HEIRS OF TIME (CASTE BOOK 2) SAMPLE CHAPTERS

Chapter 1

39 years after the War of the Six,

Edinburgh

Deafening music thundered through the speakers. I was now sure to wake up the next day with buzzing eardrums and a bad hangover, judging by the level of the bottle of Get 27 on the table. Sitting with the twins in the nightclub, I had to strain my ears to understand the words shouted by Wassim. His glassy eyes were starting to become unfocused.

A young woman walked past the twins, and then it was a battle for who would first catch her eye. Unfortunately, the girl didn’t give them the slightest look, and the frustration speaks volumes about their desire not to consume only alcohol that evening.

House music saturates the club with overpowering beats and pulsating rhythms.

“Well, boys,” I said, jumping up and wobbling slightly to the left, “I’m going to pee.”

Elias and Wassim eyed me, presumably expecting another remark, but I had none.

I got up and walked toward the women’s bathroom. There was a rush, and a five-metre queue had formed near the entrance. Casually, I wandered just ahead, and when a door opened, the next person had no time to take a step as I took over the place, blessing my super-speed for giving me such an opportunity. The bathroom door closed, and I let out a laugh of satisfaction, very proud to have accomplished this delicate mission. Then I bit my lip thinking that maybe I had been seen. But when I came out and observed the misty looks of the girls queuing, I immediately reassured myself: not only had no one noticed my trick, but I was also far from being the only one to have enjoyed the evening a little too much.

I headed back towards the twins, but a handsome young man stopped me. He grabbed my arm delicately enough for me not to reflexively expel him across the room, as his touch had surprised me.

“Would you like to dance?” he asked me with a seductive smile.

I glared at him and then lowered my gaze to his lips. I lifted it to his pretty hazel eyes — if I believed the light from the strobes that had just lit them up for a couple of seconds. And, for this short moment, I hesitated to accept, then finally decided to follow the twins’ advice: let go a little!

“I’m bad at dancing,” I said, “but we can try.”

We left together to weave our way between the dancers. The music was very rhythmic and, when I started to do a few dance steps in front of the young man, I read in his eyes that he expected a better performance from me. However, I had warned him.

“What’s your name?” I shouted in his ear to make myself heard.

“Jerome.”

“Germain?!”

“Jerome!” he yelled. “And you?”

“Izzy.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

End of the discussion. He grabbed my hands and started waddling around with a look of lust that I couldn’t ignore. I burst out laughing without knowing why and glanced towards the back of the room. A pretty blond had taken her place between Elias and Wassim, still seated around the table. She raised a glass of Get 27 and laughed as the brothers each tried to flatter her with attention.

“Do you live in Edinburgh?” Jerome shouted in my ear.

“No, Brechin,” I said just as loudly.

“Ah, I have a cousin who lives there. Are you in the village?”

“No, at the castle.”

Looking at his astonished face, I should have probably said “charming little country house, away from the village”, but I was a little tipsy. And then, it wasn’t as if I would see this young man again.

“You’re American?” he said, after recovering from his surprise.

“Yeah.”

He made a sign of triumph, clenching his fists, seeming to think he had hit the jackpot by accosting an American. I narrowed my eyes, not liking this celebratory gesture which I found childish and cheeky. The guy was in his thirties, and I wasn’t far off.

“I thought I heard an accent,” he continued. “Where are you from in the States?”

“I’ve been moving around a lot.” I bellowed as a popular tune rang out to the cheers of the entire audience.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

I resumed the movements of my chaotic hips without worrying about what he thought and finally decided that he was handsome enough. After only fifteen minutes of dancing (!), he kissed me in the middle of the dance floor, and I responded to his gesture with a greedy appetite. I then felt someone tap my shoulder.

“The taxi’s here,” Elias warned me.

“Okay,” I said before throwing a smile at Jerome, who had turned pale before my friend’s massive physique.

I left Jerome with a shy kiss, then went off, grabbing Elias’s muscular arm, leaving my one-night flirtation in the middle of the floor. Once outside, the coolness of the night was like a saving breath on my red-hot cheeks. Wassim was waiting in the taxi, alone.

“So, in the end, neither of you managed to seduce the little blond I saw earlier?” I said, sitting in the back of the taxi.

“We already have you,” Wassim said.

“I’m taken, sorry,” I laughed, turning to Elias with a wink, for he had surprised me in the arms of the charming Jerome.

The taxi drove off, and we fell silent. The twins’ rivalry when it came to girls amused me. Apart from the haircuts, one shaved and the other short, nothing differentiated them. They were both as big as their father, Elvis, which caused the sedan’s chassis to lower when they got into it.

“Already taken?” repeated Elias with a smirk on his lips.

“Yep, his name is Jerome,” I said, raising an eyebrow and showing a smile of pride.

“And when will you see him again? Did you get his number?”

“Damn!” I said. “I knew I had forgotten something.”

The next day, my predictions came true, and I swore to myself never to drink a single drop of alcohol again while cursing the Forbe brothers. I got up with a trickle of dried drool at the corners of my lips, purplish dark circles underlined my eyes, and I was as white as an aspirin pill—a pill I immediately went to look for in my first aid kit. After a good shower, I dressed and headed toward the Mortain vineyards. Walking the path through the woods, I regretted not having taken my sunglasses as the light irritated my eyes. The path seemed endless.

I finally knocked on the door of the vineyard property, and Elvis appeared.

“Izzy!” he called. “Oh damn, you have one of those heads!”

