Warning! Long chapter!

-Keegan-

Cara was looking at him with her beautiful eyes. They searched for his to meet hers in a manner that indicated that she wanted to tell him something. Her lips were partially parted, as if she was going to speak within the next second.

Keegan swallowed nervously, ignoring Orla's scorching gaze. He hoped neither of them would notice the storm of feelings inside of him. As his eyes landed on Cara his heart skipped a beat, again.

"Yes?" He asked her in return and put a very stoic mask on. Her eyelashes fluttered twice before she spoke and he groaned internally, tormented from how gorgeous she was.

"Thank you." Her words were spoken as she exhaled relieved. The tone of her voice sounded grateful. Keegan studied her eyes and he could sense that she was thanking him.

What is she thanking me for...? Exactly? Because I found her or because I went looking for her? Hold on, you idiot... she does not know you looked for her... Is she even thanking me?

Cara seemed to be able to read the confusion on his face and a faint smile appeared on her ample lips. His chest felt tight and he swallowed again.

When he did not answer her she awkwardly turned her focus towards the bowl his mother placed in front of her.

"What do you think she said?" He asked his sister who sat across from him. He had to play a lot dumber than he was to make sure his family did not notice what she did to him. "It sounded like she thanked me, didn't it?"

"I don't know." Orla shrugged her shoulders and did not look up at him. "Maybe she said 'I love you'." She mocked him and continued eating. 

Keegan rolled his eyes. His sister was no help, and he did not want his parents, nor Flynn, involved. Especially Flynn. So he did not answer Orla. Retaliating would only draw more attention to him and Cara... 

Flynn, that little arsehole... If he ever caught up with Orla, he would tease the living hell out of me. Why did Orla have to see my reaction? That girl is like a bloodhound, she will not let this go... I will have to make her think I want nothing to do with Cara. Keegan's mind swirled in thoughts and they created an even bigger mess than the one Cara had caused by just speaking to him. 

Breakfast was over in a while, they stayed where they were as Miriam cleaned up. Keegan managed to keep his eyes off Cara, but he quickly noticed how the rest of his family did not, except for Orla. Her eyes rested on her older brother whom she scrutinized for the slightest sign of what she thought she had picked up a trail of. 

However, she did not have such a hard time to keep her eyes of Cara as Keegan had. She was genuinely glad that Cara was back, but she was not as charmed as the rest of them... or there was something wrong. Something she did not share with the rest of them. Keegan on the other hand could feel his whole being wanting to be closer to Cara and he was going insane by how close she was sitting to him. The hairs on his arms almost stood up whenever she moved a little and her arm almost touched his. 

It was hard to keep his walls up when she so easily had charmed her way into his family's heart. Especially his parents' hearts. It also made it so hard to keep his feelings buried... But he did not want to risk anything by approaching her. What if she left? What if she did not feel the same way? He had a very hard time imagining that she could feel the same way when they couldn't communicate with each other. 

Their father looked at Cara like he used to look at Orla when she was just a little toddler, running around on her wobbly little legs. There was a glimmer in his eyes, of what kind Keegan wasn't completely sure. However, it was easy to see that the old man was also very pleased that she was back and safe.

Mother had been wary at first but that had lasted for about five minutes. Mother had taken to Cara faster than any of them. She acted like Cara had been with them forever, and like she was made of glass. However, that might be caused by the fact the Cara had in fact been kidnapped... By whom they might never find out.

"Son." Their father suddenly spoke. Keegan and Flynn looked at him simultaneously.

"Yes?" Both of them asked. It caused Cara to look up from her bowl and Keegan's muscles tensed immediately. 

"Well, I only need one of you." His father chuckled amused and that meant he had a chore in store for them.

"I can do it." Keegan blurted the words out before his father had even had the chance to tell them what he wanted them to do. 

That was a mistake. They will suspect something is wrong... 

Orla finally looked up, raised her brows teasingly and bit the inside of her chin when he had been a little too eager to do their father's bidding. She seemed to read him as easily as if he had said it out loud; he needed to get out of here. Away from Cara, before anyone noticed how much he wanted to be around her. Or before Orla decided to tell everyone what she suspected, not to mention the reaction only she had witnessed earlier.

"Well, both you could do it since it did not go so well last time." His father began. "Take the girl to the old teacher, both of you. She still needs to be able to communicate with us... Orla, darling. You can join them as well. I do not have any chores for you." He suggested and nudged his daughter gently with his elbow. "I know how easily you get bored, and I know how much you love to torment your brothers." He laughed quietly. 

