Heart and Soul (14 page)

“I have to find him—have to get out of here,” she told herself, and her voice echoed all around.

The longer she stayed here, the harder it would be to leave. She was forgetting things.

Forgetting herself, forgetting her life. Losing herself.

Her throat burned as she screamed out Mike’s name, but there was no answer.

She was alone, and the fog closed around her, thicker and denser than ever before.

Time passed—hours, days, maybe weeks, Leandra didn’t know. But finally, the fog shifted around her, slowly clearing, and she found herself standing in the middle of some sort of archaic village. The buildings were roughly hewn hunks of log, covered with thatched roofs. The air was thick with smoke, and the voices she heard sounded foreign. The words sounded familiar, but she couldn’t understand a damn thing.

People walked by, and they wore clothes as rough and primitive-looking as the buildings. Leandra was standing in the middle of what looked like a well-traveled dirt road, but not one of the people brushing past her seemed to notice her.

She wasn’t the only one there, either.

The other two women that haunted her dreams were there. The blonde woman—there was something evil and tainted about her. She was familiar—Leandra knew her. Finally, she remembered the woman’s name:
Morgan
.

On a deep, primal level, Leandra knew this woman was the enemy. She couldn’t remember anything about Morgan besides her name, but she knew the woman was her enemy. There were other things—things that Leandra had forgotten, or lost to the fog, important things about this woman. But Leandra didn’t need details to recognize a foe.

The other woman, Leandra didn’t know her. She bore a strong resemblance to Morgan, at least physically. She had a sweet, heart-shaped face and hair that seemed to have every shade of gold and brown imaginable. She almost looked soft. Too soft for the power Leandra sensed inside her. But her eyes held a strength, a resolve that was anything but soft.

Those warm blue eyes looked familiar. Leandra had a feeling she should know her. Or that she had. But who she was . . . Leandra had no clue.

The voices and noise of chaotic life faded into the background, leaving the three women standing in a bubble of silence. It was Morgan who pierced the silence with a low, husky laugh. “You could have saved him.”

As she spoke, the world around them shifted. Day turned to night, and instead of standing in the middle of a busy road, they were in a dark, poorly lit room. There were a few rickety tables, and the air was heavy with the pungent scent of ale. “All you had to do was kill him—or give him what he wanted.”

The woman hissed out a breath between her teeth, and Leandra felt tension mounting in the air as she tracked that wide-eyed, furious blue-eyed gaze. “You nasty, evil bitch,” the third witch swore, not even looking at Morgan as she spoke.

“Awww. Now come on, Hunter. You wanted to save him, would have done anything—you just weren’t willing to do it in time,” Morgan purred.

Hunter . . . yes. It was in her eyes, in the way she held herself, in the steadfast resolve that seemed to color the air around her. And Leandra could see very easily why she was so pissed off.

It was her—the Hunter—kneeling in front of a man who was so filthy, it made Leandra’s skin crawl just to look at him. He held the woman’s head clutched between grimy hands as he pumped his cock back and forth between her lips. “That was all he wanted, Hunter. You could have swallowed it a time or two, or even used magick to make him leave you alone. But you and your damned honor . . .”

The scent of blood flooded the air, and the image of the Hunter shifted. She was still on her knees, but the man with her was different. Younger, handsome, clean—and dying. He stared up at the Hunter with dark, tortured eyes.

“Listen to him scream for help, love. You came and answered their cries. And this is what they’ve done,” he rasped, his voice choked with pain.

It was like they were watching a movie, but only Morgan seemed entertained. The Hunter looked like she didn’t know if she wanted to scream or sob. Leandra felt like ripping into Morgan with her bare hands, but she couldn’t move.

All she could do was watch as the man lay dying in front of his woman.

“Hush.” The Hunter stroked his face before she turned her eyes to glare into the distance.

Staring at something. No, not something, Leandra realized. Someone.

It was the man from earlier, the one who had been forcing his dirty dick into the Hunter’s mouth. He was cowering at the look he saw in the Hunter’s eyes.

