The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) Read Online Free Page A

like a young woman, even if she was a blood relative, just a room away.” Lily smelled of lilacs and honey and sunshine. “Back then females could not inherit property. Catherine had no choice but to leave.”
    “Did you…” Lily lifted her chin.
    He was captivated by her bejeweled eyes, one blue and one green, both with a hint of purple running through them. “Did I what?”
    She leaned in close enough for him to feel her breath on his face. After so many months, to have her so near was excruciating for him. Lily’s hand shook for a moment then came to rest on his chest. “Did you give her your blood?”
    “No.” She was too close and he reined in his emotions by focusing on the strong winds of the storm that assaulted the panes with rain and debris.
    “You said children. Were they yours? Is that possible?” Lily asked the questions in one long stream.
    This particular discussion had not been on his agenda for the night. “Anything’s possible,” Krieger said, hoping to detour her from this line of questioning.
    “If you don’t want to answer then say so,” she snapped back at him.
    “Catherine and I lived as husband and wife for many years until it became necessary that I die, or too much suspicion about my lack of aging would have caused us trouble.”
    “So they weren’t your children?”
    “That depends on how you look at it. Catherine married well after my supposed death. I left her an extremely wealthy widow. She had no trouble attracting a man of means and station who she bore two sons. The first one died before he reached the age of one.” The memory of it caused him pain even now, and he felt the need to explain why he hadn’t intervened. “I was exploring the western territories at the time. The second, little Johnny, thrived.”
    The two of them floated on the tumultuous waters of their own seas of silence. Speaking of his time with Catherine had brought back memories he’d not thought of in centuries. A loud lightning strike connected with a tree on his property. He could hear the wood splinter and fall upon the forest floor.
    Lily jumped. His arms instinctively wrapped around her. How small she is, and yet, she holds my heart. “It’s just a storm.”
    “It sounded close.”
    “Do you want children?” he asked. It had been something he’d wondered about.
    “Yes, I think. Martha says that’s her greatest regret.” Lily leaned back a little to see his reaction. “That she never had a child of her own.”
    And now he knew that either the impossible would become possible and he’d father a child with her, or he’d have to endure another man’s child growing inside her. He stroked her silken hair and tucked her head back against his chest. “How is Martha?”
    “Happy.” Lily stiffened and pushed against him. “I haven’t seen her or Jo as much as I should.” He didn’t want to release her and loathed the loss of her touch as she moved away from him to pour another glass of wine. “If you could truly father children, would you want that?”
    If, as he’d feared, her affection for him had waned, then she wouldn’t be so persistent with this line of questioning. Happiness and despair mingled together. “With you I would.”
    “You only feel that because I’ve had your blood.”
    “No.” He wanted to shake her, to make her understand. “We have spoken of this before, the blood we share only increases the emotions we already hold for each other. If you disliked me without the bond then it would make you loathe me with it.”
    “Yes, yes, I know.” Her eyes nervously roamed around the room.
    “Why do you resist me?”
    “I don’t want to be a pawn like my mother.”
    Her words had the ring of truth, but there was more, more she wasn’t sharing with him. “You blame me for what happened to her.”
    “You should have known.”
    Krieger didn’t argue. “The Keeper’s role was no longer necessary. I was not as attentive to your family, to Catherine’s line, as