A Thousand Years (Soulmates Book 1) (9 page)

             
“Instead of trying to run your mouth, you should have been asking where your beloved soul mate is. I know you found her. I knew the instant you decided that you were going to save her. The Soulless are easy to direct and good at keeping tabs – I found a group that had no scruples in hurting a woman. They found her without problem.

             
“What they hadn't counted on is your ability to make her stay. Your brash nature didn't scare her off like I was so hoping it would. The kidnapping failed too. Although, not completely. You're still very weak because you refuse to be a man and take as much blood you actually need from your
woman
.

             
“She’s going to die – close enough for you to hear her screams as she begs you to save her. Then you’re going to die a tortuously slow death here, in the room you shared with the wife you forsook your clan for.”

             
It was simple for him to subdue Anabell. A little horse tranquilizer in her tea. She went down before she knew what was going on. She was scooped up and tied to a pole just outside the bedroom window with her mouth taped shut - ready to burn. It would be a pyre to remember.

             
Anabell and Eadric were going to burn together.

10

             
Waking up, the world was hazy, like her eyes were covered in a thin film making it impossible to see anything too clearly. There was a bad taste in her mouth, and her head was throbbing worse than she knew it could. To top it off, she couldn't move. Something was definitely wrong.

             
The last thing Anabell remembered doing was taking a big sip of herbal tea. A wave of exhaustion hit her right after and then everything went dark. Hours had passed in that gap. Sunrise to sunset. Almost a full day was missing from her memory.

             
As her mind and vision cleared, she realized where she was. Her arms were bound to her sides, and her body was tied to a large wooden stake high above the ground over a mound of wood and straw. She tried to lick her lips and found a thick piece of duct tape covering them.

             
Someone was preparing to burn her at the stake.

             
"Eadric!" she tried to scream against the tape, wriggling against the bonds and getting nowhere. They were tied too tight, and the rope was too thick. Without help, she wasn't going to get anywhere.

             
A man who could have been Eadric’s brother sauntered out of the castle in her direction.

              Filling with hope, Anabell moved her head to flag him down. It wasn’t until he was almost to her that she realized that he was not going to help her.

             
The cold look in his eyes chilled her to the bone.

             
“Hello, sweet Anabell,” he called up when he reached the pile with a severe smile on his angular face. He nudged a piece of wood with the tip of his pointy-toed shoe, forcing it a little further into the stack. “I hope you’re comfortable up there. I used the best rope I could find and the finest oak for your kindling. It’s the little things like that I thought you might appreciate. Women love the small details.”

             
The duct tape was the only thing keeping Anabell from telling him where he could put that wood. She wanted nothing more than to rip it off her mouth and give him the berating he deserved. She didn't even know who he was or what kind of reason he had for what he was doing. She never did anything to anyone.

             
"I'm sure you're wondering who I am, but I'm not going to bore you with my long back story. I'm Dunstan, and I am the man who is going to kill you while your beloved listens from inside. Then, he's going to burn too."

             
Anabell thought that she was still hazy for a moment as she watched Dunstan rise in the air until he was level with her. Without warning, he gripped her chin hard and tore the tape from her mouth, letting it flutter to the ground.

             
"I can almost see what he sees in you. You could be a pretty thing – if you lost some weight and grew another foot. Still, you’ll do.”  Dunstan pulled her head forward and kissed her violently.              

             
Anabell did the only thing she could think of and bit down hard, splitting his lip down the length of it. His blood filled both of their mouths. She spit as soon as his mouth left hers.

             
"Bitseach!" He let go of her chin to cup his mouth. His other hand met her cheek hard. Her head flew to the side at an uncomfortable angle, slamming into the stake. She didn’t have to be a doctor to know that she was probably concussed after a blow that hard.

             
Dunstan spat a mouthful of blood as he descended, never taking his eyes off her. After the stunt she pulled, he was really going to enjoy her death.

             
"Eadric is a thousand times the man you are. He will get out of whatever trap you have him in, and he'll get me down from here. Then, you'll be the one praying for help. You’re disgusting," Anabell said defiantly. She had to believe it to keep himself calm.

