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“What’s going on?” Zane asked, frowning. “I can see the two of you aren’t telling me something.”
“I want you to be patient, Mastyr,” Regan said. She took a moment to remove her jacket. Beneath was a black, long-sleeved t-shirt and green crystal pendant. “In due course, you’ll know everything.” She drew up beside him and gestured to the row of three paintings, each lit beneath its own arch. “I commissioned these from your wife.”
He reached out and touched the landscape of the rugged coastline of his realm. “We argued about her painting jaunts time and time again. I didn’t want her to go out. I wanted her to be safe.”
Regan released a sigh. “She needed her freedom, Zane. Can you not understand as much?”
He nodded slowly. “I wasn’t a good husband to Emily, and I regret so much of our relationship. But in the end, she was taken from me anyway, despite my efforts to protect her.”
Regan didn’t say anything for a long moment and Olivia kept her peace as well. These were Zane’s toughest issues, the ones which had prevented him from getting involved with another woman again.
Finally, Regan inclined her head, gesturing up the hall. “Come. Let’s look to what must be accomplished tonight. One day you’ll have great peace about your wife. You’ll see. For now, let’s talk war strategy.”
~
Those at least were words Zane could understand and appreciate. Emily’s need for freedom at the expense of her safety still made no sense to him. And he resented her stubbornness about venturing into the countryside, at night, by herself, to paint her landscapes.
As he walked beside Olivia, he could see something was troubling her, maybe the issue Regan had prevented her from bringing up. It was so strange to be carrying around within his mind a lifetime of her memories.
He’d understood from the beginning she’d been hurt in her childhood. But seeing her pain, a suffering endured from year-to-year, twisted his heart. She’d been teased badly at school for her fur and no one had been there to mentor her strong shifter nature. Her mother had been a good woman, a good parent, but as a human, she hadn’t understood her daughter’s needs.
At the same time, Olivia’s courage in the face of how different she was from other children at school had forged her character. She was strong and independent and he admired the hell out of her.
Regan led them to a small library and from her desk withdrew several pieces of copier paper, taping them together quickly. Using a pencil, she drew a quick sketch of the general lay-out of Margetta’s camp.
She glanced at Olivia. “Does this look right to you? I’m drawing from your memories.”
“Yes. This is exactly how I remember the camp.”
Zane picked through the recently shared images of Olivia’s life as well and found the ones where she had bounded over the spell wall in order to rescue him from his captor’s tent.
He slowed the images down and took a good long look at the camp, frame by frame. He kept viewing as Olivia glided her way through the shrieking wraith-pairs to the well-guarded tent where he’d been held captive.
He saw himself face down on the tent floor, just as Olivia would have seen him. He repressed a shudder at the cuts and blood over his back from the whipping he’d endured. Margetta hadn’t held back.
He watched as Olivia approached him, sniffing, then stretching out near him to lick his face in small gentle swipes. His chest expanded at the sight, warming up.
The rest became his own memories, and of waking up to Olivia in her shifted form. He recalled now he’d been more than relieved to see her.
He glanced at her while she and Regan talked about the spell. He never wanted to go through losing another woman again, or failing in a relationship because he could be so damn controlling, or so busy with work he ignored her needs.
If he bonded with Olivia, would he be any different with her than he had been with Emily?
He was tempted. Badly. She was definitely his kind of woman. His fae wife had been a vulnerable artist type and had grown increasingly discontent living with him as the years wore on.
They’d had so many fights over the final two years of their marriage. It seemed all he had to do was come home from a night of battling and the quarreling would start. By the time he’d found her blood all over the kitchen, the love had long since disappeared.
But the whole thing had left him feeling as though he’d failed Emily in every possible way.
Would Olivia be safe if he completed the bond with her? Would he know how to be a good husband to her?
“Zane, are you listening?” Regan asked.
Shit, what had he missed? “Absolutely. Well, actually, no.”
Regan smiled. “It’s okay. Most of this was for Olivia. But let me reiterate the most important point; I’m not sure how long it will take for me to figure out how to break down Margetta’s spell so I can disperse it, but I’m thinking at least a half hour. I’ll also have to hunt for the point of origin at the campsite where Margetta stood to enact the spell. Once I’ve found what I’m looking for, it may still take me a bit more time. Nothing about this is an exact science.”
“But you can do it?” he asked.
