Serena.
Chapter 21
Iain stood there for a long time, staring, unable to believe his eyes. Serena, or someone doing a hell of an impersonation of her, was only a few feet away, on the other side of a two-way mirror.
Her long red hair had been cut at an odd angle, arrowing from her left shoulder down to her right hip. A large section of her skirt had been sheared off, revealing one long, shapely leg.
He remembered that dress. She’d been wearing it the night she’d been killed.
As the momentary shock of seeing this creature faded, rage took its place. How dare someone defile her memory by showing up here, pretending to be her? Serena deserved better.
“Who is she?” demanded Iain.
“She says she’s your betrothed.”
Jackie covered her mouth with the back of her hand and stepped away from the glass.
“It’s a lie,” said Iain. “She died. This can’t be her.”
“We had a visit while you were gone. An Athanasian woman ported here. Somehow, she sensed Serena’s presence and freed her.”
“Freed her? Where the hell did she come from?”
Joseph glanced at Jackie, then lowered his voice. “She says she’s been held in some kind of stasis bubble for two hundred years. I think you should talk to her, see whether you can verify her story.”
“Fine, but if she turns out to be trying to trick us, don’t expect me to hold back,” he warned.
“And if she’s not?” asked Jackie. “What if she is who she says she is?”
“She’s not,” said Iain. She couldn’t be. Because if she was his Serena, then he’d abandoned her, leaving her trapped and alone for two centuries. Even he wasn’t that much of a bastard.
Iain went to the door to the adjoining room and walked in to face the impostor.
The woman saw him. Her face lit up with happy surprise, and she flew into his arms. Her slender body hit his, but he refused to hug her back, no matter how much like Serena she felt. Even her smell was the same—like new grass and lavender.
He disengaged himself from her grasp and took a long step back. “Who are you?”
Her smile faltered, fading as she stared at him as if he’d hurt her feelings. “You know me, Iain. I’m Serena.”
He let his tone fill with the anger thrumming through him. “She died. Who are you?”
The woman stepped back. Her hands were shaking. “I was taken the night we were to bond. Snatched away by a bright light. It was Mother’s doing. I could feel her touch vibrating through the magic, smothering me.”
Serena’s mother had never wanted them to be together. If she’d known their intention, she would have done something to stop it. But still…“If what you say is true, then how did you survive all this time?”
She bowed her head in weariness. “I don’t know. I never grew hungry or thirsty. There was no pain, only endless boredom. I seemed to float around, tethered to the Sentinel Stone. Sometimes I could see things going on outside my cage. I saw glimpses of people. Heard voices and machines. I screamed for years for someone to find me, but no one came. You never came. I thought for sure you’d feel me and come find me.”
He refused to believe it. He’d never once felt her presence, though he had searched for it. Every time he’d tried, all that had met him was blank nothingness. He was sure it was because she’d been killed. Even now, he felt nothing—no heat or subtle tug against his skin. He didn’t know if that was because this woman wasn’t Serena, or if his union to Jackie somehow blocked it.
But now, with Serena’s double sitting there, so close, looking exactly as he remembered, he had to learn the truth. “Prove to me you are who you say.”
“Let me take your luceria and you can see inside my thoughts. I’ll be able to hide nothing.” She rose and came toward him. Her eyes fell to his bare neck and she stopped dead in her tracks. Her throat moved as she swallowed, and grief pinched her lovely features. “I see. You’ve taken another.”
“Convenient. Now you can’t offer me that proof.”
Her nostrils flared in rage and she grabbed his shirt in her fist. “Convenient? You think that being trapped for two hundred years only to be freed and find the man I love bound to another woman is convenient?”
The fire dancing in her eyes couldn’t be faked. With every passing second, he was becoming more convinced that she was who she said.
Iain grabbed her wrist and closed his eyes. Once upon a time, he would have been able to feel her presence as easily as he could his own heartbeat. The luceria hadn’t bonded them, but it drawn them together.
He felt a faint hum within his ring. It was muted—nothing like it had once been—but he didn’t know if that was because this wasn’t really Serena, or if his bond to Jackie was to blame.
“What was your favorite horse’s name?” he asked.
She lifted her chin. “I never had a favorite. Riding always terrified me after that fall I took as a girl.”
“What did your mother say to me when I first met her?”
“She said that you weren’t good enough to clean her chamber pot, and that if you tried to steal me away from her, she’d unman you.”
She’d also said she would put his head on a pike and nail his entrails onto a sign as a warning to other inadequate men.
Iain glanced at the mirrored glass, knowing Joseph was watching. So was Jackie, but he couldn’t think about that now. His focus couldn’t shift while he was dealing with a potential threat.
He gave Joseph a slight nod.