             
Dunstan gave a clipped laugh and reapplied the intimidating smirk to his otherwise stony face.

             
"Eadric will never save you. Getting people killed is what he does best. Just ask Deidre, his children, my wife and my innocent daughter." Holding up his hand, Dunstan snapped. "Torch!"

             
A man ran out of the darkness clutching a large, flaming torch and handed it to Dunstan.

             
Dunstan blew a kiss at Anabell, and then he gave her a wink. He dropped the torch close to the middle of the pile, watching the frightened look that appeared on her face as the straw took fire immediately. It was ablaze in seconds.

             
"Now, if you wouldn't mind excusing me, I have a
hot
date with your soul mate. And he’s dying to see me."

             
"I will admit, you are good at picking them. You always did have a fondness for the fiery ones. Stubborn, too. She's not screaming as much as I thought she would, but she will once the flames hit her," Dunstan said as he reappeared in the room with Eadric, a second lit torch in one hand and a can of gasoline he grabbed from the kitchen in the other. Dunstan felt Eadric's eyes follow him as he set the torch in a wall-mount.

             
Running his thumb over the cut in his lip, Dunstan leered at Eadric, a fiendish curve to the corner of his mouth.

             
“She’s a biter too.” Eadric pulled his restraints tight and tried to break through them again. Just the thought of Dunstan laying a hand on his soul mate made him dizzy with anger. He was helpless, and he hated it.

             
Dunstan came back to the bed to make a wide ring of accelerant around it.

             
Once he was certain the gas on the floor would contain the blaze he was planning, Dunstan doused the entire bed with the rest. He made sure Eadric was covered in it from head to toe. That way setting him on fire would be easy, and it would keep burning long enough to kill him slowly. Demon or not, he was still flammable.

             
“I would ask you if there was anything you wanted to say to me before I light you up, but your tongue is a little tied,” Dunstan said.

             
Dunstan took the torch back off the wall and carried it to the foot of the bed, holding it haphazardly in his hands. He waited until the first of Anabell’s screams broke the night air to drop it.

             
The terrified look on Eadric’s face was delicious. Eadric lit up like a dry branch struck by lightning. Fire engulfed him completely.

             
Dunstan just wished he could stick around to see them take their last breaths. As it was, he had places to be and affairs to get in order. He wasn't going to be anywhere near that place when her charred remains were discovered - Eadric's ashes would just blow away.

1
1

             
“Lugh!” Anabell yelled, feeling the intense heat from the souls of her feet to her calves. She didn’t have to look down to know that the flames were just a few minutes from searing the skin on her bare feet. She could see a cloud of smoke pouring from the bedroom window – Eadric was in trouble. He was going to die if she didn’t get some help, Lugh was her only hope. "Lugh, get your godly ass down here now!"

             
Anabell was momentarily blinded when he appeared on the ground with a flash of light. Instead of the normal clothes she saw him in the night before when he surprised her, Lugh was wrapped in a white gossamer toga with strategically placed knot kept her from seeing too much of him, and his hair was blonde and braided down his back.

             
“Calling me to save your ass?” Lugh asked. The pyre was burning fiercely, licking their way up the space between Anabell and the highest peaks of the fire. There wasn’t time to talk with the speed it was going. She would be burning before she could explain herself.

             
Holding up his hand, Lugh froze the flames – bringing them to a standstill. Anabell’s jaw dropped open in shock. It was like he pressed a pause button on it, and it listened. It was too weird.

             
Sticking her foot down, she tried to touch the frozen flames but Lugh was in the air fast. He snatched her foot and held it away. The reproachful look on his face told her that she did something wrong.

             
“Just because I stopped them doesn’t make them safe to touch, Anabell. You would be foolish to think so. Things that appear harmless can still be dangerous,” Lugh said. He let her foot go a moment later and returned to the ground.

             
“Eadric isn’t dead yet, you don’t have a reason to make a deal with me. And even then, I couldn’t offer you any vengeance for his death. And I cannot recycle his soul. Not even for you. He still belongs to me.”  Lugh looked over his shoulder to the window, where smoke was billowing out at a higher rate than before. It would still be a while before he died, but Lugh knew that he was in immense pain.               He couldn’t do anything for him, though.

