Two Worlds of Redemption

  Two Worlds of Redemption

  Angelina J. Steffort

  MK

  Two Worlds

  of Redemption

  Two Worlds Book 3

  First published 2019

  Copyright © by Angelina J. Steffort 2019

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Ebook: ASIN B07YLLXHXD

  Print: ISBN —

  MK

  www.ajsteffort.com

  Become part of Angelina J. Steffort’s reader group:

  Acknowledgments

  First of all to my wonderful readers, who keep asking for more, whose enthusiasm for my writing is the fuel when I am struggling to keep my eyes open late at night. Thank you for all your loving support. You are the best!

  To the girl with the wonderful name.

  To Dawn and Carolyn for patiently cleaning up my written mess.

  To Steffi and Norma-Jean for real-time-reading my words. You are a tireless source of incredible feedback, and I can’t say enough how much I value your words and opinions.

  To the beautiful city of Vienna for being an oasis in my life.

  To the wonderful staff at the coffee shop where I completed most of this manuscript. Thank you for caffeine, smiles, and not kicking me out when I sit and stare at the ceiling for hours.

  To the talented and hard working people of Vienna Singverein, and their musical director Johannes Prinz, for being a living and breathing example of how the iron will to make something a unique experience for others and oneself positively impacts skill, ability, motivation, and eventually the entire mindset and work ethic. I hope to be allowed to participate in many more projects with all of you until the day my vocal cords fail me.

  To Joanna for being a wonderful critique partner. Thank you for your trust and support!

  To Barbara, who has walked the path before me and keeps lending a hand so I won't fall over the same obstacles as she did, who has become a true friend and an inspiration. You rock! To many more Jours Fixe to follow! There is always a cup of coffee waiting for you!

  To my family. Thank you for putting up with me when I go through my creative tantrums. I couldn’t have done it without you! I love you!

  Contents

  Quote

  Maray

  Jemin

  Maray

  Corey

  Maray

  Jemin

  Corey

  Maray

  Jemin

  Maray

  Corey

  Jemin

  Maray

  Corey

  Maray

  About the Author

  Also by Angelina J. Steffort

  “It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.”

  Arthur Schoppenhauer

  Maray

  Maray let out a nervous breath. Before her were faces, hundreds of them, each of them holding the same fascinated expression on their various skin colors and shapes.

  “About time the people of Allinan get to know their latest Cornay.”

  Maray hardly heard Jemin’s words muffled through the curtain separating the guards inside from the spectacle outside on the balcony. The spectacle meaning Maray, her mother the Crown Princess, and her father the ambassador to the other world. Had someone asked a month ago, she would have said ‘her world’. Now, her world was Allinan. She had gone through fire—literally—to fight for it and for the small circle of people she loved. Now, it was time to let the people of Allinan finally see her face; now that her evil doppelgänger grandmother was safely locked up in the dungeons.

  “Don’t distract her.” Seri’s voice shushed Jemin’s, equally muffled and equally behind the curtain. “This is a big day.”

  “A big day as in thousands of gaping mouths one could easily stuff with dumplings?” Heck commented beside them, and Maray suppressed a grin.

  Jemin and Heck had reduced their duties as guards of dimensions for now and were spending most of their time as volunteer add-ons to the personal royal guard. Seri was there because Neelis, her father and head of the Yutu-shifter pack, had asked her to watch over the latest Cornay addition. This way, Maray had ended up with three bodyguards; one tiny Yutu-girl, one constantly grinning, noble-son who had given up the protection of his family to become a common soldier, and then there was Jemin… serious and fierce but also gentle, with the most unique blue eyes she had ever seen, and owner of her heart. For a second, Maray forgot the sea of faces all staring as if they were looking at the Queen’s portrait in flesh and blood—

  Then again, she did look like her grandmother in her youth. When the people directed their eyes at her, that’s what they saw: Rhia Cornay, Queen of Allinan, beloved ruler and ever-youthful icon. Those people down there, until recently, hadn’t known about her betrayal to her own world; that she had opened the rift between dimensions to let everything demonic come crawling into the beautiful realm of Allinan. They hadn’t known that she had exiled her own daughter for marrying a commoner from the other world, and they most certainly didn’t know that she had kept that same, own daughter prisoner for her blood so she could gain immortality for herself. Maray was half-anticipating someone to throw their food left-overs at her face—a face which almost all of Allinan hadn’t seen in over eighteen years. Also, they didn’t know their Queen was currently held in the dungeons, guarded by Commander Scott’s best soldiers and a pack of Yutu-shifters led by Seri’s father. Wards had been put up by Corey, which were keeping anything or anyone from crossing the borders to the other world.

  “Are you ready?” Laura asked without taking her eyes off the people—her people.

