A Thousand Years (Soulmates Book 1) (10 page)

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Lugh left while Eadric stood there in shock. Anabell was just as damned as he was, now. If she could find her way back to him.

             
He scooped her up in his arms. He was not going to let her wake up on the rough, cold counter.

             
Eadric carried her back to the bedroom he had spent so many years avoiding. Whatever she had done to get him released from the hell Dunstan had left him in not only repaired him, it had repaired the entire room – painting, bed, and sheets. It looked as if nothing had been touched.

             
Just the way it looked before Anabell was thrown into his life - a museum of the life he used to have.

             
He eased her onto the bed, propping her head on the pillows and pulling the blanket up to tuck her in.

             
"I'll sit here every day for a year, three years, another thousand years, if it means that you'll come back to me, Anabell. I can't let you go this time." Leaning down, Eadric kissed her forehead. She looked so small in that big bed. Nothing like the woman who let herself go and gave her body and soul to him freely just a few nights before.

             
Walking to the other side of the room, he took the portrait of Deirdre off the wall and held it in his hands for a moment.

             
“I will always love you, Deirdre, but it’s time that I put your picture away. If she comes back to me, I need her to know that I am fully committed to making a new life with her – not recreating the life I had with you.” He kissed the painting and carried it out of the room, hanging it in one of the spare bedrooms.  He was quick to return to Anabell, not wanting to leave her alone for long.

             
Just as he was settling himself down in the corner of the room, Eadric heard a small noise. He ran to her side in the blink of an eye.

             
"Anabell?" he whispered, searching her face for signs of life.

             
Her eyes were still closed, but she nodded, then reached up and grabbed one of his hands with one of hers and pulled it down to her chest over her heart, holding it as tightly as she could.

             
"This is definitely more comfortable than the table," Anabell croaked through her dry throat, a small smile on her face.

             
There were no words for how happy Eadric was as he wrapped his arms around Anabell and cradled her head to his chest. It was the moment he had been waiting for since he woke up chained to the bed without her.

             
The first and only time he had ever cried was the day he lost his family, but he couldn't help the tears that he didn't know he had been holding back since he took her down from the stake.

             
He wasn't holding her, she was holding him - holding him together through the pain and sorrow, through the happiness and good times, and the times when he knew that there was no way he would have made it through without knowing she was there waiting for him somewhere in the world - somewhere in time.

             
Soul mates didn't begin to cover the pull he felt when she was around.

             
"You don't have to hold me so tight, Eadric. I'm not going anywhere." Eadric laughed into her hair. He begrudgingly let her lay back on the bed and took a seat on the edge beside her.

             
"Good. Because if you ever do that to me again, you'll spend the next thousand years chained to my side." Anabell opened her eyes to look up at him. He was still just as beautiful as he had been when she first saw him from across the club. Not a single scar or burn mark marred his perfect skin. Lugh had kept his promise.

             
The second Lugh told her that there was nothing he could do, the idea hit her. She wasn't giving up Eadric without a fight.

             
Since they had barely made the decision to be together before they were captured, Anabell and Eadric never had the chance to ask Lugh for Eadric’s soul back – so she still had a little wiggle room. She bargained with the only thing she had, her own soul. Lugh got another soul in his bank, another warrior on retainer, and Anabell got the powers she was hoping would help her cling onto life a little longer.

             
An act of vengeance was unnecessary, so she used what persuasive powers she had to convince Lugh to save Eadric and restore everything inside it. If he did it quick enough, she knew that Eadric would be more than capable of saving her in time. She just had to breathe and wait. 

             
The last thing she remembered was holding the pendant to her back in her tied hands and a white-hot burning sensation.

             
Pushing up on her elbows despite her weakened state, Anabell raised herself until she was sitting straight up in the bed. Her fingers found him, tracing the hard planes of his face. The entire time she was tied up, the only thing she worried about was getting to see his face again. Now that she was back where she belonged, she wanted to memorize every inch of him until she could recreate him in any medium straight from her memory.

             
Just as her fingertips brushed his bottom lip, Eadric stopped her and took both of her hands in his.

