Sins of the Father (The Guardians Series 2 Book 4) Read online

  Copyright © 2022 Wendy Saunders

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  The Guardians Series 2 Book 4

  Sins of the Father

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the author/publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by Stefanie Saw @SeventhStar

  Also by Wendy Saunders

  The Guardians Series 1

  Book 1 Mercy

  Book 2 The Ferryman

  Book 3 Crossroads

  Book 4 Witchfinder

  Book 5 Infernum

  Book 6 Little Town

  The Guardians Series 2

  Book 1 Scarlett

  Book 2 The Veritas

  Book 3 Necropolis

  Book 4 Sins of the Father

  Book 5 Caelum

  The Carters

  Book 1 Tangled Web

  Book 2 Twisted Lies

  Book 3 Blood Ties

  Standalones

  The Clockwork House

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Join our Readers Group!

  Also Writing as…

  1

  The stone was rough beneath Scarlett’s palm as it trailed slowly along the wall, the light of the corridor unnaturally dim and overlaid with a faint, almost sooty cast. She padded silently along the hardened black floor, the flagstones beneath the soles of her bare feet so cold her toes were starting to feel numb.

  Deep grooves punctuated the wall at random intervals with disturbing needle-like scratches, which looked as if they’d been gouged by some sort of feral animal.

  She stopped abruptly as she came upon a strangely familiar symbol burned into the stone. Lifting her hand unconsciously, she slowly traced the deep charred grooves with the pads of her fingers, feeling the angular lines and coiled edges. At the edge of her mind, a faint whisper began, but when she turned toward it, straining to hear the words, it tattered and dissipated.

  Turning her attention back to the symbol she studied it carefully. There was something about it, something familiar. She felt like she should know it but for some reason her mind felt sluggish, like it was still wrapped in a layer of sleep. She tried to focus but her thoughts kept scattering like autumn leaves, tumbling helplessly in a restless breeze.

  She turned sharply as the whispering began again, causing the hair at the nape of her neck to prickle and slowly rise and the skin on her arms to pebble. Her head tilted as she strained once more to make out the words, but it was no use, she couldn’t make sense of it.

  Trying to ignore the harsh, hissing whispers, she began walking again. After a moment, a door appeared in the distance, and as she drew closer, she noticed that it was made of heavily rusted iron, its gigantic metal hinges pitted with age.

  The voice was louder now. It had at first seemed to be strangely choral, almost as if dozens of voices were layered over each other, but now it had solidified into one single voice. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before, that voice. It was as terrible as it was beautiful. Her heart began to knock against her ribs, her pulse hammering in her throat as a flush of heat crept along her skin. She was suddenly overwhelmed with a terrifying, bone deep compulsion to run toward that voice.

  She stopped as she reached the doorway, holding herself rigid, fighting the unnatural compulsion to obey that voice. A sudden warmth rippled across her skin as humid air tugged at her hair, drawing her attention. Now that she was standing closer, she could see faint lines etched into the metal. Her hand rose of its own volition, her fingertips reaching for the deep grooves, but as she touched the metal, an intense heat seared her skin with an unpleasant sizzle.

  Snatching her hand back as her fingertips throbbed with pain she breathed heavily, she could feel her heart pounding in her ears, and her back was damp with sweat. She stared at the door, where her fingers had touched the metal a faint sooty glow had appeared in the narrow trenches. Reaching out again, this time more tentatively, she stopped short of actually touching the metal, her hand hovering mere millimeters above the strange lines and curves. This time, although she could still feel the intense heat, it was bearable.

  The adrenalin surged through her veins as the metal grooves began to glow, brighter and brighter, spreading and fanning out like burning oil along a channel. The strange light rippled across the huge imposing doors, and as she tilted her head back and looked up, she could see dozens of symbols glowing brightly.

  Suddenly the entire door erupted into flames, and she cried out in pain and stumbled back from the intense wall of heat cradling her burned hand.

  Scarlett…

  The whisper was now a roar in her mind, louder and louder. Her stomach churned in dread, in fear, layers upon layers of messy emotions and needs she couldn’t separate, but above it all was a compulsion so strong she rocked on her feet pressing her hands to her ears, trying to shut out that voice.

  Scarlett…

  It took everything in her to take a step back, the desperate desire to run toward that beautiful and terrifying voice drowning her senses.

  Scarlett come to me…

  A firm hand gripped her shoulder, startling her as she spun around. Her eyes widened as she opened her mouth and screamed.

  Scarlett shot up in bed, grasping her hugely swollen belly against a painful spasm. The muscles of her lower abdomen tightening and locking viciously from jolting out of her sleep so violently.

