Tag Archives: fiction

Author’s Note: I admit, I had this solution in mind pretty much from the beginning. This was one of those stories where I knew who was behind everything almost from the start. I was getting impatient in wanting to share this part, though, and almost gave too much away before now, but… here it is.

Confronted by the Answer

“It should have been me.”

Robert stilled, frowning as he turned to face the voice. He knew there was something to it, a familiarity that bothered him even as he thought of his father, and then he understood. Standing face-to-face with the man who had taken his name and stolen his memories as well, he at last comprehended the connection, the resemblance, even the reason. His father. He could see his father in the other man—he’d heard him in him, too, same voice.

Damn RJ. He’d known all along, hadn’t he? He’d known that this bastard was out there, and he had known who he was from the moment Violet’s first letter came. His father had lied, had tried to claim that it was unimportant, that this was all Violet’s doing, but he’d known who the man in the photograph was. He had to have known.

Robert and the rest of them, they should have known. Beatrice had said it. She had said there was another woman with RJ’s child, and this was that man grown into a monster.

“You… I… You’re my half-brother, aren’t you?”

The other man glared at him, stepping forward. “You shouldn’t even exist. I am older. She had me first. He lied to her. He told her loved her. He told her he would marry her. He almost married that other, but when she refused him, he was supposed to marry my mother. He promised, and she had me, and then he married your mother and had you.”

Robert took a step backward, convinced that years of resentment had unhinged his half-brother, had made him so unreasonable that nothing he said would convince the man not to hurt him. He might not be able to stop him from hurting any of the others, either. He hated Beatrice enough to ruin her niece, didn’t he? What would this bastard do to her or to Violet? Robert had to admit that he was frightened. In all the ways he had pictured his confrontation with the man who’d taken his name, even after the attack in the park, he’d never quite grasped the danger of such an encounter. He had not thought that the man was the sort of criminal that one feared, not once. He had not believed the man so violent, and Robert had never quite thought of how much the other man would want to end his life.

He should have known better. Such hubris could only end in disaster.

“You come along, and he gives you his name. Raises you as his son. Gives you everything you want. Makes you his heir.”

“Though I very much doubt you will believe me, there was never a time where I had everything I wanted. He is a cheap man, one who does not part with a dime willingly, and he was never all that… pleased with me. I do not think he has approved of a single thing I have done since I was born.”

“Liar,” the other man said, grabbing hold of Robert’s coat and shaking him. “He always talked about you. He couldn’t stop. He told us all about how wonderful his Robert was. How Robert said his first word, how Robert learned to walk. How Robert was always into mischief. He must have repeated that damn story about the beehive a hundred times. Mother would always smile and tell him he was a very fortunate man to have two such fine sons, but he never acknowledged me.”

“No. He as much as hated me, and I don’t believe you. If he was telling stories like that then… Then he was enough of a bastard to do it to hurt both of you, but it wasn’t me. I didn’t—as far as I have ever known, my father hated me. He wasn’t like what you’re saying at all. I don’t know why he’d lie to you, why he’d pretend he was proud of me, but he never was. He wouldn’t let me have honey again after the beehive, and it wasn’t like he didn’t make my backside red for it before he made that decree. He was never pleased. He was not what you think—”

The other man’s fist connected with Robert’s jaw, and he fell, his hand on his face. Damn, that had hurt. If he made it through this alive, he would make sure his father knew just what kind of monster he was—and the monster he’d created in the son he’d refused to acknowledge.

The man’s boot hit him in the stomach, and Robert tried to push himself up and away from him, cursing his arm for choosing now of all times to become numb. “It was never enough. You had him, you had his money, but you had to go off and become a hero. A great veteran of the war.”

“I was drafted. I didn’t want to go. And I am not a hero.”

“No, you’re not,” the other man agreed, and Robert cursed as his foot pounded Robert’s side a second time. He pulled his bad arm close against him and forced himself to his feet. He had not cared much for hand-to-hand combat when he was in the trenches, had not wanted to use his bayonet, but he knew better than this, and he should not be allowing this man to hurt him.

“Stop this. We’re brothers, and even if our father is the worst sort of man on the planet—well, there are worse than him, but what he’s done to you and your mother is reprehensible, what he did to Beatrice as well—we don’t have to fight. We can… we can confront him with what we now know and get you the recognition that you deserve and—”

“You’re the one keeping me from everything that’s mine.”

“What? No. You’re not being reasonable. Think about it. You have so many things that—Violet. She’s carrying your child. You could have a wonderful family. She wouldn’t care about what Father has done and—”

“I don’t have Violet. I never had Violet. She loves you! They all do! She was in love with the boy with the beehive, with the name, and I saw you with her. She’s not mine. You stole her just like you stole everything else.”

“You left her, and she was confused and vulnerable,” Robert said, though a part of him did want to believe that she was in love with him. He shouldn’t, but he knew somewhere along the way he’d gone beyond the admiration that he felt for her and tumbled into something far deeper than esteem. He loved her; he could admit that now.

“You’re lying.”

“I think she could have loved you if you were only honest with her,” Robert said, hating that truth even as he spoke it. She’d been afraid that all the things she’d liked in “Winston” were from Robert, but they weren’t. He knew they weren’t.

The other man swung his fist, and Robert dodged the blow, stumbling as he did. If he hadn’t tripped over a rock he hadn’t seen, he might have been fine, but that fall gave his opponent an advantage, and the other man was on him in an instant, pummeling his face with one fist and then the other. After the concussion the other day, he could not hope to last long, ready to join the darkness that had called to him in those early hours of his injury, called him places free of nightmares and responsibilities.

He was a coward. He wanted to go there.

Author’s Note: I didn’t feel it was necessary to draw out or dwell on how long the queen had to wear the real bindings. They were unpleasant times for her, painful, and I think that was covered already. It was time to free her.

A Minor Freedom

“Jis.”

