Soul of Smoke (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Just a Need

Consciousness lapped at Kai like waves. In: someone argued loudly with several other someones. Out: blessed blackness. In: the argument had gotten louder. She heard Cadoc’s name. Out: nothingness. In: something crashed. Fire roared.

Out.

In. Comfortable and deliciously warm, she burrowed deeper into the bed. Her hair was damp, but she couldn’t remember why. At the moment, she didn’t care.

“Mmm...” Clean, wild and masculine, the scent on the pillow made her curl her toes and sigh. In her mind, neon-blue eyes flashed and lips turned up in a heart-stopping half-smile.

She threw back the covers and tried to spring out of bed, but her feet got caught. Yelping, she hit the floor in a pile of pillows and blankets. Tangled in the sheet, she landed with her knees pressed to her nose.

“For the love...where are my pants?” She struggled upright, digging her way out of the morass of blankets. She wore nothing but her underwear and a soft, dark blue shirt that came midway down her thighs. Rhys stared at her from across the room, conspicuously shirtless. The red scales of his indicium glinted in the light of a golden ball of fire that hung near his shoulder, emphasizing the sleek cut of the muscles on his chest and arm. He looked utterly defeated.

She grabbed a blanket and yanked it up to her chest. “Rhys! Why the
hell
am I in your bed?”

He rubbed his cheek, as if bringing his thoughts back from a distance. “You don’t remember?”

It was such a bad frat boy line Kai would have laughed if she hadn’t felt sick. “If you roofied me, I will stab you in your sleep.”

Rhys’s brow furrowed. “Roofied?”

“Drugged me and...and...”

His lip curled. “No.”

Then she remembered the river. The darkness. The cold, cold nothingness. Warm, strong fingers that closed around hers and pulsed with life.

She sat down on the bed. “Holy crap. You jumped in the freaking river.”

He nodded, studying his hands.

Kai clutched the blankets harder. “You saved my life.”

“I guess that makes us even, George.” A ghost of a smile curved one corner of his mouth. “I couldn’t just stand there.”

It didn’t feel like it made them even. It felt like she owed him the world.

He stood, motioning to clothing hanging on a small outcropping of rock near the ball of fire. “Your jeans and hoodie are there. The shirts are ruined.”

So much for their escape attempt. Kai couldn’t tell if she was angry or relieved. She felt like a cat.
Let me out.
No
,
let me back in.
Just kidding
,
must escape!

“Did you kiss me?” Kai pressed her lips together, but there wasn’t really a good way to ease into the subject.

He tensed. “If you were heartsworn, you’d know. I’ve had other things on my mind.”

“Oh.” She reminded herself that pulling her out of the river would have been entirely selfish on his part. “What would have happened to you? If I had...died.”

He crossed his arms and shrugged, a frown tugging down the corners of his mouth. “When one of a heartsworn pair dies, the effect on the survivor is... They recover, but it takes time. They’re still heartsworn, though. They can’t swear to anyone else.”

“But we aren’t heartsworn. Maybe you would’ve gone back to normal.”

He shrugged again, face still troubled. “Perhaps.”

“Oh. Would you...?” She gripped the hem of the shirt.

“Yes, Kai. I still would have saved you.” Rhys’s voice was soft. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he tossed her the jeans and hoodie.

Kai swallowed, wishing he’d look at her. But no, she changed her mind about that, too. Now, on top of every other confusing thing she felt for him, he’d saved her life.

The clothes were still a little damp, like her hair, but she pulled them on anyway. As she zipped up the hoodie, a thought struck her, and she gasped. “Juli! Is she here? You said she was safe, right?”

Rhys nodded. “She’s with—”

Someone approached the drawn curtain from the other side. “Rhys.” It was Ashem, his voice tight.

Rhys went to the curtain and yanked it open. “What is it?”

Kai moved close behind Rhys. Ashem looked troubled, but distant, his dark brows furrowed over eyes that didn’t quite focus. “Juliet is asking for Kai.”

Kai’s adrenaline kicked into overdrive. She shouldered past Rhys. “What did you do?” she snapped, shoving past him into the hall. She didn’t see Juli anywhere. The pinprick of guilt grew into sick worry.

Ashem folded his arms over his chest, but the gesture looked like bravado to Kai. “She’s in the library. She won’t come out.”

