Soul Betrayed (14 page)

“Tell me why you came back to me.”

His expression tightened.

I brought a memory to the forefront of my mind. It was after Father told me that Jackson had left my service. I had been dangerously thin for someone who was pregnant. Now the thought that I could have lost Leha at that point caused an uncomfortable fluttering sensation in my stomach. I had turned away from my family, burrowing deeper in my despair. I focused on the memory, wanting him to feel it through me.

“I never left,” Jackson said quietly. “I told your father to tell you that so you would move on.”

“But I didn’t—”

“I know. I was foolish to reveal myself to you but I hadn’t felt that way about anyone for a long time. It’s what got me in this situation to begin with.”

“What are you talking about?”

His mouth opened then closed quickly. “I can’t—”

I scooted closer to him until our legs were nearly touching. “Show me.”

He looked at my outstretched hand.

“I need to understand everything before going into this. I am sick of being in the dark.”

His hand hovered over mine, as if my touch might burn him. His eyes met mine before he grasped my hand and we fell into his memory.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I entered the tavern, the heat from the raging fire in the hearth almost too hot against my nearly frozen body. Shaking off the snowflakes from my coat, I looked around for her. I rubbed my hands together, bringing back the feeling in my fingers, although I couldn’t shake the jittery feeling in my stomach. She had promised to be here tonight. I didn’t spot her raven hair in the main area so I made my way to the back of the room.

There was no time to waste. Rebecca needed me and it was only in her best interest that I agreed to meet this woman. I had met her at the apothecary earlier that day when she had told me of a special remedy that could cure Rebecca of the disease that had plagued her for months. I would do anything to cure her, as long as I could take away the pain she was in, even for a little while. Not for the first time did I pray that I could have been the one to contract the disease and not her.

“Jackson, dear,” a soft voice said close to my ear.

I turned to see her. She placed a kiss on my cheek and I backed away. Her emerald eyes locked on mine.

“Do you have it?” I asked.

“All in due time,” she said, her hand moving down my arm.

Other townsfolk had taken notice of the woman who had refused to give me her name, but I didn’t care about knowing her. I just needed what she offered.

I handed her the pouch of coins from my pocket. “This is everything I have. Please.”

“We can share one drink together?”

“With all due respect—” I pushed the coins at her. “If you can’t help me I need to go home to be with Rebecca.”

“I will heal her,” she said, pushing the coins back. “But I don’t want your money.”

“What do you want?”

She fluttered her thick eyelashes. “A favor.”

“A favor?” I repeated. “What do you mean?”

She glanced over her shoulder and touched my arm. Her hand wrapped around and she pulled me toward the back of the tavern. I avoided the eyes of the other men in the establishment.

“You love your wife,” she said blankly.

“Yes.”

“You would do anything for her?”

“Anything. What does this—”

Her hand tightened around my arm. “I need to know that your heart is pure. Someday I will ask a favor of you and you will comply, no questions asked.”

“If you can allow my wife to live a healthy long life, I will do whatever you ask.”

She exhaled heavily. “Then the deal is struck.”

“Where is the cure?”

“That is something I need to do in private.”

I ushered the woman from the tavern. We were silent during the walk to my home. It was the most excruciating twenty minutes of my life but I knew with each hurried step that we were closer to healing Rebecca.

“What are you going to use?” I asked, curious of her methods. I had been to several physicians over the past few months but they all had claimed that she was incurable.

“It’s a special injection of my own making. It has cured many humans.”

She smirked and I wondered what was amusing about my situation. I let out a deep breath when we arrived at my home. I pulled open the door, allowing the woman to go in first. I attempted to remove her coat but she twisted away from me. “I won’t be here long.”

I showed her to Rebecca’s room. My wife slept peacefully on her side. I touched her cheek and she smiled, but didn’t wake up. Sleep was hard to come by so I let her be whenever she did manage it. I glanced at the woman, whose gaze was targeted on me. I stepped back from the bed to let her do her work. She floated across the room and sat on the bed next to Rebecca.

“Leave us,” she said.

I nodded and placed a kiss on Rebecca’s forehead. “I love you.”

I left the room and closed the door behind me. I leaned against the wall waiting for any sign that I could go in. My heart rattled in my chest but deep down I knew everything I had done up to that point was for a reason. This woman was meant to save Rebecca. My mind wandered to the price of her life. I couldn’t imagine any favor the woman asked of me would be enough to save a life, but I didn’t dare argue. I stuck my hand in my pocket, grasping the pouch of coins. I told the woman I would have done anything to save Rebecca. With all the money I’d spent on cures, I didn’t have much left. I went back to my roots and took what I needed. From my employer. He wouldn’t even miss the pittance that I stole compared to what he had in the bank. When Rebecca was well again, we’d be able to use the money to shape the life we’d always wanted.

The bedroom door opened and I shoved away from the wall. The woman blocked my entry to the room and closed the door. “She needs to rest a little while longer.”

“Thank—”

She held up a hand. “Don’t thank me yet. There is just one more thing I have to do.”

“Anything.”

She stepped closer to me. Her hand ran down the length of my arm and she touched my fingers. I pulled my hand back. She smiled wickedly. “For my favor to be fulfilled, I need something from you.”

“What do you—” Before I could finish my thought a sharp pain struck me in the side.

The woman’s expression tightened with effort.

My head drooped. Her hand moved away from my body, revealing the hilt of a knife. I inhaled sharply and pulled it out. A patch of blood spread across my shirt. I fell against the wall, the knife clattering to the floor.

“What did you do?” I choked.

The woman shrugged and leaned casually against the other wall. “Just securing my deposit.”

I pressed the wound trying to stop the blood flow but between the throbbing and dizziness, I knew there was nothing to be done.

