King of the South is a spinoff from Calia Read's Surviving Time Series and is the first book in her newest series, Belgrave Dynasty.
P R O L O G U E
R a i n e y
I was born on June fifth 1891, during the heart of the summer.
The days were so hot you could barely breathe. When the sun set, the humidity stubbornly held its place. People slept with their windows open, braving the risk of mosquito bites. A sheen of sweat would cling to your forehead and neck through the night.
However, the night I was born, a storm swept through Charleston. It rattled the shutters and caused the wind to whistle through the cracks of the front doors along The Battery.
“The thunder swallowed your momma’s screams and your cries,” my daddy would tell me when I was a little girl.
“The devil knew you were comin’ and he got scared,” my Momma used to tell me when I was a little girl.
To me, it’s fascinating what they each remembered from that night.
My older brother Miles was supposed to be removed from the home but due to the storm he was sent to the third floor. Once I was born, Miles came pounding down the stairs. His best friend was hot on his heels.
They burst into the doors just as the midwife placed me, swaddled and content, in my momma’s arms.
“This is your little sister, Raina Leonore.”
According to my momma, Miles patted my head and said hello. His friend came up to me and stared at me intently. “Why is her face so red?” Livingston Lacroix bluntly asked.
Seconds later, I began to wail and it became a joke between our families that it was a precursor to the relationship I’d have with Livingston.
He poked, I protested.
However, as the years passed on and I grew older, I would be the one to do the poking. My chagrin for Livingston grew exponentially. High jinks became grand and artful. When I knew our families were to see each other, I would preoccupy myself with the best ways to torture him. And in turn, he would do the same.
At the mere age of seven, I took our antics one step further when I shot him in the leg with Miles’ bow and arrow. Livingston was eighteen. My temper always got the best of me, and when he told me to leave them—him, Etienne, and Miles—be, I made up my mind then and there it was war. I ran into the house, up the stairs. I searched Miles’ room until I found his bow and arrows and ran back outside where I climbed a tree and waited quietly for Livingston.
Livingston had charm that no one can deny. He could smile himself out of trouble, laugh away your tears. But no smile or words he said could escape the sleek precision of my aim.
In 1899, when my daddy died, the agony I felt seized every breath I took. I freely waved a white flag between the two of us. Livingston chased away the pain with grand stories. Each one better and brighter than the last. They were vivid and real. I became transported to a different world and my pain faded. It was temporary, but for a brief moment, I felt as though everything was all right.
Like most men, he wasn’t fond of tears. He saw them quite frequently the first year of my daddy’s passing. It couldn’t be helped. My eyes felt as though they were fountains that couldn’t be turned off. Late one night, when he was visiting my brother, he found me in the garden crying. Underneath a Spanish moss tree he sat beside me and patted my hand. I’ll never forget what he said next. “Rainey, you have more strength in your pinky finger than most grown men will ever possess. Soon, you’ll conquer this pain. You were born to survive this.”
In 1901, at the age of twenty-one, Livingston would be the one to wave the white flag when he lost his parents and younger brother in a train accident. I returned the kindness he gave to me by telling him stories. It was a dark period for the Lacroix family. Especially Livingston. I knew better than anyone that even though he would become better at coping with the pain, it would never leave. He would merely adapt to living without his loved ones. During that period, Livingston became a frequent visitor at the Pleasonton household, and gradually he did what I imagined he would with his pain, if not better. At least I thought he did.
By 1902, Livingston Lacroix became the king of the south with his gorgeous looks that bordered on being hazardous. He drank and charmed away his pain. I felt abandoned. Left in the dust. Stories and comfort were no longer needed. To the utter horror of our relatives, I was the first one to pick up the proverbial weapon and end our treaty of peace.
While he finished college with his twin brother, Etienne, and my brother Miles, the times I saw him were few and far in between.
“God be with the woman who marries him,” Momma would sigh whenever Livingston visited.
“God be with the world with which we live in,” I would mutter whenever he left because wherever he walked there was potential for a trail of broken hearts.
Very swiftly, he was growing into a man. He never grew tired of our antics as the years passed. Yet that meant he also saw me as his best friend’s baby sister. As I grew older, I wanted to do things to make him see I was not a child, such as wearing dresses that were far more flattering, having my hair down, or even going as far as using rouge. Momma was appalled by my desires. She said a true Southern lady would never do such things, but I vowed the moment I was old enough, I would do all three to simply prove a point. Not for Livingston’s affections.
I did not care for Livingston in that way. I would never be one of the many ladies who fell for his charm. Of that I was certain.
Throughout the years we would find ourselves at war with one another. I may have grown into a young woman, but he still saw me as Miles’ little sister. If I took aim at him with my words, he returned the favor every time with a consistency that I more than relied on. Women came and went from his life, and I was there to remind him that he was an impossible reprobate. And he would grin with his devastating smirk that made most women blush and say, “Le savauge, you sound upset that I’m not your reprobate.”
He had his life before him, and I believed the same for myself.
But then everything changed when the Great War struck. He left. My brother left. He came back. My brother did not.
We both lost pieces of ourselves.
The problem was, neither of us knew how to ask for help. And we were all out of white flags to wave.
ADD TO GOODREADS
Release date set for February 2020
Release date set for February 2020
Curious about the series leading up to Belgrave Dynasty? The one where I fell in love with Etienne and Serene? See below for The Surviving Time series and my reviews.
Our love is timeless.
Will is my fiancé. The shy man I met years ago in college. The person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with.
This is the life I’ve always wanted until finding a picture of four men changes everything…
Etienne says he’s my husband and the year is 1912. He can’t stand the sight of me, but I don’t know why.
Oh, and he’s one of the men from the picture.
I’ve done the impossible and have become trapped in time and I know Etienne is my key to going home.
The more time I spend with Etienne, the further I fall for him, until I’m questioning which time I belong in and if the life I left behind is the one I truly desire.
All I know for certain is I need to survive time.
I need to survive love.
And I need to make it out on the other side alive.
Étienne Lacroix and I had a fire I thought would never die.
Our love was timeless.
An irreversible decision sent me back to the present day with a family I barely recognize, but I am determined to find a way back to Étienne.
I can survive time. But I can’t survive life without him.
Time bends to no one’s demands, so I must fight with everything I have to return to the past. However, I am terrified that the past I once knew might not look the same, and the man who once called me his surviving trace will no longer be waiting for me.
Time bends to no one’s demands but sometimes love does…
My Review: http://bit.ly/2zrWCq8
For Etienne and me, our love has always left a trace.
It reigns over kingdoms, and rules over time.
With Etienne now in the present day, the echoes of time grow louder.
We must face the answers we seek to set things right.
However, we must be incredibly careful. One false move and everything we love will be destroyed.
And this time, could be the end of our surviving trace.
My review: http://bit.ly/2WrD5Tz
~MEET CALIA READ~
Calia Read is the author of the Sloan Brothers Series, The Fairfax Series, Figure Eight and The Surviving Trace. She lives in Ohio with her husband and their five kids. She is currently hard at work on the first book in the Belgrave Dynasty, a spinoff from The Surviving Time Series.
~CONNECT WITH CALIA~
YES!!!!I CANNOT WAIT FOR THIS!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm right there with you, Candice!!!!!
DeleteOh my gosh!!! I can't wait to read this!!!
ReplyDeleteMe either, Bunny!!!
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