Heroes Return by Moira J. Moore Read Free Book Online Page A

then, suddenly, it was over. Thank Zaire. I was exhausted and drenched with sweat. I was about to rub at my face, but I stopped and looked for blood on my hands. That was foolish. It wasn’t as though I had been literally holding Taro’s heart in my hands.
    “Hell,” Taro said weakly. “What was that?”
    “That was the same kind of channeling you were doing at the end of our stay in High Scape.”
    He shook his head. “It never felt anything like that.”
    It felt the same to me.
    Lila walked in. Again, without knocking. Really, was that normal?
    I expected her to make some comment about the tremors, but the first words out of her mouth were, “Her Grace, the Dowager Duchess of Westsea, is here.”
    Ah, damn it. I knew I shouldn’t have spoken of her out loud.
    “Are sir and ma’am receiving?”
    “No,” Taro said shortly.
    “Of course they are,” the Dowager Duchess said, sailing in. Which meant she hadn’t bothered to wait wherever she had been told to wait.
    There was no mistaking that the Dowager Duchess was Taro’s mother. She was small and fine-boned, with black hair untouched by gray, and black, slightly narrowed eyes. However, aside from appearance, the two were nothing alike. Thank Zaire. The Dowager was just too poisonous to bear. I would have been miserable dealing with that kind of personality on a regular basis.
    I hated that woman. More than I’d ever hated anyone. Including the crazy Source who’d had Taro abducted and had threatened to kill us. We were strangers to him, while the Dowager Duchess enjoyed tearing strips off her own son.
    I was pretty sure Taro hated her, too. He didn’t rise from his chair as he normally would when someone entered the room. “You’re not welcome here,” he told her.
    “Don’t be ridiculous. This was my home longer than it was yours.” Cold black eyes racked over my form. “Shield Mallorough, you’re looking terrible, as usual.”
    “And your manner sets an example for us all,” I shot back. If Taro had loved her or sought her respect, I would have been polite to the woman no matter what she did. But he didn’t, and previous attempts to keep to the high road had been disastrous. So I said whatever I felt like, knowing though I did that the Dowager could be far more insulting than I.
    “Shall I fetch some refreshments, sir?” the maid asked Taro.
    “No, she’s not staying.”
    “Tea would be appropriate,” the Dowager countered.
    “Lila,” Taro said firmly. “None of us require anything. Please stay close so you can see the Dowager out in a few moments.”
    Lila curtsied and withdrew to the sitting room. I would have preferred she leave altogether. She was going to witness some nasty behavior.
    “I thought you were supposed to stop the earthquakes,” the Dowager commented.
    “I drained away most of its power.”
    “I understand we’re not supposed to feel anything.”
    “We just got here. It takes time to adjust.”
    “Let us hope we all survive your period of adjustment.”
    Seriously, shut up.
    “It’s appalling that I had to learn of your transfer from the servants,” the Dowager said. “And of your arrival last night.”
    Who in this household was running off to tattle to the Dowager?
    “You eat what you cook,” Taro muttered.
    “None of your nonsense mumblings at me, Shintaro,” the Dowager snapped. “It is hopelessly ill-mannered.”
    It was said that Sources couldn’t help sometimes expressing their thoughts oddly. It was just the way their minds worked. Apparently the Dowager had never accepted that. I couldn’t understand why. Even though she clearly didn’t like the fact that her son was a Source, what was the point in denying that he was one, and all the things that went with that? What did she hope to accomplish?
    I wondered if she ever regretted locking Taro away all those years. Did she have it within her to admit, if only to herself, that she had made a mistake? Perhaps that was why she treated him so badly.