His Soul To Keep (Dark Knights of Heaven Book 1) (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

In the pre-dawn hours, Cassidy finished condensing her life into less than a four-by-four foot square and let out a tired breath.

Tempe looked up from the box she was repacking and tapped Cassidy on the leg. "What’s wrong?"

"Other than the obvious?" Cassidy looked around. She had the clothes she wanted, her computer and extra equipment, her MP3 player, her favorite books, CDs and DVDs, and another pile of personal things like her little marble statue, photos, and her grandmother's jewelry box. Her life. "I guess I’m done here."

The statement hit her in the chest, stealing the air from her lungs. Her legs wobbled and she tipped forward.

With a gasp, Tempe stood and embraced her. "Please don’t go," she mumbled into Cassidy’s hair. "It’s like you’re dying again. We can’t even keep in touch."

Still hugging, the two women sat on a box and cried in earnest.

"Hey, silver lining—I’m not really dead." Cassidy sniffled. "I’m just going back into witness protection." She smiled, but it felt like cheap makeup on her face.

"I know," Tempe took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose, ",but I don’t have to like it."

Cassidy tucked a strand of hair back behind her friend’s ear. "I love you, sis."

"I love you too."

"You better take good care of my brother," she added as she stood, pulling Tempe with her. "If you hurt him, I’ll come back and kick your ass."

"You promise?"

"Yeah. I promise."

* * *

Rail stopped mid stride at the sight of the two women. "E’hem." He coughed to announce himself, their tear-stained cheeks making him uncomfortable. "Do you need more time?"

"We’re good." Cassidy sniffled and blotted her eyes with a tissue. "Just finishing up."

"I’m going to go see if there’s any coffee left." Tempe gave Cassidy another hug and hurried out, choking back a sob.

"I’m sorry you can’t stay longer," Rail offered, slipping his arms around her. He rubbed her back in slow circles as she cried.

"Well, at least this time I get to say a real goodbye," she mumbled against his chest. With a hiccup, she pulled back. "You’re not going to let Kaz erase their memories, are you?"

The concern in her eyes made his chest constrict. "No. Kaz won’t be working his gift on them, but he’s not happy about it."

"How did you talk him out of it?"

"I explained to him that your family is too deeply invested in the memories, and removing them could cause permanent damage. Then, I explained that you would kill him in his sleep, wait for him to return to life, and kill him again. Oh, I also told him I would gladly help." Some of Rail's tension eased when a laugh burst from Cassidy. "Are you finished packing?" He eyed the mountain of boxes surrounding them.

"Yeah. I guess." She smiled sadly and nodded toward an undersized pile consisting of five small packing boxes and three overstuffed suitcases. "My life."

"The offer still stands to buy you all new things."

"You can’t buy memories, Rail." Looking at the mountain of stuff around her, she said, "God, I’m a pack rat. Some of this stuff I didn’t even know I had kept."

"Like what?"

"Like these." Cassidy pulled a box off the reject pile, removed a handful of children’s books, and handed them to Rail "My parents gave me these when I was about six or seven during my
question everything
phase."

Rail accepted the books as though they were made of glass. Obviously, they were very special or she wouldn’t have saved them. "
Why is the Sky Blue? Why Do Dogs Bark and People Talk?
" He raised an eyebrow at the titles. "
Where Did the Dinosaurs Go
?"

"That was my favorite." Cassidy shrugged. "I always had this need to know the answers."

Abruptly, the world turned over, and Rail set the books down. "I just realized something," he whispered, his voice rough.

"What?" Concern rippled over Cassidy’s face.

"I never had the need to know about anything except fighting demons until…" he lifted his gaze to meet hers, "until around the same time you would have started reading these books."

"I don’t understand?"

Through their connection, Rail felt a sizzle of fear overshadowing Cassidy’s concern. "Don’t you see? I think I felt you. Felt the connection between us, even though you were a child. I think your curiosity woke something in me, in my soul."

She squeezed his hands tightly. "What are you trying to say?"

"I’m not sure, but I can tell you my quest to find my brothers and sisters only started about twenty years ago, shortly after I stumbled across another one of my brothers in the mountains of Tibet." When Cassidy motioned for him to continue, Rail let his mind drift back along the slippery slope of those memories. "He was bat-shit crazy. Talking to the air. Said he’d died too many times and couldn’t be around the living anymore. Told me to go away."

"What happened to him?"

"Don’t know. I respected his wishes and left him there, but I remember the overwhelming feeling that I needed to find the others. I needed to know what happened to my brothers and sisters.”

“And before you met this crazy angel in Tibet you never once thought about finding the others?” Disbelief colored her voice. "You never wondered what happened to them?"

"It crossed my mind once or twice, sure." He shook his head.

“But you and the guys had been together before then, hadn’t you?”

“During my wanderings, I stumbled upon others, including Kaz. Fought some demons and moved on, but I didn’t go
looking
for others. It’s been a hundred years or so since Kaz suggested a permanent partnership, and I said yes."

"I still don’t understand why you didn’t stick together all along. It’s just not logical.”

Rail tilted his head back to stare at the overhead light for a moment. "We lost contact with each other. Tam was the first to join us. A few months later, I found Boomer and Hacker while hunting in South America." Rail chuckled. "We got drunk to celebrate our first demon fight as a team, and Boomer christened us the
Dark Knights of Heaven
."

* * *

"Kaz said something about betrayal."

"Once we started losing our brothers and sisters to the dark road, we didn’t know who we could trust."

"No wonder you guys are paranoid," Cassidy chewed her lower lip for a moment, “but you seem to trust your friends.”

“With my life. We stumbled across a few others years ago, but they weren’t interested in staying more than a few months. Or days.” He chuckled. “One or two fled like we were keeping them prisoners.”