Orla immediately looked very ashamed and it pained Keegan a bit. It had not been her fault that Cara had been taken, but she blamed herself. That was very clear.

.  .  .

An hour later they were on their way to the old teacher. Cara was walking a couple of steps ahead of Keegan with Flynn keeping her company. They did not utter as much as a word to each other,which strangely eased something within him. 

Orla had joined them and was walking next to Keegan. She was still looking very troubled.

"Hey, it wasn't your fault." He said quietly and put his arm around her shoulders. "You know that."

"I know." She mumbled very quietly without looking at him. He shook her gently with the arm around her and pressed her against him.

"Doesn't look like it." He remarked. "Come on, Orla. It would have happened to me or Flynn if we had been with her. There was nothing you could have done."

Orla was just about to object when Flynn yelled at them. He had spotted the house where the old teacher lived.

"It doesn't matter now, anyway." Keegan comforted his sister. "She is back now..." He mumbled and accidentally let out a very relieved sigh. Orla looked up at him and narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"Be honest, Keegan." She whispered and nodded towards Cara. "You like her, don't you?"

Kill me now. Keegan thought and glanced at the sky. If there was a God or several, he would have done anything to get out of answering his sister's question. What was he supposed to tell her? That he felt bewitched by Cara? That her astounding beauty rendered him completely defenseless and incapable of doing the simplest thing, like breathing properly? No. He was not going to give her that. She would use it against him only like a younger sibling could. And what would happen if she told their mother? 

She would make me sleep outside... Or she would have me sent off to become a monk. He thought. His mother was not a fan of sinners, and she would do just about anything to keep her children as pure she possibly could. And it was as if she could sense his sinful thoughts and feelings as soon as he was around Cara. At least the times she accused him of staring at her... naked. 

"No..." He lied with a dark voice and tried his best in sounding honest. It was so hard. Orla rarely showed this side to him and he did not want to make it even more rare than it already was. 

The response from her was not one of anger, as it normally would have been. Instead Orla's green eyes softened a bit. She was so perceptive, especially for being only fifteen... and it annoyed him immensely. 

"Come on..!" She raised her eyebrows at him and tilted her head to the left. "The other's might be as blind as bats, but I see the way you look at her... I saw you earlier." She confirmed his fears. "Flynn looks at her as well, but not like you do."

Flynn looks at her? I am going to beat some sense into that little rat. Keegan growled internally and looked towards his brother.

"See?" Orla exclaimed and laughed. "It is clear as day, Keegan. You want her."

"I do not, Orla. Stop it, now." He growled and withdrew his arm from her.

"You can lie and deny it as much as you want, but I can still see it on your face. Just now, when I mentioned Flynn, your eyes turned black." She snickered and shrugged her shoulders smugly.

Keegan walked off and placed himself in the lead of the small company. Blackie was trudging along next to him but even the stupid dog was smitten with the newcomer. He was constantly looking back at Cara to see if she was with them and Keegan groaned internally.

. . .

"What do you want?" The old teacher asked while opening the door.

Keegan threw him the coin purse his mother had handed him before Cara had gone missing.

"We need your help." He stated shortly and crossed his arms.

"With what?" The old man grunted and eyed Keegan from top to toe.

-Cara-

They were standing outside an even smaller house than the family's house. This one had small holes in the roof and quite honestly it looked like a breeze could knock it over.

In the door frame stood a thin man, he looked about seventy years old. However, the eyes, hiding underneath grey and very bushy eyebrows, were filled with life and what looked like annoyance. The remnants of what had once been his hair was now grey and it grew unevenly on his little head, but his face was shaved clean. He was wearing a brown, very worn out, robe that reached to his feet. Only his toes peaked out from underneath the frayed hem of his robe. 

What are we doing here? She wondered and shot Orla a nervous glance. She reciprocated with a warm smile.

"We need you to teach her the common tongue." Keegan said to the old man. He had thrown something to him a minute ago, but she hadn't seen what it was. From the sound it had made she guessed it was money. Coins, to be precise.

During their conversation Cara's mind drifted off a bit. On the way over to this strange little man's house she had thought about her current situation. Flynn seemed too shy to utter a single word to her, so she had to keep herself occupied.