Her eyes opened, and she reached up to her neck, wondering if she was dreaming. The bands were gone, and though she could feel their marks, she did not feel the same weight. She could not believe this. She had to wake up, had to face that it was still there. She did not want to. She would rather dream of her homeland or even nothing at all. She did not want to wake. Let it be over at last.

“Look at me, please, my esibani. I know I was late getting this to you, but you… Please. Open your eyes for me.”

She blinked, her eyes clearing as she focused on Agache. “Late?”

“You know, of course, that I had gone to meet with the other leaders—Gekin was forced to find me since the jeweler would not give the fake to anyone but me. Had I known, I would never have left, I swear. I hope it was worth the trouble that he caused us—you. As far as I can tell, the forgery is flawless. The king should not be able to tell the difference. You can take it on and off when you want from now on, and Anokii has already treated your wounds. She will do so again now that you are awake.”

The queen nodded, turning onto her side. She did not dare rise, and she wanted to be able to look at him without straining her neck. “How much longer? How long before this thing ends?”

“Not long, I promise,” Agache said, brushing back her hair with a frown. “I swear… I never meant for this to take as long as it did.”

“He used something like this on your arm, didn’t he? On more than your arm.”

Agache closed his eyes. “Yes. I… It is very painful, and I did not want you to have to suffer as I had. I am sorry. I hoped to make it so that you could avoid this.”

She sighed. “I know that I don’t… As much as it has hurt, I am aware that there were far worse things that he could be doing to me. I… I am grateful that it is this and not one of those things. I am.”

Agache’s hand took hers. “Why are you not more… angry? Should you not hate your family for sending you here to him? Should you not hate me for all I have failed to do in protecting you? I have not even been much help to you.”

“It is not your responsibility to care for me. You are leading a revolution. You are not the esibani for this queen.”

“Perhaps that is a good thing. I would have been a true failure at it, and you are in almost desperate need of a skilled esibani.”

“You have helped me. You have saved me, too. You should not have to be at my side constantly. There are other more important things for you to do. I am only one woman, and even were I to fall, it would likely aid your cause. My people would be forced to retaliate. It would mean war. In the confusion, you could do much to destabilize the kingdom, leaving him nothing to rule.”

He shook his head. “No. It should not come at the cost of your life.”

“You are willing to let it happen at the cost of yours.”

Agache grimaced. “I have, I fear, acted far too irresponsibly. I know what I should be doing, and I have failed at it each time. We share the same difficulty. I no more want to kill anyone than you do.”

“I suppose I should not like that about you. Still, I do.”

He smiled, squeezing her hand. “You should rest. Anokii is waiting to help you, and you should take this opportunity to heal as much as possible. I should not have woken you, but you worried me.”

She covered his hand with hers. “For all that you say the Gichikane in you makes you unable to, you care. You worry so much about your people. It is very admirable. You should be the king.”

“I would hate that,” he said, lowering his head. She waited, wondering why he had not left yet if Anokii was there to examine her bruises. “You know that is not much of a compliment—almost anyone would be a better king than he has been.”

She laughed, closing her eyes with a smile as Agache withdrew.

Author’s Note: Violet is still conflicted. It’s not an easy decision for her to make. She has many things to consider, and she wants to do what is right. That’s never easy. Everyone has a different opinion on what is right and what is not.

Still Trying to Make the Right Decision

“Violet?”

“If I were to marry Robbie, would it be a terrible sin? I don’t mean that I won’t discuss divorce or an annulment with the lawyer as soon as he arrives—why is he so late? He should have been here half an hour ago—but divorce is a sin, isn’t it? I know some people don’t think so, and most people would not blame me for choosing that after what Winston did, but that does not necessarily make it right.”

Her mother took her hand, covering it with both of hers. “I seem to recall something about it being allowed only because of the people, that God hated a divorce, but I don’t know that I’m the one to ask. We will have to ask the reverend. You… You’ve made a decision, then, have you?”

Violet lowered her head. “No. I haven’t. I want to say I have, that I know all that I should feel, that I am certain of all my options, my choices, and what they mean, but I am not. At times I am quite convinced that I love Robbie and only Robbie, other times that I did love Winston and have made Robbie some sort of substitute for him, and others that I don’t know what love is at all and therefore love neither of them.”

“That is possible, too.”

“I know.”

“It is not as though you need to make a decision this instant. You can speak to the lawyer and to the reverend and anyone else you might need to talk to. I am not certain you can get either of those things—a divorce or an annulment—without Winston being here, and we may have to face the fact that you will be married to him for some time despite the way that he abandoned you and the baby.”

Violet put a hand on her stomach. “Though I had some minor symptoms before his departure, I do believe he was as ignorant of my condition as I was. He did not know there was a child to leave. I… I suppose it is foolish to hope that, but a part of me does. I hope he did not go knowing that there was a baby. I don’t know what I’d do if he were here now, if we were about to have this child and Robbie came in to say that he had lied about his name.”

“That lie might have been more forgivable had not it been combined with him abandoning you.”

“Perhaps. I don’t think I can say that. I simply cannot know what I would do if things were different.”

Her mother nodded. “None of us can, sweetheart. Sometimes I catch myself thinking about what it would be like if your father had not died. Would we have dozens of other children? Would we be as happy now as we were when we first felt love? Would Beatrice still live with us? Would you? Would your father have refused to let this marriage happen? Would you have eloped and defied him? So many questions, and every time I answer them, I do so in a different way.”

“Do you miss him? Father?”

“Every day.”

“You do not speak of him much. That is… because it hurts?”

Her mother let out a breath. “I thought, when Winston left, that I might offer you some advice on what it was like to have someone vanish from your life like that. I didn’t manage it, not as I wanted, mostly because… I always took comfort in the fact that your father did not choose to leave me, that he would be with me if he could have been, and that was not something you had. Winston left you. There is no denying that.”

