Beneath a Midnight Moon - By Amanda Ashley Page 0,64
a life without you, but I knew I had to see you one more time.”
Kylene sat up, her eyes wide as she stared down at him. “And if I had sent you from me, you would have gone to live with the wolves?”
“Aye, lady. What would my life be if I couldn’t share it with you?”
“Oh, Hardane,” she murmured, her voice thick with emotion. “You must know how much I love you.”
“Sometimes love isn’t enough.”
Choking back a sob, Kylene snuggled against him once more, stunned to think he would have given up his home, the throne, the life he’d been born to live, all because of her.
She hugged him fiercely, determined to make him happy, to give him strong sons and beautiful daughters, to please him in every way a woman could please a man.
In the weeks that followed, they spent every moment together. Hardane showered her with gifts: jewels that reflected all the colors of the rainbow, lustrous silks and satins in fiery shades of red and blue and green. He took her to the stables and presented her with a horse of her own, a dainty, long-legged mare with a coat like black velvet and a mane and tail like ebony silk.
They took long rides together, sometimes traveling to nearby towns, sometimes spending the night near the waterfall.
On one such night, after they’d made love beneath a starlit sky, they walked hand in hand along the edge of the mountain. And there, silhouetted in the moonlight at the bottom of the falls, Kylene saw the Wolffan warrior who had ridden over the edge. And sitting on the boulder beside him, her wedding gown shimmering like liquid silver in the moonlight, was the woman who had chosen to join her beloved in death rather than face the future alone.
Kylene had stared up at Hardane, unable to believe her eyes. “Do you see them?” she had whispered.
“Aye, lady,” Hardane had replied, squeezing her hand. “And they see us.”
And when Kylene looked again, she saw the two lovers gazing up at them.
The woman waved, her delicate hand ghostly in the moonlight. And then the Wolffan warrior lifted his lady onto the back of his horse, swung up behind her, and rode off into the shadows beyond the falls.
Kylene had never known such happiness as she knew in those carefree days. It was as if she had been born anew the night Hardane returned to the castle, born into a world of light and laughter, a world of brilliant colors and sounds. Her regimented life in the Motherhouse seemed like a bad dream, a nightmare from which she’d been awakened by love’s first kiss.
Like a princess in a fairy tale, she found herself married to a prince, waited upon by servants. She had only to ask for something and it appeared before her. A new gown. A glass of wine. A bowl of freshly picked snowberries. Every whim, every desire of her heart, was granted almost before she’d made it known.
But most wondrous of all was Hardane. He had become the center of her world, her life. She basked in his touch, felt her heart thrill anew each time she heard the deep timbre of his voice. His face was the first she saw in the morning, the last she saw at night. His kisses sent her off to sleep and woke her with the dawn.
She thought often of the sisters she’d never met. One day soon, she would ask Hardane to locate what was left of her family, perhaps invite them to Castle Argone, but not yet. She was too caught up in her newfound happiness to want to share it with anyone else. Soon, she would make time to meet her sisters and their families, but not now.
Occasionally, she wondered what had happened to Selene. No one in the castle had seen her sister since the wedding. The knowledge that her twin sister hated her, hated her enough to try to kill her, was hard to bear. Kylene tried to imagine how she would feel if the situation were reversed, but she knew, deep in her heart, that she would never have plotted against Selene.
But Hardane gave her little time to fret about her sister’s treachery, and she gradually put it out of her mind.
These long golden days of sunshine and laughter, these glorious star-studded nights of ecstasy, belonged only to Hardane.
Chapter 29
Selene stood in the center of the Great Hall of Castle Mouldour, the rapid pounding of her heart