What kept her busy, and anxious, for most of the walk was the fact that she still did not know anything about where she was or why she was here. Not to mention the fact that she seemed to be in a society where the lack of modern utilities still worried her immensely. This morning she had managed to tell Miriam, after a very long and tiring conversation, that she needed to use the bathroom. Miriam had led her outside and shown her where she could "do" her business.

Their so-called toilet was a hole, outside, among a couple of trees a small distance from the house. Cara was still trying to cope from it. 

I will never get used to this... She thought and studied Keegan as he grunted something at the man. Am I supposed to live here for the rest of my life or... what do those men need me to do here? Am I even supposed to do something?

"Why do you need me to teach her the common tongue?" The man suddenly said something, and Cara noticed that he was leaning to the side to get a better look at her. Keegan's body frame was concealing her completely from the man's line of sight. "Is she not from this kingdom?"

"We do not know where she is from." Orla answered whatever question he had asked.

"If you do not want the coin we can just leave." Keegan growled impatiently and gained the man's attention immediately. "Our parents say that you know more about foreign languages than anyone in Tranmere, and that is why we are here. We do not know what language she speaks... The rest does not concern you."

"Calm down, young man. I have the right to know who you bring to my home." The man snapped back. "Fine... I could use the coin. Let me have a look at her."

Keegan took a step to the side and exposed Cara to the man's eyes again. They gave her a quick look before he waved at her to come closer. She gave Orla an insecure look, but she just nodded reassuringly at her, motioning her to step forward.

Cara placed herself in front of the man. Keegan stood next to her and she felt a little bit safer when he towered over them both with his impressive height and body mass. His arms were crossed and made him look very determined and stubborn. 

A hand suddenly grabbed Cara by her chin and turned her face to the right and then the left. It went too quick for her to protest but something abruptly stopped the man.

"Let go of me, boy." The man growled and threw eyes filled with irritation up at Keegan.

Cara looked down at his hand. It had been forced off her and she noticed that another hand was gripping around his wrist. It was Keegan's.

"You do not need to touch her in order to teach her our language." Keegan growled and let the man go in a swift but aggressive manner. "Get on with it or give us back the coin."

"Your father will hear of this rudeness." The man said something with a very dark look in his eyes before he took a step to the side and motioned them all to come inside.

-Keegan-

Cara was sitting with the old teacher while he tried to unravel the mystery that was her origin, and her language. He held up different objects and asked her to speak their names in her own language before repeating them in the common tongue. Cara was then instructed to repeat after him. She was surprisingly quick learned and she pronounced the majority of the words correctly. Some of them she adorably mispronounced and it warmed his soul.

Flynn had gone outside and was playing with Blackie. Keegan and Orla kept watch over the old man. Keegan was still fuming internally from when he had put his hands on Cara.

From nowhere he felt a pair of eyes on him and he turned his face towards his sister after he had established that it wasn't the old teacher's nor Cara's.

"What is it, Orla?" He asked and turned his gaze back to the teacher's hands. Making sure they were nowhere near Cara's face.

"Just wondering for how long you can keep your trousers on." She joked with a sharp tone.

"Excuse me?" He asked back and frowned.

"You are staring at her." She told him, like he wasn't aware of it. Which he wasn't. He didn't stare. He made sure she was without reach of the old teacher's hands.

"Don't you have anything else to do than pester me?"

A low chuckle left his little sister as he looked at Cara again.

The dark hair rested softly against her back and she sat so patiently while being forced to learn a whole new language. The clean and spotless skin in her face looked so soft that he turned his gaze to her lips. This proved to be a huge mistake because it momentarily made him wonder how it would feel to touch them...

"Would you care to explain what the hell you did earlier?" Orla woke him from his fantasy of brushing his thumbover Cara's lips. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

"And you are referring to...?"

Orla gave him an annoyed look and tilted her head to the side. She was not stupid enough to fall for his lies and counter-questions. She knew something... or at least she thought she knew something. And she was getting annoyed at him him avoiding her questions.

"Are you so thick in the head that you cannot see it yourself? Is that why you are so moody?" She asked him and crossed her arms as well. Her light green eyes searched for his and she suddenly lit up a little when he met them. "You don't... You do not even see it yourself!"

"See what?" Keegan muttered and looked at her for a second or two before looking at Cara again.