“Why should she?” Kai strode through the main cavern. A nauseating premonition prodding the edges of her thoughts, she pulled aside the curtain in the kitchen and ran to the library, calling out as she ran down the tunnel. “Juli, it’s me! What happened?”

“I’m heartsworn. To Juliet. And she to me.” Ashem’s voice, quiet as it was, made Kai whirl to face him. He and Rhys both stood behind her, right outside the entry to the library.

“No. Juli has nothing to do with this mess. She is going home!”

“She thinks she’s hallucinating,” Ashem continued, his gaze distant. “She thinks I drugged her.”

“How could this happen?” Kai’s heartbeat crashed in her ears. “I thought heartswearing to a human was rare. How could you and Rhys both heartswear to random girls you picked up in the woods?”

Ashem didn’t respond, so Kai looked to Rhys. He rubbed his knuckles against his jaw. He looked upset, but not at her. “Are you related?”

Kai blinked. “Distantly. We found out during a school project when we were kids. I told you about it.”

“We’ve seen it run in families before.” Ashem’s voice was wooden. “Some human lines are almost guaranteed to heartswear if they come in contact with dragons. If I had known...”

Kai waited for Ashem to say “I never would have brought her,” but he didn’t.

Abruptly, Rhys shot off a question in rapid-fire Welsh. Ashem hesitated, then nodded. Without a word, Rhys turned on his heel and strode away. Ashem looked after him, then past Kai, into the library, then followed Rhys.

Kai entered the library. Juli sat on their mattress, out of sight of the door.

Kai sat beside her. “They’re gone.”

Juli was shaking. Dragons would not fit into her world. She’d always had a black and white view of what was and was not possible.

“I know he’s gone.” She scratched her left arm through her sleeve. “Or at least my brain is telling me I know he’s gone. I don’t believe it.”

Kai entered and shut the door behind her. “What happened?”

“I tried to slap him,” Juli put a pillow over her face, muffling her voice. She turned her head, and her words became clearer. “He caught my wrist. He must have slipped it to me then. Or else earlier. Maybe yesterday. Maybe it was slow-acting. Because today I swear...” Juli blinked, tears in the corners of her eyes.

Kai clicked a carabiner. Open, closed, open, closed. “You saw a dragon?”

Juli sat up. “Yes.” She narrowed her eyes. “Have they been giving you the same stuff? Kai...have you been seeing dragons?”

Kai wanted to laugh or cry, she wasn’t sure which. Everything sucked, but this reaction was so extremely Juli. Kai rubbed her face. “Don’t change, okay? Just don’t ever change.”

Juli frowned. “Whatever drug he has, it’s a strange one. I feel like he’s in my head and I’m in his.”

“What do you mean?” Kai froze, remembering the violation of having Kavar in her mind. Recalling, suddenly, Ffion and Griffith’s uncanny awareness of each other. That couldn’t be part of heartswearing. Someone would have mentioned it. Ffion or Cadoc would have told her.

“He keeps talking to me. I mean, I’m hallucinating he is.” Juli looked close to breaking. She took several shuddering breaths. In the silence that followed, Kai realized that Juli knew it was no hallucination. She just couldn’t deal with it any other way. “It’s like he’s part of me. I can feel what he’s feeling, catch glimpses of what he’s seeing.”

“Are you okay?”

Juli looked at Kai, her eyes blank. “What? I’m hallucinating he’s talking to me again.” She scratched her left arm, more insistently this time.

“I’ve felt that before. Having one of them invade your head. It’s disgusting. Are you all right?”

Juli frowned at her. “I don’t know if ‘disgusting’ is the right word. It feels fine. Right, even, although that’s impossible. It doesn’t matter. Clearly, it’s not real. In fact, I’m fairly sure I’m hallucinating this entire conversation.”

Kai felt sick. None of them had told her that heartswearing meant being in the other person’s head. They
knew
what Kavar had done to her, and now Rhys wanted to do that, too? Kai hugged herself. Every time she got closer to Rhys, something came up that made her want to run screaming in the opposite direction.

Then again, that was probably why the dragons had kept that little tidbit to themselves. “Juli...what if it’s not a hallucination?”

“Of course it is,” Juli snapped. Then she whispered, “It has to be. There are no such things as dragons. They are a cult, and I am drugged.”

Kai sighed. She moved and sat at the very edge of the bed, waiting.

“Do you see dragons?” Juli’s voice wavered on the edge of tears.

“Not at the moment.”

