The Eye of the Wolf (25 page)

Will lifted his head slightly.
He could feel Mikayla’s cool blue eyes on him. He knew it was her, watching him
through the crowded cathedral. He always knew when she was watching him, even
if he didn’t always show it. He could feel the wall that he had broken through
being rebuilt as he sat there, barely listening to the final prayers of the
Cardinal who had come from Italy for this burial. His heart ached with the
knowledge that Mikayla was, at that moment, shutting herself away from him. And
he knew he would never be close to her again. She would never understand his
reasons for not identifying himself beyond a simple name.

Slowly, Will turned his head
around until his eyes locked with Mikayla’s across the heads of the gathered
mourners. Her eyes were sad, a sadness he hadn’t expected to be there. There
was no anger, the one thing he had expected to see. What he did see, however,
was a coldness that could have frozen the tropical island of Amor. The coldness
froze him in his seat, making him cold inside and out. Mikayla never blinked;
she never looked away. Instead, she held his gaze, freezing him with a look
that had once held passion enough to melt him and make him hers eternally.

Will swallowed, nodded slightly
in her direction and then turned back around as the Cardinal ended the funeral
mass and headed back up the aisle, the casket immediately following him. He
ushered his sister from the seats into the aisle and held Victoria’s arm in his
own, supporting her as tears coursed down her cheeks and sobs ripped from her,
blending with the angelic chords of the “Ave Maria”.

Mikayla watched them go, her
eyes on his back, cloaked in an elegant navy suit, tailored to his toned
physique. His head remained bowed as he walked from the cathedral, bearing the
weight of his sister and her grief. She wanted to find him outside and hold him
close to her, love him and share his grief with him. But she knew that could
never be and so she bowed her head and exited the cathedral through the side
door she had entered from. Her heart froze over as the heat of the sun beat
down on her head.

Mikayla moved through the
crowded city streets towards her house. Although she knew they would now bury
King James in the tomb within the Secluded City, Mikayla knew she couldn’t go.
She couldn’t be that close to him. She couldn’t ever be that close to him. Now
that she knew the truth, she wished she had stood her ground the night before
when she asked him to leave.

Mikayla walked around the house
and stood in the sand, feeling the heat of the day radiating into her cold
feet. She felt cold, the kind of cold that could seep into the bones. Her feet
were warm; the sun was warm on her body, but still she was cold. Deep inside,
her heart that had opened to the stranger from a tropical paradise was slowly
closing, freezing over. She had allowed herself to open to him, to love him as
she had never loved another. She had shared with him parts of herself she had
never shared with another. And now, as she stood in the sand, the tropical
breezes blowing her hair loose from its French twist, she cried. She cried not
for the loss of a king but for the loss of her first true love, for she had
allowed herself, in that one brief and shining moment, when his lips caressed
her by moonlight to fall. She had fallen in love the moment her guard had
fallen, and now,…now, she was yet once again alone because there could never be
anything but that one night between them.

Mikayla rubbed her hands over
her arms, fighting back the chill that raised goose-bumps on her arms. She
walked back to the house and let herself in. She would return to her original
purpose. She had gotten side-tracked from that original purpose; her historical
narrative would be completed in the next month, and then, she would leave. She
would return to her life in Washington. She would return to the world of
reality and forget about the fairy tale she had thought would happen on Amor.
She would forget about the love that gripped her heart.

Mikayla dropped her skirt and
blazer on the floor, not bothering to hang them up. She pulled on her favorite
well-worn t-shirt and sweat-shorts. She pulled the pins from her hair that held
the unruly curls in place and shook her tresses free. Suddenly, she felt free.
Free of romantic entanglements that were always painful. Free of silly,
childish ideas of princesses and knights-in-shining-armor. Free.

She sighed. Okay, maybe not.
Maybe, instead, her heart felt like lead sitting in the center of her chest,
pushing on her lungs and blocking all air. Maybe all she wanted to do was curl
into a ball on the bed and cry herself to sleep. Maybe all she wanted was for
Will to come to her, wrap his arms around her, and leave her mindless with one
kiss.