“Tell me about it...” I said, my voice scratchy and deeper than usual. “It’s your sons’ fault!”

My mood made him giggle. He let me in. His wife, Soraya, came to greet me with a big smile and then invited me to have a cup of coffee. She then changed her mind by offering me a Diet Coke, knowing my taste for this drink that I could swallow at any time of the day. As soon as I arrived at the castle, Soraya took me under her wing, happy to see that her twins appreciated my company, which made a change from the sixty-year-old residents of Mortain.

I went to the living room and found them looking as crumpled as me, playing like geeks on their video game console.

“Izzy!” Wassim exclaimed, letting go of his controller. “Not a pretty sight!”

“One wonders why,” his father said, amused.

“Izzy kissed a guy,” Elias said.

The traitor. My cheeks flushed as I thought of Germain (uh…Jerome?) and my frivolous behaviour in the middle of the dance floor, my tongue tucked into a stranger’s mouth.

“Oh, yeah?” Elvis said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Leave her,” Soraya said, inviting me to sit down. “She’s young!”

A silence fell between us. Elvis tended to brood over me as if he had to take on the role of protector during my mother’s absence.

It had been two months since she had left the castle with Carmichael. It was still strange to realize that my mother would start a new life with a man other than my father, even if I had pushed her to do so. After two years of mourning, I could no longer bear to see her so unhappy and to witness, powerless, this slow depression which carried her into the deepest abysses of loneliness. Only when I proposed that she return among her people did a gleam rekindle in her eyes.

“Your mother is coming back in a few days, isn’t she?” Soraya called out to me, handing me my glass. “You must be looking forward to seeing her again.”

“Oh, yes! I can’t wait to see if she’s better.”

“Carmichael will manage to help her feel more fulfilled, I’m sure.”

“You knew him well before she left him for my father, didn’t you?”

“Sure!” he said, his mind sinking into his memories. “The first time I saw him, I understood that this guy wasn’t like the others. Just by your mother’s reaction to him, I knew she wasn’t insensitive to his charm. But there was Eric. As an immortal, I think he knew she would return to him one day.”

I had only known the essentials of my mother’s story before arriving at the castle, and I had learned more in two months than in twenty-seven years at her side. Until then, we had rarely spoken of her husband, which I could understand. After all, she had lived a lifetime with her lover, had given him a child, and had left her community for forty years. Since arriving at Mortain, I have understood better the sacrifice and value of the choices she had to make. “Everliegh, the temptress”, they called her. It had made me roar with laughter to hear of it until I met Carmichael and realized how not trivial the matter was, from my flushed cheeks when my eyes met those of my famous father-in-law. Feeling attraction to him had intrigued me, mortified me, and then, finally, amused me. My mother had warned me, fortunately.

Since her departure, I had received news from her, and the latest was reassuring, which confirmed my decision to have pushed her to resume her place as the queen among the castes. Her absence, however, filled my heart with an indescribable void. My whole life, I have never left my parents or felt the need to distance myself from them. The situation was unprecedented, and loneliness hadn’t taken long to invade me, despite my new ties within the castle walls.

I had long thought about it before suggesting that my mother return to this place, only because of my love for my father. What wouldn’t I have given to hear his voice again? What wouldn’t I give for a simple caress from him on my cheek? My heart sank as I remembered how much I missed him.

Elvis noticed my confusion and held out a hand, which I grabbed, and pulled me up, a slight smile on his face. His arms wrapped around me then, and the comfort I found against his imposing chest brought tears to my eyes.

“How cute,” Wassim said teasingly.

“Damn it,” Elvis sighed, “but why didn’t I have girls?”

I smile as I pull away from his embrace. The mood in the room had suddenly lightened. Laughter filled our conversations for the rest of the day and made me forget about my hangover. In the evening, after dining with them, I returned to my suite, much more alert than that morning.

Passing the Elizabeth Suit door, I found the comfort of my apartment. Stella, Carmichael’s magnificent assistant, had put me there when I arrived at the castle. She has since won all my affection. My wardrobe had been completely renewed and, when I told her of the changes I wanted to make to my suite, which had become my new home, she had taken all the steps to get the work started immediately. I was now living in this magnificent apartment, with modern and neat decoration. I had never lived in such a sumptuous setting before, and my simple tastes had taken nothing away from the majesty of the room. I felt good there and didn’t hide my pleasure. But, despite all this luxury, a certain melancholy inhabited the place, sometimes plunging me into a gloomy mood. I miss America.

My neighbours were the Hanlons, the pre-cogs of the community. They were the most eminent castes among the castle inhabitants, and even far beyond its walls, after Carmichael. They had been living in the suite next to mine, the Egeria, since their arrival at the estate. They told me that it was my mother who had recruited them. Considering their current position, one could say that she had done the job well since all decisions taken in the King’s absence were subject to their approval. So much so that, for two months, the corridor on the first floor of the north wing had never been so busy. The other suite, next to mine, was called Eleonore. It was my mother’s suite. Although she and Carmichael had lived on the top floor of the West Wing during their time together, the suite was still reserved for her. Stella had taught me, moreover, that the King demanded that it be maintained as if my mother had never left. I had never had the opportunity to explore it until Estelle Monteiro, the castle steward and my mother’s friend, opened the doors to me and let me glimpse a part of its past. It filled me with intense emotions because, since my arrival, I had learned so much about my mother. And the more I learned, the more I admired her. So it was with some excitement that I expected to see her again very soon, on the occasion of the ball planned in honour of her return.

I didn’t know yet that, after this ball, my life would change.