Violet closed her eyes. “I think that is a beautiful assurance to have, even if it makes my situation a bit harder. Knowing that he would be here…”

“I should not say it because it is… Well, no, I’ll just say it, and whatever comes of it, however inappropriate, will just have to come. You do have someone who was willing to stay. Who proved that he wanted to even to the point of disinheritance.”

“Mother, that was not about me. That was about the way his father was behaving. Anyone should want to distance himself from that man and his name, should want no part of that man’s legacy, especially knowing what we do about what he did to Aunt Beatrice.”

“Yes, that,” her mother said, her lips pursing into a thin line. “I think it will take some time for all of us to forgive her for her silence, always wondering about the way things could be if she had only said something.”

“She is not the one to blame. She could have been right about me. I might not have listened.”

“No, you still should have been told. I see that now. I know where the fault lies.” Beatrice kept herself stiff as she walked into the room, crossing over to them. “I cannot express the way I felt when I realized that RJ had betrayed me. I entered into our courtship with the expectation that we would work toward him asking me for my hand. He did, but what he did besides that was rather… humiliating. What he wrote in those letters… I believe they were all lies. He spoke of a woman he’d thought he’d loved who refused him, and I pitied him. I wanted to help him over that pain. It was not that woman who rejected him. He abandoned her as he did the other, as he did me and perhaps others. I doubt he was faithful to your Robbie’s mother. I am not sure he is capable of such a thing. When I think of that time, I am ashamed even though he was the one in the wrong. I see so many ways where I let myself be vulnerable to him and his lies. I let him use me. That is what I was ashamed to speak of, and so I let it hurt you instead because of that man that claimed to be his son. Oh, he is more like RJ than Robbie proved to be. Were I to pick the imposter, I would say it was Robbie because that man has more decency than any son of RJ Wilson would ever manage.”

Violet frowned. She rose, walking to the window. “Is it possible that the lawyer’s delay is not intentional?”

“What? I thought—I confess, I have been too focused on what your aunt was saying. Why are you asking about—”

“Robbie was attacked. Winston could be here. He could have hurt the lawyer this time. It is possible, isn’t it?”

“Lord, I hope not. We’d better call his office again and then the police if he does not answer.”

“And the inn,” Violet said, her hand going to her stomach. She knew her mother and aunt were watching her. “Robbie was supposed to come this afternoon, after I saw the lawyer. He could be in danger as well.”

Author’s Note: So I didn’t want to post anything today, but I thought I should post this since the story is getting closer to the end. It’s important to have an end, after all.

Fumbling for an Answer… and a Bit More

“Would I…” Robert faltered, not certain how to answer her or if he dared do so. He was not able to know his own feelings, did not know what to think. So many things about Violet were admirable—beautiful, even—and she was someone he wanted to know so much more of, a person he hated hurting and wanted to see each day, someone he missed when she was not with him. Those things wanted to say one thing when a more reasonable side tried to remind him that he was penniless, that they were strangers, that their situation was too complex for them to expect any kind of uninfluenced decision, and yet he did not think himself all that biased. “Is that what you wanted to ask me when you said we should come outside?”

She shook her head, letting out a sigh. “I don’t… It’s not that, not precisely. It’s a bit more… Oh, I suppose it was rather cowardly to ask you instead of saying what I meant to say. I don’t know why it is so hard to do this. I’m supposed to be strong, aren’t I?”

“You are, though you’re looking quite peaked. Are you certain that you meant to ask me that?”

“I… I didn’t. I was not planning on it. You distracted me. Please don’t tease, not now. This is not something that I can say with… I can’t do it if you tease me, and I need to say it. I have to before this goes any further, before… before I lose my nerve.”

He frowned, taking her hand and placing his good one against her cheek. She trembled, and he withdrew his hand. “Violet, what is it?”

“I kept saying that I didn’t want to marry you, that I didn’t want to make another mistake. I didn’t want to do anything that would… No rushing, no making the same bad choice, even if I thought… It is true that now I see more of the little hints he gave me that he wasn’t who he said he was, and I should probably have seen it, but I did end up making that decision too soon. He kept asking, and I kept wanting to say yes just to stop him, and I did think I loved him, but I know if I had only been a bit stronger, if I’d waited just that short bit longer, then I’d never have married him. I wouldn’t have. That is part of why my aunt’s admission hurts so much. I had doubts. If I’d known, then maybe I would not have made the choice I did. Yet, I cannot blame her. It was my choice. I just don’t…”

Robert put his hands on her arms. “Calm down. You don’t have to—It’s all right. I understand. I’m not expecting you to marry me, and you don’t have to justify why you don’t want to. That is a valid choice. It’s not something you have to explain. Even if I had said yes a moment ago, you would not be under any sort of obligation to me.”

“I know. It’s just that… The more of the memories you said were yours, the more I learned that what I liked about him, what I loved, that it was you and not him—I thought maybe you were the one I loved all along. It was confusing, upsetting, so wrong… I don’t… Sometimes I still feel like that’s what it is, that it’s the parts of you that he stole that I… That am only attracted to you because of them.”

Robert sat back. That was a bit of a blow—not only was it difficult to control his reaction to her being attracted to him, she had confused him a great deal by saying she thought she loved Winston because of… well, because of him. How was he supposed to react to that? What did he say or think? Did he want to be the reason she’d loved that man? He did not know.

“Oh.”

She grimaced. “I am sorry. I had prepared a whole speech, but when I started and you teased me, I lost it. All I could do was stumble and stammer. Then we were both distracted by the legal implications of what he’d done, and then you said something and… I didn’t… It… I sound so foolish, so stupid…”

“I don’t blame you for being confused. It… I don’t know how to feel about you, either.”

“About me?”

He returned his hand to her cheek. “Yes, about you. You are a strong, admirable woman, and you are beautiful because of that strength and all your other wonderful qualities. It’s… I didn’t want them telling me I should marry you, didn’t want that feeling to be anything like an obligation.”

