Page 24 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

Calissandra

Leeds Bradford Airport, United Kingdom

L uggage in hand, heart in my throat, I waited at the baggage terminal.

“Is she here yet?” Romulus asked, eagerly.

“Obviously not.” I didn’t need to see Remus to know that he was rolling his eyes at his brother.

So much like his father…

“Don’t roll your eyes at your brother,” I chastised.

Then a familiar set of curly hair appeared - familiar, and so much like our mother’s that it was like seeing a ghost.

“Calissandra?” Her little voice was soft, just like it had been as a girl. But now she was a woman. A strong woman, a doctor, and humanitarian.

Far from the little girl who had adored me as a second mother, she was a woman with her own two feet, a voice, and a life that I knew nothing about. Nothing that wasn’t common knowledge, at least.

“Chloe!” I felt the tear fall down my cheek, as I ran to her.

Audience be damned! Richard be damned!

I should be distant, and cool. Just as Richard would expect me to be.

He had spies everywhere, after all. But I couldn’t stop the flutter of my heart as I grabbed Chloe in my embrace.

She was still shorter than me but not by much.

So different from the last time I hugged her almost twenty-four years ago - when she was six years old, and I still had to take a knee to look her in the eyes.

“Je t’aime,” I love you. I whispered.

She said it back. “ Je t’aime.”

I didn’t want to pull away. I wanted to hold her for twenty-four years worth of hugs, and birthdays, and every moment of pain when I could not be there.

“Hugo told me everything,” she whispered, her breath unsettling the hair that curled around my ear.

I pulled away and looked at her face. And while she was close to tears, she didn’t let them fall. Was she as overwhelmed as I was? Or was she holding back?

“Come,” she took my hand, pulling me like she used to when she was a little girl. “Our families must meet.”

“Oh, goody!” Bellamy materialized beside me, preceded by his silk neckerchief. “This young man is your nephew and he has been talking my ear off about you and your exploits!”

Romulus followed behind Bellamy with a blush to his sweet cheeks. “I haven’t been talking that much.”

“Oh, yes he has,” Bellamy said, punching him lightly on the arm. “This boy’s ability to hold information is astonishing, truly! The level of detail is absolutely baffling. You should listen to what he says about you.”

He paused to take a breath, then looked at my sister and turned on a charming smile.

“I, of course, know you from your bravery in Kemet.” Bellamy took my sister’s hand, and bowed over it in a courtly way, like they were about to start some kind of Regency dance. He bent at the waist, one hand up in the air, as the other brought my sister’s hand to his lips.

Chloe looked at me, then back at Bellamy, her eyes wide with astonishment. She was shocked. And I didn’t blame her. Everyone’s first reaction to Bellamy and his ways was always shock, astonishment, and sometimes even fear.

“Uh, thanks,” she said, pulling her hand away. “I’ve got a van so we can ride together, it’s in the garage if you’ll follow me.”

“Delightful! I’ll drive so all you Laurents can catch up, yes?” Bellamy offered his hand out for the key.

Chloe gave it, and for a moment, I felt the compliment he had paid me. He had called me a Laurent, not a Davenport.

We rode together from the airport, and the boys talked. Well, mostly Asa forced people to talk.

“You’re American?” he asked accusingly of my boys.

“British,” my boys responded.

“And you?” Remus asked, lifting a curious brow at the child.

Asa had a head of tight, thick black curls, shaved short. His face was angular, and strong, his skin a very deep, rich, warm brown. His thick lips pursed to the side, as he looked up at my boys with large, intelligent eyes.

“I’m from Donostria,” he said, crossing his arms. “But my Maman is French, and my Papa is American.”

“So where do you hail from?” Remus said, leaning forward and crossing his arms in kind.

“Switzerland,” he said. “I go to St. Michael’s School on Lac Leman.”

“And you’re… what? In Seventh Year?” Remus was smirking, his sarcasm showing as he asked the obviously young child if he was in middle school.

I sat by Chloe, and grabbed her arm. I leaned to her and whispered, “I don't think I’ve heard Remus make a joke to a stranger before.”

Chloe smirked, “They’re not strangers. They’re cousins.”

I turned back to the boys.

“I’m in First,” Asa said. “Don’t patronize me.”

Remus smiled, “And your aspirations?”

“To be powerful.”

Remus leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs. “I like this one.”

