She didn’t need to ask if Ry was gone; she could feel it in Ethan as clearly as she knew he felt overwhelmed by all that had happened, the same way she felt.
Even with Vojalie next to her, she needed Ethan right now. She’d begun to tremble from the exertion and stress. He slid his arm around her and she leaned against him closing her eyes and holding him hard.
Quinlan flew close but didn’t land. “I have to get my men back to Grochaire. Looks like I’ve got signs of Invictus in three different sectors.”
“Need help?”
“Not right now.” His deep voice rolled around the gorge. “But I may be calling you soon.”
“Any time.” Ethan lifted a hand as Quinlan turned and flew straight up, his Guard falling in behind him. Ethan’s forces shouted after them, cheering them on.
Samantha turned and looked at them, waving their fists, glorying in a victory over an impossible enemy. Tears sprang to her eyes.
Once they’d disappeared over the east ridge, Ethan gave orders that all the surviving wraith-pairs were to be locked up until the following night. He didn’t give a reason, but it was clear to everyone that Samantha needed rest before she’d be able to help dissolve the pairs.
He glanced at Vojalie. “I’m going to take Samantha back to the house. She needs a good meal and rest.”
“And a hot bath.”
Ethan smiled tenderly down at her. “Yes, a nice hot bath.” He even kissed her forehead. “But before we do, Vojalie, I want you to tell her the truth, tell her who you are. I don’t want her learning from anyone else, but I think it’s time.”
“Tell me what?”
Vojalie turned her warm brown eyes on Samantha and caught her chin with her hand. “I didn’t know how to tell you and though my husband can irritate the hell out of me at times, he is right about one thing: timing is important.
“When you first came here, you didn’t know me, or anything really about our world. And to be honest, I was completely taken aback that Andrea had never even spoken of me. She was my daughter, you see, one I had before Davido and I became a couple. You and I are related.”
Samantha’s throat grew incredibly tight and tears fell from her eyes even though she didn’t want to cry or make a fuss, but the thought that she wasn’t alone in the world anymore brought the tears falling.
“Forgive me for not telling you sooner.”
Samantha drew in a shaky breath. “It’s okay. I understand a lot more now, after these past three days than I would have earlier. So many things make sense and no, she couldn’t have told me about you, because she didn’t tell me she was fae. I just thought she had really striking features.” She laughed, thinking how she’d lied to herself as well.
“I want to get to know you and I hope we’ll at least be able to be friends.”
Samantha saw the doubt, even the fear, in her eyes, that she’d be rejected. So, despite her trembling fatigue, she reached out and took Vojalie’s hand. She told her briefly what she now believed had happened to Andrea during the last year she was in Bergisson, and about the way the dark fae presence had recently interfered with Samantha’s mind, giving her old visions of the massacre, confusing her.
“So, you see, Andrea just didn’t know that she was being systematically injured, you might even say enthralled. I think by the time she did have a vision of what would happen here at Sweet Gorge, the night that Ethan lost his family, she couldn’t take it anymore. She wrote as much in her last journal and if you’d like to read them, you’re more than welcome.”
Vojalie shaded her face. “If only I’d known.”
“None of us knew,” Ethan said. “We barely understood why the stream dried up. This ancient fae is very powerful. She has extensive enthrallment skills that she could have prevented all of us from seeing the eastern plain for the past several years, a place that Ry had used as a training camp. That’s a lot of power, to have kept us all confused.”
“It is,” Vojalie agreed. “But apparently still not enough to help Ry and his Invictus force take over your Realm.”
Ethan squeezed Samantha’s waist. “I think we owe a lot of that to Samantha’s courage.” He smiled. “Even her cunning at times.”
Vojalie looked from one to the other. “You’ve completed the bonding process.”
“We did.”
Samantha recalled the recurring daydream she’d been having since she was a child about the house by the lake, made of river-stone, and surrounded by land, and something occurred to her about how persistent that image had remained. “Vojalie, does any of your family own a house by a lake? The one I described to you not long ago?”
Vojalie’s eyes filled with tears. “Your mother’s home, one that belonged in my family for centuries. She lived there with Patrick.”
In this moment, Samantha felt the past and the future rush together, two waves colliding and passing through each other. She stared at Vojalie, her mother’s mother, her unknown grandmother.
“I’ve been connected all these years to Bergisson and never knew it.” She held Vojalie’s gaze and when her grandmother opened her arms, Samantha fell into them and held Vojalie tight.
Vojalie held her for a long time and Samantha let her.
A fae vibration sang between them. The past was made whole in this moment, life coming full circle in a beautiful, surprising way. For a long moment, Samantha felt as though her mother was right here with them.
When at last she drew back, Vojalie’s brown eyes were damp. “I never thought to have a connection with my daughter again. Thank you for this, Samantha. Thank you from the depths of my heart.”
Samantha nodded. She didn’t want the moment to end but fatigue now worked in her. Ry’s feeding had taken a toll, as well as the terrible stress of the entire situation.
“Take her home,” Vojalie said.
Ethan nodded and held his arm out for Samantha. She stepped up on his foot and slid her arm around his neck. As he took her into the air, she looked back at Vojalie growing smaller and smaller as Ethan took her high into the starry night sky.
*** *** ***
Ethan had showered and wore only his navy silk robe as he tended to Samantha.
His housekeeper had prepared a light supper of potato soup, fresh sour dough bread lathered with butter, and a salad made up from greens from the kitchen garden. She’d included a bottle of imported German wine, a taste Ethan had quickly acquired once his realm had started importing from Shreveport. A lot of the mastyrs liked German wine.