Table of Contents

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TOUCHED SAGA READING ORDER

Book 1: Touched – The Caress of Fate

Book 2: Unfaithful – The Deception of Night

Book 3: Brokenhearted – The Power of Darkness (Fall 2016)

Book 4: Expiation - The Whisper of Death (2017)

TOUCHED SAGA SHORT STORIES:

Book 1.5: The Shadow of Fate, Gemma’s Prequel

Book 2.5: The Mark of Fate, Evan’s Prequel

PRAISE FOR THE TOUCHED SAGA

What readers are saying about Touched

“The most passionate saga of recent times.”

−Franci Cat

“The many emotions and plot twists plus the fast-paced dialogue make this story an absolutely brilliant first novel.”–Sognando tra le righe blog

“These two are the new Romeo and Juliet.”

−Coffee and Books blog

"Enough with vampires, enough with werewolves, the new masters of fantasy are the Angels—and not just any Angels, but Angels of Death. A love story that takes hold of your mind, warms your heart, and touches your soul."−Vale D, Amazon

"A really amazing fantasy novel where love is mixed with the supernatural in a superb way." −IlRecensore

“I felt like Gemma, I felt her joy and her pain along with her. I also felt Evan’s anger, his love, gentleness, and fear, all along with him.”

–Libri Per Passione blog

"From a paranormal point of view, what strikes me most, apart from the Norwegian legends about the Subterraneans, is the coexistence of two supernatural figures that are rarely seen together."

–Sangue Blu blog

“A strong, passionate love that is able to defy any obstacle and any fate."–Bliss

“Beautiful, riveting, and damn romantic.”–Tea, Amazon

“I was very intrigued by Evan’s point of view: his inner battle between the desire to love Gemma and to do his duty.”

−Beatrice, Booklovers blog

“Evan, an Angel of Death fighting for the life of his love even though it is he who has been designated to be her executioner; and Gemma, a human being so courageous, so in love that she does not fear even death. It really touched me.”

–Elena, R. Fantasy blog

“It is a story that hits you straight in the heart. It really moves you, and not all stories can do that.”

–The Bookworm

“If you loved Twilight, Hush, Hush, Fallen and other sagas, you can’t miss this book for anything in the world.”−Angela, Amazon

1

London, 1720

Her hand slid slowly down my bare chest as I watched her, fascinated with the soft curve of her lips. I swallowed. I didn’t feel like myself, but rather as if I were a prisoner of my own body, without having full control of it. A body that trembled at her touch. A strange light passed through her exquisite amber eyes. Something akin to desire, but darker. Power, that was it. The yearning to possess. Thirst for me, for my body. For my mind. I could feel it.

I came closer and slid my fingers along her neck, brushing aside a lock of hair, red as the setting sun. Every part of me trembled.

A brief moment of awareness flickered through my mind. Where had she come from? Where had I met this woman who was offering herself so easily to me? I could have taken her there, in that instant, and she would have accepted. It almost seemed as though she were asking for it, with a gaze so seductive, so full of fire. I didn’t have any answers to these questions, but did it really even matter? In that moment, my mind clouded by her beauty and the power she held over me, it didn’t seem to. But deep inside me, something resisted this impulse.

She looked at me, and my resistance melted away. She had me under her spell. Dawn and dusk had given her their very own colors, in homage to her beauty.

I caressed her back, then her shoulders, slowly moving my hand down the brocade of her long green dress to the lacing of her bodice, then back up to her plunging neckline. I grazed her neck lightly with my nose. Her perfume made me lightheaded. So intoxicating…

Again, the impulse overpowered me. I felt dizzy, totally at her mercy. A strange anguish made my chest tighten.

“Who are you?” I murmured into her skin, brushing my nose lightly against her ear.

She hesitated. When she spoke, a shiver ran through my body, burning me like the lash of a whip. “Whoever you want me to be, my lord.”

Somehow her answer must have convinced me, because my hand moved in response, baring her shoulder. A moan escaped my lips. My hot breath on her skin made her laugh, and I found the sound delicious.

She looked me in the eyes and became serious again, bringing her lips to my ear. “You want to make me yours, do you not?” she whispered persuasively, abandoning all formality.

“Milady, it is unseemly for you to ask,” I responded in a low voice, her suggestion creating a pleasurable vertigo in me.

“Your body has already responded. I can feel your desire.” Slowly, she lowered her dress to bare her other shoulder. “Let yourself go. Abandon yourself… to me.” The bodice fell to the floor with a soft thud.

My heart began to race, going faster and faster until it skipped a beat.

She must have noticed this, because she brushed her lips against my ear and whispered: “Give in to this desire… and I will be yours.”