What was wrong with her?

Mikayla moved her shoulders
restlessly appalled that she was thinking along those lines. Work was what she
needed. She always immersed herself in work when the world looked like it was
about to end. She moved into the office and flipped on a light. She had a stack
of notes that needed to be transcribed. Plus, she was expecting an email from
Carolyn who had been studying the strange letters she had found on the stone
and the tapestry in the Crusader’s Hall. There was a lot of work to do;
therefore, instead of feeling sorry for herself, instead of being angry when
anger would get her nowhere, she would work.

Mikayla stepped over to her
desk and reached for the lid of the laptop as she reached for a book that should
have been on the desk in one of her many neat and tidy piles but instead was on
the phone stand. Her hand brushed the wood of the desktop and made no contact
with the plastic case of the laptop that should have been there. Mikayla
glanced at the desk to adjust her reach and froze. The book fell to the floor
with a thump, and her hand flew to her mouth covering the melodramatic gasp
that escaped.

The desk was empty. Where once
a top-of-the-line laptop had sat there was nothing except a few smudges in the
faint collection of dust. Where once a stack of folders and notes from her
research in the Hall of Records had sat there was nothing except a sickening
empty space.

Mikayla whirled around looking
for her backpack. It was not sitting on the loveseat near the window where she
had left it last. The room was bare except for the items that had been there
when she first arrived.

Mikayla pulled the drawers of
the desk open, vainly looking inside for the research materials that should
have been on the desk. Her heart raced, and her mouth was dry. Deep inside, she
knew she would not find the materials in that house, yet she raced from room to
room, down the stairs, and through the house, searching in hope of finding one
thing, one small item that she could still use.

She skidded to a halt on the
wooden floor in the dining nook. Her breath whooshed out of her. On the table
sat the diary, undisturbed as it had been the night before when Will had
knocked on the door in the midst of the storm. She grabbed it from the table
and clutched it to her, holding on for dear life.

Mikayla whirled around and
looked around the room, into the kitchen, and at the cellar door. In the
darkness, she had felt a presence, someone watching her. Her heart stopped
momentarily as she remembered the menacing presence in the darkness near the
cellar door. Although she had not seen anything, she had known there was
someone there, someone watching her. That someone had been near the cellar. In
order for that person to disappear as they had, they would have had to have
gone down the cellar steps, otherwise, they would have met Will as he came
through the hallway to her aid.

She paused. Her heart still.
Unless Will had been the one to remove her research. It was a desperate, ugly
thought that sickened her. Preposterous! Her heart screamed even as her mind
simply mourned the loss.

Mikayla swallowed, her mouth
dry from nerves. She could feel those nerves jumping beneath her skin. She
chewed the lipstick from her upper lip, an old habit she had fought hard to
eradicate from her life. She took a deep breath and placed her sweaty palm on
the door handle. She began to turn the handle but jerked her hand back and
dropped the diary to the floor as the phone upstairs trilled through the
stillness of the house.

Mikayla looked at the door,
waiting for her to open it, waiting for her to venture into the darkness.
Cautiously, she slid the lock into position. Whatever was or wasn’t there would
have to wait until later. She raced up the stairs and grabbed the phone on its
last ring. Breathlessly, she spoke into the receiver, accepting the call from
the operator in the Secluded City.

“Mikayla?” Carolyn’s voice was
far away and faint.

“Yes, Carrie, I’m here.”
Mikayla yelled into the phone.

“Mikayla, I wanted to call you
as soon as possible to let you know that I translated that rubbing you faxed
me.”

Mikayla pulled out a sheet of
official royal stationary from the desk drawer. She gripped the pen from the
desk in her hand. Her hand was sweaty and shaky. She stared at it briefly in
wonder before dragging herself back to Carolyn’s voice. “I’m ready.”

