Page 8 of Fated
A RAKE MEETS HIS MATCH
Eris searches once again for the threads she dropped. Finding them she scoots back from the well, pulling enough fabric with her so that she can work and the cloth is safe from the tension of its’ own weight.
She carefully ties off the two errant pieces with twine, like a surgeon preparing to cut an artery. She takes the snips and rests the lower blade against the callus. She closes her eyes, reading the lives of the two people with her fingers.
His name was Gideon. He was… beautiful, yes, but also powerful and… broken. A man who didn’t— couldn’t believe in love. He’d lost his mother in a terrible tragic way.
“Oh my goddesses, the things humans do to each other,” Eris breathes through the pain she felt for the mother before concentrating once again on him.
“Gideon, Gideon, talk to me,” she whispers.
He was beloved, truly. His mother had loved him more than her own life. His brother looked up to and adored him like no other man. His servants were dedicated to him, heart and mind. They truly loved and cared for this man who was… lost. Aching. Searching. Bereft.
A sob escapes her lips and Eris concentrated on the second thread, Francine. She too had known tragedy in her life. She’d lost her parents at such a young age, been shuffled through the system until she’d aged out. But she was strong, and she grabbed every single opportunity she could, and persevered. She was doing exactly what she’d been told to do to succeed in life and she was just there, on the cusp of the world… and she was empty. Hollow. Longing for something she couldn’t name, she couldn’t touch or define. It was so deep within her it existed alongside her, an existence of need without recourse.
Eris held the two threads next to each other on the blade and snipped. She heard a thundering, like hoofbeats, and followed it, carefully retying the two threads as quickly as possible. Watching as they melded together, writhed against her hand. She closed her eyes.
Hoofbeats. Bare feet running. A collision. Screams.
Then Francine opens her eyes, and the first thing she sees is him, holding her. Caring for her. The thread in her hand strengthened, the beat restored, the pulse stronger and stronger by the moment as Gideon and Francine’s gazes lock.
Eris takes a deep breath and opens her eyes. She holds the thread to her heart… then lets it go. watches as it and its former pair meld back into the fabric of time once again becoming what was meant to be.
“Ribbon?”
“Yesss, love?” he hisses gently.
“I think I need a nap.”
“Of course love. We’ve got time. Let’ss care for the beasssstiesss and then you can resst, we’ll return later. I promisss to wake you.”
And so they did.
Francine and Gideon’s story can be found in the award winning illustrated novel: The Rake and The Recluse.
With a bonus novel about Perry and his surprise bride.
A DOMINA FINDS HER ONE
Eris wakes the next day to Ribbon hissing her cheek.
“Good morning Ribbon.”
“Good morning love. Are you ready to continue?”
“I suppose I am? I must, either way.”
“Yesss, you mussst. We’ve naught but a week to fix what’s gone awry, sso we mussstn’t ssstop!”
Eris rises and walks out into the forest, pulling fresh water from the well pump, and, “duck,” she warns, before splashing her face so Ribbon can hide in the thorny locks. She collects eggs from the subdued quail in the coop, milks the crooked cow, and pulls a few mushrooms from the earth.
When they return to the hovel the cats seem to be calmer, somewhat friendlier. Eris sits at the table chopping up their meals and serving each in its’ own little dish with a gentle scratch under the chin. She fixes herself a small plate of small eggs, cooked, and leaves one in the basket for Ribbon, raw, still shelled.
Then they return to the well.
She once again lifts the fabric to her lap, secure from the edge. First, she searches for Francine and Gideon, but she can’t find them in all those threads, they’re once again lost in time to her.
“As it should be, I suppose.”