My body was imploring me to caress her, my hand moving of its own accord to satisfy this desire, to touch her, to be closer to her, to have her. Then what was holding me back? Where was this instinct to resist coming from? My eyes fell on the image moving in the mirror across the room. I wore a dark coat with a high collar. From behind it opened up into two dovetails that reached my knees. The front, on the other hand, was shorter and allowed glimpses of a waistcoat over a white shirt and kerchief of the same color, knotted extravagantly at the neck. But there was something wrong with my reflection. The hair wasn’t brown, but blond, with the hint of a beard on a chin that wasn’t mine… No, I wasn’t me. I was my father. His slender figure, his eyes clouded with passion.

I backed away instinctively, and the figure moved with me.

No!I revolted against this image. I wasn’t my father. I wasn’t like him! I didn’t want to be…

In an instant, everything became clear.

It must have been he who had sent this woman.

This realization brought me back to myself, and in my reflection I saw who I really was: a strong young man, with enough strength to resist the weakness that had defeated my father.

New determination in my eyes, I pushed the woman away. I suddenly heard what sounded like a hiss, there in the room, like the hissing of a snake. She glared at me for a moment, incensed, and I felt my temples begin to burn under her gaze. I doubled over in agony, squeezing my eyes shut against the pain.

The woman’s voice echoed through the room: “We shall meet again soon, my lord. Very soon.”

2

I awoke with a start, drenched with sweat. I touched my bare chest and could feel my heart racing. The strange dream still echoed in my mind, unwilling to go away.

We shall meet again soon.

I don’t know why, but it seemed more of a threat than a promise.

I raked my fingers through my hair, disheveled from sleep. I despised my father. He had turned my life into a living hell, where even the most beautiful dream became a nightmare. He wanted me to be like him. He had always wanted that, but I found him utterly contemptible. I no longer even considered him a father, or perhaps I never had. I wanted only for my mother to stop thinking of him as a husband, because he wasn’t one, nor had he ever been. Perhaps this was the real reason I despised him; more than my memory of the sting of the horsewhip in his hand when I was a mere child, more than the fact that he had loaded me down with responsibility at a young age, forcing me to become a man when I wasn’t old enough to take on such a burden. More than anything else, I couldn’t tolerate seeing the resignation on my mother’s face: her tears, her pain, her stifled sobs behind the door to her chambers when she thought no one could hear. A beautiful angel with broken wings. And it was he who had stripped her of her feathers, one at a time, and continued to do so every wretched evening. And I could do nothing to stop it. I couldn’t protect her as I would have wanted. She didn’t want me to fight back, and I couldn’t bear to see her suffer because of my actions as well. I had destroyed many a door, venting upon it rage meant for my father, and even once, a window. I had thrown something through the glass, shattering it into a thousand pieces.

Overcome with frustration, I got out of bed, throwing the bedclothes on the floor. I looked at my image reflected in the small round mirror above the basin filled with cold water.

My cheeks were flushed, my wavy hair uncombed and falling over my forehead, as if the encounter with the woman had really happened. I couldn’t bear to see that image of myself, so I tied my hair back at the neck in a ponytail. My mother must have gone out, since I couldn’t hear anything from the other rooms. Not that she was the noisy type—you often barely noticed she was there—but Edina…she was the kind of person that made herself heard. If the house was quiet, it could mean only one thing: the two of them must have gone to church. Edina accompanied my mother there every day. They would go on foot, arm in arm, even though the church was an hour’s walk away, because my father—after having squandered my mother’s inheritance—had incurred such debt that we first lost our carriage and then even the horses. When my father was courting my mother, my mother’s parents had been against the marriage, threatening to disown her because he belonged to a different social class. Nonetheless, my mother insisted, a choice I would probably have made as well. And yet, despite the failed marriage, she never regretted it because she had me.

My father and I worked together in the carpentry shop set up with my grandfather’s money after the fire of 1666 that had destroyed much of the city. Although we spent a lot of time together, my father and I never spoke except to argue. When he wasn’t leaving the house to go God knows where, he was cold and distant, and more often than not, drunk before evening. With time, I earned the trust of our customers, and this was enough for us to get by.

In addition to her family’s assets, my mother had also inherited Edina, our governess. Edina had been her wet nurse, then her companion and chaperone. She had even facilitated the secret meetings between my mother and father while he was courting her. Technically, after my father had squandered all of my grandfather’s money, we could no longer afford to keep a servant; but Edina had chosen to stay, contenting herself with a roof over her head and something to eat as compensation. This was probably because my mother and I were her only family.

I slipped on my beige linen breeches and fastened the straps just below the knee, followed by my brown boots and white shirt. I smiled to myself at the thought of how Edina would have scolded me if she had seen me go out without my waistcoat and tailcoat.

Master William! You haven’t worn your Sabbath-day clothes! It’s not proper to be seen wearing only your shirt, you know that! It’s indecent! And I hope you aren’t going around with those neighborhood scoundrels, mind you! In God’s name, think of your reputation! What will become of your good name?