"You are ridiculously protective of her... and ever since she disappeared you went to the woods every day." Orla began listing things he already knew. "... Keegan you spent hours out there in the bloody rain and a storm... and you forced Jared to come with you."

"I went looking for her because it nearly destroyed mother, you saw her yourself. She was completely out of it."

"Then why did mother no go and look for her herself?" Orla countered.

"I couldn't bring... She-" Keegan interrupted himself.

Why did mother not go and look for Cara herself? Was it because I volunteered?

"No one of us had the chance to even offer to go with you most of the times. You just left after breakfast and did not come back for hours." Orla continued as she knew what he was thinking.

"Orla! What the fuck do you want?" He grunted and threw his head back in frustration. He clenched his fists and his body tensed up from his sister's persistence.

"This." She said in a smug voice and nodded at him. "This is what I am talking about. You used to be so calm and composed... and ever since she entered our lives, you have been short-tempered and... Well, let's just say that it is easy to see that her presence affects you." She answered. "If you do not know it yourself yet, then please let me tell you: I think you have feelings for her, and it is clear as day. Fuck it! I know that you have feelings for her."

"I do not have feelings for her." Keegan growled and gave his sister a cautioning look, telling her to back off.

I cannot have feelings for her... I have not known her long enough for that, and I cannot even talk to her. He thought as his sister rolled her eyes at him.

"Keep lying to yourself then." She muttered.

"I will not, because I am not lying." He retorted.

"Please, you stubborn ox!" She laughed out loud.

The old teacher and Cara suddenly looked their way. Orla's outburst had caught their attention.

"Do you two mind? It is not like she is from the kingdom over..." The old teacher grunted. "This is going to take a while, and if you cannot be quiet, I need you to leave."

"Gladly." Keegan scoffed rudely. He wanted nothing else than to be free of his sister right now. Before he even took the first step towards the door, he hesitated. He did not want to leave Cara alone... but if he told his sister that she had to stay here, because he was leaving, he would only enforce her argument even more.

"Just go..." Orla muttered at him. "I won't let anything happen to your precious little foreigner."

-Cara-

Keegan suddenly left. A slam of the old man's door caused some very old dust to rain down from the ceiling and Cara noticed several small holes in it. The dust played calmly in the air and the sun rays shining through the window made them much more noticeable.

Keegan seemed to be in a very bad mood due to something the old man had said. Or maybe it was something Orla had said to him?

They had been arguing for a while... They obviously thought that they had been quiet, but they really hadn't. Especially Keegan. Cara did not have to speak the same language as them to notice that he was not amused or happy about what came out of Orla's mouth.

Cara wondered what had made him so agitated that it made him leave in such a rude way and in such a haste.

Several hours later the man, who Cara figured had been paid to teach her their language, gave up. The poor soul had rubbed his face so many times in frustration that it almost looked sore by now. He had showed her several objects and tried his best to teach her what they were called in their language.

"Take her with you." The old man told Orla who had nodded off in a corner, long ago. He waved her hands at Cara, shooing her away from him. She quickly got up from her chair.

The sight off Orla sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall and sleeping, made her feel quietly. Orla had been waiting, patiently one might add, and not said a single word. It must have been so boring for her...

Keegan hadn't returned, and neither had Flynn.

"Girl!" The man grunted louder, and Orla was woken up in the most unpleasant way.

"What?" She hissed back before yawning.

"We are done here. It is hopeless... I do not know where she comes from or what language she speaks. Where did you even find her?" He massaged his neck while speaking.

"In the woods." Orla said something and got to her feet. It made the man's face go completely blank.

"What?" The man hissed. "You found her in the woods and-"

The door suddenly opened, and the brothers entered, looking just as tired as their sister.

Flynn looked incredibly bored apart from Keegan, who looked like he had just woken up just like his sister.

Did he take a nap outside or what?

"Yes." Orla answered the old man and ignored her brothers. "We found her in the woods, so what?"

"Orla!" Keegan suddenly hissed, clearly ordering her to shut up.

"She could be a witch for all you know!" The man exclaimed and placed his hands on the top of his head. He looked anxious as his eyes flickered between Cara and the three siblings in front of  her.

"Aren't you supposed to be some sort of scholar?" Keegan grunted.

"Yes... And what of it?" The man asked back.

"I thought your type denied the very existence of witches."

"Get out! The lot of you! And take this creature with you!" 

------------------------------

I hope you liked this chapter! 

All the best, 

Jenny