“And is it? Is it an obligation?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so, and yet I don’t know if we would have this between us if we weren’t in these circumstances, if it weren’t for him stealing my name and doing this harm to you. I’m still trying to be sure, but it’s…”

“Hard. Yes. I know.” She rose, crossing with her uneven gait to the bush and taking a flower in her hand, closing her eyes. “That is why I almost wish that we could make that all disappear for a moment. That we could forget Winston and what he’d done. My aunt and what she didn’t say. The baby. That for a moment it would just be me and you in this garden…”

He nodded, standing. He thought perhaps he had better get her back to the bench before anything happened to her or the child. “That would make things seem so… terribly simple.”

She turned back to look at him. “Kiss me.”

“What?”

“I know what it was like to kiss him. I think I had better know what it is like with you.”
He feared it would be too easy to acquiesce to that request. He would like to know what it was like to kiss her. This would not be some rushed kiss as he tricked a poor girl out of pie, no. He would be wanting so much more from Violet, taking so much more.

“This could be more confusing than what we were discussing before, you know. If we don’t do this, we might have an easier time ending our confusion. I think that we might not want to do this. I do want to, I want to more than I want to admit to, but I am afraid if we do, then we won’t know if it is love or not.”

She sighed, coming back toward the bench. “Yes, I suppose you are right. I don’t want to make this more confusing or to make another mistake. I can’t let that happen.”

He started to nod, but then he did the worst thing possible. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers—or he tried to. He bumped her stomach and missed his target, not sure if he had touched her cheek or her ear. “I’m sorry.”

She laughed. “No, no, that was… It was sweet and funny all at the same time.”

“How is it sweet that I somehow forgot you were pregnant when I tried to kiss you?”

“I think you are rather appealing when you are clumsy. It is honest and rather rare for a man to let himself be seen in such a way. You always have to be so strong and confident and not at all hesitant or clumsy. Or am I wrong about that? The only man I knew well before was… Well…”

He wrapped an arm her waist, stepping just a bit behind her, trying to make certain he accounted for her stomach this time, before he bent to meet her lips. He caught that scent of flowers, taking a deep breath as he prepared to see how she tasted. Sweet, perhaps like honey, though he would not know what that was like after being denied it for so long.

She pulled back, licking her lips. “You were right.”

“What?”

“It is more confusing now.”

He smiled, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. “Yes, it is. It’s probably the most confusing thing I have ever felt. I want to say that should make it love, but I think that is… That’s not an assumption that we should make right now.”

“No, it is not. Let us… We should take time and distance to consider this and all of its implications,” she told him, glancing back toward the house. “Tomorrow I shall speak to the lawyer. I should have waited, not asked for that before I did speak to him. I… I don’t know that I’m not married, and even with all Winston did—”

“You are not the only one who faltered. This is not your burden alone, and while I cannot help but think we have biased whatever decision you might have made after speaking to the lawyer, I cannot regret it as much as we both know I should. Even if that is all I ever have, I shall hold onto its memory—and yours.”

She blushed. “Oh, Robbie. If I were only certain—”

“As much as I think I’d want to hear that, we should stop now and go our separate ways. You have a great deal to think about, and I don’t want to bias you further.”

She smiled. “It might be too late for that.”

He returned her smile, knowing as he did that he shouldn’t. They had already taken too many liberties, come too close to things that they had no right to do, and he did not want that guilt for either of them.
“I will see you tomorrow. After you’ve seen the lawyer. Not before. Or… I think I should wait for the day after. That is better, isn’t it?”

“Come tomorrow,” she said, stepping up to kiss his cheek. He felt her stomach bump him, but it just made him smile. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

Author’s Note: I didn’t really feel like I should post anything today, but I figure I probably owe people the end of the story. So, here it is. The end.

Well, I did leave it so that I could write a sequel. I even started that. I just don’t know if I’ll ever finish it.

An End that Is a Beginning of Sorts

“You are a celebrity now,” Larry said, passing Mackenna the newspaper, and she grimaced, shoving it under her plate. She was tired of seeing herself hailed as some kind of hero. Her plan had been stupid, and it had almost cost Carson his life, but all anyone wanted to hear was how the “strong” woman had “saved” her man and taken down a bad guy that the police and feds had been hunting for thirty years. She was now some kind of urban legend of her own—a female mechanic turned Wonder Woman and doing it in period dress so that made her something out of a steampunk comic, did it? She was now her own myth, at least in a few of the local papers. She wanted it to all die down and be forgotten. She didn’t like all the fuss or the exaggeration. She didn’t deserve it.

“I’m actually glad that it’s not me,” Carson said, grunting as he reached for his fork. His side was bothering him again, but any time one of them suggested he take a pain pill, he got annoyed and refused. He was way too stubborn sometimes. “I don’t want the attention. It’ll be bad enough when they start the trial.”

Nick gave him a look of pity. “Maybe he’ll confess, and you won’t have to deal with it.”

Carson snorted. “He’s going to try and pin Dad’s death on me again, and if he does it this time, he really will get away with it.”

“He won’t.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Mackenna.”

She shook her head. “We’ll find some way of making sure he gets what’s coming to him. What he did to your father, to you, to your whole family… He deserves to pay for that. It’s not like he didn’t hurt others, either. Between the robbery and your dad, he should end up behind bars for the rest of his life. That is, if budget cuts don’t get in the way.”

“Nice.”

She shrugged. “So I’m never going to be Miss Optimist. It’s not who I am. Who cares?”

“None of us,” Larry told her with a grin. “We’re glad to have you joining the family just the way you are.”

“Larry, the wedding talk is still forbidden,” Carrie told him, and Mackenna thought Carson was doing his best to pretend he hadn’t heard either of them. “Leave it alone.”

“Why should I? His big objection was because he thought he killed Dad, and now he knows what we all did—that he didn’t. He was used by the guy to confuse the issue, but he didn’t kill Dad. Dad wasn’t a monster. Now we have the truth. We should celebrate. Carson no longer has to be stuck in the past because he can’t remember. He does. He can move on. Right next to him is his reason to move on.”