She was forever repeating this to me, but I would just give her a light pat on the rump and she would get red in the face and storm off in a huff.

Your reputation.Just because I didn’t go around on Sundays dressed like a court dandy didn’t mean I was ruining my reputation. My father had already taken care of that. When I wasn’t working, I spent my time with Robert and Flynn, one a stablehand and the other a cook’s assistant. They were poor, but this didn’t make them rogues. As if an elegant overcoat could instill nobility. One was noble in spirit or not noble at all. I looked at the refined clothing that had been laid out for me—a black silk overcoat with waistcoat and cocked hat—and felt a surge of revulsion at the memory of my image in the dream, where I had been dressed like my father.

After all, Edina had been my mother’s wet nurse, not mine. We clashed because she was always trying to turn me into a dandy but was never able to keep up with me. Even as a child and up to the very end, she was forced to concede to me; but then I would give her a peck on the cheek and her expression would soften.

By then I was seventeen. I was a grown man and ought to be able to wear whatever I pleased. I grabbed my brown linen portfolio and went out into the crisp September air.

The streets of London swarmed with people of every social class and rank. The lords and ladies of London society, young and old, walked side by side, wearing sumptuous, colorful garments. A child skipped along, pulling at his mother’s hand while she scolded him, trying to get him to behave. Showy carriages richly adorned, their sides ornately painted, rushed in all directions amid the constant clatter of horses’ hooves. I often tried to imagine who was hidden behind the thick curtains of those carriages.

The Thames saw all as it flowed slowly under London Bridge, the city’s only bridge. I climbed up to one of its central arches and pulled out the sheets of drawing paper and charcoal I had in my portfolio. For a moment I stared at the sketch of the Monastery of Saint Mary Overie that I had done sitting in that very spot. It was one of London’s most beautiful gothic churches, and from the bridge I’d been able to get the perfect angle. I put it back in the portfolio and concentrated on what was in my mind. My hand raced over the page as I tried to bring to life the face of the woman that had appeared in my dream. Her memory had become distant, her features indistinct, but her sharp eyes had etched themselves on my mind, and now stared back at me from the paper, piercing and seductive.

“Oh-ho! Look what I found!” Someone snatched the sheet from my hands.

I turned to find my friend Robert snickering as he waved it around for the whole group to see. “What have we here? A girl! Some sweet maiden has finally managed to scratch the surface of his frozen heart! So this is why you’ve been keeping to yourself!” He threw his arm around my shoulders while Tom, Charlie and Flynn whistled smugly at the sight of the drawing.

I smiled.

“So, where were you? We looked for you everywhere!” Robert was daring and capable, just like the others, even if he was quick to anger at times. His brother Flynn, on the other hand, was less impulsive but more sociable. He had ice-blue eyes and red hair in contrast to Robert, with his stronger features and shoulder-length blond hair. They had moved to London together from Scotland.

“You were looking in the wrong places. I was right here,” I answered, half-smiling.

“Or maybe you were with the girl in the picture and you didn’t want anyone to know about her!” Robert jabbed me in the shoulder to get me to talk. “Spit it out!”

“If that were really the case, I definitely wouldn’t tell you about her,” I assured them, punching him back and starting up a playful brawl.

“Come on now, with all the girls around you, Master William, not one has been able to find her way into your heart?” he mocked, mimicking Edina’s voice.

“Come here and we’ll see which one of us is the master.” I lifted him and carried him effortlessly on my shoulders while he kicked, laughing like a lunatic.

“Okay, okay, you stony-hearted scoundrel. Now put me down.”

I put him back down and clapped him on the shoulder.

It was then that a loud scream grabbed our attention. My eyes searched the crowd until I saw her. A young woman in distress was leaning out of a moving carriage; the horses stamped their hooves, nervous, as she cried out and pointed at a person who must have stolen something from her. I scanned the throng and spotted a boy running away at breakneck speed. I started after him with Robert running beside me.

He was too fast and I soon lost sight of him. He must have slipped into the carriage while it was moving and stolen the woman’s jewelry, something that had been happening more and more often.

“Where did he go?” Robert came up beside me, panting, and planted both hands on his knees. It hadn’t been a particularly strenuous exertion, but he wasn’t used to physical exercise like I was.

We had arrived at a fork in the road and didn’t know which way to go.

“Let’s split up. You go that way!” I said decisively, and took off in the opposite direction.

