“I need time to think,” Kane said, heading for the door leading out of the boathouse and out of the nightmare his life had become.
Before last night in the moonlight, he had been certain of who he was and where his life was going; now he had no idea. What were they asking him to do? Give up everything, his whole life, and go and live in a country that was like another planet. Full of people who would be alien to him.
His skin itched, the sensation that he was about to burst at the seams becoming all too real again.
“You. This is all your fault,” he said to Amara, although he knew it was unfair. Even before she had come here, he had known he was changing, that he was different.
“No, it’s not,” Darius said, coming to her rescue.
“Last night, she touched me, she did something to me,” Kane accused, placing his hand on his skin where her fingers had trailed whilst setting fire to his senses.
“It wasn’t her fault. She never wanted to come here.” Darius looked at her, and she shot his uncle a look that silenced him.
“What hold does she have over you? Because if I remember correctly, only yesterday she was a servant with a three-year contract. A contract that you own. Now you are talking about us leaving? You did mean she was coming with me?”
“Yes, she has agreed to take you to the Prime and help you face what you need to do,” Darius said.
“What I need to do is go into town and get drunk, then I’m going to go to bed and when I wake up we are going to forget this all happened. The past is the past. I don’t need to go and take back what this Serrif stole. It’s done, and for all you know my mother was in on this.”
“Don’t speak about her like that,” Darius raged.
“And you are still saying that she was innocent, that she was in love with my father and not you?” Kane went back towards Darius, his fists clenched, his temper rising. “I think she was with you that night. I think she betrayed my father.”
“I have given up twenty years of my life for you, Kane. And I am willing to give up the rest of my life to keep our pride safe, to keep them fed, and clothed,” Darius said. “So please don’t accuse me of betraying my own brother, not you.”
Kane felt the fight leave him. His uncle looked like a broken man. His face was pale in the dim lights of the boathouse, and his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He looked weak, he looked vulnerable.
“You go, you go and do whatever you think needs to be done. Leave me here, I’ll run the company.” Kane’s voice was ragged with emotion.
“No,” Darius said. “It has to be you. You are the eldest son; you are the rightful heir.”
All this time Amara had stood in the background watching them. Now she came forward and stood between the two men. “I think you should go back to the house, Darius, and let me speak to Kane alone.”
Darius looked at her quickly and without another word went past Kane and left, shutting the door behind him. Kane let out a pent-up breath and dragged his hands through his hair, tilting his head and looking at the ceiling. This was a place he had come to when he was a boy. He used to hide out in the boats stored on the water, pulling the covers over him so no one could see him.
Usually it was when his uncle insisted he had friends over to play with, friends he didn’t get on with, because he had always felt different. At the time Kane had thought it was because he lived with his uncle, unlike all the other kids who had rich fathers and beautiful mothers. While Kane was an orphan, they were normal, with parents and brothers and sisters; while Kane was alone for the majority of his childhood, his uncle always choosing work over playing with his nephew.
“Are you OK?” Amara asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I keep thinking none of this is real.”
“I felt the same way when I came across the border. I never imagined what it was like to only have one body, to be unable to change into another creature, the other side of yourself, at will. This collar choked me.”
“Is that why you are going along with all this?” he asked. “Playing along with my uncle just so you can go home?”
“You know, I’m going to let that go, just like I’m going to forget that yesterday you thought I was testing some biological weapon on you,” she said, sitting down on an upturned dinghy.
He laughed, but it held no humour. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Come to the Prime with me. See it for yourself, and let your other side run free. Your uncle has a plan; he has set it in motion. The story is that we are going to meet up with one of his business partners in the Prime. Once over there, we take off your bracelet and … well, see what happens.”