Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

T he hall behind them erupted in voices speaking English and Gaelic as Lachlan rushed toward them, grabbing Carys by the arm and shoving Duncan through the archway and toward a passage to the right.

"Lord Lachlan!" the guards shouted at them. "Sir!"

"No!" He threw up a hand and kept his face on the corridor in front of them. "Leave us."

Moments later, they were in a long corridor with heavy purple curtains covering the archways, a rich brown carpet under their feet worked with silver thread, and gold-framed portraits lining the walls.

Carys's heart was racing when Lachlan finally turned to her and threw his arms around her.

"You're here." His arms were like a vise. "Oh gods, you're here." He took her face between his hands and planted a desperate kiss on Carys's lips.

She soaked it up like a tree dying for water. Her arms came around him, her breasts pressed to his chest, and their lips met in a desperate reunion. Lachlan kissed her over and over, like a man starving, his arms binding Carys to his body as she melted into his chest .

Duncan cleared his throat. "I'll just…"

"No!" Lachlan pulled away, still keeping Carys locked in his arms. "You stay." He turned back to Carys and swallowed hard. "You're here. How are you here?" He couldn't stop looking at her. "Gods alive, Carys, how are you here?"

"What are you talking about?" She started to cry. "You disappeared. I wasn't even sure you were alive until I saw you a minute ago. You disappeared without a word or a note or anything, and I knew that wasn't like you. I knew something was wrong."

"I didn't want to go. Trust me." He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her eyes. "I never wanted to leave you. I was walking in the forest, and I strayed too close to a fae gate. They took me and?—"

"Again…" Duncan tried to speak. "This is private and I'll just?—"

"What were you thinking?" Lachlan wheeled on his brother. "You know the danger of bringing her here!"

"You didn't leave me much choice, did you?" Duncan stalked toward Lachlan. "The way you romanced her, ye daft idiot. What was I supposed to do when she comes knocking on my door and threatening to go to the police with a passport that you know was forged with my likeness on it?"

Lachlan shoved Carys behind his back and stood between her and Duncan. "Don't blame this on Carys. Don't you dare blame her."

Duncan jabbed a finger in Lachlan's chest. "I'm not blaming her, I'm blaming you ."

The brothers fell into yelling at each other in a confusing mix of Gaelic and English, Lachlan speaking more in the Scottish tongue and Duncan speaking more words that Carys recognized but made no sense nonetheless.

"Lachlan, please." Carys tried to break in. "Can we not argue? Duncan's right—this is my fault. I forced his hand."

"He knew better." Lachlan kept his voice low but urgent. "You being here is so dangerous I don't even want to?—"

"What did you expect her to do, Brother? She's nae an idiot. You had to know she was going to have questions. "

"And you couldn't think of a better way to explain all this?"

"Are you joking?"

Carys stepped to the side and raised a hand. "Still here."

Duncan shoved Lachlan toward her. "Look! She's here. Your ladylove, Brother. Go. You might have a few things to explain now, don't you think? She's not an idea or a dream, she?—"

"She was never that and you know it. I never intended to?—"

"Oh, but you did, didn't you? You never intended to stay so long. You never intended to make her fall in love with you. You never intended ?—"

"I love her!" Lachlan shouted at Duncan, the words ripping across the argument, leaving silence in their wake.

Duncan stepped back, and his face was a stoic mask.

"She…" Lachlan looked at Carys, and she saw tears in the corners of his eyes. "She made me want to live again." He started to shake his head. "I never meant to fall in love. I know we come from different worlds."

Duncan swallowed hard. "What you've done…" He let out a ragged breath.

Lachlan shook his head. "I'll not apologize. I refuse to apologize for loving her."

"I love you too." Carys swallowed the tears that welled up in her throat and tried to get Lachlan to turn to her. "It's okay, Lachlan."

"No." Duncan's mouth was a thin, angry line. "It's really not."

Lachlan broke into Gaelic again and walked away from Carys, shoving Duncan against the wall. Duncan pushed back, responding in the same language while the argument escalated.

Carys tried to follow what they were speaking about, but none of it made sense and most of it was in a language she didn't even understand. She was worried the two men might come to blows, but she knew there was no way she could stop them, so she got out of the way.

Even with all the shouting, Carys felt like she could breathe for the first time in a month. Lachlan was here. In front of her. He was alive, and even though the circumstances were… confusing to say the least, sh e felt the familiar swell of warmth and comfort as soon as she was in Lachlan's presence.