For a moment I thought the thief had hidden himself somewhere in the area. I continued to look for him among the crowd of people milling in the street and soon saw him at a distance. Without a second thought, I leapt onto a horse standing at the edge of the road and unhooked it from the cart it was harnessed to with a sharp kick. I, took off at a gallop and quickly overtook the boy, but he outwitted me, jumping over a rampart and running off again without looking back. The horse reared as I brought it to a halt and looked down at the little thief from the bridge: he was headed for Saint Paul’s Cathedral. I felt certain he was working for someone else, someone he was trying to get to so he could protect him. I snapped the reins and was off again like the wind, the people in the road yelling and blocking my way. I tore through the narrow streets and jumped a few crates of fruit, looking for a gap in the crowd. I must have knocked one over because behind me I heard the shouts of the angry merchant. When I emerged onto the main road, I found myself in front of the boy. He stopped in his tracks, knowing I was there for him.

I was taken aback: he couldn’t have been much older than thirteen. He took advantage of my hesitation and tried to flee again. Where did he think he was going? I was too close to let him escape. In one motion, I sprang at him and snatched the loot from his bag.

“NO!” His cry seemed desperate.

“I’m sorry, boy, but this doesn’t belong to you,” I said as I remounted the horse.

“What’s going on here?” Two tough-looking youths materialized from the shadows. The younger boy seemed terrified at the sight of their surly faces.

I stealthily slipped the small cloth pouch into my trouser pocket. They didn’t know I had taken it, but I had the feeling this was precisely the reason they were here. 

The bigger of the two grabbed the younger boy by the collar and lifted him half a foot off the ground.

“So? Where’s my cut?! You’ve come empty-handed?”

“Let me go! I didn’t get anything, but I can do better!” the little boy promised, kicking his feet.

“What do you mean, you didn’t get anything?” he bellowed, enraged. He hurled the boy to the ground and prepared to strike him.

“Hey! Let him go,” I ordered, my eyes ruthlessly fixed on him.

“And what do you want?” He grabbed the little boy by the collar again, as if he wanted to provoke me. “This has nothing to do with you. The kid is none of your business.”

I got off the horse and tightened my fists at my sides. “Actually, he is my business.”

As the brigand prepared to strike the younger boy, I leapt on him, blocking the blow. We tumbled to the ground. When I heard a chorus of excited voices rush into the alley, I sprang to my feet because I knew his reinforcements were arriving. I ducked his blows and got in a few good punches to his stomach and jaw, which I might have fractured, judging by the appalling crunch my fist made. Two other boys rushed to his defense. I head-butted one and the other lunged at me, but I dodged him just in time, knocking him away from me with a kick to his rear end. I laughed as he crashed into some bags of flour, but the other two grabbed me by both arms and held me in a viselike grip. The one I had knocked down first got up again, blood dripping from his nose, walked up to me and punched me twice in the stomach.

For a moment, everything became hazy, then someone seized my aggressor by the shoulders. I shook my head to clear it and recognized Robert struggling with the boy who had punched me. I took advantage of the distraction to free myself from the hold the other two had on me and smacked their heads together. There was a hollow thud, like the sound produced when two empty vessels collide.

A few seconds later, two of them escaped in terror while the third struggled to get to his feet.

I stamped my foot on the ground, and he let out a frightened whimper, attempting to slip away. Robert and I laughed.

“Nice work,” I commended my friend.

“You weren’t bad either,” he said, dusting himself off.

“You took your time getting here, though!”

“You’re lucky I even found you, though this crowd gave me some clue…”

I looked around me. In the excitement of the fight, I hadn’t noticed the small crowd that had gathered around us to watch.

“What are you looking at?!” Robert snapped. “Show’s over, all right? Go home!” Then his expression softened. “Miladies.” He bowed to three young ladies who had stopped to stare at us. “You may stay, if you like.”

They covered their mouths and giggled, but the sound was drowned out by a whinny. I had forgotten about the horse. The boy had taken hold of the reins to stop it from running off, startled by the laughter, and had tethered it to a wall. I walked over and the young boy shrank back, frightened.

“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of you!” He took a step forward to show how brave he was.

I chuckled. “Well, of course not, how could you be?” I tousled his hair as if I had known him forever and took the reins. “It was brave of you to take the blame.”

“I’m a thief, not a tattletale,” he muttered, scowling.

Robert and I burst out laughing. “You make a lot of noise for a thief. You should learn a little discretion,” I mocked, “or you won’t get very far.”

He smiled. “Except when there’s a madman on horseback chasing me. I never ran so hard in my life,” he confessed.

“You were asking for it,” I scolded. “You don’t steal from gentlewomen’s carriages.” I felt in my pocket for the bag containing the stolen goods, but couldn’t find it.

“Looking for this?”

I looked at the boy. He was dandling the bag in front of him while Robert laughed. “What were you saying about discretion?”

“He’s a sharp one!” Robert admitted, amused.

I gave the boy a look that told him not to play any more tricks, and he threw me the bag, resigned.

“Good boy.”

“You sure are strange, though…” he grumbled suddenly.

“Strange? Is that what you call someone who took two punches to the stomach for you?”

“One to the face, too,” he pointed out, and I burst out laughing at his insolence. “Did you know her? The woman in the carriage?” he asked me, taking me by surprise.

