby, or we would never have brought him.” René said.

Eve let out a breath, steadying herself. She didn’t want them to see her fear or her worry, and absolutely not her pain. “I know.”

Garrit was watching her, but she kept her gaze on her plate. The timing of all of this was atrocious.

“Am I the only person at the table with no idea of what’s going on?”

She flinched at his accusation, bitter and needling, more than his tone. If she didn’t meet his eyes now—she lifted her gaze, her expression carefully neutral.

“The man your parents brought to meet me, Ethan, is Adam.”

Garrit’s jaw tightened and his mouth thinned into a line of frustration. Better than anger, she supposed. He pushed his plate away and stood up, his gaze going from Eve to his father. Garrit shook his head just once. “Excuse me.”

She watched him leave the room, and sighed. “I’m sorry. He only discovered last night I'm Eve, and he’s upset I didn’t tell him myself, earlier.”

“He needs only time, Abby. He loves you,” Juliette said.

“ Quel imbécile, ” René mumbled. “You are the same woman, still, and he should not blame you for not seeing what was before his nose.”

Eve tried not to smile. René was the same sort of man that Ryam had been, from his dark eyes to his imperturbable attitude. It helped to remember that. Ryam had always kept her safe.

“I did point that out to him. I’m afraid it didn’t make it any easier for him to swallow.”

René laughed, his eyes warming. “You are good for him, Abby. A man needs a woman who will speak plainly, though at times he may not care for what she says. DeLeon men, doubly so.”

“René will speak with him,” Juliette said. “He is not so stubborn he will not listen.”

René nodded, unfazed that his wife had volunteered him to an unenviable task. He served himself another helping of hummus.

“Thank you,” Eve said.

Juliette smiled. “ Bon. Now, tell us what you have planned for the wedding. Garrit says you would have it here, at the manor? I think the courtyard would suit you, with the chapel doors thrown wide. Is that what you had in mind?”

“Yes.” Eve glanced at René. He rolled his eyes and went back to his dinner. But it was a relief to change the subject. To think about her marriage. She’d be safer then. They all would be. “Garrit was worried about the weather, but I think if we rent a pavilion tent, it would be just fine.”

“ Oui, parfait! You will want the shade from the sun, in any event. Have you thought of what you will serve? I know a pastry chef trés bon . He would be pleased to create your cake.”

Eve grinned. “Would you be willing to arrange an introduction? I’d love it if we could do some of this together.”

“ Ma chérie, I’ve only been waiting for you to ask.”

Garrit was reading Ryam’s journal when Eve found him in the library. She hesitated at the door. Giving him space was all well and good, but she hadn’t exactly counted on Adam’s arrival.

He looked up at her and smiled. “It’s all right, Abby. I was waiting for you.” He set the book down.

“I wasn’t sure you were ready to talk to me yet.”

He shrugged and then waved her to a seat across from him. It was the seat Adam had occupied not hours earlier. She sat down and tried to pretend her brother had never come, but her hands were shaking, and she pressed them against her knees to stop it.

“ Papa found me after dinner,” he said. “He was worried you and I were having problems. He called me a damned fool.” Garrit grinned.

“Your father has never been one to mince words.”

“No. And he makes it very difficult to argue.” His gaze drifted back to the book. “The truth has always been staring me in the face. I just chose not to see it.”

She looked at her hands, forcing herself to open them from the fists they had become. “I should’ve told you.”

“I should’ve known you.” His tone was grim. “What kind of DeLeon am I, if I can’t even recognize you for who you are?”

“The kind who wasn’t looking.” She shrugged. “You had no reason to see me coming. I didn’t come to you for sanctuary. I didn’t use any of the traditional phrases that should have alerted you. I didn’t even mean to find you. It was pure happenstance that we ended up in the same university at the same time.” She grimaced. “And the last time a man learned what I was, he had me locked up.”

“Lord Ryam knew you on sight.”

She sat back in her chair and rubbed her forehead. There were more pressing issues than her late husband’s insight, but it bothered her anyway. “I’m beginning to suspect Ryam had more secrets than I did. Which is saying quite a bit.”

He studied her for a moment, his lips pressed together to keep from smiling. “I thought you could read minds.”

“Ordinarily, yes. Among this family, it takes a bit more work. And Ryam had a stronger mind than many.”

“But Adam had no problem with my parents.”

“Adam has no respect for the privacy of anyone else’s mind, though he left me with the impression it was mostly your mother he mined for information. Your father he only had to charm.”

“It would take much more than charm to make my father break his vow. Aren’t you familiar with it?”

She shook her head, but had no trouble imagining it. “I can’t say I’m completely surprised.”

Similar vows had been made periodically, but she didn’t recall telling Ryam anything that might provoke him to that kind of measure. Of course it didn’t have to be Ryam; the last time she had met with this family, she hadn’t been in her right mind. She might have said anything.

He opened the journal to a marked page, and handed it to her. “Our family heritage. I was made to take it also, though I never really understood it until now.”

Eve read the page he indicated. She read it again, to be sure she understood, and swallowed against the tightness in her throat.

Watch for Adam, it said. Now that he has his memory, he will come, and he cannot be allowed near to her, for the sake of all the world. Guard her! And there was more. More of the same.

She would have remembered if she had told Ryam any of this. She was certain of that. It wasn’t the kind of conversation that was easily forgotten, nor was it anything that wouldn’t have come up if it had been known generally within the family. For a dizzying moment, she wondered if Thorgrim had haunted her more than once. It was a long moment before she trusted herself to respond to what she was looking at, and not to the ghost of insanity breathing in her ear.

“How is this possible?”

“ Quoi? ”

She looked up, clearing her throat and forcing herself not to think of men who should have been dead having conversations with the living. “Until today, when he arrived here, I had no clue that Adam’s memory had been restored. He isn’t supposed to remember anything, Garrit! From one life, to the next. He isn’t supposed to know me, never mind be able to find me this way! But here in this passage, written over five hundred years ago, is a statement by the man I was married to, of his foreknowledge of the very event that took place today. How is it possible?”