“All right. According to my
best guess, since this is a language that even I’m not familiar with, I’m
guessing that it says ‘Look to your mother’s hand.’” Carolyn tossed the notepad
back onto her cluttered desk. She could hear the office staff just wandering in
for the day, a day that would be busy with tour groups from the local schools
and other important dignitaries. “I’m not sure what that is regarding to, but
all of my research leads me to believe that that translation is correct.” Her
voice faded out as static filled the line.

Mikayla waited for the static
to fade. “Are you sure? ‘Look to your mother’s hand’?”

Carolyn nodded and made a noise
of assent. “I’m pretty sure, but then I said I wasn’t sure about the
translation because I didn’t recognize the language.” She ran a hand through
her dark brown hair finding three pencils in the process, pencils she had
absently shoved in her hair during the long night of work prior. Suddenly, she
remembered their last conversation. “Hey, how’s it going with that handsome
research assistant, Will, was it?” She grinned.

Mikayla sank into the chair and
felt the heaviness of her feelings and the discovery of the day. Silently, she
berated herself for being such a fool, for not having seen it before. For
falling in love with the one man in the world who would never look her way
except as a fling, a distraction. Mikayla sighed.

“I’m going to take it from that
heavy sigh that things are not going well, Mikayla?” Carolyn’s voice was
distant, but Mikayla felt as if she were right there, sitting on the love-seat,
staring her down in that way she had. It always managed to get the truth from
whomever was the recipient.

“Let’s just say he wasn’t who I
thought he was and leave it at that.” Mikayla responded, her voice sharp from
the disappointment that was within her.

“I’m sorry, Mikayla.” Carolyn’s
voice was soft. She wished she were there to talk with her friend, comfort her
and help her. She sighed as a fist knocked impatiently on her office door.
“Darling, I have to go. Duty calls.”

“Of course, Carolyn, get to
work. I’m sure there’s a school group due any minute.” Mikayla wished there
wasn’t the bitterness in her voice that carried across the telephone wires.

Carolyn sighed. “If you need
any more help, ring me up. I’ll talk to you again soon, Mikayla.”

Mikayla nodded her head and
listened to the click on the other side of the ocean. The line buzzed faintly
in her ear as the tears she had fought all day traveled slowly down her cheek,
the translation forgotten and only her own grief remembered.

Dejeune nervously adjusted his tie. The neck of
his pin-point oxford was choking him as he sat in the dim room of the tower,
the only light the fire that burned low in the grate. His fingers nervously
tapped the scarred wooden table in the tower, and his eyes roamed the room,
looking everywhere except at the green glowing eyes in the corner that regarded
his every move, coldly, calculatingly. Like a wolf hunting at night. Dejeune
knew how a rabbit felt when it was caught in the wolf’s gaze right before the
wolf struck. He cleared his throat and adjusted his tie again. He was positive
he heard the Wolf snarl from his corner. Sweat beaded on Dejeune’s forehead.

“Monsieur
Dejeune,” the cool voice of the Wolf’s servant chilled Dejeune to the bone as
he stepped in front of the fire dropping Dejeune into shadow. “It appears
Doctor Knight has been doing an awful lot of research about the Eye of the
Wolf. Can you explain that?” The servant’s hand dropped onto Dejeune’s
shoulder, gripping it in a vise. Dejeune sank beneath the pressure, wincing in
pain.

“I…I
don’t know what to say.” Dejeune whimpered. The servant’s hand smashed down on
his hand tapping on the table-top.

“What
do you mean, you don’t know what to say? How did she learn of the Eye of the
Wolf?” He wrapped his fingers around Dejeune’s hand and squeezed, cutting off
Dejeune’s circulation until Dejeune cried out.

“I
didn’t tell her. I wouldn’t ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for. I…I” he
stuttered, fear piercing him like a sharp sword. He looked up into the eyes of
the servant and felt cold through to his bones. “I don’t know how she found
out, perhaps she read about it in a book of legends. It certainly isn’t part of
our modern history, not since the stone went missing.” There was bitterness in
his voice even as he quaked.