“No,” I admitted.

“You came after me on a horse that probably isn’t even yours for a woman you don’t know, and then you saved me from Oliver the head-smasher, which is even stranger.”

“The head-smasher? Is that what they call him here?”

“Only I do. When I don’t get him what he wants, he smashes my head against the wall.”

I felt my rage return, and clenched my fists to drive it away. He was just a grubby little boy. This Oliver had to be a shameful coward to pick on someone like him. “What’s your name?”

“Benjamin, sir. But everyone calls me Jimmy.”

I got on the horse and felt in my pocket. I had only one coin, but it would do him more good than it would me. I flipped it between my fingers and tossed it to him. He caught it and held it close to his eyes, his face filled with wonder.

“Can I keep it?”

“It’s all yours.” I gave him a wink. “But put it to good use… and choose your friends more wisely.” I pulled at the reins to turn the horse around. Robert’s smile faded.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“To take the horse back!”

With a swift kick to its sides I galloped away, leaving Robert and his string of insults behind.

3

The carriage was still in the same spot it had been when I had given chase to little Jimmy. Robert hadn’t arrived yet, but Flynn had been entertaining the noblewoman and her duenna, promising that I would return.

“Milady.” I bowed to both women, handing to the younger of the two the stolen item I had recuperated. “My respects.”

Her hair was so light it appeared white. A dusting of freckles gave a touch of color to her fair skin and drew attention to the green of her eyes. She wore a fanciful dress with wide vertical stripes of blue and white and a matching hat, decorated with feathers of the same color. Her corset was cinched tightly, exaggerating her cleavage. The coachman was sitting on the box seat with his back to us, seemingly uninterested.

“Oh! I truly don’t know how to thank you.”

“There’s no need,” I assured her. “I was just doing my duty.”

She removed the necklace from the bag and pressed it to her chest, letting the bag, which must have belonged to Jimmy, fall to the ground. “It’s so precious to me! If only there were more people like you, Mr. James, I would feel safer.”

It didn’t occur to me to ask how she knew my name. I simply shot Flynn a look of reproach.

“This city becomes more dangerous all the time,” I agreed.

“That’s what I was telling your friend…”

Flynn lifted a hand to me, pleased with himself.

“I nearly fainted when that little scoundrel’s head popped into the carriage and he ripped my necklace  from my neck. The audacity! I hope he got what he deserved!”

I thought about the grubby little boy who was forced to steal to survive and hoped he would heed my advice.

“Oh, but… you’re hurt!” The young lady instinctively brought her hand to my cheek, but drew it back before touching it.

“It’s nothing,” I assured her. “It doesn’t even sting.”

“You risked your life for me. Allow me to repay you…”

“I only chased after a little boy. You needn’t feel obliged to me, milady. Really, I did nothing,” I tried to convince her, but Flynn interrupted me with a nudge of his elbow.

“Come now, Evan, let her feel obliged,” he whispered to me with a cheeky smile. “It isn’t polite to refuse an offer from such a charming young lady.”

She blushed, but immediately turned her attention back to me.

“My name is Venetia, and I’m the daughter of Lord Archibald Alexander Byron. There will be a ball tomorrow evening at the Spencer Estate, home of my maternal grandparents, in the Saint James quarter. I would be honored to have you among my guests…both of you,” she added, sensing my hesitation. Perhaps she had realized that the only person that could convince me to go was Flynn, who cleared his throat at that moment.

“There would also be our friend Robert…”

“But of course! Robert.”

“We aren’t going to any ball,” I scoffed under my breath.

But Flynn was smiling.

“Give your address to my coachman. I’ll have the invitations sent to your home.” The young lady seemed enthusiastic about this turn of events, almost as much as Flynn, who was already following her directions.

I, however, had no desire to attend a ball.

“Tell me then, Mr. James, would you do me the honor of attending the ball as my escort? It might seem forward of me, but it is my eighteenth-birthday celebration after all, and I’m certain my father will not object.”

Flynn let out a whistle of surprise and admiration. “This one’s set her sights on you,” he whispered, disguising his words with a cough. “She’s eighteen, did you hear that? She wants to be Mrs. James, I’m telling you!”

“Mr. James, I insist. My parents will be delighted to meet the brave young man who risked his life to restore my medallion. It’s a family heirloom, were you aware of that?”

“If it means so much to you, I’ll come to the ball in your honor, milady.”

“Wonderful! Until tomorrow, then!” The carriage pulled away with a whinny from the horse at the reins. “See you tomorrow!” Lady Venetia leaned out of the window, self-assuredly waving us farewell, one hand clutching her elaborate hat to her head. I waved back at her.

“What was I telling you? You dazzled her with that rescue of yours. I give her a year to become Mrs. James, I’ll wager it!”