  “Ow, ow, ow…” she chanted in a panting whisper, unable to draw in a deep enough breath to curse the way she really wanted to.

  She pulled her knees up and rolled awkwardly onto her side, breathing heavily until slowly the muscle spasm released and the pain gradually subsided. She felt the baby give a good solid kick as if in protest of being woken so abruptly.

  “Sorry,” she murmured on a deep exhale as she rubbed her belly soothingly, feeling her daughter kicking beneath her palm. “Guess that dream woke us both.”

  Feeling the tell-tale sign of her daughter pressing down on her bladder, Scarlett sighed and slowly pulled back the faded, hand stitched quilt so she could slide her legs over the side of the bed. Pushing herself awkwardly to her feet, she padded across the room to the bathroom and flicked on the light.

  Squeezing her eyes shut against the sudden glare of light, she flicked it off again just as abruptly, deciding it was probably easier on her eyes if she just relieved herself in the dark. Once she was done, she turned to the sink to wash her hands but paused as she shut off the faucet, for a second she thought she heard a whisper in the darkness.

  A flicker of light in the corner of her eye drew her attention, and she looked up into the mirror in front of her and gasped, her heart jolting violently at the sooty orange symbols glowing on the wall behind her. She
spun around as the wall burst into flames.

  In a blind panic, she fumbled for the light switch and flooded the room with light. Breathing heavily with the cold wall tiles pressed against her back, her heart hammered, but the flames were gone, there was no sign of any strange glowing symbols, there was just a plain tiled wall with a generic rail holding a pale pink hand towel.

  Rubbing her trembling hands over her face tiredly, she took several shaky breaths. When she finally felt calm enough, she turned and washed her hands quickly, not wanting to linger. Flipping off the light behind her, she headed back into the bedroom and stopped dead.

  She’d left the room in darkness, lit only by the pale glow of the moon filtering through the window, but now as she stood motionless on the threshold of the bathroom and her room, she could see that the small lamp on her nightstand had been switched on, bathing the room in soft light.

  Her steady gaze was drawn across the room to where a figure stood by the window. Her heart once again began banging against her ribs, and she wondered idly how much punishment she could take in one night because standing in front of her was the one person she wasn’t sure she was ever going to see again.

  “Sam…” Her voice was barely more than a rush of air from her lungs.

  He stood staring at her, his piercing blue eyes dropping to her hugely swollen belly, his lips parted as his eyes widened in shock.

  Scarlett didn’t move, frozen in place as a whirlwind of conflicting emotions slammed into her all at once, a confusing mess of relief, trepidation, hope, love, fear all wrapped up in a blanket of hesitation. The need to go to him was almost unbearable, a wave of longing swept over her accompanied by the desperate need to touch him, to see if he was real, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t even sure her touch would be welcome. The last time she’d seen him was in the church in New Orleans and he’d been dying in her arms. If he was standing here in front of her now, it could mean only one thing. His people had healed him. She knew there was no guarantee that he’d recover all of his memories but even if by some miracle he had, there was no way for her to know how he truly felt about her.

  The time they’d spent together had been a stolen moment in time, and with Sam’s memory loss, they’d loved without consequences, without the dark cloud of their past hanging over them. She’d never regret a moment of it because it had given her their daughter, but now, standing staring at the complicated man she’d always love, she could feel the weight of their past pressing down on them.

  For a moment neither moved nor spoke. The air between them was heavy and filled with so much unsaid between them, so much history, so much pain. He was the one who broke the stalemate and took a tentative step toward her. She swayed unconsciously toward him and that was all the confirmation he needed. He crossed the room in a few strides as she rushed toward him.

  They crashed together in a desperate tangle of limbs and mouths. He pulled her in close, the lush roundness of her body pressed against him, her arms wound around his neck as he devoured her mouth, the wild familiar taste of her a balm to his soul. It was like coming home. She was where he belonged, nothing had ever given him the bone deep peace that being with her did.

  He felt her fingers tangle in his hair as he sank deeper into the kiss, his tongue tangling with hers, her lips swollen from his mouth, and he could’ve stayed in that moment for the rest of his life; a moment where the outside world didn’t exist, and it was just the two of them, their love for each other tangible.

  He drew in a sharp breath as he felt a strange kick aghast his abdomen, pulling back, breathing heavily, he looked down, his deep blue eyes skimming down over her nightshirt, over her swollen breasts, and coming to rest on her belly.

  He swallowed slowly, his mouth suddenly dry as his hands drifted from her back to stroke over her huge belly, feeling it shifting restlessly beneath his palms.

  “You’re pregnant.” His voice was scarcely more than an exhale and she almost had to strain to hear.

  “Our daughter,” she whispered.