  Maray shook her head imperceptibly. Her deep-blue, velvet gown weighed heavy on her. Had someone told her two months ago she would be standing before an entire world of people as their princess, she would have considered them having lost their minds. Today, she knew better. She was, after her mother the Crown Princess, the next in line for the Allinan throne, and her people had the right to know she wasn’t a rumor or a myth. She, Maray Elise Cornay, was real, and she was very different from her grandmother. That, her people needed to learn for themselves. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “My beloved Allinans,” Laura spoke, and her voice carried, magically amplified, across the gardens, which were, for once, not closed-off from the rest of the city, but brimming with people.

  The view reminded Maray of the pictures of the famous summer concert in Vienna—the Vienna of the other world—where people filled the castle-grounds to listen to classical music. And yet, something was very different about it. Maray let her gaze glide over the assembly. They looked the same as the people in the other world and yet different. The excitement that shone in their eyes was not that of a tourist in anticipation of a marvelous and entertaining summer night. It was real, honest, serious adoration. Their gazes spoke of miracles—miracles which Maray could feel had entered her own life the second she entered Allinan with its magic and beauty. Even in the icy winter-air, it was there, webbing a layer of fairytale-like dreaminess around her. Except, Allinan wasn’t dreamy. It was a place full of danger, of magic which had destroyed people and turned them into shifters, had almost cost her mother an
d herself their lives.

  Maray took a deep, steadying breath. Her lungs were caged in a corset, and her thrumming heart was working against the pressure with every beat.

  “I present to you my daughter, Maray Elise Cornay, Princess of Allinan.” Laura raised her hand and gestured at Maray in a way that made her feel a bit like a prize pony. But the response of the people was overwhelming. Had she, one moment ago, feared what they were thinking—if all they were seeing was Rhia’s image in her face, if they were wondering if she was real or an impostor—a cloud of cheers and chants momentarily stopped every doubt.

  “Long live the Princess!” they shouted from all corners of the gardens. “Long live Princess Maray! Long live Princess Laura!”

  Maray’s mouth involuntarily pulled up at the corners, a thing it normally only did when she studied Jemin’s chiseled face as he stood guard, blue eyes screening the surroundings like two bright torches that never missed a detail.

  “Long live the Princess!”

  As Maray let her gaze wander across the crowd below the balcony, she felt the cheerful expressions like a wave of warmth in the cold, December morning. It spread in her chest, letting her breathe more easily—for a moment—

  There, among the happy faces, was one pair of crimson eyes. The color was there for a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Maray’s mind to be pushed back into the palace yard where the red-eyed Yutu had attacked her and Corey—impostor-Corey. Those were the same eyes. Only this time, they were glancing up at her from under a hood, leaving the rest of the face in shadows.

  “It’s the same person.” Maray repeated herself for what felt like the hundredth time. “I am telling you. It’s a shifter.”

  Maray had listened to the cheers of the crowd half-heartedly, biding her time until she could leave the balcony and retreat back into the safety of the palace. Now that she was racing back to her chambers, Jemin and Heck at each side, tailed by Seri and Commander Parsin Scott, she couldn’t care less if she appeared like a hysterical child.

  “I swear, he had the same red eyes as the one that attacked me and fake-Corey in the courtyard.”

  Jemin and Heck, both aware of what had happened that first morning after Maray had initially come to Allinan with an impostor leading her out into the forest, exchanged horrified looks over her shoulder. Maray picked up her skirt and sped up.

  She didn’t know what she was running from. If there really was a shifter outside—the shifter she had barely escaped from little more than a month ago—the crowd had more to fear than she did.

  While Jemin dutifully filled Commander Scott in about the unsolved riddle of the impostor, nervousness showed as he revealed to a full extent how he had acted behind the Commander’s back.

  “It’s too late to cry over spilled milk,” Scott responded, not to Jemin’s words, but to the same subtext Maray had noticed in his voice.

  Ever since the Commander had outed himself to be on Maray’s mother’s side, and therefore on Maray’s side, he didn’t appear half as intimidating as he had the first time she’d seen him from under the rim of her hood the day Jemin had brought her to Allinan.

  “What are you going to do about the red-eyed suspect, Boyd?” Scott asked instead of accusing him of anything.

  Jemin slowed down, leaving Maray to the intense sideways-stare of Heck and Seri’s sudden appearance at her right elbow, where Jemin had been a moment ago.

  “First of all, we need to identify the target. Isolate…” Jemin’s voice trailed away as he and Scott fell behind, talking strategies. Maray wanted to turn around and reassure herself that Jemin was there, but she continued toward her chambers like a hunted deer. The memory of the red-eyed beast attacking her was still stuck in her bones, even with everything much worse happening in the meantime. It was only when Heck pulled open the door to her bedroom that she found herself capable of taking a breath and looking back.

  Jemin’s face was too far away to make out a distinct expression, but from the way his arms were bouncing up and down, hands gesticulating, she knew he was explaining something of utmost importance to Scott.

  “You know, I believe you, Your Royal Highness.” Heck broke her focus with a grin as he launched himself into one of the blue brocade armchairs.

  Maray responded with irritation. As much as she was a fan of Heck’s seemingly indestructible humor, she was still too deep in shock to find him funny.