Cassidy rubbed her temples. "I still can’t believe the Hierarchy would
want
you to stay apart. Do you think Lucifer could have put his own kind of compulsion on you guys to enhance distrust in each other?"

"Maybe. I don’t know. Never thought about it." Rail stroked his thumbs across the back of her hands. "Never thought about a great many things until recently, but I do know I changed because you. Because you are my soul-keeper. My soul mate."

"Did any of your previous soul-keepers change you?"

Rail delved into his memories and returned to the present with a smile. "None that I can think of. Unless you want to count a brief obsession with poetry in the eighteenth century." He kissed her softly. "But that doesn’t surprise me. I knew the moment I held you that you were special."

"Liar!" She laughed. "You knew I
belonged to someone,
and that was it."

"Honestly, I felt that you were mine. Regrettably, it took a few hours for my brain to figure out what my heart already knew." Trailing his fingers up her arms, Rail pulled her in closer. "I was afraid. I didn’t want to hope it was true."

Suddenly somber, Cassidy pulled away and returned the books to their box. "You really never knew any of the others?" she asked, not looking at Rail.

"No, I never had the honor." Sadness rolled over him. Rail rested his hands on her shoulders. They were entering a territory he’d avoided thinking about for ages. "I felt them when they died and my soul moved on to someone else. I felt when my soul moved into you…I just didn’t know who you or any of the others were. I never met any of them. That’s been a new development for all of us." Noting a change in Cassidy’s stance, he stepped closer and slid his arms around her waist, locking his hands over her abdomen, and resting his chin on her shoulder. "But that’s not the answer you were looking for. What’s the real question you want to ask?"

"Nothing." She shook her head and pulled away a few steps. "It’s silly."

"Ask me." Rail kissed her hair and turned her around to face him.

"Did you have someone? You know someone special?"

"You mean lovers?"

"Never mind. I mean you’re thousands of years old…of course you must have had someone in your life at some point."

"I had one-night stands on and off through the years, yes." The air filled with static like an approaching storm echoing the tangled emotions Rail felt coming off Cassidy. "But you want to know if I had a wife? A family?"

Cassidy looked down, unable to meet his eyes. "Yes." Her voice matched her posture, guarded and unsure.

"Are you still worried that my feelings aren’t true?" Rail kept his voice low.

"No. It’s okay. Like I said, I’m being silly." She rubbed her eyes to hold back the tears. "It’s been a long night, and I’m emotional." The tears escaped and slid down her cheeks. "It’s just—"

Rail cut her off. "That I haven’t been very open with you about my past. Yes, I had a family before I was kicked out of Heaven, but it was a matter of duty."

Cassidy didn’t respond, waiting for him to explain.

"Zendril was the wife of a man I was mentoring. When Shanner was killed in an attack by a neighboring tribe, I claimed Zendril and the children as my own to protect." Rail took a seat on a stack of boxes behind him, rubbing his chest to ease the old pain. On a sigh, he pulled Cassidy forward to stand between his knees, resting his hands on her hips. "I couldn’t let his family be sold into slavery." Resting his head on Cassidy’s chest, he whispered, "I loved them as I would anyone in my care, but that’s all there was."

Cassidy stroked her hands through Rail's hair, smoothed it into order, and tilted his head back so he was forced to look at her. "I’m sorry I brought up bad memories."

"Not all bad. We had some good times." He gave a bitter laugh.

"Were they destroyed, you know, when you guys were punished?" she asked softly, looking away.

"I couldn’t protect them from the Hierarchy. ” Rail sighed. "It nearly killed me. I lost myself for a while. I failed them so terribly. After their loss, I vowed to never care about anyone ever again. And I didn’t," with a smile, he pulled her tight against him, locking his arms around her, "until I met you."

Cassidy didn’t answer.

"Sweetheart?" Feeling the way Cassidy shook against him, Rail’s heart stuttered. Did she fear him failing her as well?

"I just can’t imagine never knowing real love." She swallowed back her tears and hiccupped. "Do you need to know about my past? I don’t mind if you do." She lowered her eyes, a pink blush coloring her cheeks. “There’s not much…”

"No."

"Really?" Surprised, Cassidy pulled back.

"I know all I need to know. Your family is wonderful, and I’m honored to have gotten the chance to meet them. Even under these circumstances. I know you are single; the only people you were concerned about when we met were your family." He smiled devilishly. "I know in the most intimate way you were not a virgin. So, you had at least one lover in your past." Rail watched the pink on her cheeks turn a delightful apple red. "But no one whose shadow I stand in."

"What else do you know, Mr. Smarty-Pants?" She crossed her arms over her chest, looking every bit like her mother.

"That all of those sappy love songs and chick flicks are finally beginning make sense. I believe I’ve fallen in love with you."

Dropping to her knees, Cassidy caressed his face, leaned in, and rained kisses over his eyes, his cheeks, and finally his lips. "I think I love you too."

"No longer worried that our feelings aren’t real?" His voice rasped with desire.

"Not in the least," she answered softly, followed by a deeper kiss.

Feeling the shadows lifted from his heart, Rail returned her kiss with fervor, feeding off the warmth flowing into him from Cassidy’s heart and soul. He had to have more. Teasingly, he untucked her shirt, slid his hands under the hem, and up her back.

A tentative cough from the garage entrance startled them both. Cassidy jumped to her feet, righting her disheveled clothing.

Tam politely stood at an angle, looking away from the couple. "Sorry to interrupt, but Kaz says we need to leave."

"Yeah. Sure." Rail stood, not bothering to hide the bulge behind his zipper, and reluctantly moved away from Cassidy.