“You’re mad. Don’t talk nonsense.”

“Why not? She was practically throwing herself at you!”

“She’s a wealthy noblewoman, Flynn, did you hear where she lives? She’s an aristocrat. Saint James’s is one of the most elegant quarters in all of London. I have nothing to offer her.”

“Girls like her are used to getting what they want. She invited you to the ball, as her escort! It means it doesn’t matter. And furthermore… I could have told her your grandfather made a fortune importing silks from Asia and the Americas.”

I glared at him.

“She wouldn’t stop asking about you!” he said defensively, but then smiled to himself again. “You should have seen her, completely mesmerized. I’m telling you, she’s infatuated!”

“And so what if it’s true? I don’t care,” I muttered.

“What do you mean, you don’t care?” Flynn stopped in front of me and grabbed me by the shoulders. “This is your chance, don’t you understand? To marry well. I’d kill to be in your place.”

“Marriage is the last thing on my mind right now, Flynn. And anyway, you could have attracted her attention yourself if you had gone after the thief instead of just standing there like a stump. You talked quite a bit, didn’t you? The two of you are surely more in sync with each other.”

“Yes, we talked, but about you. And yes, maybe I could have gotten into her good graces too…” he snapped, offended, “… if I hadn’t been so busy trying to get this back.” He reached behind him and drew forth a crumpled sheet of paper.

It was the drawing I had made a few hours earlier. The charcoal lines were a little smudged, but the woman stared up at me still. It was incredible how her eyes, even on paper, had the power to shake me to the core.

“It’s a bit damaged, I’m afraid. I couldn’t stop it from falling into the river.”

“That’s all right. Thanks for recovering it for me.”

He shrugged and went back to scrutinizing me. “So, you want to tell me who this woman is or not?”

“I can’t,” I admitted, disconcerted. “I don’t even know myself.”

Just then, a group of young ladies walking arm in arm along the road beside us broke into a chorus of excited giggles. They must have been members of high society because they were wearing splendid silk and brocade dresses decorated with lace and frills of every kind. I bowed my head courteously in greeting; they blushed and began smiling and whispering among themselves.

Flynn raised his eyes skyward. “But how...” He turned back to look at the young women with an expression midway between surprise and dismay. “I don’t believe it! Can you tell me how you do it? Girls just swoon whenever you walk by!” he exclaimed, shaking his head, amused by the attention I was getting from them.

“It must be the cut on my cheek, what can I say?” I joked, shrugging my shoulders. In reality, I never paid attention. Maybe it was because I had never found the right woman. Instinctively, I looked at the drawing on the crumpled sheet of paper.

Or maybe she had found me, and I just needed to figure out how to get to her.

4

I walked past my mother’s piano and collapsed onto the pale brocade sofa, still clutching the rumpled drawing. The water had blurred the lines of her features, rendering her figure ethereal. She looked like a ghost bent on tormenting me. Her eyes, however, were clear, and continued to gaze intently at me, almost leaping off the page. It was as if this woman had planted a seed in my head that continued to grow, the memory of her taking root within me.

As if impelled by a silent request, my eyes shifted to the large painting of some of my ancestors that hung above the fireplace. Their faces held my gaze; I was hypnotized. Was it my imagination, or were they trying to tell me something? They stared back, stiff in their poses, but with watchful eyes that looked directly into mine. I shook my head and turned back to my drawing. I examined it for a moment, trying to find that face somewhere in my memories. I had remembered it so clearly I couldn’t have made it up. And yet, it seemed to me that I had never seen this woman before, I was almost certain of it. But who was she? And why did it matter so much to me? It was as if my life, my fate, depended on her… Perhaps I was destined to be with her. Perhaps I should have looked for her…

Exhausted by my uncertainty, I clutched the sheet of paper to my chest and drifted off to sleep.

I heard a gentle laugh, but couldn’t determine its source. It hung in the air and seemed to dissipate among the trees of the orchard. The sound was so sweet it clouded my thoughts.

“Where are you?” I asked, and the sweet echo of laughter sounded closer.

Her face peeked out from behind the trunk of a tree, right in front of me. I was immediately fascinated. She was so beautiful...

She gave me a long, seductive look, then drifted away, laughing.

“Wait!” I reached out to touch her, but she eluded me, looking over her shoulder occasionally so she wouldn’t lose sight of me.

I followed her through the trees. She slowed her pace from time to time to allow me to catch up, playing with me, heightening my desire to reach her.

Finally she stopped and leaned back against a tree, her gaze lively and seductive.

“Why do you run from me?” I asked, uncertain. Her sweet laughter rose and mingled with the leaves of the orchard.

“It’s you who keep running away.”

Her response bewildered me, but I soon became lost in her eyes and forgot everything else. I had discovered she held this power over me. It confounded me.

