Bride of Alvar (Redemption Saga, Book 1)

Chapter 2

"What are you doing here, Lucy?" Mom asks, opening the door to her apartment and stepping aside so I can come in.

Upon seeing my mother in the old apartment I'd grown up in, I'm immediately fighting off my guilt for not visiting her more often.

My mom doesn't take care of herself.

I'm not surprised either because I'd always taken care of us.

Our little home had been drab, but tidy when I'd lived with her. Now unread mail covers the dining table, protein bar wrappers litter the dirty shag carpet, and old cereal boxes sit open on the kitchen countertops.

"I came to talk to you about—" I stop myself. It's so hard to say it. "Alvar." His name is managed in a whisper.

"I don't want to talk about it." Mom walks over to the window of her apartment gazing away from me at the rain pattering on the glass in glistening droplets.

"I met him today," I blurt out.

Mom's gaze snaps from the rain to me.

"You met him?" Mom says, her tone dripping with sarcasm. She may lack in terms of housekeeping, but dramatics are her forte.

"I am pretty sure I did."

"What did he look like?" Mom's voice is hushed with shock, perhaps she didn't expect me to be serious.

"Tall, with dark hair and blue eyes. Looked no more than thirty," I mutter. "He had a striking white scar on his face."

"Just like I remember him!" A tear falls from one of Mom's tired grey eyes.

"Just like you remember him? How is that possible?" I cross my arms over my chest, a wall to protect myself from slipping back into her delusional world. I snap the rubber band on my wrist a couple of times.

"His world is so different from ours, including aging and time passing," Mom explains. "But we need his world to be at peace with our world or all we know will be lost."

"You're not telling me he's like a fairy or elf. He's human, right?" The words sound like madness as they escape my lips. Crap. I can't believe I'm starting to believe in Alvar. It's just all too uncanny.

"I wouldn't be surprised if his people spurned many of those beliefs into existence," Mom says with brief amusement crossing her face. "But his world is called Axos and he rules the most powerful country in that world: Underland."

"I know," I say dryly. It's all coming back. All that I'd pushed from thought to preserve my sanity. I remember: Axos, Underland, my wedding plans...

"You know? You know now, huh?" Mom gets up from her chair and she crosses and paces in front of me in her living room, slippers crinkling against the plastic wrappers.

"Uh, Mom, let me—pick that up," I say, out of instinct I kneel down and start gathering up the garbage.

"I would keep this place clean if you hadn't left me like you did!" Mom says, back at her old game of blaming me for all her problems.

"Mom," I say, taking a deep breath. I have to say it though. "I'm getting married."

"You certainly are getting married, Lucy! You're getting married to Alvar and from what you're telling me, it's going to be soon." Mom drops in a sit on the old blue sofa we've had for as long as I can remember.

I draw in a deep breath and say slowly, "No, Mom, I'm marrying Mike."

She glares at me in disbelief.