Of Thorn and Thread (Daughters of Eville #4) - Chanda Hahn Page 0,7

insecurities ever since she came back from Isla. She’s safer here at home.”

“You can’t protect her forever,” Lorn said.

“Not forever; just a little longer.”

“Lorelai, you need to tell her about her mother. What if that man is here because he knows what you did?”

“Stop, Lorn.” The pain was clear in my mother’s voice. “I can’t tell her yet.”

Mother. A word that I only associated with the woman standing before me, one who looked nothing like me. My real mother, just a figment of my imagination, a sentence in a story of my life. I knew about my birth mother.

She had died. Mother Eville found me abandoned in the woods and raised me here. In Nihill, the town whose name literally meant nothing.

I peeked around the corner and watched my normally stern mother, her raven-colored hair cascading down her back, become choked up with emotion. Lorn stepped forward and wrapped his hands around her waist. She leaned into his chest for comfort and wiped the tears from her eyes. A few moments later, she pulled away uncomfortably.

There was no way to deny that Lorn and my mother were in love, but for some reason, they put up a front and hid it from us.

I debated sneaking back upstairs, but I heard a groan and froze my foot in the air.

“He’s waking up,” Lorn said.

I heard fumbling and leaned forward to see Lorn pull a knife and keep it below the dining table, out of sight.

Mother stepped forward and leaned over the man. She pressed a finger to his forehead. “Somnus.”

The man blinked and his head dropped back to the table as he fell under her sleeping spell.

“You should have let me question him,” Lorn muttered.

“No, not tonight. I have no desire to hear anything he has to say. As soon as he is well, I want him gone from our lands.”

“What if he’s come here for help? What if he is looking for the missing heir?”

“If he is, then he will have to look elsewhere. You know as well as I do, that nothing good ever comes out of the kingdom of Rya.”

Chapter Three

When I came down the next morning, the stranger was gone. The table was empty and set for breakfast. All signs of last night’s medical emergency had disappeared with the rays from the morning sun.

Mother flitted around the kitchen, like a butterfly too afraid to land or stay in one position for long. The smell of cinnamon bread filled the air, and I knew she must have requested the special baked treat from Clove, our brownie. Clove cleaned our home during the night, stoked the fires, and made sure that there was always fresh baked bread every morning. In return, she lived under our floorboards during the day because brownie’s eyes were very sensitive to the light.

Thumping came from behind me as Maeve bounded down the steps. She skidded to a halt and blurted out what I was too shy to ask. “Where’s the stiff?”

I gasped at her insult.

Mother’s brows furrowed. “He’s not a stiff. We’ve moved him to the barn. Lorn is guarding him.”

“What does he want?” Maeve asked.

“It’s none of your business,” she chastised. “Once he’s better, he’ll be on his way.”

Maeve plopped down on her chair and sighed dramatically until she saw the cinnamon bread, and her mood improved.

Rhea and Honor came down next. Rhea was deep in thought, scribbling in her journal, and Honor cast a wary look around the room. As soon as Honor saw Lorn’s absence from the kitchen, she excused herself to go out to the barn to be with him.

“How come she gets to go out there, but not us?” Maeve pouted.

Mother gave a cross look. “Because Honor’s training is under Lorn’s purview, and she is the only one I’ll allow near the stranger.”

Rhea’s quill scratched along the page in her journal as she answered, “That’s because Honor secretly knows how to kill someone in a hundred different ways.”

“Not true,” Maeve countered.

Rhea paused her writing and looked up. “‘Tis.”

“Aura?” Maeve looked to me for confirmation.

“I . . . uh. I don’t know. I can’t read Honor,” I lied. “Nor do I want to,” I added under my breath.

Maeve scooted her chair closer to mine and cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered conspiratorially. “Well, you probably already know all the details about the man in our barn. So spill.”

Under normal circumstances, I would say yes. A person’s thoughts would be so loud and unguarded that I could easily pluck