“Dearest Jackson,” she said in a soft voice. “Your wife will live. But I never promised you would see it happen.” She pressed her fingers into my wound and I attempted to push her away. A searing heat radiated from that spot.

I lashed out at her, but the tender wound inhibited me from doing her any harm.

“When I call in my favor you will have no choice but to obey. Not so long as we are connected.” She walked to the door. I tried to go after her but my legs had gone numb. I fell to the floor, reaching for her, but she disappeared before my eyes. I blinked several times but she didn’t reappear.

“Rebecca,” I croaked. I had to see her. I picked myself up from the floor, willing my legs to work. I held the wall for balance and turned the door knob. The door swung open.

Rebecca was sitting up on the bed. Her rose-colored cheeks were bright and full of life. I had forgotten what she looked like when she was well.

She looked up from her hands which were open in her lap. “Jack?”

My eyes welled with tears. I knew I was going to die, but it had been worth it to see her one last time.

Her eyes widened as they fell on my wound. I collapsed on the floor, my breath quickening. She would live.

I closed my eyes and accepted the fate that I had agreed to.

Jackson pulled us out of his memory. I gasped as I realized we were still on the plane. Him giving a memory to me was different in human form. It was as if my soul had left momentarily and now was being reunited with my body. The cabin blurred and I realized I was crying.

He reached up and swiped his hand across my tear-soaked cheek. I leaned into his touch.

I knew Jackson had had a life before me, but I couldn’t help the twinge of jealousy knowing that he had been married. I shoved the inconsiderate thought away before Jackson could feel it through me. It didn’t take much effort to replace it with hatred of Hannah. She had been responsible for taking the lives of those Jackson and I had loved.

“When I came to the After, I vowed never to return to the Living Realm as a human. As my self-inflicted punishment I never wanted to forget Rebecca. So I became a Guard.” He smiled sadly. “I was able to see Rebecca in her new life. She had remarried years later and had a child.”

“How did Hannah cure her?” I asked.

Jackson hesitated.

I didn’t prod him, knowing it was difficult for him to discuss.

“I would have been happier for Rebecca, if it wasn’t for the black eyes,” he said softly, vulnerable.

“What?”

His nostrils flared as if he was holding back his anger. I didn’t blame him. “Hannah had
cured
her by having another soul Possess my wife’s body. She technically made Rebecca live which fulfilled the promise she made to form our bond.”

I swallowed hard, wondering if their bond was like his and mine. “Did Hannah ever call you on that favor?”

Jackson flinched as if he could still feel the fatal wound. “She did.”

I waited for him to respond but he turned his head, a defeated look in his eyes. That’s all I needed. I swallowed hard. “It was me.”

He nodded slowly. “She called on me only a few years into my Guard service. She wanted me to be the Guard for your family. I thought it was innocent enough. But little did I know what the plan was.”

My pulse accelerated. “What was the plan?”

“To find a Rodas. She checked in with me after each of my Prognatum were born. But none of them held that particular gift.”

I thought about David and how he knew about my gift. “But how did they know I was the one? I hadn’t transformed yet.”

He hesitated. “The Caeleste who were on this Realm were able to confirm it.”

“How?”

“I—” He paused. His eyes didn’t meet mine. “One night when you were a baby, I informed your father of a false lead on the Shadowed. He left me in your care—”

“You let them in my house?”

“There was nothing I could have done,” he said quickly. “My bond with Hannah is almost like being Sworn. It’s unbreakable until I fulfill the favor.”

I understood what it was like to be Sworn. It was iron-tight and unbreakable as well. Is that why he kept betraying me? Because he couldn’t help it? “But you found me. Why didn’t the bond break?”

“The identification of the Rodas wasn’t enough. The favor was to bring you to them.” He tentatively brushed a hand over my cheek. His touch sent a thrill through me. “But I fell in love with you. And I would have died all over again to protect you. When your father said I left you, I was working to prevent the Shadowed from taking you once you were transformed. But I failed you in another way. While I wasn’t doing my job you decided to change your fate.”

My stomach clenched when I realized he was talking about Gemma and Tristan.

“I should have found a way to keep in touch with you. To show you that I would always be there for you, but that spirit that I love about you had brought us a different fate. Even though I died again the night that Nicholas took you away from me, I was happy that you would finally be safe in the After or in another life.” His eyes were far away. “But little did I know that the mistakes of my past would catch up to me.”

“How?”

“Hannah found out that you were still around. She forced me to travel to each of the Prognatum lines and identify if Felix had hidden your soul in another body.”

I thought of Cooper’s recollection of the night that Jackson had put his sword through him in an effort to see if I had been reincarnated as Ally. Cooper took it as a challenge to his job, but Jackson had been doing his as well.

“When I brought you to the warehouse that night,” he continued, “my plan was to show Hannah that I’d done my part and when she broke the bond I was going to take you away from there. But I couldn’t tell you that then. I couldn’t risk her finding out.”

“That’s why we are going to the base? So you could turn me in?”

His jaw clenched. “Yes.”

I should have been pissed off for him betraying me once again to the Shadowed but I surprised myself when I pulled him close. I touched my lips to his in a feather-light kiss. A memory from my human life floated to the front of my mind. Even though I hadn’t known Jackson that long while I was human, our connection was undeniable. We both had promised ourselves to each other, no matter what obstacles we faced. This was the biggest test of our relationship and when we succeeded we would finally be free to be together.

I arched an eyebrow. “You knew I would agree to this.”

“As much as I hate to see you in any kind of danger, we did make promises to each other. But that doesn’t make me feel any better about bringing you in.”

I scooted closer to him and our legs tangled together. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he rested his forehead on mine. “I want to know the plan this time.”

He grinned. “I won’t ever leave you in the dark again.” Leaning back, his eyes darted between mine, “But this is going to be dangerous.”