“Bloody bastard, there is no help for you. Murderer, you are. Rot in hell.”

The man screamed, and fire licked at his body, the stench of his burning flesh heavy in the air. Leandra heard the screams of others, although she could only see the grieving woman and two men dying.

“Elias . . . God, please. Do not leave me!”

Leandra lifted her eyes and stared at the Hunter, who still stood watching the heartbreaking tableau. “Don’t let her do this to you,” Leandra said quietly.

Blue eyes closed, and the images vanished. Once more, the three women were surrounded by fog. “She does nothing. These are memories, memories long past.”

Morgan smirked. “Long past, but not very forgotten, are they? They haunt you day and night. How else do you think I found them?”

She sauntered toward the unnamed Hunter, a seductive smile on her red-slicked lips. “Why don’t you just let go? There’s nothing here for you.”

“I’ll go when it is my time to go.” Blue eyes narrowed, and the Hunter smiled, a mean, humorless curve of her lips. “And I plan on taking you with me.”

Morgan’s lids flickered. Then she smiled, the same brassy, brazen smile. “You just don’t get the hint, do you, old woman?”

Blood pounded in Leandra’s head, a roaring in her ears that made it almost impossible to think.
Old woman.

She blinked, looking back at the Hunter, but even as her mind began to try to piece the puzzle together, the fog rushed back up, obscuring everything. Then it deepened, and Leandra felt sleep pulling back at her. She tried to fight it, tried to make her mind work, but the exhaustion was stronger.

 

 

“WHAT ARE YOU SO AFRAID OF?”

Leandra looked up as the young female Hunter stepped from the fog. It was habit that had her sneering a little as she responded, “I am
not
afraid.”

The Hunter cocked a brow as she turned and studied the emptiness that surrounded them. “So you stay here because it is so lovely?”

“I cannot figure out how to get out, Hunter. I am not here because I choose to be.”

There was an odd smile on the Hunter’s mouth, a knowing one. “And where would you choose to be?”

Leandra turned away. She didn’t know what to say. Back with Mike—that was where she wanted to be. With her lover, her love. With the man who made her feel complete inside. But she had seen what this woman had lost, knew something of the loneliness that ate at her.

Mike was all but lost to her now, and Leandra could see an eternity of loneliness spread out before her.

Maybe this was a fitting punishment for her sins. She’d almost begun to think that happiness, a life with Mike, the only man she’d ever really loved, was possible.

That dead hope was all that would keep her company as she spent an eternity trapped here.

“Nobody spends eternity here,” the Hunter said, sighing. “But I imagine you could wait a very, very long while.” She hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans, a pair of tight-fitting black jeans, exactly like those Morgan had been wearing.

As a matter of fact, Leandra realized she was wearing the exact same clothes Morgan had been wearing. The little black T-shirt with the deep plunging neckline, the hem of it hovering inches above of her navel. Around her neck there was a necklace of some matte-black metal, a gleaming red stone hanging in the hollow of her throat.

Just like the necklace Morgan wore. Leandra hadn’t noticed any of this before now.

The Hunter smiled as though she knew what Leandra was thinking. She glanced down at her clothes with a half smile. “I am bound to her for some reason. Completely, totally bound. As long as she lives, I live.”

“Who are you?”

Now the Hunter smiled, a mysterious little smile as she lowered her lashes over blue eyes. “Don’t you know?”

Leandra rolled her eyes and turned away from the witch.

The Hunter only laughed. The laughter didn’t reach her eyes. She gazed around them once more, her eyes sad. “Yes, one could wait here a long while. But do you really want to do that? Spend ages here alone? A lonely life is hard enough, but a lonely half life, caught between life and the hereafter—I would wish that on no one.”

A shiver raced down Leandra’s spine, followed by an ache that began in her heart and spread throughout her entire being. No. No, she didn’t want to be here alone for another moment, much less years.

