Shara was disgusted with the entire scene. She straightened and turned to walk out when her mother stepped in her path.
“Where are you going, dear?” her mother asked sweetly.
Sweet and her mother were never mixed in the same sentence. There wasn’t an ounce of kindness in her mother, or forgiveness for that matter.
“None of your business,” Shara stated and tried to go around her.
Her mother remained in her way. “We have a ceremony to prepare you for. Balladyn wants to claim you immediately.”
Shara hid her frown. She’d expected to spend the day explaining her absence to Balladyn to cool his anger while Kiril rescued Rhi. It wasn’t part of Kiril’s plan, but someone had to occupy Balladyn. As soon as Kiril and Rhi were out of the compound, Shara planned to leave as well. Kiril wanted her to go to Dreagan, but she still had reservations about that. It wasn’t something she was going to think about until their plans came to fruition.
“Balladyn came here last night,” her mother continued in her silence. “He wants you as his immediately.”
Shara just bet he did. It might have taken her awhile, but she had figured both Balladyn and her brother out. For that matter, she had figured out her family as well. One more regret that she realized too late after having put herself in such a position.
She looked around, comprehending that it was a show everyone was playing. The “trial” Farrell was on was just for appearances. He would be dead within a few hours.
And he knew it.
Her mother’s tight smile was an appearance of trying to become friendly with a daughter she had scorned now that Shara was set to be claimed by the second most powerful Dark and Taraeth’s right hand.
The rest of the family was following her parents’ lead.
Shara pivoted to look at her father. He watched her with eyes now filled with interest and a hint of respect. Of course he would. Balladyn wanted her, and in his mind she had to be something special to get a man such as Balladyn to stake his claim.
She wanted to roll her eyes. But she wouldn’t. She would play the game with them. She had learned from the best, after all.
“The Claiming will have to wait. We have a Dragon King to find,” she stated to the room at large.
Her father’s eyes widened. “I thought Balladyn was going after Kiril?”
“Oh he is,” Shara said with a grin. “I’ll be joining him. I did all the work, after all.”
Her mother’s cold fingers wrapped around her wrist as she used to do when Shara was younger. It was her way of putting Shara in her place. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Shara looked down at her wrist before she lifted her gaze to her mother. She waited a heartbeat to see if her mother would release her before she purposefully, determinedly removed her mother’s hand from her arm. “Don’t touch me again.”
Her mother took a step back, a look of fear flashing in her red eyes.
Shara turned her back on her mother and looked to her father once more. “Do you have anything else to say?”
“Will you return to us?” he asked.
She considered his words, drawing out the silence to stretch to an uncomfortable length. “I’ve not decided.”
“We’re your family, Shara,” he said calmly. “It wouldn’t look right if we’re not with you at the Claiming. Besides, you’re my only child out of nine left.”
She glanced at Farrell who sat huddled in a ball. “You have other things to worry about. There were many who witnessed what Balladyn did to Farrell, and what is done to one of us is done to the family. The Blackwood family appears weak now. I’m not sure I want to be a part of such a family.”
Her father frowned. “You would disown us?”
Shara turned and walked out of the room saying, “I’m considering it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Kiril dozed as he waited to hear the voices of the Dark above him. Hours went by with nothing, yet he lingered in the cellar. The house remained as silent as a tomb, and Kiril began to feel that it might very well end up that way for him. He closed his eyes and drifted back to his night with Shara.
Despite the wonderful hours spent holding her in his arms, nothing had changed. He knew she would never come to Dreagan with—or without—him. He knew it with the same certainty that his carefully thought-out plan was somehow going to go wrong.
He went over every detail of the plan and tried to determine where things could go wrong. The problem was there were too many places. Kiril limited Shara’s involvement just in case she had a change of heart, or—even worse—Balladyn got ahold of her.
With nothing to do but wait, Kiril continued to doze while thinking of ways he wanted to take his anger out on Balladyn for what he had done to Rhi—and what he might do to Shara if Balladyn discovered she was helping him.