  “Give her a moment, will you?” Seri, the petite Yutu-shifter girl, laid her slender hand on Maray’s forearm. “Why don’t you sit down and relax, while Jem and the rest of Scott’s team take care of whoever—whatever—it was that attacked you?”

  Maray shrank away from the girl’s fingers, not used to Seri’s warmer side. Until now, she had gotten to know her as a tough fighter with a perfect body and strikingly pretty face—and it bothered her how close she and Jemin had once been. He hadn’t admitted to anything. Neither had she, but Maray could see in the way they looked at each other that they had been more than just sparring partners—or sparring for more than just fighting techniques.

  Maray took a step away from Seri and marched to the closet. She felt constricted in her royal gown, not like herself at all—even when the people of Allinan had just gladly accepted her as their lost princess… maybe that was exactly what she was. Lost.

  “What do you think it wants?” she asked, half-aware she was actually speaking, as she reached into the open closet for a pair of pants and a shirt.

  “I am not sure,” Heck responded, earning Maray’s irritation again as she realized she had started a conversation.

  She tossed the clothes on the bed and pulled on the belt of her dress. “They obviously were trying to kill me last time…” She struggled with opening the silken bond. “And they were disrupted by the guards and then my dad in the forest.” Maray remembered the moment her father had turned up in the castle grounds and surprised her with his knowledge of Allinan. “Do you think they are with Rhia and Feris?” Her fingers fumbled on the belt without knowing what they were doing.

  “Or Langley,” Seri suggested and ghosted to the window, hiding at the side and peeking down into the yard.

  “Or anyone,” Heck added, sounding oddly serious all of a sudden. Serious enough to make Maray’s head turn. “I mean, after you, Seri, your dad, Pia, and the rest of the pack…” He shrugged at Maray. “Anyone could be a shifter these days. Feris might be out there, creating more. Who knows?” His broad shoulders were slightly hunched, forearms resting on his thighs, and he peeked up at Maray with his chocolate-brown eyes. “Are you one, too?” He winked, and Maray wanted to throw something at him. It had become a frequent reaction to his inability to remain serious for even five minutes.

  “You don’t mean that, Heck.” Seri, who had lifted the lace curtain aside an inch, dropped it and gave Heck a look that was unreadable for Maray. Heck, on the other hand, seemed to find meaning in it and closed his mouth, leaning back in his chair, as he folded his arms across his chest. “There are still tons of people down there,” Seri continued and joined Heck at the small coffee table where she fell silent—a pretty, slit-eyed statue that made even Heck’s usually handsome face appear normal.

  Maray glanced back to the open door, and her fingers finally found the end of the knot in the belt she’d been trying to open. Instant relief flooded her chest. The tiny things were what one needed to grasp onto when the rest of the world was going crazy. She bit her lip, eyes searching the hallway for Jemin as she pulled the silver cord open. But her gaze didn’t need to wander far. Jemin was right there in the doorway, his caramel hair bouncing as he shook his head at her. “Need any help with that?”

  Maray swallowed a cough.

  “That’s our cue.” Seri elbowed a disgruntled Heck, and they simultaneously jumped up from the chair and disappeared into the closet.

  “Scott wants Neelis to drop by as soon as possible,” Jemin called after them, and a sound of acknowledgment echoed from the secret passageway.
“Thanks, Seri.”

  As the door behind Maray’s clothes clicked shut, Jemin pulled the room to her chambers closed, too.

  “Guards will be doubled,” he reassured her and took a slow step closer. His features were those of the Jemin she had gotten to know over the past weeks, not the soldier who had initially brought her to Allinan. “There is no reason to worry.”

  “I hate when you say that.” Maray laid her hand in his open palm and let him pull her toward his chest, welcoming the butterflies that never failed to take off in her stomach at his touch. “It makes me worry even more.”

  Jemin lifted her chin with his free hand and gazed down at her, blue fire dancing behind his irises. “You know I am not saying this because of the red-eyed guy out in the yard.” His lips curved up at the sides, causing the pinkish velvet to part over his teeth. “But because I need a moment alone with the most beautiful Princess of Allinan.”

  Maray involuntarily giggled but regained composure within a second. She had been working on getting the best of her emotions for a while now, with her mother as her skilled teacher, and it started to pay off. She rarely felt like anyone could just read her like an open book, the way they had when her Allinan adventures had started. She pushed herself upward, onto her toes, and closed the unnecessary distance between his mouth and hers, allowing herself to sink into the rocky ocean that being in love with Jemin was. Every brush of his fingers on her neck, every silken touch of his lips, every tickle of his breath was a wave of pleasure combined with a painful type of nostalgia. Even with the joy of the moment, Maray was wildly aware that Jemin remained Jemin, the guard of dimensions. Even if his father’s honor had been restored, and he was no longer the son of a traitor but the son of a respected noble, he was still not royalty. He had chosen the life of a soldier over the life of a noble. And however knightly that made him seem in Maray’s eyes, the rest of the Allinan court didn’t agree.