She reached out and pulled me towards her. I leaned my hands on the trunk of the tree, pinning her against it. I was consumed with a strange desire. I swallowed, brushing her neck softly with my fingers. Like an instinct that has lain dormant and suddenly been reawakened, being near her unleashed in me the urge to touch her, to feel her body against mine. Giving in to this obsession, I slowly bared her shoulder. Her expression was complacent, her eyes begged me to continue.

But the image of another woman suddenly superimposed itself over hers.

Your heat burns my skin when you’re near me.

I held my breath, paralyzed, my heart suddenly pounding furiously.

That voice… I recognized the voice that had whispered those words against my lips, while those huge black eyes looked deep within me.

The vision lasted only an instant, but was enough to disorient me. I shook my head and passed my hand over my face. In that momentary flash, I had seen something else: another me, far from that orchard, far from my doubts, in a comforting place. Suddenly I felt lost and wanted nothing more than to return to that place and hear that voice again.

“Don’t run away, my lord. Stay here with me,” the woman whispered in my ear.

Still stunned by the vision, I hadn’t realized she had come closer.

“You will be mine and I will be forever yours,” she promised. Yet I trembled because there was something wrong in her words. “I can show you worlds you do not yet know.” She began to unfasten her bodice, her eyes fixed on mine all the while.

Again, she took my hand to draw me to her and when my body touched hers, I felt a wave of heat pass through me. A wave of pure desire. Then why did I know it was wrong for me to be there? Inside me, a battle raged. Attraction and repulsion fought for dominance. Her presence unleashed contradictory emotions in me: hot and cold together. An ominous feeling burned through my chest.

No. Something was wrong. I wasn’t supposed to be there; I must defy her. Something inside me resisted her, though I didn’t know where that icy whisper had come from.

I heard a hiss in the air around me. It invaded me, sending shivers through my body. The woman seemed to sense my resistance and clung to me more insistently, but I grabbed her wrists and held them to her sides. She shot me an icy glare, but I no longer saw her. I wasn’t even in the orchard any more. I had returned to that voice, those eyes, that girl. The only place I wanted to be.

I want to be with you and no one else.

I felt my heart pound to the echo of her words. The next instant my eyes met hers. She was before me, her lips almost touching mine: the sweetest maiden I had ever seen.

The ominous feeling disappeared, and I knew I was in the right place, once again in control of myself. I brushed her neck with my nose and abandoned myself to this new and unconquerable feeling. I slid my mouth over her chin, her lips, feeding off the fire I felt within me. The love that burned in my soul overwhelmed me. It was as if I had always known this maiden. My hands, my body, every part of me responded to her and only her, hands that burned as they moved over her body, her skin, like a slow-burning fire. And there was no one but her lying beneath me, our breath intermingled, her huge black eyes holding me captive. I saw nothing but her. There was no clothing to separate us, only our bodies, consumed by the heat that bound us. Only my skin against hers. I drew her knee to one side to enter her, and a wave of ecstasy filled me with the passion of a thousand stars, as the universe exploded inside me and I knew she was mine, all mine. Forever mine. The thought rose from somewhere deep inside me, as if I had already expressed it in another place, in another time.

“Jamie…” I gasped against her throat, taking sustenance from her.

The sharp crack of a whip tore me away suddenly.

“Evan!”

I looked around me, desperate and inexorably alone. Her cry echoed though my head, leaving my heart empty and desolate.

I awoke suddenly, my breathing ragged and my heart pounding against my ribs.

“Evan. Evan, calm down.”

I struggled to find my mother’s eyes. I was still on the sofa, my sweat-soaked hair plastered to my hot forehead.

“Mother,” I mumbled, disoriented, as she took my hands in hers.

“It was just a bad dream,” she said, stroking my cheek as if I were still a small boy.

I sat up and covered my face with my hands, resting my elbows on my knees. I needed a moment. What I had seen was the clear image of a memory, as if I had truly experienced those moments of sweet passion.

“It seemed so real…” I murmured, dazed.

My mother nodded, as if she understood the desperation hidden behind my words. All at once I felt drained, as if nothing were more important than this.

“You talked in your sleep.”

I raised my head, worried.

“What did I say?”

“A name. You kept repeating a name. Jamie.”

I passed a hand over my forehead.

“A friend of yours?” she asked.

Indeed, it could very well have been a boy’s name.

“A girl,” I confessed. I didn’t want to lie to her.

“Oh!” All at once, my mother’s face lit up. “Tell me about her,” she entreated me with her usual sweetness.

“I don’t know any Jamie,” I said sulkily, hating myself for saying those words. I wanted to go back to that dream. To her. And stay there forever. I didn’t understand why I felt this way, but my emotions had been too strong and impossible to erase.

“William.”

“Don’t call me that!”

She lowered her head sorrowfully. I didn’t want her to call me by my father’s name. Not her.