“I do not wish to stay here, Hunter. But I cannot leave.”

“You cannot because you have too much fear inside. What is it you fear so, Leandra? Can you tell me? Do you even know?”

A low, husky laugh rippled through the air, and both Leandra and the Hunter scowled as the fog shifted, thinned, allowing Morgan to join them. “She fears her own weakness,” Morgan purred, reaching up and stroking a finger down the surface of the gleaming red stone in her necklace. “Just like you fear your own strength.”

The Hunter glanced at Morgan, her eyes bored, her tone dry as she responded, “I do not fear my strength, Morgan.”

“You certainly were hesitant to use much of it against me, old woman,” Morgan said with a shrug of her shoulders. “You had it inside you to get rid of me. But you were afraid. You let that fear control you.”

Now the Hunter smiled, her eyes chilly. “It was not hesitation, child, and it certainly wasn’t a fear of you. It was boredom. Life has become such a tedious existence. Had I chosen, I could have snuffed out your life like it was nothing more than a candle flame.”

Morgan started to speak, and Leandra said, “Why don’t you just go away?”

She smiled nastily, glancing at the Hunter. “When I go, she goes. And then you’d be alone here.”

Leandra lifted a shoulder, shrugging lazily. “It’s not up to you, Morgan, when you go. Especially not if you are tied to her; you have no power over her.”

Cool green eyes narrowed, glinting with rage, and angry red flags of color rode high on Morgan’s cheeks. “You cannot comprehend my power,” Morgan hissed.

Leandra laughed. “Your power is nothing compared to what I have seen in her,” she drawled. “You are nothing.”

Morgan sneered. “At least I’m not ruled by fear. You fear the darkness in your soul. I felt that anger in you. I felt what you wanted to do with me. You wanted to feel my blood spill on your hands. You wanted to tear me limb from limb. No good, decent Hunter feels like that. And you couldn’t even revel in your impulses. Instead, you choke on the guilt.”

There was a short laugh, and Leandra glanced at the Hunter. Through the roaring of guilt and the churning nausea, Leandra heard the woman say, “Hunters may no longer be completely human, but we still have our humanity. We feel the same things all people feel: hunger, fear, hatred . . . rage. Feeling those things doesn’t make Leandra less of a Hunter.”

Morgan smiled wickedly. “No, but her doubt does.”

 

 

DOUBT—WAS IT REALLY THAT SIMPLE?

Leandra was alone again. Time had passed. She didn’t know how much time, but it had been a while since she had seen the Hunter or Morgan.

Enough time had passed that Leandra had to admit something to herself. She was afraid—afraid that sooner or later, she’d realize she wasn’t strong enough to be a Hunter. Or that they would see it. The Hunters. These people who had taken her in. She’d disappoint them sooner or later. She’d see disgust in Malachi’s eyes, distaste in Mike’s. Lori would turn from her.

She’d lose them, and she’d be alone again.

Or worse, she’d fallback into what she had once been.

 

 

WHY WAS IT THAT SHE SUDDENLY FEARED BEING alone? She’d been that way most of her life.

A sound broke through the muffling barrier of fog.

A voice.

She felt a presence drawing near, felt somebody reaching out. But they were too far away.

Wrapping her arms around her waist, she hugged herself tightly. Too far away . . .

Time to let go. But was it that easy? She wanted to leave this place. Yet there were things stopping her. She couldn’t even understand them completely. Her fear. Her doubts.

And the Hunter. She didn’t want to leave the Hunter alone.

Fear, doubts, those she could handle. She wouldn’t be a prisoner to them.

The Hunter, though . . .

“What about the Hunter?” Leandra whispered, tears stinging her eyes. Leaving the Hunter alone, trapped with nobody but Morgan, it felt wrong.

She felt a presence behind her, and she turned, facing the Hunter as the fog between them began to thicken. It was pulling her away. Leandra struggled against it. Could she leave yet?

“You cannot stay for me, Leandra. It is time . . .”

CHAPTER FIVE