             
“Just listen to me. Please, Lugh. You’ve got to save him,” Anabell cried. Lugh shrugged his shoulders. Without Eadric calling for his help, he couldn’t interfere. Damaged mouth or not, Lugh was bound. He gave her his best sympathetic face. He was out of options. There was no reason for him to stick around and watch the carnage. They were both going to die.

             
“There is nothing I can do,” he said matter-of-factly.

             
Anabell screamed.

             
“That’s bullshit!” If she wasn’t tied to a stake, she would have attacked him with both hands until she drew blood.

             
“A god can’t interfere where he is not invoked, Anabell. Eadric can’t call out, I can go to him. My hands are tied. You might as well give it up. I’m sorry that I can’t save you.” Lugh was about to disappear when Anabell yelled to stop him.

             
“Wait! I’ve got a proposition.”

             
Eadric couldn’t scream on the outside, but inside, he was crying in pain. Every inch of exposed skin was already burned up, burned down to the muscle and tissue. His clothes were burned off the front of his body.

             
Just being in the air stung. If he managed to get free before he completely burned up, it was going to take months to heal the extensive damage to his body. Having skin left would be a miracle. It wasn’t worth living, though, if Anabell died out there. Without him.

             
One day was not enough time with her. A lifetime still wouldn’t be enough, but it would have been a lot closer to what she deserved. It was his fault that he couldn’t give her more. His blindness for the clan, his single-minded focus on seeing his love returned to him. They would have been better off if he had just died that day too. Instead, innocent women and children had died in his stead.

             
The pain had to be a thousand times worse for her.

             
Needing to focus on something happier, Eadric reminisced on the time he did spend with her. Her sweet kiss, those lips that he pictured exploring his body – the memory of her lips on his was heaven – that’s what he wanted to die remembering. But he could barely taste her kiss anymore with taste of silver, burning flesh, and blood in his mouth. He tried his best to recall it, but he couldn’t. There was no resurrecting it.

             
He couldn’t even die with her taste on his lips. It was cruel.

             
The pain was nearing unbearable. Soon, he would pass out and, hopefully, burn his way into oblivion in his sleep. Without hearing her death scream, without taking a last, conscious breath, and without picturing her face as he died. He resigned himself to die. He just hoped someone saw the blaze in time to save Anabell.

             
Just as the pain peaked, hitting a level Eadric didn't know it could, a bright light filled the room and blinded him completely. Peace filled him. This had to be what dying was like. All his pain evaporated.

             
"Get up and get outside. Anabell needs you. Now, while you can still save her," a voice barked at him from somewhere in the dark room. Eadric was about to protest when he moved his arms and found that he was no longer chained to the bed. His legs were free too.

             
Eadric sat up quickly and swung his legs over the side of the bed, dropping them onto the cold floor. Running his hands over his skin, he checked for any signs of the fire damage on his body and found none. His body and clothes were repaired. Then, he searched the room with his eyes, hunting for the source of the voice. There was no one else there.

             
"Go!" Eadric didn't have to be told again.

             
His strength back, Eadric didn't waste time walking outside. He teleported to the grassy area beneath the bedroom window, just a few feet from the pyre that was still burning. Anabell was still tied up, but she was out, her head lolled to the side. Her feet were burned, and blisters ran up the sides of her legs. The flames had licked up one side of her body, singeing the nightgown and her hair – the flesh was a bright red color.

             
Eadric immediately recognized that it could have been a lot worse, if the fire hadn’t died down. He had to get her down before there was no saving her.

             
Eadric climbed the stake, ignoring the heat burning beneath him. He tore through the knots holding her – hands first, then feet. He caught her in one fluid motion, swinging her into his free arm and pressing her against him as he climbed back down. Once he was close enough to the ground, he jumped – he barely felt his feet touch the ground.

             
Anabell was limp in his arms as he carried her into the house and through to the kitchen. He guided her onto the counter, laying her down gently on her back.  Her pulse was sluggish, but it was there. And a fever was burning her up. She was slowly but surely slipping away. If he didn’t get her taken care of, infection would be the thing that took her away from him.