  “Daughter?” he breathed as his eyes lifted to hers.

  She nodded slowly as he stroked her belly softly, his eyes filled with love. “Our daughter,” he murmured.

  “Sam.” Scarlett’s voice cracked as her throat began to burn with a hot hard ball of emotion.

  He pressed his forehead to hers and squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing against all the pain that was still weighing on both of them. “I thought you were dead.” Her stormy eyes lifted to his.

  “No,” he breathed, as he cupped her face drawing her closer. “You saved me,” he breathed as his lips grazed hers. “You saved me…”

  He took her mouth again, he couldn’t help himself, and he felt flayed open, his emotions so raw that he couldn’t separate them. His tongue skimmed along her lips as she opened her mouth in invitation, allowing him to sink deeper and taste her once more. His hands tangled in her hair, drawing her closer, tilting his head so their mouths slid together perfectly the way they had a thousand times before. Nothing had ever felt as right as it did when they were together in moments like this, when nothing else existed, and it was just the two of them, or rather three of them now, he thought, as he felt his daughter kick against his abdomen from where he was pressed tightly against Scarlett’s belly.

  His daughter…

  He pulled back, breathing hard, holding Scarlett’s face in his hands, his forehead once again pressed to hers in an oddly intimate gesture and needing the connection between them for a few precious moments more before reality came crashing in on them.

  Scarlett was the first to pull back and staring up into his eyes, she studied him as if she were looking for something. She drew in a slow breath.

  “You remember now, don’t you?” She stiffened and tried to step back out of his embrace, needing the distance to protect herself, protect her heart.

  “Don’t.” He gripped her arms gently and held her close. “Don’t pull away, not this time. No more running, no more hiding.”

  “What do you remember?” she asked nervously, almost not wanting to hear the answer.

  “Everything,” he answered simply.

  “Sam.” She shook her head, her gaze dropping to the thick socks on her feet.

  “Scarlett.” He placed his fingertips lightly beneath her chin and tilted her face back up to meet his serious eyes. “I love you,” he told her earnestly. “I’ve loved you for thousands of years, and I will go on loving you until the world has long since turned to dust.”

  “Then why did you lie to me?” she asked quietly, causing him to sigh.

  “Because I was young and stupid,” he answered honestly. “And because I thought you’d be better off without me.”

  “Sam…” She shook her head again.

  “And because a part of me was scared,” he admitted slowly.

  “Scared?” She frowned in confusion.

  “We were so young, and what I felt for you was so big, so overwhelming, there were times when I felt like I was drowning.”

  “And you think I didn’t feel the same way?” she sighed in frustration.

  “I knew you did.” He shook his head. “But I was so afraid of what my father would do to you if he found out about us.”

  She stiffened and pulled away from him.

  “I know, Scarlett,” he murmured, his voice filled with pain and guilt. “I know what he did to you.”

  “Don’t,” she replied sharply as she closed her eyes and turned away from him, trying to shut out the sudden onslaught of images in her mind, memories of torment and pain, and humiliation while Azariel and the others watched.

  “I’m so sorry. I should have protected you,” he told her brokenly. “When you needed me most I failed you. You sacrificed yourself, you gave yourself up to save my life, even knowing what they were going to do to you.”

  Scarlett turned to stare at him, there was something in his voice. She reached out and held his face as she searched his eyes and found pain… and shame.
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  “What did they do to you?” she asked softly in confusion. When he didn’t answer her gaze hardened. “What did he do to you?”

  He didn’t need to ask who she meant, they’d both suffered at the hands of his father and they both knew it.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Sam shook his head. “It’s over now. I just want to forget about it.”

  “Sam.” She sighed tiredly. “I don’t even know where we go from here.”

  “Do you still love me?” he asked quietly, when she didn’t answer, he drew her closer. “Do you still love me?”

  “You know I do,” she whispered.

  “Say it.” It was a plea and a demand, given with a hint of vulnerability she was powerless against.

  “I love you,” she replied simply, even as she shook her head in denial. “But I don’t know if it’s enough, not when the whole world is falling apart around us.”

  “It’s enough.” He gripped her tightly, closing his eyes as he drew in a deep breath. “It’s enough.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck as he pulled her in close, pressing his face into her neck and breathing in the scent of her skin. He felt his body begin to relax for the first time in as long as he could remember. The hard knot in the pit of his belly began to unfurl as he lifted his face, reaching for her blindly as he took her mouth once again.

  This time their kiss had lost a degree of desperation as they sought and took comfort from each other. They had both suffered, and just as they knew it was far from over, they clung to each other in that moment knowing that a storm brewed around them and that in the coming days, they would need an anchor.