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“I cannot. I no longer have the strength to leave. Lift the ward, my love, it is draining me.”
“No, your coven will come through and make a mockery of my lifestyle here. You must find a way to leave.”
She looked into his eyes. “Your eyes are coal black but there is an ember flickering for me. Let it live.?
?? She collapsed in a heap.
“Rachel!” he shouted.
“Mom, Papa, Mom!” Exerilla watched all this and felt something dark inside. Something that had been stirring begin to grow. This is what her father wanted, for the dark in her to live. She beat it down. “Papa, do something!”
Her father picked up her mother and set her on the settee by the window and whispered a spell that ended with the words, be at ease.
“That will help her until after the ceremony. Then I will lift the wards and she will recoup,” he said once again going to his daughter and looking into her eyes, “Put your hand on my arm, and walk beside me. We will make our way down the aisle and you will marry Galen Debbin.”
* * *
A week of searching had not brought Hunter any closer to finding her. His orb would show her face, but the location was untraceable. She was in a room, often crying.
It was driving him mad. Hunter stayed on at Sir Jacob’s using it as a home base as he searched for Exerilla.
Ferrell had stayed on with Wellington after Waterloo. They had won the battle and the War. Napoleon would be exiled.
Swit was gone off to his new life and Sir Jacob was making plans to increase his stables. Lucas Osgood was staying with Jake for a few days more. Both men were forever at the stables, working with the horses and the new trainer Jacob had hired.
Ferrell surprised Hunter at Cressly Towers, shifting in while Hunter was in his room studying the orb. After some brotherly shoulder shaking, Ferrell frowned and asked, “Have ye not found her yet? Certes man! Why not?”
“The orb shows me her face and a room she seems to be locked away in, but it could be anywhere.” He frowned at his brother.
“Here is the thing, Hunter, something about the portal her warlock father used. It had a scent entirely foreign to me. I doona think it was anywhere I have been.”
“What do you mean? Tell me again, what did she say?”
“As I told ye, she called him papa and I got the feeling that he had been searching for her.” Ferrell shook his head. “I have been thinking that the scent I picked up on was the scent of another time. Ye know when we traveled back in time once; we were hit with a terrible smell…sulfur I think. I know you have lived beyond this time, and mayhap she comes from the future.”
Hunter punched his right fist into his left palm. “Damned brilliant brat, I knew there was a reason I needed to keep you alive! That was why she sounded so…different. She was from the future. Hiding from her warlock father here in the past. Aye. Not using her wand because she knew he would be able to trace her if she did. She was afraid of her own father, Ferrell—why? What does he mean to do to her? Och! Bloody hell, Ferrell. She used her wand to save us. She used her wand knowing he would trace its residue to her. I pray I am not too late.” He called for his Orb and this time, he told it to look into the future. It looked into the colonies, and what he saw made him tremble with emotion.
“Her father is a devil…”
* * *
Exerilla and her father stood at the entrance of a long wide room, with windows of stained glass dominating the walls. The scenes depicted in the stain glass made Exerilla cringe.
Exerilla walked beside her father on a long black velvet rug. With every step she tried to break free and run. Nothing happened. In her mind she was breaking free. In reality, she meekly walked beside him.
The room had been filled with black and red flowers. The chairs decorated with black satin ribbons. The guests were no more than twenty, but a coven of male dark warlocks stood staunchly. They were all in black silk suits, looking to her like gangsters from long ago.
The pulpit had a wide arch made up of black and red flowers and there stood Galen Debbin and his best man.
Time to puke, she told herself. No, wait till you get up there and then do it all over him.
Galen Debbin wore a superior smile across his wicked face. He wore a black tuxedo with a red satin shirt and reminded Exerilla of her idea of Lucifer.
She despised Galen. Compulsion, was the only reason she was marrying him.. She continued to walk down the aisle.
She heard her mother’s voice in her head and remembered that her mother had arrived, hoping to save her. Her mother was lying in pain upstairs. She had to break free and go to her so they could get out of here together, but her steps brought her closer to Galen.
Her father had compelled her to forget her mother’s plight; to walk away, but she remembered. She had to help her mother. White light exploded right before her eyes!
