Blackheart by Raelle Logan

Author:Raelle Logan [Logan, Raelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2016-05-15T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Run

The minute Shevaun advanced on her, Siren gestured, silencing her sister from speaking, thereafter, she grabbed Shevaun’s hand and they tiptoed to the door. The entry held slightly cracked, Siren searched the lantern-speckled corridor. The door to the chamber assigned to Lochlanaire, she noted, appeared to be open just a splinter. Siren looked in the opposite direction for the guard he said he would post. No pirate, wielding loaded pistol or cutlass, stood in defiance so she brushed open the door, urging Shevaun to follow her gingerly padding feet. Oh, Siren knew Lochlanaire would only trail her wherever she ran, but she hoped to escape to the island’s constable, perhaps begging for his aid or some other noble soul’s. Siren and Shevaun soon came upon a staircase and it invited them to the kitchens below stairs. Here, they saw no servants minding the eve victuals that bubbled amid a seared cauldron, scorched by ravenous fire. They hurried to the boarding house’s rear door. Siren shut the groaning entrance and they rushed to the gnarled forest, employing its darkness for a haven of looming death.

***

Lochlanaire heard the creak of the door to Shevaun’s room as it opened and he saw Siren studying the corridor. Unbeknownst to her, he allowed Siren the chance to run, convinced that he’d catch her regardless of where she roamed, for Haviland Island is merely such, an island. She couldn’t run far.

***

Deeply entrenched in the woods, the women journeyed, cut by spiky branches and brambles, rocks defying their path. Slowing, Siren realized Shevaun was enduring trouble keeping pace, for her lengthy azure gown encumbered Shevaun’s foot strides.

Where could they hide?

“Siren.” Shevaun fanned the bodice of her gown. “This is impossible. Where do we run?”

Siren shook her head. “I cannot say, but I refuse to sit idly and permit Lochlanaire an easy victory over me.”

“You love the beast,” gasped Shevaun, startled by the revelation.

Siren appeared offended. “You’re mistaken.” Agitated, she stalked around a felled tree, ignoring her sister’s perceptive glower.

“I think not. I saw it sparkling your eyes, Siren, when you kissed him. You love your huntsman, the barbarian who shot our mother.”

Rankled, Siren brushed aside the branches of a diverting bush. “He kissed me. And I cannot be in love with Lochlanaire. It is wicked.”

“You were innocent of his treason employed against Mother ‘til I told you, therefore, you couldn’t command your heart to accept the truth, Siren. You love Lochlanaire Blackheart…confess it is so in order that you may recover the means to crush the brazen feeling.”

Siren chastised, “And how, pray tell, am I to admit to loving Lochlanaire and then smash the feeling?”

Shevaun did not possess an answer. “For Mother, you must.”

“Mother would hardly derive the power to banish me of whatever feelings I may enfold. Her illicitness cannot be denied. She loved a forbidden suitor. What faults me from the same betrayal?”

Shevaun concurred, “Yes. However, her suitor was not the notorious executioner who seized our mother’s life right before my witnessing eyes.”

“No, Shevaun. Her lover was as guilty, though.

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