He was here. He was safe. And he loved her. They could figure out the rest.

She looked around her at a corridor that reminded her of Duncan's home in Scotland. There were family portraits as old as the ones in Duncan's house and some that looked considerably older.

The tartan in the pictures was different, and while many of the faces were familiar from Duncan's family home, most of the faces were new. As Lachlan and Duncan continued to fight, she found herself drawn to the canvases that decorated the walls.

Green eyes, dark hair. Red hair, blue eyes. Lachlan's parents appeared to be the same as Duncan's, at least in their appearance. She glanced over her shoulder to see the two men, so alike in appearance but so different in personality.

Lachlan had turned on his charming voice, as if he was trying to reason with Duncan, and Carys scoffed, knowing that was unlikely to do anything but enrage the ornery man.

Duncan's voice dropped to a low growl as Carys continued walking down the hall, until her eyes fell on what appeared to be a wedding portrait and she froze.

Lachlan's face.

Her face.

Her face.

The woman in the portrait was her mirror image save for the dark brown braids draped over her shoulders, threaded with ribbon and falling past her waist. Her chin was lifted in pride, and a bright gold dragon crest was pinned to her red velvet dress. She wore a crown fixed with rubies, and the frame at the bottom of the portrait read:

Lachlan, Lord Moray, son of Robb, wedded to Seren, Nêrys Ddraig, princess of Cymru.

It was Lachlan and her.

Not her.

Not Carys but Seren, the name that the woman in the hall had called her.

The name of Lachlan's late wife.

"Tell me about your wife."

"We grew up together. I can't remember a time I didn't love Seren. Then she got sick and I lost her. I thought I'd die too, but I didn't."

Her fingers touched the surface of the portrait, touched the cheek of the woman who could only be her twin in this world, and Carys halfway expected to feel her fingertips touch her own skin.

Seren. Her twin.

She turned to Lachlan and Duncan, who had stopped arguing and were staring at her.

Lachlan walked toward her, his hands raised. "Carys, I can explain."

"What is this?" She pointed to the portrait.

Lachlan spoke slowly. "It's my wedding portrait."

To a wife who wore Carys's face.

She felt her stomach drop. "Oh God."

The room around her started to spin, and she pressed her hand to the wall near the portrait, her fingers digging into the cold stone.

"Carys, I can explain."

"Can you?" She forced out the words, forced her eyes to focus on Lachlan. "Who am I?"

"You're you," Duncan said through gritted teeth. "And don't forget it."

"Of course you're you, Carys." Lachlan's voice was low and soothing, a voice she loved coming from the man she loved. "And I love you ."

"Who is… she ?" She was trembling with rage. Fear. Confusion. She felt the tears welling in her eyes because she knew .

She knew.

"Seren," Lachlan whispered, looking into her eyes.

Carys's hands were shaking, and she gripped them to keep herself from shattering to pieces. "She's me, isn't she? She's my twin. And your wife. The one who died."

"Her name was Seren," Duncan said. "She died two years ago."

Two years ago, the same time that Carys had been laid low with a bout of depression that had never made sense. A grueling blackness that had left her feeling like half her soul was missing.

Because it had been.

"Oh God." She gasped. "Oh God !"

Lachlan ran to her. "You have to understand. I was drowning in grief." He grabbed her wrists, trying to look at her. "All I wanted was to find you and see your face and know that part of her was alive somewhere in the world and then…"

Don't say it. Don't say it. She squeezed her eyes shut to try to block out the betrayal.

"I love you." Lachlan pressed his cheek to hers and whispered desperate words. "You have to believe?—"

"It wasn't me." Her heart shattered. "You didn't love me ."

"I did. I do ."

She shook her head over and over again, wrenching her arms away from him. "You never loved me. It was her. You loved her so much that you… Oh God ."

She wanted to fall. She wanted to curl up in a ball and fade into nothing, but that would leave her at the mercy of Lachlan and Duncan, the two people in the world who knew what a fool she'd been.

"No!" Lachlan shouted. "Carys, that's what I'm telling you." His beautiful eyes pleaded with her. "Please, you have to believe me. I love you. My love for Seren?—"

"Best not bring up that name at the moment, Brother," Duncan muttered.

"Shut up!" Lachlan's face turned red and he rounded on his brother. "This is your fault! "

"My fault?"

He's not real. He's not real. None of this is real.

Carys saw a half-open curtain at the end of the corridor and she ran.