Mackenna felt herself blushing. Carson groaned. “If we get married, I’m going to make sure we elope so that none of you are there. I swear.”

She laughed, leaning over to kiss his cheek. “If we can survive a killer, we can survive a wedding, if and when we have it.”

“I guess.”

“I love you,” she told him. He frowned, blinking at her, and she nodded. “I know. I never officially said it before, but I think it got forced into perspective when the guy had you at gunpoint and I had to do something because I couldn’t lose you. I kind of figured I’d gotten broken enough not to trust enough to love anyone, but then you snuck in there, and it happened when I didn’t mean for it to, so… yeah. I love you.”

“See? Now you have to marry her.”

“Go to hell, Larry.”

“Language.”

From the way the boys looked at Carrie, she was the one who usually made the comments like that, but this time it had come from Mac, and the rest of them were too stunned to react right away. He grunted. “That’s better. Tell him about the car, Mackenna.”

“What about the car?”

“Oh, while you were in the hospital and the story was kind of a big deal… the guy we never managed to make time to talk to—the owner of the other Maxwell Messenger on the run—he told Mac about the guy he’d consulted about his car, and when Mac spoke to him, he found out that there was a bit of what the guy’s son called a ‘swindle’ when that car got sold to your father.”

“What?”

“The son’s convinced it was worth a lot more than your father paid for it, and his father’s a bit too senile these days to remember properly, but he supposedly didn’t want the burden of overhauling Phantom, so he sold her to your dad for less than half what she was worth.”

“You’re kidding.”

Mackenna shook her head. “No. We’re not. She’s really yours, Carson. Well, I suppose you’d have to talk that over with your brothers because your grandfather technically didn’t have the right to will her to you when your father’s estate would have been split between the four of you—you three and your mother—but she’s not stolen. She didn’t get bought with money from the robbery. She’s yours to keep.”

“You mean she’s ours.”

“Yeah,” Mackenna said, smiling. Then she frowned. “Wait, is that a proposal?”

“Maybe.”

Author’s Note: This story isn’t as close to an ending as the other two I have going, and it’s not as easy to put a new part of it up because I don’t know how to finish it or feel like I can right now, but since I updated the others and I do have this, I will put it up.

The Queen… Always in Trouble

Though a part of her wanted nothing more than to hide herself away in her rooms, not to show her neck to anyone until the forgery was complete, not to risk the king wanting to play with his new toy, the queen knew that she could not remain hidden forever. If she were to be a coward, then why not accept the offers Agache and the others had made to send her across the border?

She put a hand to her neck. The bruises from the last time she’d seen the king still ached, and she had not seen Agache or had word of the fake in days.

“Can it be that the king has left you alone? How fortunate am I, then,” Malzhi said, and she cursed as she heard him walking up to her. “I have missed being able to converse with you, my lady.”

“Have you? I rather thought you expected the king to kill me the day he returned from the way you were gloating,” the queen said, aware of the weight on her throat. The king had the key to this horrible thing, and he was the only one who could adjust it without breaking it—some small mercy when she found herself alone with Malzhi—but now was still dangerous for her. Malzhi didn’t need the king’s key to cause her trouble, and she was vulnerable until they were to able to replace the real bindings with a fake. She was beginning to understand the look that Agache had spoken of, the one that warned of the king’s intentions, but she did not know that it mattered. Between the king and Malzhi, she’d die before they were able to replace the damned thing.

“Oh, it would have been amusing, I suppose, but I have yet to know you as well as I’d like, so I’d be disappointed as well.”

She turned her attention to the courtyard, refusing to look at him. “I am beginning to think that it would be a relief. That way I would no longer have to see him… or you.”

Malzhi reached up to touch the bindings around her neck. “You have been suffering, haven’t you? Such a shame that he still fails to realize what he has. What you need is someone who knows you what you truly are and appreciates the value of what that is.”

She almost told him that she had such a person—more than one, even, though she suspected that Wikan would not have waited for her, nor should he after what she’d agreed to do. Still, Agache knew her secrets, that she was esibani, and he valued her skills, had told her that since the beginning of their alliance. She knew that she could not speak of either of them to Malzhi, though.

“I suppose you think that you are such a person, do you?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. I know not to trust you—unless you think that I am a fool.”

He moved his hand to her face, caressing her cheek. She flinched, and he smiled, pushing her back against the wall. She shifted, sidestepping under his arm and evading his hold. She needed to leave this balcony. She had to get away from him. Now.

“Why must you be so difficult, my lady?” He started toward her. “We could have a very pleasurable time if you were not so stubborn. You would not object so much if you knew what I could give you.”

“I know what you think I will give me, and I do not want it.”

“Of course you do. You think you cannot admit it because of your husband, but you know you do.”

She glared at him, and he caught her arm. She tried to pull away from him, but he got hold of her other arm, trapping her in place. His breath hit her neck, and she was about to hit him with her elbow when she heard the voice.

“You’re touching something that belongs to me.”

Malzhi let go of her, shoving her forward. “Forgive me, your majesty. I thought I saw something upon the queen’s neck, and I wanted to examine it more closely, but she did not want to let me see it.”

“I would not let you see it if I were her,” the king said, taking hold of her, and she grimaced, knowing that he would hurt her now even if she had been trying to get away from Malzhi. “You are dismissed. Go.”

“Yes, your highness.” Malzhi bowed his head and stalked away, anger in each step he took. She swallowed, looking up at the king.

“You encouraged him?”

“No. Never. I was trying to leave when he caught me the second time.”

“You are mine. I do hope that you have not forgotten that.”

“How could I?”

He turned the key, tightening the cords around her neck, and she reached up, clawing at it as she tried to breathe. She could not do this. He needed to stop playing with her. If he was going to kill her, he needed to do it now. She just wanted it over with already. She did not want to be taken to the edge over and over again. If he forced her into unconsciousness again, perhaps this time she would not wake from it. She thought that she would prefer that.