             
Since he had been a demon for so long, Eadric had no medical equipment in the entire place, not even a bandage. Wet rags would have to do.

             
Eadric made quick work of shredding two of his shirts, pumping a bucket full of water to boil, and wetting the strips once the water was as hot as she could handle.

             
It was going to hurt, but she was too far out of it to feel the pain. He wrapped them systematically around the worst of the burns first, then worked his way up to the smaller ones.

             
Anabell was still burning up. He had to break her fever.

             
Running upstairs, Eadric grabbed as many blankets as he could find and took them back downstairs to bundle her up in them.

            
 
“
Anabell, I won’t lose you again. I can’t lose you again. Not now,” Eadric murmured as he wiped the sweaty and slightly singed hair off her forehead.  “If ye go this time, I’m going too. I can’t live another day without you. I won’t live a single day without you.”

             
Eadric rubbed his thumb along her brow, the way he used to put his children to sleep when they were little. She was so small on the large, wooden counter, so damaged and fragile. The loud, sweet girl he watched grow over the past three years was gone, replaced by a strong woman who took more than her fair share of punishment for his misdeeds.

             
Eadric didn't know how long he stood over her, watching for any sign of her fever breaking or regaining consciousness, but when the sun came up, it took all his strength to remain awake and on his feet. Eventually, though, the sun won out. His body couldn't fight the day any longer, and he drifted off to sleep with his back pressed to the counter, sitting on the floor.

             
Eadric slept the rest of the day - waking once the sun had fully set. He found no improvement, so he changed her rags, re-wrapped her, and sang to her again.

He repeated the cycle for three nights until he finally began to see improvements.

              The skin on her face lost its plastic-like burned texture and was replaced by new, pink skin. Her healthy glow was creeping back.

             
Encouraged by the healing on her face, Eadric peeled the blanked off and carefully removed the damp rags. All the once-burned flesh was baby pink. The only thing that wasn't healed was her spirit. He could feel that she was still far away. It was going to take a little more time to bring her back.

             
"Lugh!" Eadric called. When he got no response, he yelled louder. He screamed until the god flashed into the kitchen in front of him, knocking him flat on his ass. Lugh was at his side with his foot pressed to Eadric's neck before he thought about standing up.

             
"I'm not your personal errand boy, and you would do well to remember that," Lugh said, putting a little pressure on his throat. “You can’t call me every time something goes wrong. You’re not the only one whose soul I keep on retainer. And I have my own life outside of that.”

             
Eadric reached up and grabbed Lugh’s ankle and tried to force it off his throat. Lugh didn’t budge. He just pressed a little harder.

             
"I mean it, Eadric. You can't rely on me to fix every little thing. Anabell is on her own now. She's out of the woods. It’s up to her if she wants to come back. Not you or me or anyone else." Lugh   returned his foot the ground and took a few steps back, giving Eadric plenty of room stand.

             
Eadric waited until he was back on his feet to speak.

             
"Lugh, I just can't let her go. I just got her back, I won't take no for an answer if it means she'll die." Lugh rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Eadric's head.

             
"No one said she was going to die. Anabell is very much alive, her spirit is just somewhere in limbo at the moment. If she can find her way back to herself, then she’ll be fine.” Eadric dropped his brow, the air in the room turning tense as he thought about the things that could go wrong if she didn’t make it.

             
“What happens if she doesn’t?” The dark look on Lugh’s face gave him his answer, but he still needed to hear it.

             
“If she doesn’t find her way back, then her body will wither away until it dies too. A body can live without a soul, but it can’t live without a spirit. You’ve just got to wait for her to make the call.” Lugh started to disappear in front of Eadric, but Eadric reached out and grabbed his wrist to stop him.

             
Lugh’s annoyed face didn’t faze him.

             
“What do you mean ‘she can live without her soul’? Anabell still has her soul. I sold you mine so hers could be reborn.” Lugh didn’t say a word as he walked over to the counter where Anabell’s still motionless body laid. He grabbed her shoulder and carefully rolled her onto on side. He signaled for Eadric to come over and lift her damaged night gown.

             
On her lower back just above her left hip, Eadric saw something he hoped to never see on her skin – her back bore the same mark that scarred his own chest.