Back and forth they went. Interrogating each other, and discussing the best ways to attain said power - they determined that politics was an avenue, but that money was the real tool for such things.

It was like a little Machiavelli conference.

When we came to the old winding road that marked the start of our estate. There were no fences, but just a long line of untended forest and wilderness that harshly ended at an expansive manicured lawn that surrounded a stone house. It would have been a castle, were it not for the lack of turrets.

No one lived there, normally. It was something more of a tourist attraction during the season, and something to be maintained by the groundskeeper, otherwise. The surrounding fields were rented to farmers, and the house itself was maintained by a diligent staff.

I hadn’t been back here since the bleak day of my wedding. It didn’t rain. It was just gray, and cold.

But not today. Today, it was blue skies and singing birds. It was a full house, with our two families together at last. Chloe’s partner wasn’t there, but she assured me I’d see him later. I didn’t miss how my Romulus looked at Bellamy once in a while, with an admiring gleam in his eyes.

When Remus and Asa had finished talking about all the ways one could accumulate money, and how their family backgrounds gave them an advantage to such things. It was an ominous start to a familial bond.

When we parked the van at the front steps, Chloe and I stepped out, while the much slower boys took their time moving.

“I called ahead to get the rooms ready,” Chloe said softly when I followed her. “You should take a walk on the grounds. Head out to the boathouse. Do you remember the way?”

“I’ll help get the luggage in,” I told her, reaching in to grab some bags.

Her hand snapped out, grabbing me by the wrist.

“You should go to the boathouse. I think you’ll like the changes made there.” Her sunshine eyes glared at me, the way she had when she was mad and stomping her foot as a child. It was her rare little defiance that was more cute than frightening.

“Oh?” I said with a smirk.

“Go to the boathouse.” It was the third time she had said the word ‘boathouse’. Too many times for it not to be a point. “I’ll settle everyone down. You can find us at dinner.”

“What are you up to, ma petite chou ?” I said using an old French term of endearment.

She straightened, her face becoming every bit the award winning doctor that she was, with a fierce mane of curly hair.

“Nothing. But you should do as I say.” She grabbed a bag, then with a graceful hand, went “ Coucou! Allez-y! Come get your bags.”

The boys did as she said. Sweet Romulus, eager to please, sauntered, and took on his bags, as well as mine and Bellamy’s on his broad shoulders.

“I’ll get them in,” he said with cheer.

“Your mother will go for a walk. See some of her old haunts. Let me show the rest of you your rooms and give you a tour of the house.”

Chloe beamed as if she had tricked me into something.

I would indulge her. Just as I would have when she was a child. Just like I would from now until the end of time.

Either way, I had wanted to see the boathouse, and hoped that it hadn’t fallen into disrepair. It was the place where I used to do all my big thinking.

Then, later, when it was me and Chloe, we used to play in the surrounding fields.

In the summer, I weaved flower crowns and dressed her like my own little fairy doll.

She would prance and dance in the tall grass.

Then, in the winter, we skated on the frozen lake.

She was a terrible skater and would grip my hand and beg me to never let her go.

I had felt so strong, and protective. Like I was truly a person worth holding on to.

Maybe I’d find my old self there.

The path was overgrown. The trees weren’t as tall as I remembered.

But there was something in the air - a crispness of leaves, and the hum of bugs and singing of birds, that broke my heart.

In my mind, I could see two girls running down this path - a young girl, barely waist-high, and a teenager in her school uniform and knee-high socks.

Two girls running and picking flowers in a summer that would never end.

But the winter came hard and fast. And the girl who had held my hand was forced to let go. To get sent away to a far off mountainous land of chocolate and clocks.

I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could have rebuffed Richard and seen the blue diamond engagement ring for what it was. Payment for the shares he’d get as my husband. I was nothing but a chest of jewels to be sold. A bargain. One that my father took because he had to.

“Poor little Cali,” I whispered. “Poor Chloe, too.”

I could say it to the wind. I could say it's the woods. No one would hear me out here.

No one would know.

“And poor Adelia,” I finally said. “You poor, foolish girl.”

“Why do you feel sorry for Adelia?” I almost jumped out of my skin, squealing as I turned around.

My eyes widened. “What are you doing here?”

He appeared like something from a fairy tale. Dark, brooding, with sun-kissed skin and a stubble that gave him a rakish appearance. He could have been a biker and a criminal - and maybe he was in a previous life. That’s why men ran off to the Legion, didn’t they?