Page 49 of Dark Desire
“Yeah.” I smiled. “He helped heal you and Ambroz. He told me that you didn’t know who I really was.”
His green eyes flicked up to mine. “You didn’t know I had a brother? You didn’t see him that night?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I only saw you.”
“I have a sister who survived, too.” He rubbed his face with a stressed expression and sighed. “I’ve made so many fucking assumptions. I’m sorry. I’ll let you talk. I’ll listen. Go on.”
I smiled at his attempt to be patient. When he wasn’t being all mysterious, rage-filled and brutish, he was rather adorable. I’d keep that to myself for now, though. I opened the chest first and pulled out the only few items I had from my childhood: a worn blanket, a small bangle I’d worn on my wrist with my name engraved into it and a hospital band. I picked up the blanket first and inhaled it even though it no longer smelled of anything familiar.
“I don’t remember anything from the first three years of my life. I don’t remember my parents but I know I had them. I know I lived with them in the Lowry coven in Edinburgh. I know their names were Edine and Oliver Raine and I know there was a horrific fire that burned the coven down when I was three years old.”
“How did the fire start?”
I shook my head a little as I played with the thread of the blanket. “It was a spell gone wrong. Some teenagers were experimenting with dark magic while the rest of the coven slept and fire magic went wrong. They’d trapped everyone inside without meaning to.”
“But you got out?” Zoran frowned.
“It was the first time my ‘gift’ surfaced.” I glanced up at him. “My gift of time-weaving.” Zoran licked his lips and nodded but stayed silent to let me continue. “I hadn’t even come into my powers yet, but the survival instinct in me triggered it. That is my trigger most of the time. When I feel threatened or in danger, I can feel my magic pulling me out of the situation. It’s taken years to teach myself how to control it better but I can now. But as a child, I had no control over it. It was instinctual.”
“So the night your coven perished, you time-travelled?”
I nodded and lifted the gold bangle. “Yeah. Fifty years before I was born. I ended up in London. I was found by a woman, wandering the streets in my pyjamas with this blanket and bangle. She took me to the police. The bangle had Darcelle engraved inside, so that’s how they knew my name, but they knew nothing else about me. I was too young to know where I lived or explain it, so they put out missing persons found appeals, but no one came forward. Of course, because my parents weren’t even alive back then. I was shipped into the childcare system, which was…awful, and stuck in the wrong fucking time until I was five when my powers fully came to me. Iremember feeling like I didn’t belong anywhere. That I wasn’t in the right place or the right time, and as soon as my powers came to me, I was transported back to where my coven used to stand. It was gone. Forgotten just like me. And I wasn’t three years old anymore. Two years had passed and I was alone in the world. I remember feeling scared. I remember sleeping under subways and stealing scraps of food from bins before I found myself in a rather unpleasant situation where I feared for my life again. It triggered another episode. I time-weaved to get myself away and ended up going way, way back to a time where there was nothing I recognised. I don’t remember much from it except a lady who was very kind to me. She found me in a forest and took me in. Fed me, bathed me, let me sleep in front of a fire. She spoke a language I didn’t know, but I remember her voice. It was soothing. Especially when she sang. And I remember a boy who was about eight.” I glanced up into Zoran’s eyes and smiled. “He had green eyes, too.” I reached into the chest and pulled out the beautiful brooch, placing it on the bed. “I don’t know how long I stayed with them or at what time but when I returned, I was wearing this. I think it belonged to her.”
Zoran reached for it, staring at it intently as I watched all the colour drain from his face. I frowned as every muscle in his body tightened with tension as he gripped the brooch harder.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, reaching for his hand. His eyes darted up to my face with complete disbelief.
“Twelve days,” he whispered.
“What?”
He gulped and ran his thumb over the brooch as if it were familiar to him.
“You lived with us for twelve days. I remember you.” My heart thundered as my brain caught up with his words. “This was my mother’s brooch.”
I leapt off the bed, freaking the hell out. “What? You were that little boy? We met when we were children? This is unbelievable!”
“I’d say the whole thing is pretty unbelievable,” he said, staring at the brooch and then sitting up. “It wasn’t my Mama that found you in the forest. It was my father. He was out hunting and came across you wandering around, completely lost. You were scared and alone but you wouldn’t talk. We didn’t socialise or talk to humans, but Father said he couldn’t leave you out there like that, so he brought you back. We hid our supernatural nature from you the entire time because we didn’t want to scare you. You were such a small, frail thing. I remember you. We would sit in front of the fire, and Mama would sing while I drew pictures for you because you wouldn’t talk, but you liked my drawings and you liked Mama’s singing.” He suddenly stood up and pulled me into a fierce hug and it was only as my cheek pressed against his chest that I realised I was crying. “I remember you.”
I clung to him tightly as I sobbed. He held me and a feeling of safety washed over me like I hadn’t felt since I had been in his home with his family all those years ago.
“I can’t believe it was you,” I whispered as I calmed myself down.
He pressed his lips against the top of my head for a few seconds before he let me go. “It couldn’t have been a coincidence. You were scared and your magic found me.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh through my tears and nodded. “That’s a nice way to look at it.” I stared into his eyes as he wiped my tears away with his thumb. “Now I wish I remembered more of that time. And I wish my magic had let me stay.”
“So do I.” He gave me a small, sad smile that tore at my heart. “But it wasn’t safe for you. I remember my parents arguing about what to do with you. Father thought we should take you to a nearby human village and leave you with them, but Mama wanted to keep you. So did I. I was attached to you. I rememberthat. I remember feeling protective, even though I was only eight years old and didn’t have access to Ambroz yet. But they knew you couldn’t stay with us. Things were starting to get difficult for our kind and we couldn’t drag you into it. But the next morning, when Mama went to wake you, you were gone. Not even a goodbye.”
I shook my head. “I don’t remember leaving. But I returned to the future in London wearing a cloak and this brooch. That’s when they found me.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Who found you?”
I inhaled deeply. “The Fates.”
“The Fates? Who are The Fates?” He stepped back to stare at my face. The apparent concern on his face made my nerves rocket. That was going to be the really difficult part to tell him.
“The Fates are immortal beings who have power over the fate of mortal and immortal lives. They have the final decision on who lives and dies. They protect natural resources, keep balance and ensure everything happens the way the universe intended. Being of a higher existence than even the Gods, the Fates hold the ultimate power. So when they recruit you, you don’t have much say in it.”
