Adian, tasked by Quintess, to kill, gets a change of heart after he has been racked with immeasurable volumes of guilt.
Redemption meets him in the way of becoming friends with Vanessa, Rosie and Olivia's friend, monitoring and protecting the sisters, getting a job as a bouncer at the village pub, and misleading the rest of his harp guard crew when they find their way to Cliffside.
This, however, does not prove enough.
How all out can Adian go, when the consequences finally catch up with him? Especially, when the lives of the ones he has grown to care about, and that of the one he loves, are in mortal danger.
"Coffee. Thanks."
Vanessa picked out his accent.
"Irish", she thought.
She blinked.
"Would you like some milk in your coffee?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Would you like it here?"
He nodded again.
"Oh. Not a man of many words I see", Vanessa thought to herself.
Vanessa noticed his arm move a bit, and then stop. She looked at him, and noticed how his face held something between pain, and the agony of solitude. Images flooded her mind then, of the times when she had seen him. His face had almost always been a multifaceted mask of troubled pensiveness. And now he looked the same way. Like he was carrying a ginormous weight on his shoulders, one he was not comfortable with. But one he had to carry anyways.
Vanessa picked out the tender fight going on inside him. His face was a hard reflection of that battle. It was as though he was battling between two things, each one as powerfully engrossing as the other. His eyes, though beautiful, looked like dancehalls for pain. They were like berries, ripe to bursting with fluids the colour of agony, and the taste of mourning. Then she noticed, the cut, a slip of crimson red, emblazoned just above his left eye. He arrested her gaze, and she saw that pain again. Like ghouls they danced behind the screen of his eyes.
"Are you okay?" Vanessa asked.
She was already up, and moving towards the refrigerator, leaving Adian's reply in her wake. She scooped chunks of ice into a piece of cloth, and then tied the cloth, forming a pouch. Then she walked back to the counter, and rising on her toes to match Adian's height, she stretched out her arm, trying to put the pouch of ice to his forehead.
"Thank you", Adian said, wrapping his hand, softly, around her wrist, and stopping her from stressing herself any more than she already had.
Vanessa withdrew her hand slowly.
"Uhm, I'm Vanessa. I don't think we've met. Not directly, anyway."
"Adian. No, we haven't."
Other books in the Mermaids of Cornwall series:
Wild Hearts
Wild Dreams
Wild Soul
Wild Love
Wild Hope
Each book can be read as a standalone, as they each focus on a different character, however it is best to read them in order.
