Forged by Fate

perfect place for him to hide.

Garrit touched her arm lightly. “Maybe we should take a break for tonight. We’ve finished more than half of them. My hand is beginning to cramp, and you look like you’re years away.”

She opened her eyes, drawing back to herself and pinching the bridge of her nose to forestall a headache. “I’m all right.”

“You’re worrying again. I can see it in your face. I promise you, you’re safe as long as you stay here. Forget him.”

Eve wished she had as much faith in the security of the manor, and Garrit’s ability to protect her, if it came to that. She was sure there was something they were keeping from her, but had not yet had any luck discovering what it was. Juliette had only smiled, when she had asked, telling her to leave that sort of thing to the men, so that they would not feel useless. But if something protected the manor, it had not stopped Adam from finding her within it already. She couldn’t trust that it wouldn’t fail a second time.

If she could just keep Adam away, there would be no threat to anyone once she was married. Adam couldn’t violate her marriage, as long as she loved the man, by God’s law. And from what she had seen of him in the past, Adam’s ego would not suffer a wife who could not worship him, regardless.

“I can feel him, but I don’t know where. Like he’s haunting me when I’m not paying close enough attention.”

Garrit’s expression darkened. “You think he’s still in France?”

She nodded. He was concealing himself well, but the echo of frustration hadn’t left her mind in weeks. How had he regained his memory? It couldn’t have been the angels. Michael would never have risked it.

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know. Probably nothing.”

He sighed, scrubbing his face. “I’ll call my father in the morning. I’m sure he knows a man who can help.”

“I’d appreciate that. I hate the feeling of being watched.” By Adam, anyway. The ghosts of her past husbands had been more reassuring than anything else, aside from being a reminder of her own insanity, but that was hardly something she could admit to Garrit now.

“Just worry about the wedding. Let me worry about your brother. We’ll have his picture posted in town to discourage his return, and a reward for any information offered. He can’t hide himself so well as to escape the notice of so many, every day.”

She shook her head. “It would only be possible if he weren’t hiding from me too. I suspect that takes the majority of his concentration.”

“Good.” Garrit dropped his hands to his knees and stood, smiling. “And in the meantime, we’re both going to put aside these invitations for the evening. I’m going to make some coffee.” He kissed her cheek and left the room.

She stretched and went to the window, staring into the dark. Was this some new way to punish her? For leaving the ward, in her last life? For meddling in the minds of men without conscious thought? She pressed her hand to the cool glass and tried to remember, but the drugs had left that life more of a haze than she wanted to admit, and the things she did remember made no sense. Men long dead, alive and well, appearing to her, comforting her. Thorgrim’s warmth beside her in the bed. Delusion or not, her heart had been convinced, and it still ached to think of him.

Surely Michael wouldn’t risk the world just to frighten her, though, and not just the world, but his dominion over it. For all his power, Michael was still part of God’s creation, subject to its destruction with all the rest. Any child she gave Adam would threaten the angel, too.

Lightning flashed, striking the trees at the edge of the property, and thunder boomed so near the glass vibrated beneath her palm. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. For a moment, she had been certain she saw the figure of a man outlined by the flash. She must have imagined it, though. And even if she hadn’t, the figure she had seen was much too tall and broad shouldered to be Adam. No wings, either, outlined by the white light. Her mind playing tricks on her. That wasn’t a good sign.

One of the trees smoldered and she had a distinct feeling of deja vu. Rain beat against the window pane. Enough, she thought, to put out any fire that may have started, but she’d mention it to Garrit. She turned back from the window and put away the finished invitations, organizing those left to be done. Her eyes ached, and her head too, and she didn’t want to think about what it meant if she was seeing things that weren’t there.

Garrit was in the kitchen, standing in the dark. He stared out the window while the kettle steamed on the stovetop.

“I think I’m going to skip the coffee.” He stiffened at her voice, spinning on his heel to look at her, and she frowned. “Should we check on that last lightning strike? I saw smoke.”

In the dim light, she couldn’t be certain, but it seemed almost as though he paled. “I’ll take care of it.”

She kissed him. “I’m going to go to bed.”

“Good,” he said, glancing back out the window. “Bonne nuit.”

The next morning, Garrit was sitting at the kitchen table. One look at his face told her he hadn’t slept, even if she hadn’t noticed his absence from her bed. His eyes were glazed, and barely tracked on her when she entered the room.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He blinked blearily for a moment. “Oui, fine. I’m fine.”

His shirt looked heavy and damp on his shoulders, and his hair was ruffled into a mess. He dropped his gaze to the teacup before him. There was a second one, across the table, and the chair opposite had been pulled out. His father must have arrived early and left before she had come down but it was barely eight in the morning.

The kettle began to whistle.

“Did you talk to your father? Was Adam found?”

“No. Not Papa.” He hesitated before going on, looking out the window. “I received word that Adam was still in the town, as you suspected. But he should be gone by now.”

She crossed to the stove and took the kettle off the heat. The idea of Garrit confronting Adam made her uneasy. The look in his eyes when he glanced at her only intensified the feeling.

“You didn’t see him yourself, did you?”

“Non.” He stood and cleared the two cups from the table, placing them in the dishwasher.

She opened the cabinet, retrieving her own mug; blue, with soft yellow baby chicks clucking at the sun. She filled it with hot water, and dropped in a teabag. Chamomile. It seemed like the kind of day that needed a little bit of extra relaxation. Garrit was still fussing over the dishwasher, rearranging the dirty items more precisely. She watched him, and worried, leaning against the counter. Something was bothering him, and if it wasn’t Adam—

“Did the tree catch fire?” Eve asked.

“What?” He shifted a cereal bowl to a different position, then turned a mug and moved the bowl back again.

“You said you’d check on the tree that was struck last night. You didn’t forget, did you?” She looked out the window, but nothing seemed to be scorched. In the morning light, she couldn’t even tell which tree it had been.

“Ah.” He cleared his throat and kept his eyes on the dishes. “The rain put out what was smoldering.”

She frowned into her mug, raising it to her lips and blowing across the surface of the tea. She had never had cause to mistrust Garrit. She had always respected the privacy of his mind. But if Adam had touched him, subverted him, none of them were safe.

There was only one way to know. She closed her eyes, letting her mind open and touch his softly. Just enough to know that it hadn’t been Adam he had found by the tree, but another man, tall and heavily built, standing in the rain as though he belonged there. Just enough to reassure herself Adam hadn’t tainted him, or poisoned his mind. She withdrew immediately, opened her eyes, and sipped her tea. It was still too hot, and burned her tongue, but she was too distracted to care. Her stomach had turned to ice at the silhouette she had caught from his memory.