are convinced we should make her our wife, and they’re deluding themselves into thinking everything will be fun and easy. I knew they were lonely—I am too. But I didn’t realize how badly all of them have been aching for a soulmate. I still know without a doubt that bonding Isla to us would be a terrible idea, but maybe if I can compromise with them…
First, I need to make them see that I’m looking out for Isla’s best interest too.
“What if she already has a husband or a partner back home? What if she has a family? You’re all being completely selfish right now. We should be talking about a way to help her find her way home. Not convincing ourselves to trap her here for the next thousand years or so.”
Reule, Caelan, and Audun go silent and stare at Isla guiltily. Reule hesitates for a long moment, but eventually he sighs and admits, “She did mention a couple of names to me. I mean, I think they’re names, but I wasn’t sure how to ask.”
Even though I know it’s probably a good thing, and it looks like I might finally be getting through to Reule, I feel a sharp pain in my stomach at the thought of Isla being with somebody else. I know it’s only because of that damned, cursed moon, but it’s already starting to feel like she’s ours.
“Well? What were the names?” I demand.
“Uh…Alistair?” Reule stumbles over the word that might be a name, and raises his eyebrows at Isla in question.
She’d been peeking over Caelan’s shoulder to see what he’s cooking, but she gasps and spins around to face Reule when he mentions the name. She repeats it excitedly. “Alistair?”
Judging by the looks on my brothers’ faces, I think it’s safe to say we all feel a mix of curiosity and despair. Reule holds his hands out like he’s shrugging and asks, “Who is Alistair, Isla?”
Isla blinks at him, and her eyes fill with tears. I feel my chest tighten, and Caelan makes a low whining sound beside me. She quickly wipes them away and begins speaking rapidly, and starts pointing between the four of us before clasping her hands together. She says something else we can’t understand, her voice lowering and carrying a slight wobble, and touches her heart and clasps her hands together again.
Reule pulls Isla into a hug, and she wraps her arms around him. While he comforts her, Audun hums thoughtfully. “Her brother, then? Or maybe her friend? They’re obviously very important to her.”
“So she has a family,” I say pointedly. “What were the other names she mentioned, Reule?”
He still has his arms around Isla when he peers down at her and asks, “Bryson?”
Isla reacts even more strongly to that name. Only, this time she pulls away with a disgusted look on her face. She shakes her head and angrily spits, “No!”
I think we’re all a little shocked, and aren’t really sure what to say or how to react. But Isla doesn’t give any of us a chance to try before turning around and opening the sketchbook she set on the counter, quickly flipping to an empty page. Audun hovers over her shoulder and watches as she scribbles something furiously.
We wait anxiously until she’s finished, and she holds the drawing up for us to see with an extremely pissed off expression on her face. The figures she’s drawn are cute and almost childlike, but it’s clear she does have some artistic talent like Reule guessed.
“Isla, Bryson…” She points to the first two figures in the drawing—a couple holding hands with little hearts above their heads. She takes her pencil and scribbles a jagged line between them and draws an arrow from Bryson to another couple that’s holding hands much like the first one. Isla breathes angrily out of her nose and points to the new couple. “Bryson, Amelia.”
“What?” Caelan scoffs. “He left her for some other girl? Was he blind?”
Audun takes the sketchbook from Isla and draws a big ‘X’ over both drawings of Bryson. He makes an exaggerated angry face at Isla and growls at the page. “Bryson’s an ass, and we hate him!”
Isla laughs and smiles broadly at Audun. She says something to him in her sweet voice, and I know it doesn’t matter that he can’t understand a word she’s saying. Reule was right about it not being so bad trying to find a way to communicate with her. And he was certainly right about her being