Juli glared at her. “Seriously, Kai. I can’t...just tell me I’ve been drugged.”

Kai smiled weakly at her friend. “I’ve been seeing dragons since a few hours after you went for help, and they didn’t have a chance to slip me anything then.”

“Well...poo on a stick.”

Juli’s completely inadequate fake swearing tipped Kai over the edge, and she laughed. Once she started, she couldn’t stop. Loud, obnoxious guffaws made her stomach ache and her eyes tear. Juli glared indignantly for a few seconds, and then she started to laugh, too. They fell back on the bed, laughing until their cheeks hurt and Juli started snorting. That set them off again, but eventually the laughter petered off into silence.

After a long time, Juli spoke. “If I’m not drugged, I must be dreaming.”

Kai shook her head. “Or we’re sharing a cell in a mental institution. I’d rather have dragons.”

Juli scratched her left arm hard.

“Did a spider bite you or something?” Kai grabbed Juli’s hand and shoved back her sleeve. They both gasped.

“What is that?” Juli demanded.

A pattern of spirals and whorls trailed up the back of Juli’s hand, starting at her knuckles, climbing gracefully up her wrist and forearm. It was made of scales, like the dragons’. Unlike the dragons’, these were translucent and colorless unless the light hit them at the right angle. Where it did, the pattern shone like an opalescent rainbow. It went higher than they could push her sleeve, so Juli pulled down the neck of her shirt. The scales coiled over her shoulder, trailing down a couple inches onto her chest and back before ending gracefully at the base of her neck.

It took Kai a long moment to find her voice. “You’ve got an indicium.”

Juli touched the scales with one finger. She closed her eyes, released the neck of her shirt, and pulled down her sleeve, clutching the end tightly. “What is it?”

Kai clicked her carabiner. “The dragons have them. I guess when humans are heartsworn, we get one, too.” They were silent for another moment. Kai was first to speak. “Juli...what’s it like?”

“It itches.”

Kai sighed. “No, Jules. Being heartsworn.”

Juli closed her eyes. “It’s like addiction. I have this irresistible urge to be with him. It’s not physical or emotional, just a
need
. Like he’s a huge cup of coffee and I’ve gone a month without caffeine.” She sat up abruptly. “This is asinine!”

Kai lay on the bed, digesting Juli’s words. “Rhys is heartsworn to me.”

Juli made a disgusted noise. “No wonder he wouldn’t let me near you when he brought you in. If this is how he feels...” She trailed off. “Why aren’t you with him? This feeling...it’s uncomfortable.”

Kai clicked her carabiner absently. “I’m not heartsworn to him. He hasn’t kissed me.”

Juli got up and paced. After three turns around the small room, she restlessly tidied a few crooked books. When that was done, she came over to the bed and folded her arms. Kai sighed and rolled off. In less than a minute, the messy bed had been made, its covers impeccably straight, its pillows precisely arranged. Kai sat back down and Juli began to pace again.

“Would you like me to throw those books off the shelf so you can rage clean them again?”

Juli glared at her. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“What’s bothering you, Juli? The existence of dragons or the existence of Ashem?”

“Both. And the fact that it’s you, too.” Juli’s anger seemed to dissipate. She sighed and sank down on the bed next to Kai. “Mostly
him
. I...want...ugh!” She flopped back onto the pillows.

“Juli...what if you talked to him?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“No, listen. There are three options.” Kai ticked them off on her fingers. “A: we can sit here stewing in this tiny room. B: we can plan an escape from captors who can fly and have some supernatural way of tracking us, or C...we can stop fighting against the unknown long enough to know it. It might be all right.”

She swallowed. If she heartswore to Rhys, would it be all right?

Juli put a pillow over her face again. “I don’t want to talk to my hallucination.”

Kai’s patience cracked. She yanked the pillow away. Juli was heartsworn. It meant she didn’t
have
to resist anymore. She could just give in to the whole idea. For some reason, the fact that she hadn’t was annoying. “Knock it off. This is happening.”

Juli sat up, glaring. “Everything had its place. The world had rules. Now it doesn’t. I need time to get my head around that and you are going to give it to me.”

Kai rolled her eyes. “The world still has rules, we’ve just been playing with an incomplete set.”

Juli nodded slowly. “I think I will talk to him. Tomorrow.” She stalked over to one of the shelves and grabbed a book. With an air of determined denial, she sat at the table and began to read.