“Beg if you like.”

She met his gaze, not turning away from the cruelty there. Let him do it. She would not beg. She couldn’t beg. She saw his lips twist, and then he kissed her. She thought it was only the pain he knew he was causing that attracted him, that and the need to mark what Malzhi had tried to take as his and his alone. A part of her wanted to give herself away to someone else to defy him, but that was just a fleeting fancy, not something that she would ever do, even if there were such a person that she was willing to be with instead of her husband—certainly that was not Malzhi.

“I find use in your defiance. Breaking you becomes more and more enjoyable.”

She tried to breathe, but he had not loosened the bands. She blinked, feeling weak, and then the bands gave up their grip, allowing her to suck air in again, and she gasped, trying to make up for the way her body had been starved for breath for too long. She fell to her knees, hearing him laugh as his footsteps retreated from her.

“Bagquin.”

by

When the Leopard Wakes You

Author’s Note: So instead of adding in the words from Three Word Wednesday (clever, finish, and silky) into the parts I already wrote for The Stolen Name or A Perfect Sunset, I decided to go ahead with the idea of adding more bits with characters from my next release.

This comes not only before the other part I posted for Sunday Scribblings, One Popular Kitty, but also before the forthcoming book, The Consultant and the Cat.

When the Leopard Wakes You

“Not… now…” Randolph groaned, opening his eyes to find an eerie pair of black on yellow staring back at him. He winced at his own words, not sure there was ever a good time to be woken by a big cat. He sighed, lifting his head and pushing himself up against the headboard. “What do you want?”

Katya placed her paws on the edge of the bed, far closer to his face than he’d like. He blinked, trying to determine her motives. He must not have been awake—he was a profiler, and he knew the leopard well enough to recognize her moods—or he would have had his answer by now.

“You’re not hungry.”

She leaned her head forward and bumped his hand. He should worry, he supposed, if she started licking him, though he knew she’d had plenty of time to gorge herself on all he’d bought her earlier.

“Did you miss my voice, is that it? These dulcet tones are necessary to keep the kitty pacified?” He reached his hand over to pass it through the fur on her head. He did not hear her version of a purr, so that was not the answer, either. He frowned. His accent was a part of the reason she’d claimed him, or so he had always believed. Her original trainer had been English, and she had confused Randolph for him in the beginning.

“No, that’s not true, is it? You knew I wasn’t him, didn’t you? You’re a very clever kitty, aren’t you?”

Now came the purr. Randolph shook his head. “Did you honestly wake me so that I would compliment you? Is your ego so great that you must hear yourself praised all the time?”

She opened her mouth, showing her teeth, and he sighed, going back to petting her, twisting his fingers through the silky strands of her fur. “I had another nightmare, didn’t I? I don’t even remember it this time, but you knew. You always know.”

Katya jumped up beside him, forcing him to move back and share the space with her. He’d lost the fight over sharing his bed a long time ago, and no amount of revisiting the issue would change the leopard’s mind.

“Behave. You know you scare people and have cost us our beds in the past. I, for one, would like to finish our last night in this hotel without an incident.”

She blinked, and he shook his head. “You had better not be saying anything about the fact that the other side is empty. Just because it is doesn’t mean it’s yours. And no, I don’t have any plans to fill it. Stop it. Do not look at me like that. I know you’re proud of helping Marcie find love, but you are not doing that to me.”

The leopard growled, and he sighed. “What if I told you I was already married? Would that work?”

She stared at him. He wanted to look away. He couldn’t lie to the cat. That never worked. She knew. He closed his eyes. “You’re here, you know. It’s not like me being alone is the reason for my nightmares. I’m not alone, either.”

Not so much as a blink.

“What, you want to be able to overrule me when there’s two females, is that it?”

Another purr.

“Damn it.”

by

Dancing This Waltz Alone

Author’s Note: So I was going to torture someone else with these angsty lyrics, but I eventually chose to write something myself. I should admit that I do know who this is and what story it might belong to, but I’m leaving it, short as it is, as a standalone.

I think it’s almost a longer prompt than it is a fic, but here goes nothing:

But you go right, I go left
You go forward, I go back
And we’re dancing this waltz alone
You go up, I go down, lost our grip
And now we’ve found ourselves
Dancing this waltz alone

and

Hush now don’t cry
It’s just a lullaby
I’ll tell you sweet lies
I won’t leave your side

~”Hush Now,” Catherine Feeny

Dancing This Waltz Alone

Forward, back, never miss a step, never falter. Do not waver.

A dance should be simple, a progression of memorized steps, one after another, a routine. Improvisation was unnecessary and distracting. The familiar held safety, and to depart from that was where error came in, where a misstep cost the dancer everything.

She was a solo dancer. She had never needed a partner, and she would not need one. Not ever. She would dance her own lullaby, exhausting herself if need be, until her mind would rest and she would forget it all.

The lies, made in earnest promises, pledges to remain at her side…

She took another step. She would not cry.

Author’s Note: I find as I fill in more of these details, that the story fills itself out in ways I did not expect at all. As far as I knew, Agache was never going to tell anyone what he went through as a prisoner of the king, and I rather thought that was for the best.

He shared. No one was expecting it. Certainly not me.

Unexpected Considerations

“That is, I fear, as much as I can do to relieve the pain and help the bruising,” Anokii told the queen, applying as much of the herbs to her skin as she dared. She might even have been too generous with the lavande, but the queen was in pain and could not help showing it. At least those plants would ease the sting and reduce the visibility of the marks. She stepped back, nodding at her work, hoping it would be enough to allow the queen to continue on.

“One more thing to test,” Agache said, lifting up the bindings and bringing them over to her. “We should have made certain these still appeared to fit before we left, but I did not want to force you back into them before it was necessary.”

“I am glad you did not,” the queen said, closing her eyes as he set the necklace in place.