She threw up the hood that had covered her face—to hide her resemblance to her twin, she understood that now—and searched for the first door she could find. The castle was a labyrinth, the blue-lit sconces flickering eerie shadows as she ran down one hall and then another.

Carys was searching for anything that looked like daylight or whatever version of it existed in this place. She had no identification, no escort, but she was hoping the guards would be less concerned about those leaving the castle than those entering.

She had to get away. If she could find her way back to the main road, she might be able to find Duncan's cottage. She wanted her own clothes. She wanted to get back to the creepy forest— Okay, she didn't want to go back to the fairy murder forest, but she wanted to get home more than anything. Or at least back to Scotland.

Duncan was right. She'd been stupid to come here, foolish to want to see Lachlan. She should have walked away the moment the grumpy Scotsman asked if she believed in fairy tales.

None of the magic of this place could soothe the pain that was tearing at her chest and making her eyes well with angry, heartbroken tears.

She turned right, then left, trying to find a way out of the castle maze.

"Carys!" She heard Lachlan's voice echoing somewhere in the castle. Or maybe it was Duncan's. Impossible to tell; even their voices sounded the same. She took another right.

"Carys?"

None of it was real .

What were you thinking? Every nasty doubt she'd pushed away and tried to overcome at the beginning of her relationship with Lachlan reared its head and whispered in her mind.

He's too good for you.

Who would love a depressed academic with boring taste in books?

You're a burden, with your sad orphan eyes.

She ducked to the side as what looked like a group of cooks walked down a hallway. Carys darted past them, desperately searching for a door, turning down a narrow corridor when she heard voices that sounded like those in the courtyard earlier.

Handsome princes don't want damaged goods.

Behind her, she heard voices starting to rise, and someone shouted her name in a voice she didn't recognize.

"Carys!"

"Seren?"

Seren.

Lachlan's wife. The sister she would never know, the sister who had loved Lachlan best, the proud princess dressed in red velvet with a dragon on her shoulder. How could she compete with that ?

"Carys!" It was Duncan's voice. Something in the rough timbre told her it was him, and he was getting closer.

She hated him. Hated him for bringing her here, hated him for forcing her to see the truth.

You were right, Duncan. I really do hate you.

She pushed open a wooden door and nearly fell into a cobblestone courtyard teeming with traders, workmen, and soldiers. She looked over their heads and saw the large arched castle gate in the distance. She picked up a broken basket someone had discarded on the ground and pulled her hood forward, hoping to blend in with the market customers.

In the short time she'd been inside, the castle yard had become a riot of energy. Voices of every type, women pushing apples into her face. Children darting around her legs, and somewhere above it all, a group of men were singing .

Carys pressed into the crowd and walked toward the great wooden gate she and Duncan had walked through, gasping a little when she nearly ran into a giant wearing green corded leggings. She looked up to see a man with dark curling hair, arched cheekbones, and rich reddish-brown skin looking down at her with a curious expression. She blinked when she saw his pointed ears pierced with a dozen gold rings.

"Sorry," she muttered at the tall fae before she tried to move around him.

"Nêrys ddraig?"

Carys blinked. "No, my name is—" She caught herself before she gave her name to a fae. "Not Nêrys."

Had she misheard? How could the fae man know her name?

She pressed on, turning away from the fae but still heading toward the gate. A dog barked at her ankles, and a short figure pulled it by the collar. It looked up, and Carys realized it wasn't a child as she'd thought but some kind of shorter creature with large eyes, a stubby nose, and a wispy beard.

It shouted something in a language she couldn't understand.

Not real. Not real.

Except it was so very, very real.

Her feet were raw and blistered in Duncan's oversized boots, but Carys blocked the pain and kept going. She might not be a star athlete—might have failed on every school team she tried out for—but one thing she was really good at was walking.

She walked over rough cobblestones and muddy puddles. Around wagons and through the overwhelming barnyard smell of cows, horses, and pigs that were herded through the castle yard.

The massive wooden gate loomed in the distance, and she hunched her shoulders and walked in that direction, hoping that whoever had been calling her name was still searching the twisting hallways of the stone edifice behind her.

Get out. Get away. Back to the cottage. Back to the forest.

Soldiers stood on either side of the gate, but as she'd expected, they were watching who was coming in far more than who was leaving .

She scooted closer to a group of brightly dressed traders who were speaking in English, laughing about a deal they'd just made on fabric. Keeping close to their group, she slipped past the castle guards, under the massive wooden portico, and crossed the drawbridge.

She was out.