             
"Why did you do it?"

             
"Do what?" she asked. Anabell gave him the best confused face she could. He wasn't buying it.

             
"Don't give me that, Anabell. I've seen the mark on your back. I know what it means. You could have saved yourself, instead, you saved me. Now, Lugh owns your soul. You don't get to be human anymore. You don’t get a human life anymore." Anabell yanked her hands out of his, and she glared at him.

             
"Why did you sell
your
soul to him?" she asked, even though she knew the answer.

             
"So I could get you back."

             
"Was it worth giving up your humanity? Do you regret your decision to do it? Do you regret this?" Eadric shook his head. Not once had he ever wanted to take it back. She made it worth it.

             
"That's what I thought. You, of all people, know exactly why I did it. Having Lugh save me would have meant your death. Giving up my soul to save you meant you got to live and you could save me in return. Another eighty years without you would have been hell. Now, I get you for as many lifetimes as I want. And I want all of them. Forever."              

             
Anabell didn't give him time to respond. Her lips crashed into his, catching him off guard. She was fervent in her need for him, running her hands across the ripples of his back as she kissed him harder. Hours on the stake and days in limbo where she couldn't feel his touch had taken a toll on her.

             
His aggravation at her new state be damned. The most important thing on her mind was him and his beautifully unblemished body.

             
Using some of her new-found strength, Anabell wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him down on top of her. Both of them landing hard on the comfortable bed.

             
The shock in his eyes as he lifted his head tickled her. He had obviously not seen that coming.

             
"You should be resting, Anabell," he said, trying to disengage himself from her iron grip. "You need to get your health back. Stop wasting your energy on this." He was almost out of her grasp when Anabell released her grip on his shoulders and sank both of her hands into his blonde hair and forced his face back to hers for a long, hard kiss.

             
All his resistance slipped away.

             
They spent the rest of the night and into the early hours of the next day making love, exploring every inch of each other’s bodies until Anabell knew how to make him quiver with just a single touch and Eadric could set her body on fire with a look.

             
They collapsed together, Eadric cradling her in his arms, as they let the day take them into much needed sleep.

Epilogue

             
Eadric kept Anabell holed up in the castle with him for the rest of the week and through the entire weekend until he was sure that she had finally gotten all her strength back. Anabell explored it twice, from top to bottom, and was getting very frustrated with his imposed quarantine. He made it up to her nearly every night, but she was starting to miss her home and her friends.

             
After two straight days of her begging to go back to her apartment to get her clothes and check on her roommate who had to be going out of her mind not knowing where Anabell was, Eadric finally caved in and told her they would go the next night around three in the morning to make sure they got to her hometown when the sun was actually down.

             
“Are you sure this is what you want? You wouldn’t rather stay here with me for a few more days, ignoring the rest of the world?” Eadric asked the next night, grabbed Anabell by her belt loops and dragging her into his arms. Anabell’s laugh was buried in his shirt.

             
“Yes, Eadric. I’ve got to see Dylanne and make sure that she hasn’t filed a missing persons report on me. Plus, I need my clothes. You’ve amassed some very nice things, but I still prefer my jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, and tennis shoes. I’m never going to be a flowy gown woman,” Anabell said, wiggling out of his grip and moving back out of his reach. If he didn’t keep his hands off her, they would end up spending another night there. A nefarious plot that Eadric had been trying to make work since the sun went down.

             
“What if you leave an arm here when you try to teleport yourself?” he asked. He moved slowly, a few steps at a time, working his way across the room and back to her. By the time he reached her, though, Anabell teleported herself to the other side of the room.

             
“I have a great teacher. As long as you don’t mess me up, I’ll be fine getting there. You’re just trying to freak me out and keep me here with you. Well, it’s not going to happen. Get your bearings, and let’s go. Or I’m going without you.” They both knew she wouldn’t leave without him, but she really wanted to check on her friend.

             
Eadric couldn’t begrudge her that.

             
“Fine.” Opening his arms, Eadric hooked his finger at her, motioning for her to walk forward into his arms. She didn't have to be asked twice.

             
Anabell was in his arms in seconds.