“Remember, that is not the fake. The king can still hurt you with it, and as soon as you lock it in place, you will not be able to take it off,” Agache said, frowning as he adjusted the necklace around the queen’s neck. He shook his head. “I do not like this. We should have had—if there was more time or if we could send you across the border—”

“And start a war? I do not think so.”

He sighed. “There should be another way. I cannot think of it, but I still do not like this. Perhaps someone else will have an answer.”

“Someone else?”

“I am going to the south to meet with the leaders of the resistance. It is a meeting that is overdue—they do not all know that I am alive—and I do not think I can delay it any longer. I have not been as… effective here as I should like.”

The queen reached up, taking the necklace off, frowning at him. “How long will you be gone?”

“That depends. The journey south is at least two days if one rushes, and I do not know how long I will be in conference with them.”

“Are you certain they will let you come back at all?”

Agache blinked. “What?”

“It is something I think you have failed to consider—as have the rest of us, cousin,” Anokii said, for now that the queen had voiced that concern, she could not help worrying as well. They had discussed often how the queen was a tool, someone they could use, but if she was one, Agache was even more so. The resistance would want to reveal his survival, give the people someone to rally behind, someone they had already loved and mourned. They had used him as a martyr, but oh, how they would love to raise that martyr from the dead, to make him the figurehead of their rebellion. They could win over any who lacked faith with a man who had escaped death. They could exploit the fact that he was the only heir the king had. He might not be allowed to return, not until they were ready to use him.

“I do not know that they would do such a thing. I am more useful working as I have always done.”

“I doubt that. How many times have you berated yourself for failing to go out before that crowd? How many times have you said that should have been you? That is the sort of thing people would want from you, not your work in the shadows.”

He grimaced. “I do not want to believe that. All that they would do is make me a target, and they do not want him to act as a hunter. If he is after prey, if he starts down the path of Gichikane bloodlust, there will be no stopping him.”

“Something stopped him before.”

Agache shook his head. “Torture is not the same for him. I… What I know of the Gichikane is lessened by my Nebkasha ancestry, but if I spill blood, I want to spill more. One death is not enough. Notice how the bindings do not have sharp edges. They do not draw blood. That is how he must hurt people, or he would not get any prolonged torment from them. He would kill if he saw blood. He did not… He wanted to keep hurting me, to make the torture last, so when the marks went too deep into my skin, when they bled, he had to remove himself and kill someone else to sate it. His mistake was leaving me alone then. The Gichikane in me gave me strength enough to get up and out of there, to ignore the suns…”

“Agache—”

“Do your best to avoid the king until we have the copy. If you must interact with him, be as careful as you can. If you need anything, Anokii and Gekin will help you with it.”

He turned, pulling his hood over his head as he crossed the room. Anokii let out a breath as he disappeared into the passage to the catacombs. Perhaps Gekin would encounter him and be able to help. She did not know that Agache should be alone. That was the most he’d ever admitted about his time in the king’s hands, and she wanted to remove that pain from him though she knew that was impossible.

“His strength… It would not have ended. The king would never have been merciful enough to let him die, would he?”

“No.”

Author’s Note: So, this is a very long part. It’s part of wrapping things up, and those scenes usually get long. This is not an exception. There’s only one bit more after this.

A Few More Answers

“No money.”

“I know. There isn’t any money.”

“Mackenna?” Carson opened his eyes to frown at the room, not sure how he’d managed to end up here. The white and the clean said hospital, but that had to be wrong. Last thing he remembered was being with the cars… and his father’s killer. The gun had gone off, and he should be dead. He didn’t understand. “Um… Where am I?”

“Hospital. You were so out of it when you got shot that they figured the wound was a lot worse than it was. Once they got that all taken care of, they knew it was the trauma, so they decided to monitor you overnight just in case.”

“He… They… I didn’t kill him.”

“I know.”

“I thought I did. He put my hand on the trigger, and he forced it back, and he told me I had. He made me think I’d killed him so that I wouldn’t tell anyone, and it worked. It all worked.”

She frowned, taking his hand and wrapping hers around it. He had to figure she’d been there all night—she was still wearing the dress from the run, and it had gotten rumpled in addition to stained. Was that his blood, then? He supposed he owed her a new costume. “What all worked?”

“After… after he shot Dad the second time, he… he ripped off my clothes so that when my family found me, they’d assume that my father had…”

“Oh, hell.”

“That’s why Grandpa covered it up, why he hid the Maxwell and Dad’s body. It looked like our worst case scenario, and even though I knew that man had been there, I couldn’t—I was so screwed up by it that I wanted to do what they kept telling me to do—forget. He said it, Grandpa said it… Mom, I think she couldn’t handle it, couldn’t accept that Dad had done that, but then she couldn’t accept that I had done it, either, and that’s why she was a wreck for the rest of her life. She couldn’t believe it, but she knew what she saw, and it messed her up good, too.”

Mackenna nodded. “I bet it would. That’s not something anyone would want to believe. We certainly didn’t. We tried to prepare you for it if that was what happened, but neither of us wanted it to be that. Your mom… Well, she was stuck trying to believe the man she loved had done a terrible thing to her child, and that… That’s not something many people can accept. It happens all the time in child abuse cases. The other parent just can’t accept what’s being done.”

“Like your aunt not believing you about what was happening to you?”

“Well, my situation was probably more exaggeration than anything, but she didn’t want to believe that the guy had been in our apartment, that was for sure. She said I had to have imagined him walking around there hunting me, that I was giving myself nightmares and huddling in the closet for no reason. To a point, maybe, I was, but if I hadn’t been hiding, I don’t know what he would have done to me.”

“He won’t ever get you now.”

Mackenna smiled. “I’m not sure how we got stuck talking about me again. You’re the one that got shot and who had all those memories locked away in his head, not me.”

Carson grunted. He didn’t want to think about that. If he’d been stronger, he wouldn’t have buried those memories, and it wouldn’t have destroyed his mom or let that bastard get away with his father’s murder. He didn’t like knowing how many lives got ruined because he couldn’t face what had happened. His brothers deserved to know the truth, too, and what his grandpa had done for him… That should never have happened.

