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“Then we must assume the residents here feel the same way Indeed, any reluctance to address us, only adds credence to your belief that wehere”

“A sister?” Her heart fluttered at the prospect Despite drinking the cure, Ivana knew a part of her would always feel a kinship towards those suffering from the blood affliction To come to the aid of another woman who shared her awful experiences, a wo ouldto replicate the cure hile

“I know it is rare for us to be able to read a person’s thoughts now,” Leo said, “but intuition tellsfor here”

“What if she won’t open the door? How can we help her if she won’t let us inside?”

Leo straightened “Then we shall just have to keep knocking until she does”

After barely recovering froe, Lachlan had left her in the Great Hall while he went to search for Douglas His sole intention was to gain perht it a ridiculous notion on many levels She was mistress of the castle She was a married woman Even if people did choose to slander her for i could be worse than the ossip she had heard already Besides, the baobhan sith were known for using their womanly wiles to prey on innocent men Not that Lachlan could be considered innocent

The unexpected rattling of carriage wheels charging into the bailey caused her pulse to beat rapidly in her throat If one considered the recent turn of events, her racing heart could be attributed to a fear of the villagers returning with a battering ram to take down the castle door But the sudden sense of trepidation, the sudden realisation that only one person would arrive in a carriage without warning and in the dead of night, caused a debilitating feeling of dread

Nikolai had returned

She froze, her feet rooted to the spot She opened her mouth to speak, to call out, but no words could ever be sufficient to convey the extent of her anguish

What if Nikolai discovered Lachlan at the castle? He would see it as a sign of disrespect He would use it as a reason to destroy everything she hel

d dear

Forcing one foot in front of the other, she found the courage to shuffle to thePeering out, she was shocked to find two people had alighted froe arched door looked disfigured through the thick square panes of glass Their faces were misshapen and distorted: their cheeks too fat or too hollow depending on which way one tilted their head The absence of any light entle hair that skimmed his shoulders The last ti hair too The woolden locks were identical to her own

Isla jumped back

Suddenly it all became clear to her

Her hand flew to her heart in a bid to stop it pounding out of her chest Nikolai had spent the last three years searching for a wohostly apparition of herself He had used his evil h from old tales of folklore to know that they could not both exist in the same world; to see an identical spectre was a premonition of death