Page 91 of Hunting for her Heart
A small frown pinches her brow as she asks, “Where are you from?”
I don’t really want everyone in this world to know I’m an outsider. I’m not sure if people will even believe me, but withno other answer in mind, I find myself answering honestly. “California.”
Her eyes widen and her jaw drops open. “Holy shit, you’re not from here either?”
“Either?” Ronan and Bo ask in unison.
She and her men glance at my guys before looking at me. It’s as if she’s only now taking in the way we stand together—Ronan’s arm wrapped around my waist, my hand held in Hawk’s.
Then a smile pulls at her lips and she nods. “They’re your fated mates,” she says knowingly.
“Yes,” I say with a little surprise. “And they are yours.”
A huge smile covers her face and she laughs. “I can’t believe this! After all these years, someone else came through! Was it the pink-haired lady who sent you too?”
My eyes widen and I quickly nod. “Yes! And you’ve been here for years?”
“Yup,” she says with a nod of her head.
“Do you know…” I start before glancing up at my guys. I hold onto them a little tighter as I ask, “Do you know how to get back? To our world?”
She frowns at me and then looks a little sad as she shakes her head. “Sorry, hun. It’s a one-way ticket. There is no going back.” She must see the sadness in my face because she asks, “Why would you want to go back? You seem happy with what you’ve found here.”
“I am. It’s just… my sister, Izzy. She won’t know what’s happened to me. She was trying to help free me from our father’s cult, but I managed to escape on my own and ended up here before I could tell her. She’ll be worried sick.”
“If it’s any help,” she says gently, “I came here in search of my only family—my best friend, Ria.”
“Did you find her?” I ask in surprise, and she nods, looking happy.
“Yep. By the time I found her, she’d already hitched herself to a trio of pirate captains and had a child of her own.”
“Wow,” I whisper, wondering how many more women there are like us in this world.
“If she didn’t tell you it was a one-way ticket, did she tell you anything else about this place before you came?” Penny asks.
“Just that it’s worked out for every other woman she’s sent here.”
She lets out a deep breath. “Wow! She really sent you in here without any help, huh?”
“I was sort of in a rush to get away,” I admit, feeling a little foolish.
“Okay, well, the gist of it is, you and I were born in the wrong realm. Or, more accurately, our souls were born into the wrong bodies. Ria, you and I, we should have been born into bodies in this world, Dyconia, but we ended up in the bodies of our doppelgangers in the other world instead.”
My jaw drops open, unable to form a response as she continues. “That pink-haired woman?—”
“Aribella,” I say with a nod, and this time she’s the one who looks surprised.
“She wouldn’t give me her name. She called herself my fairy godmother.” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter now.Aribellasaid it was her job to switch people who had been born in the wrong realm.”
“That’s what happened to me!” I exclaimed. “A woman who looked just like me came through the portal right before I left through it.”
“She also told me that Ria and I had probably been so close in the other world, because we were both destined for this one. So maybe, if you and your sister are really close, there is a chance she’ll come here one day too.”
I stare at her in disbelief. “Do you really think so?”
She shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know for sure, but it’s definitely possible. I’m proof of that.”
I glance up at Ronan before asking her, “But what if I’m not here when she arrives?”