“Hey, don’t start down that road now. You didn’t kill your father, so don’t start looking like that.”

“I knew someone else did. I should have said something.”

“Carson, that man made you shoot your father. Even if you weren’t afraid of him killing you, too, you were probably still afraid of him doing more after he took your clothes. You might not have known what that meant, but that just made it that much worse for you. Plus you had people telling you to forget. You were a kid. You were desperate. You did. That’s not a crime.”

He closed his eyes. “I just feel like… I think I should have been able to tell them the truth. That I should have said something rather than let that man get away with murder. I still don’t even know who he is, and that’s after he shot me.”

“Again.”

Carson shook his head. He didn’t want to admit this, but he didn’t have a choice. He cleared his throat, looking at her. “Um… Actually, the first time was my dad’s fault. He was trying to stop the guy from getting me, but he had me and used me as a shield. Then he shot my dad while I was still trying to understand what had just happened to me.”

Mackenna winced. She reached up and brushed back his hair. “I am not surprised at all that you had to block that out. How well could you have understood your father shooting you by accident and all the rest of it when you were eight?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. It’s just that—”

“Mr. Koslow?”

Mackenna glared back at the doorway as the cop entered. At least, Carson assumed he was a cop. He couldn’t see the badge in the suit, but he thought part of the way that awful gray plaid hung on the guy was because of a gun. “Does he really have to give his statement now? He just woke up.”

“I’m fine, Mackenna. Or as close to that as I’ll ever be now,” Carson told her. He took a deep breath. “I can give a statement, even though I don’t know much. I mean… He did kill my father. I know that. He… He thought my dad had money, and I guess he still thought that when he came after me because he thought I’d gotten it somehow.”

“The money was a part of a bank robbery that took place about thirty years ago. The man we arrested today was involved—by all accounts, he is the one that killed the security guard and one of the tellers as well.”

Carson felt sick. “My father was a part of that? The guy said he was the driver, and Dad said he served his time—”

“Your father was indeed the man who drove the getaway car. He turned himself in after the reports, swore he had no idea that there would be any killing, and in exchange for his cooperation, he got a reduced sentence and was allowed to serve his time under another name. Apparently, that was his stipulation—he didn’t want any of this getting back to his family and hurting his kids.”

Mackenna snorted. Carson almost smiled. That sounded like the father his mother had always told them they had. Except, of course, that he was a criminal. She’d never said that part.

“The agent I talked to about it said he figured that the guy was in over his head—three kids, one of them just born, he’d wanted a way to make a quick buck and didn’t figure anyone would get hurt. When they did, he faced up to what he’d done and never expected them to let him go free. He accepted his sentence and served it without complaints.”

Carson let out a breath. “Well, it’s good to know he wasn’t all bad. Mom would have been proud of him. Grandpa and Uncle Tim would still have hated him, but maybe my brothers can forgive him, right? I never really knew him until just before he died, and I didn’t trust him, but it’s… It’s not the same for me. He was never my father in the way he was theirs or her husband or anything.”

The cop grunted, pulling over the other chair. “The trouble is, they never found the money after the bank robbery.”

“That’s why the guy came after me today, but I swear Dad never told me where it was. He died insisting that he didn’t have it. If he had known where it was… I don’t think that he would have risked coming back to us. He said he wanted to start over. He said he’d worked a bunch of odd jobs trying to get some money before he came back to us, and I guess… That’s the part I want to believe. That he meant it when he said he was trying to make it right with us.”

Mackenna looked at the cop. “I suppose you know that Carson inherited what was in the barn from his grandfather and that the car was a part of that.”

“Dad swore he bought that free and clear, and if there was anything hidden in it, you would have found it when you went through and took all those pictures.”

She nodded. “I know. That was my point. The car will be worth something when it’s working. It’s worth a bit now, but we are not talking bank robbery sums here. Maybe when she was first purchased, but not now.”

“Dad said he got a good deal because it needed an overhaul.”

“Maybe we can find the person who sold it to your father and confirm the price. That is, though, all Carson got that was of value, and it’s not that much.”

“Did your father give you any hint as to where the money was?”

Carson shook his head. “No. He never mentioned the money. The other guy was the only one that did. None of what my father said suggested anything about him having a lot of money to spend. Once he told me he was getting me something very special—it was a toy car. A Ford Model T. It was not like he was buying me the earth and the moon. If he had the money, he didn’t spend like he did, and he never said anything about it to me.”

“All right. We’ll get someone over to take your official statement.”

Mackenna drew in a breath. “Are you going to be able to put the guy away for the murder? I suppose you have him for the ones in the bank, but if you don’t, then he’d just be going down for assault or attempted murder and could get out again, couldn’t he? He could come after Carson again.”

“I think he’d know better than to mess with a woman who can hurl suitcases like you can.”

She blushed. “Um, well, I have a lot more upper arm strength than people realize, but even still, that’s not necessarily going to be an option every time. Can we get this guy for Carson’s dad’s murder or not? Is it enough that Carson remembers him killing him?”

“We need a bit more than that.”

“We have a car with a bullet hole in it.”

“That probably came from when Dad’s shot went wide,” Carson said, shaking his head. “Although… My mom and my grandfather are both dead now, and they know the most about what was done after they found me and Dad and thought I’d killed him, but… My uncle might know more of it. He might know where Grandpa buried the body. Or it’s in Mom’s journals. I’m assuming that would be a big help, wouldn’t it?”

“I’ll see what I can get from your uncle, then. We’ll be in touch.”

The cop rose, and Carson winced, closing his eyes again. Mackenna’s lips brushed his forehead. “It’s almost over. We survived, and you have your memories back. You can finally move on with your life. This is a good thing, Carson. It is. Your dad will have justice after all these years, and you can stop being tormented by nightmares.”

He nodded. “I hope so.”