Mary-Cade Mandus - The Spell Bound

Cheeks stained vividly pink, Jessamine pulled her hands loose and took two quick steps back. Stupefied, Torin could only stand and gape. Rousing, he also stepped away, thrusting shaking hands deep into his pockets. Sneaking furtive glances at each other they sought to make sense of what had occurred, but enlightenment was not forthcoming.

The Comte appeared, startling them both; they’d been too preoccupied to notice his approach. Seeing the girl up close, the older man’s face vacillated between disbelief and painful hope. Jessamine held out her arms and with a cry of “Papa” threw herself against his chest. Derek’s face crumpled as he hugged her tight, sobs wracking his frame. He’d been filled with an overpowering joy the night the roses appeared in Odette’s garden, but as the days progressed the fear that he might have misinterpreted their meaning began to undermine his confidence. But his faith had been justified for in his arms was his long lost daughter, the heartbreaking mingling of his vanished youth and dead wife.

Torin stood uncomfortably by watching the reunion. He felt not only bruised and torn physically but by the conflicting emotions that jumbled within him. Happiness for his benefactor/friend warred with his own cutting disappointment and bewilderment [and gnawing jealousy].

This storybook ending should have been HIS and had seemed to be, only a short while ago.

A terrible thought - was it sorcery?

But…the witch was…dead, wasn’t she?

He still wasn’t sure what had been Odile’s fate but the Comte’s recovery, his daughter’s restoration and the field’s healing surely could not be if she survived.

Had she then managed to inflict a final curse? Taken revenge, not upon Odette and her daughter but upon him?

From the cover of her father’s arms Jessamine observed the young man who appeared to be in great distress…as was she. What had happened? This was not how she’d been assured the spell would end and her new life begin. Her love, where was he? She was not yet an hour old and already the afterbirth of joyful anticipation and expectation had been replaced by a swaddling of heartbreak and confusion. She’d raced into her future’s arms only to find that they belonged to a stranger.