             
Eadric enveloped her in his arms, holding her close to his chest with a firm grip. He gave no warning as he carried both of them to the backyard of her apartment complex in Bristol, Tennessee.

             
The farthest Anabell had traveled on her own was outside the castle from inside it. Somehow, the big jump was more disorientating since she learned how to do it herself than it had been as a human.

             
“You should have warned me,” Anabell said as they entered the stairwell and walked up to her third floor apartment.  Pressing her palm to her forehead, she tried to refocus her eyes. Eadric nudged her with his shoulder and barely disguised a laugh.

             
“Do you have a key? Or is your roommate in the habit of leaving the door unlocked?” Eadric asked. Anabell smacked her forehead. Her key was probably still in her purse that was probably still in Dylanne’s car.

             
“Can’t you just teleport us inside?” she asked sheepishly. Eadric rolled his eyes and nodded. He jerked her back into his arms and had her inside before she could scream in shock.

             
They landed in the middle of the living room with a loud thump, tripping over the ottoman together and landing in a heap on the floor.

             
“Who’s there?” a male voice Anabell had never heard before called into the living room from somewhere down the hallway. Anabell pushed Eadric off and stood up. As far as she knew, Dylanne didn’t have a boyfriend or even a friend with benefits. She had no idea who was in their apartment. Right as she was about to ask who he was, Eadric stood up and put his hand on her shoulder.

             
“Josef?” he asked. A laugh was the only response.

             
A half of a second later, a guy with blonde spiky hair popped around the corner, wearing nothing but a pair of plaid boxers. Another guy who could be Eadric’s brother – much younger brother.

             
Josef
looked like he was no more than seventeen or eighteen years old. Instead of the long hair she kept seeing on Eadric’s comrades, Josef wore his close to his head, just long enough to spike up with the tips colored a jade green color to match his eyes. He had some of the whitest skin she had ever seen, and he was a little too scrawny for her tastes.

             
“Eadric!” Josef exclaimed as he rushed towards his great-great-great grandfather, extending his arm to clasp his forearm in greeting. Eadric took his greeting reluctantly, not wanting to get too close to his scantily clad kin.

             
Anabell cleared her throat behind him.

             
“Mo shíorghrá, this is Josef. Riordan, my youngest son, is his great-great grandfather. He is what’s left of my family, though I don’t always like to claim him,” Eadric explained, turning to look at Anabell as he introduced her. Turning back to Josef, he took Anabell under his arm and smiled. “Josef, this is my dearest love, Anabell.”

             
“I guess this make you my step-great-great-great grandmother,” Josef said with a laugh.

             
Josef moved forward in a flash and hugged Anabell, much to Eadric’s dislike. She had to pry him off her.

             
“So how do you know my roommate?” Anabell asked, wanting to get to the bottom of it. Before he could answer, Dylanne came out of her bedroom and walked into the living room wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and a pair of socks, calling for Josef. The look on her face when she saw them standing in the living room was priceless.

             
“What are you doing here?” Dylanne practically shrieked as she ran over to Anabell and hugged her tightly. “Josef told me that Eadric would have you holed up in his castle for ten or twenty years before he let you back out to see anyone.” Anabell laughed into her best friend’s hair.

             
When Dylanne was done hugging her, Anabell sat down on the mostly un-cluttered couch and patted the cushion for them to sit down too. Eadric sat beside her and Dylanne sat on the other side. Josef perched on the arm beside Dylanne.                           

             
“He wanted to keep me there a lot longer,” she said with a mischievous smile, “But I asked to come here and make sure that you hadn’t filed missing persons on me or flipped out on my family looking for me. Plus, all of my clothes are here. Eadric doesn’t have the same tastes in women’s clothes as I do.”

             
“What kind of women’s clothes is he wearing?” Josef quipped. Eadric shut his laugh down with a single glare.

             
“How do you two know each other?” Eadric asked, taking the question right out of Anabell’s mind.

             
Dylanne and Josef exchanged a glance, then Dylanne put her hand on Josef’s thigh and turned back to look at her roommate.

