Free Moonlight by Amanda Ashley Page B

new grass; eyes filled
with the memory of the love they had once shared. Eyes filled with fear as she
recalled their last meeting.
    I will not hurt you. He held her gaze, wanting her,
unable to enter the house unless she bid him do so. Katlaina, please…
    He saw the hesitation in her eyes as she opened the window,
then took a wary step backward. “Navarre…”
    In a single fluid movement, he was over the sill. “Katlaina,
I have missed you. Longed for you…”
    “You should not be here.” Her gaze moved over him, wary and
confused, hopeful and fearful.
    “Come away with me.”
    “I cannot.”
    “Why?”
    “I…I have a husband.” She placed a hand on her stomach. “We
are to have a child.”
    He stared at her in disbelief, the hurt cutting deep into
his heart and soul. “No.”
    “I am sorry, Navarre. I thought never to see you again.”
    “Do you love this man?”
    “Yes.”
    “As you once loved me?”
    Katlaina lowered her gaze, unable to bear the pain she saw
in his eyes. And behind the pain, she saw death. It frightened her now as it
had frightened her before. Unaware of what she was doing, she took a step
backward, instinctively placing herself between Navarre and her son.
    The move was not lost on Navarre. His eyes narrowed with
suppressed fury.
    “Do you think I would hurt my own flesh and blood, Katlaina?
Do you fear for your own life, as well?”
    She lifted her chin defiantly, but said nothing.
    “I want to see my son.”
    She hesitated, and Navarre clenched his fists, waiting. He
could bend her mind to his, force her to let him see the child, but he wanted
it to be her decision. Wanted her trust.
    “Very well,” she murmured, and stood aside.
    Navarre crossed the room to stare down at his child. His
son. The only son he would ever have. The boy was pink of cheek and fair of
face. His hair was black and curly, like his mother’s. He made a soft sound of
contentment as he sucked his thumb.
    “He seems a fine boy,” Navarre remarked.
    “He is.”
    “What name did you give him?”
    “Navarre.” Her answer was barely audible.
    “Will you tell him of me, when he’s older?”
    “Of course.”
    He looked up at her, the tender feelings he had experienced
while looking at his son swallowed up in bitter fury as he imagined Katlaina in
the arms of another man, bearing another man’s child when she was his.
    His fangs pricked the inside of his lower lip; his hands curled
into fists as he contemplated storming through the house, finding her husband,
tearing him limb from limb. It would be easy. So easy…
    As if she had read his thoughts, Katlaina stepped forward
and grabbed him by the arm. “Navarre, no!”
    “You were meant to be mine,” he said, his voice filled with
anguish. “I loved you.”
    “And I loved you,” she whispered. “But you are no longer the
man I loved.”
    “I am!”
    “No. I do not know what happened to you in the Temple of
Shaylyn. I thought you had been killed, yet you came back to me. But the man I
knew is dead, and the man before me looks at me through soulless eyes.”
    She choked back a sob as she moved away from him. “I wish I
could still love you, Navarre. But I cannot. I cannot! Please, I beg of you, go
away from this place and never return.”
    “Katlaina…”
    “Please, Navarre, for the sake of the love we once shared,
for the child born of that love, I beg of you, go away.”
    Loneliness knifed through him, cutting his heart from his
flesh, destroying whatever was left of his soul, until he felt as though he
were lying naked upon Shaylyn’s altar once again, his life’s blood draining
from his veins, leaving him cold and lifeless.
    “Katlaina…” He held out his hand, silently begging for her
to touch him, to make him whole again.
    Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Navarre,” she
whispered hoarsely. “I wish I could help you. I wish I could go with you. But I
cannot. I cannot…”
    She stared at him, remembering how tenderly he