Page 120 of Lunar Desires
My stomach lurched, my eyes clearly playing tricks on me.
No. I refused to accept the scene playing out down there.
No. No. No.
The man with platinum blond hair and blue eyes landed before Marcus, his arms by his side.
No damn way. This wasn’t possible.
“Preston,” Marcus intoned, taking hold of his shoulders. “My darling Preston.”
Chapter 36
RILEY
“Preston?” Isaac breathed from the other cage.
My spaghetti brains were now trapped inside a blender.
No. No. No.
Marcus pulled The Star into a hug. “I’ve missed you terribly.”
Wait. Wait. Wait. Back the hell up. This must be a trick, right? Some game playing on the Kingwood’s part?
Rihanna hadn’t given birth at all. She’d brought a man down from, what, the sky? Our missing brother?
My throat thickened, confusion a swamp with no escape route.
“Preston?” Isaac spoke louder.
Marcus ended the hug to inspect Preston, who blinked, the rest of him as still as stone. “Look at you.” He cupped his chin, moving his head gently from side to side. “As beautiful as ever.”
“Is it really him?” Rhianna rasped, sitting up, her belly flat again. She was dripping with sweat, clearly exhausted. She reached out to her father, repeating the same words.
His scowl could turn fire to ice. “Go and clean up. You stink.”
She recoiled, dipping her head. They were all caked in dust, and tears tracked down her grubby face. “I gave you…I…” She sniffled. “I gave everything up for you, Daddy. The least you can?—”
“Leave!” he roared. “Get out of my sight before I burn out your tongue.”
Her shoulders shook from sobbing, but she still threw another question at him. “What about Drake, Daddy?”
Gave up what?
“I told you to leave,” her dad warned.
“But Drake’s mine. You promised?—”
“Don’t you dare disobey me.” The quiet rumble of his tone rolled through the room as an icy breeze.
The same witch she’d threatened to kill helped her off the bed, leading her away.
“I gave up everything for you,” she said through increasingly frantic sobs. “Daddy!”
But she vanished through a door, her anguish soon fading into the distance.
Holding myself together with as much success as tissue paper under a faucet, I met Isaac’s stunned gaze. Neither of us knowing what to say, only stare and hope Preston wasn’t down there.