             
“I’m his
sonuachar,
” Dylanne explained. Seeing the confusion at the term on Anabell’s face, Dylanne elaborated. “His soul mate. The same thing you are to Eadric. We’ve just been together a little longer.” Anabell cocked an eyebrow.

             
“How much longer?” Dylanne and Josef looked at each other for a moment and shrugged their shoulders in unison.

             
“About four years,” they said together. Anabell wanted to get up and smack the back of her friend’s head for hiding a relationship from her for four years. Dylanne never mentioned her love life those past years, despite always pushing Anabell out of her comfort-zone to meet guys. That little fink.

             
“I really wanted to tell you, but Josef thought that it was best that we keep it to ourselves for a while. It was a lot to take in, and we didn’t want to risk our blooming relationship by getting other people involved until we felt it was right. We both had a feeling that you were Eadric’s, so we didn’t want to expose you to it too early. You had to make a choice to be with him without bias.” Dylanne smiled at her friend, a soft, knowing smile. She already had intimate knowledge of the soul mate relationship, so she knew what was in store for Anabell – and it was nothing but wonderful.

             
“You’ve been together for four years, and you still haven’t proposed to her?” Anabell asked, raising her eyebrows at Josef. Josef laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.

             
“I told him it could wait – at least until he is human. We’ve been waiting for Eadric to make his move, just in case he needed Josef’s help. Now that you’re finally together… ”

             
Squealing, Anabell jumped up from her seat and ran over to her friend, hauling her up to her feet and pulling her in for a hug. She had worried for days about how to tell her friend that she was never going to age, never going to be the same person ever again. But now she didn’t have too. Dylanne understood everything.

             
Anabell let her go and took a step back, turning the back of her left hip in Dylanne and Josef’s direction.

             
“We have some things to tell you too,” Anabell said as she lifted her shirt and showed them the mark they were all familiar with.

             
Eadric ran down the story about Dunstan and his attempt to kill both Eadric and Anabell in one foul swoop, including Anabell’s two attempted kidnappings and her deal with Lugh to save both of their lives.

             
“And he got away?” Josef asked once he was sure Eadric was done telling his story. Eadric nodded, clenching his jaw in thinly veiled anger at his onetime friend. He had a strong feeling that it was not the last time he would see the betrayer.

             
Josef’s phone blared in his pocket, drowning out any attempts to speak. He excused himself from the room to take the call.

             
Eadric, Anabell, and Dylanne chitchatted as they waited for Josef to rejoin them. His quick phone call turned into a twenty minute call, and the look on his face when he came back into the room told all three of them that it was not good news.

             
Josef was white as a sheet as he sat back down on the arm of the couch and blinked a couple times, like he was trying to get a grip on things.

             
Eadric wanted to ask what was wrong, but he knew better than to pry. Josef would speak when he was ready.

             
“Blithe was attacked last night outside the house Arden shared with her in Barcelona. They waited until he was out hunting for them to move. She was decapitated and left lying in a pool of her own blood in their living room. Arden tried to save her, but there was no resuscitating her. He made one call – to Horace – then waited until the sun came up to walk into it. By the time Lugh got to him, he was gone too.” The news hit Eadric like a hard blow to the stomach and made him double over in his seat.

             
Arden was one of his oldest friends. They met taking out a rogue band of Soulless in the Italian peninsula in the late fifteen hundreds. He was a great friend and a great warrior – and man. He found Blithe early compared to the others. She was the light of his life. Everyone saw a new man in him when he found her. It was a great loss – devastatingly so.

             
Eadric motioned for Josef to follow him to the kitchen where they could talk in private without worrying the women.

             
“Do they know who did it?” Eadric asked through clenched teeth, digging his nails into his palm. Josef nodded.

             
“There is speculation that it’s a band of organized Soulless hell bent to take out mates away because they lost theirs – or never had them in the first place. Horace, Rhoxan, and Jonah have reported talk of other, failed attempts on soul mates lives. They’re becoming more efficient, Eadric. What is going to stop them from coming after our mates too?”

             
Eadric grabbed Josef’s shoulder and gave him the most confident look he could muster.

             
“We are.”