“Forgive me, Evan,” she corrected herself. “One day, a girl will come into your life and…”

“That won’t happen. I’ll never marry,” I assured her, resolved.

“You are not like him.”

I winced. My mother knew full well the reasons for my resentment.

“Trust me,” she whispered. I saw a tear roll down her cheek. I fell at her feet.

“Forgive me, Mother. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Then promise me, Evan. I don’t want you to be alone in life.” She ran her thumb across my cheek, wiping the blood from my cut. “Don’t let him ruin your life too. You’ll find a girl who will know how to make you happy, and then I will be happy too.”

“Mother…”

“She is already in your heart. Find her, Evan. Take care of her and let her do the same for you.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Promise me, Evan. You must promise me.”

I closed my eyes. My mother knew very well how strong my aversion towards marriage was, but even so, it never failed to sadden her. I had no desire to become the husband my father had been, and yet, my heart still raced when I thought of those passionate kisses.

“I promise, Mother.”

She gave my hand a squeeze and bent down to pick something up. “Is this she?”

She was holding the sheet of paper with the portrait I had drawn.

I shook my head. “No. But I dreamed about her, too.”

She laughed sweetly. “Your dreams are filled with beautiful young ladies,” she observed complacently, then quietly left the room.

“Sometimes they’re nightmares,” I said under my breath, thinking of the woman in the portrait that haunted my mind. She was the ghost of my father’s lovers, by then I was certain of it. Deep in my heart, no matter how much desire she ignited in me, I felt it was wrong for me to be with her, and I would keep rejecting her.

Jamie.

Her face swept away the image of the temptress. I had never dreamed of Jamie before, I was certain of it; I would have remembered her. And just before my mind had led me to her I remembered feeling strong revulsion towards the other woman. She must have been the one who had triggered the vision, as if my brain had sought a place of refuge. Jamie… She was so beautiful, sweet and good; and her warm breath on my lips was so familiar… it seemed impossible that I’d never met her before. Even more unbearable was the thought of losing her forever. No. I would continue to search for her each day in the faces of the passersby, taking refuge in her memory when night fell.

Completely lost in these sensations, I took up my old violin and placed it against my shoulder. I closed my eyes and let myself be guided by the memory of her voice as I played new and unfamiliar melodies.

Later that night

Bang!

Let’s get out of here, now!

The sound of footsteps retreating quickly.

Then silence.

5

The night was so quiet that my footsteps on the pavement echoed loudly through the dark streets of London, the sound extending to infinity. The silence was within and all around me, enveloping me.

I leaned my arm against a wall, disoriented.

I had no idea how I had gotten there, what I was doing in the street in the middle of the night. A veil of confusion suffocated my thoughts.

All at once I remembered. I had finally done it: I had confronted my father.

I had seen him leaving the house. I’d tried to speak with my mother, to make her see reason, to convince her to react and take her life into her own hands; but the quiet look of resignation on her face made me snap. I could no longer bear to look on helplessly as she suffered before my very eyes. I was strong, stronger than he was. I could confront him. So, for the first time in my life, I had gone out looking for him. I had knocked him to the ground and warned him not to return until he was ready to assume the responsibilities of a real husband. He had failed as a father, but he could still remedy things with my mother. He lay there on the ground, moaning in pain as his whores attended to him.

I had left, and remembered nothing more.

My head snapped up. A shiver ran through me as a laugh echoed in my brain, sweet and seductive. I felt as if I had heard it before, somewhere…

I followed her without hesitation, forgetting who I was. I was lured by her call, I couldn’t resist it. Suddenly, all I wanted was to find her. Have her. Nothing was more important. I staggered, supporting myself against the wall. My mind was so hazy…

“Evan…”

The whisper pierced my heart, like a sigh carried on the wind to guide me. A sudden stab of pain in my left arm took my breath away. I doubled over in agony. It felt like my arm was buried in glowing embers. I yanked the sleeve of my ecru tailcoat up, tearing the fabric in my desperation. Fire burned through my flesh, tracing dark lines in my skin, as if lava were flowing through my veins, branching in every direction. Gritting my teeth, I opened my palm to see lines impressing themselves on my left forearm, imprisoning it in white-hot talons.

When the pain had subsided and I was able to breathe again, I examined in bewilderment the design that had been left on the scorched flesh that still sizzled: small symbols embedded one within the other, enveloping my skin.

I stared at my arm in dismay. What was happening to me?

Only later would I discover that fate had forged its mark on me, condemning me for all eternity. On my arm was a permanent mark that would forever change my life.

The mark with which fate had imprisoned me.

“Evan…”

A sweet whisper filled the night, unexpected, so close I could practically feel it on my skin. I raised my face. She stood before me in the flesh. The woman from the drawing.

As I looked into her eyes I became convinced.

She was not human.

Only later, however, would I discover what she really was and, even more terrifying, what I had just become…

***