Ties That Bind
Obsession Series
Author: Amy Blankenship
Copyright © 2012 Amy Blankenship
English Edition Published by TekTime
All rights reserved.
Chapter 1 “Sanctuary”
Angel Hart glanced out the thick glass of the window, wanting to cringe at the height of the helicopter as it flew toward the resort where she had grown up. She loved this place to death… but liked it so much better from the ground. Flying was her one phobia and she had been doing it for the last ten hours.
Blowing her bangs out of her eyes, she glanced toward her brother Tristian, wondering what had possessed him to meet them at the airport knowing he would have to fly in the helicopter on the way back home.
She knew for a fact that Tristian hated flying even more than she did and could see him texting someone on his cell phone to keep his mind busy. Maybe he’d faced his fear because they hadn’t seen each other in almost two years, even though they had talked on the phone and texted almost every day. She didn’t really care why he’d done it, because having him here with her had a calming effect on her and she was thankful for that.
To escape the noise of the helicopter, Angel let her mind drift back over the last two years. When their parents divorced, her dad had dragged her to California while Tristian had been forced to stay here at Sanctuary with their mother. Since it was so far to drive and neither one of them liked to fly… the distance had been the only reason they hadn’t visited in person.
She hadn’t realized just how much she had missed Tristian until she’d seen him standing there in the airport all by himself. He was leaning against the wall directly across from the door they’d come through. As soon as they saw each other, she took off running toward him as he held his arms out to catch her.
Her big brother… Tristian had always been the first one she talked to in the morning and the last one she’d seen before closing her eyes to sleep. Growing up, they’d even convince their parents that they had a problem with sleepwalking because they would get up in the middle of the night and fall asleep in each other’s beds.
Their mother had tried to put a stop to it when they’d gotten a little older by locking their bedroom doors at night. Angel’s lips thinned remembering what their mother had said the last time she’d caught them asleep in each other’s arms.
“It‘s sinful, the way you two behave… you act more like lovers than brother and sister.” Isabel Hart's voice had changed from motherly love to loathing that night.
Tristian had quickly found a way around those stupid locks. He’d cut a place out of the wall in the back of his closet so he could easily step into the small thin corridors that secretly ran through the walls of the hotel they lived in. He’d done the same to her closet and every night he would sneak into her room and sleep with her… setting the alarm clock so they wouldn’t get caught.
He’d told her that it was their mother that was the pervert… thinking their relationship was wrong and dirty. He had even pointed out that in a lot of smaller countries, the whole family would bathe and sleep together, and that in others, it was perfectly normal to even marry your sibling. Tristian had convinced her that it was mother who was the sinner by trying to keep them apart.
Angel had decided a long time ago to keep her and Tristian’s secrets and that it was no one else’s business… she trusted him.
Tristian hadn’t changed much since she had last seen him, retaining his young, innocent appearance. But, at the same time, she could see changes that she had missed happening. His blond hair had darkened some at the roots… highlights of platinum blond and lowlights of strawberry blond looked really well on him with his light tan and green eyes.
She smiled thinking he would fit in with the California surfer dudes with his alternative haircut. It was the same length almost all the way around and parted off to one side, leaving it to hang down over one of his eyes, way past his chin. She could also see the black leather of the cross necklace she had sent him for Christmas peeking out near his collar.
She felt like it was her that had changed the most though. When she’d left Sanctuary, she had only been sixteen. After being with Tristian, Hunter, and Ray almost every single day of her life… she had felt so lost and alone in LA. She’d never even been to a real school because their grandmother had always hired private tutors to home school them.
Going to high school in LA had been quite a culture shock. It was then that she’d realized, her family having so much money had only enabled them to keep her completely in the dark as to what was normal. Then she had met Ashton Fox. Every time she’d left her father’s penthouse, Ashton would be there or he'd show up wherever she was… like fate. He quickly made her smile and started showing her a whole new world.
Angel made the mistake of glancing back out the window just as they passed over a low valley, making her feel like they were sky high.
