Page 3 of Sun, Moon & Shadow

“As if you’re some prize,” he spat. “Surely you know what everyone says about you.”

She clenched her jaw at his arrogance. As if she needed him. Or anyone else for that matter.

“I’d be doing you a favor, you know.” He pressed the length of his body against hers. A high-pitched warning tone rang out in her mind.

“You should be on your knees . . . thanking me,” he rasped against her ear.

Nova shoved him, knocking him off balance. He released her, stumbling back a few steps before falling on his ass in the dirt. She spun away, her long strides carrying her to the rear door of the house as the sky opened up and fat raindrops pelted down from above.

“I’ll be seeing you again soon, Nova,” Ryker called out after her, his voice bordering on a snarl. “I always get what I want eventually.”

Nova slammed the door behind her, the click of the lock falling into place a balm for the panic churning in her chest. She rested her forehead against the smooth wood, willing her breaths to slow.

Hasty footsteps approached the kitchen from the hall, stopping just inside the doorway.

“Nova?” Agnes’s reedy voice was laced with concern. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing at all, Agnes,” Nova sighed, crossing to the window in the far corner of the room, pausing to pat Agnes’s arm reassuringly.

Nova peeked discreetly through the gap in the pale blue curtains. A heavy rain was falling, the wind shaking the limbs of the trees lining the road. Ryker had disappeared, likely gone to lick his wounds at the tavern nearby. Nova turned to face her housekeeper and leaned back casually against the windowsill.

“Shall I draw you a bath before I leave for the night?”

“Yes, Agnes. That would be lovely.”

Two

Night fell, and the rain continued to come down in sheets, falling at an angle and pinging against the windowpanes. Agnes had returned to the cottage she shared with her husband outside the city limits. Nova draped a damp washcloth over her face, wondering what she would do once Agnes’s baby was born and Agnes left to begin her new role as a mother.

Perhaps she would travel. Seek out some far-off destination and start fresh as she’d so often dreamt of doing when she was younger. Ryker’s increasingly aggressive pursuit of her certainly made the idea of disappearing all together an appealing one. In all likelihood, though, Nova would refuse to hire a replacement, fully submerging herself into her life as a social outcast.

Every night, Agnes made a fuss before she left, going on about how she hated leaving Nova alone at the end of the day. But Nova considered herself a night owl and secretly treasured the time alone, cocooned in the quiet safety of her home, free to spend the dark hours however she pleased. All too often, memories blew in on the evening breeze, wrapping around her thoughts like coiling snakes and hindering her sleep.

Rising out of the bath once it started to go lukewarm, Nova toweled off her long limbs and walked from the bathing chamber into her adjoining bedroom. She stood before the mirror, turning her face from side to side to inspect her reflection. Ryker insisted she was nothing special, but surely judgments made on the basis of looks were subjective.

Nova regarded herself in the antique glass. Her pale cheeks were still pinked from the steaming bath. Glossy black hair hung to her mid-back; it fell in loose waves when dry. Her gray eyes, admittedly piercing, were crowned by fine, dark brows. One brow arched a touch higher than the other, giving her a somewhat prim, inquisitive expression. Her nose sloped delicately, the end slightly upturned over her mouth with a full bottom lip. Wide cheekbones tapered down to a pointed chin.

Nova rose on her tiptoes, glancing down at her body. Her breasts weren’t large, but they were perky. Her torso narrowed at her waist before spreading out at her wide hips and round bottom. Long, shapely legs, strong from regular horseback riding, extended down to slender ankles.

Nova huffed and turned her back on the mirror. Honestly, who cared what that pompous prick thought anyway?

She pulled a white sleeveless shift over her head, the airy fabric gliding over her warm skin. Taking the candlestick from atop her chest of drawers, she padded barefoot past the gallery wall lining the hallway to the den, which had once been her father’s study.

A low fire crackled amiably in the fireplace. Agnes had kindled it before she left, knowing Nova spent most nights curled up in a chair reading. Nova fed another log to the flames, her eye catching on the lifelike oil painting of her parents hanging above the mantel when she stood. As she studied it, her mind wandered to an evening many years before.

She’d been thirteen, sitting on the carpet, resting her chin on the worn-leather arm of her father’s chair, and staring up at the canvas.

“Will you tell me the story of how you met?” she asked. Normally, she didn’t press her father for information about her mother, wary of dredging up painful memories and setting off one of his moods. But she’d heard the story so many times it could have been one of the tales in her anthology of faerie stories tucked away on the nearby shelf.

Her father smiled faintly, taking a deep breath before he began.

“It was a fine autumn day,” he said, looking up at the portrait of his late wife. “The sky was a wide-open field of blue. Not a cloud in sight. I’d been out surveying property lines at the far end of the fields near the Wood all morning. Around midday, I found myself with an empty stomach, so I settled onto the bench of the wagon and signaled for my horse to head home.”

He always acted out this part of the story, clicking his tongue on the roof of his mouth and jiggling a set of imaginary reins.

“She didn’t move. I tried again and gave her a little tap with the switch, but she stayed put. Just turned her head and looked at me. I hopped down and checked all four hooves, legs, and . . . nothing. But still the horse wouldn’t budge, just stood there twitching her tail without a care in the world. I was scratching my head like a fool when suddenly I saw her—Elena—standing at the edge of the Wood.”

He paused, and Nova knew he was seeing her mother in his mind, as clearly as if it had been only the day before.