Twin Passions: 3 Read Online Free Page B

fists clenched as she felt her breathing accelerate, felt the searing betrayal burning with such white-hot force it weakened her will to hold back the fury rising in answer.
    What manner of evil could possess warriors, Wizard Twins, to deliberately turn their backs on their natural Consortress for a Consortress whose Twins were already set to claim her? Wizards more than willing to kill to claim the Sorceress these two sought.
    And well they would deserve such death, she thought furiously.
    Wizard Twins were once known to kill over the Sorceress they claimed not just with their magick but with their hearts as well. And no doubt, the Sashtain Twins would kill for Marina.
    The thought of the deaths of the Delmari Twins filled her with dread though. Could she survive if such happened? She feared she wouldn’t. But she was also aware that the Sashtain Twins would only kill should another actually try to take Marina from their hold, something Rhydan and Torran would never accomplish.
    But the betrayal was destructive to her heart.
    It ate at her.
    The pain bloomed inside her until once again one lone tear fell. And with that tear came another. The proof of a broken heart spilling from her like beads of moisture from the Weeping Trees whose crystalline drops were said to bring comfort from the Sorceress Select herself.
    There was no comfort to be found for Astra from her own tears. There was nothing to ease her pain, nothing to still the aching sorrow in her soul.
    There was only the knowledge that her warriors had no desire to be her Consorts.
    First betrayed by a mother who refused to love, and now by the Consorts who turned their backs on her as well.
    She was as she had always hoped she would not be.
    Alone.

Chapter One
     
    Magic.
    It whispered through the castle.
    Heavy tendrils of invisible power moved along the castle halls, slid around the corners, eased its way beneath locked doors and eavesdropped amid Wizard Twins.
    Thankfully, the eavesdropping part wasn’t her job, Astra thought morosely as she stood guard at the entrance to Princess Marina’s wing of the castle. She had had enough of the inner thoughts of Wizard Twins each time she had drawn near to the Wizards who should have been her own.
    Who should have been her own…
    Holding back her grief was a near impossible task, and yet one she knew she must persevere to succeed at. Because failure would mean revelation. It would mean revealing herself as the natural Consortress to those who were now sought as criminals. As practitioners of the dark arts. As murderers.
    She stared straight ahead along the hall, pushing back the agony, the sorrow. Pushing back a pain unlike anything she could have imagined existing.
    She had believed nothing could be worse than knowing her Consorts and being unable to reveal herself to them. She had believed nothing could be worse than knowing Wizard Twins who should have been her own sought another as their Consortress.
    There was a greater pain.
    There was the pain of knowing those her heart and Sorceress spirit was already tied to were now known as the most vile of any in the land. To add to that pain was the knowledge that shed her tears. To release the grief, that now only built within her soul, would be to reveal herself. And should she do such, then she could be used to draw those dark Wizards from wherever they hid and force them to be brought to justice.
    Could she live with the knowledge that their first glimpse of her as their Consortress would also be as the one who had betrayed them?
    She could not bear such knowledge.
    She could not bear allowing such to happen.
    Standing guard, she and another warrioress of the Princess Brigade reinforced the magick of the Guardian of the Power of Covenan. They stood ready should any enemy manage to get past both the magickal guards the Sashtain Twins had set in place as well as the protective power of the land that the Guardian of the Power of Covenan commanded.
    She carried on each