Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (14 page)

Her barriers tumbled, welcoming him in, aching for more of him. Bursts of light flashed behind her eyelids, an ecstasy and wonder that any emotion so powerful could exist. The caress of his consciousness skimmed through her mind, setting every nerve on fire, every memory racing to the surface and openly offering itself to him. She ached for his flesh to touch hers, for their bodies to merge, to truly be one!

His lips were no longer on hers. She leaned after him, but he held her back by the shoulders. His head tilted. “You actually spoke with her?” He pulled away. A subtle wall appeared between them—one laced in bewilderment and mistrust.

Alexia hugged herself against the guilt. “But you said...our gifts, scorched earth...”

“You intended to deceive me?”

Her hands writhed over one another. “Sh-she did not harm me.”

“She cannot here, but she wanted to.” His stare burned into her, still laced with suspicion. “Scorched earth suppresses our strengths. It does not erase them.” He paced slowly about the chamber, aggravatingly so. She could almost hear the questions pulsing through him: would she be safe? Had he made a mistake by bringing her here? What other option did he have?

“I am an entirely selfish creature.” He stopped with his back to her. “Here I am romancing you beyond reason, attempting to say goodbye, while you undoubtedly sought opportunity to speak.” He twisted, eyes spearing her through like the prongs of an azure trident.

Looking into his aching stare would only affirm the masked accusation, so she kept her gaze down—innocently, she hoped.

His words were pointed. “I fear you as I fear no one.”

And with good reason. She frowned.

“And you, dear Alexia, ought to fear me.” Something deep within his pigmentation had changed, sharpened, intensified. “At least the portion of me you do not yet understand.”

Her heart trembled.

His fingers slid over top hers, interlacing, sending a quake of desire up her arm. She fixated on the loop of their hands as his grip tightened, almost worried he might snap her wrist in an instant of passion.

“Alexia?” The word drew her back to his fearsome sea. “Dead or alive you dictate my existence. Dead or Alive.”

She did not need the conviction in his eyes to reinforce the words, but it did. Her knees shook.

“I need you.” His whisper thrummed, low and ragged with desire.

So much for air.

His fingers glided up her arm. She leaned in to gather his oaken musk, ready and willing to surrender all.

The hard mask of duty returned. “But others hang in the balance. Their needs are no less important than my own.
We
must be conscious of them in our decisions, all of them.” His eyes begged her to understand, to confess her deception.

She swallowed down her raging passions. He was right. Ethel, Edward, Nelly and so many others needed him. She mustn’t keep him. “You should go.”

His head bowed.

“I can defend myself, even against Sarah. I will think first and always of you.” She traced her ring. “Always.”

He groaned.

“Recover it for me, for us.” She slid around so that his arm looped her back once more. “I need you as terribly as you do me.”

He brushed a curl behind her ear. “Mae will not tolerate weapons in her inn, but I left your sword in the stable out back, should you need it.”

“And Father?”

“He will be kept safe, but I do not think having him near Sarah would be a wise decision.”

She bit her lip. Of course not. Father didn’t understand what it meant to be Soulless.

Kiren kissed her, gently. She tasted the farewell on his lips, but didn’t want to let go. Their arms entwined. Tears slid over her cheeks. He would come back to her—she had to believe. And in so believing, she had to let him go. 

He brushed her cheeks, lips separating from hers. “I trust Mae, but even so, lock yourself in when you slumber.” He slid a heavy key into her grasp. His brow crinkled as though his very heart were breaking. “Goodbye.”

Twenty-Six

Motives

Kiren exited through the back of the inn, eyes instantly drawn to Alexia’s window. She would be safe. He had to believe that.

A thin shadow shifted in the yard, within the white ring of blooms he’d used to mark the perimeter. The graceful woman rolled her shoulders, trembling as she stared at the same glass.

“I trust she will come to no harm?” he asked Sarah.

“I would give my life to protect her.” The woman scowled at him. “You have always known that.”

“I have, but you have not always been her enemy.”

The corners of her mouth dropped, late sun glinting off the hurt in her stare. “Is that what we have become? Enemies?”

He reached for his absent medallion. “Protect her, Sarah. Mostly from yourself.”

He felt the weight of her scowl as he stomped away.

Twenty-Seven

Reunion

Miles’s legs weighed like anvils. He stood rooted in front of the inn as that stalwart figure—the man he’d known, trusted, and loved all his life—paced toward him.

The Master answered to so many names. Miles didn’t know which fit him best, but the one Alexia accidentally revealed felt the truest: Kiren. How strange that only when he’d lost the man did he truly come to know him.

Lester greeted the Master with a nod. “We know where it be.”

Kiren brushed past the runner and threw his arms around Miles. They were warm and encompassing, as they had been when he was a child, yet they didn’t feel quite so unbeatable now. The Master had been bested. He was being forced to rely on others, and although Miles knew better than most how much Kiren depended on them all, his role felt heavier than a mountain.

Kiren pulled back and clapped his shoulders, beaming with pride. “You have done well.”

“And you should be married.”

Kiren’s brows shot up.

“Bellezza told me, accidentally.” Miles rubbed the back of his neck.

Kiren chuckled. “We have all missed having someone around who knows more than he should.”

Miles smirked.

“Where is Bellezza?” Kiren asked, looking around.

Lester shrugged. “With Nelly—if her heart don’t get the best o’ her. I’ll bind that imp proper when we have the time, but we had best be runnin’ if we wants to catch these devilry prigs.” He turned a kindly wink on Miles. “Not meanin’ to cut yer reunion short.”

Mist solidified into Ethel’s form. “Elizabeth awaits us.”

Miles reached out to her. “Enough talk. Let’s go save the world.”

Twenty-Eight

Double Cross

It felt like blisters covered every inch of Joseph’s feet after running all day. He shifted the pack on his shoulder and pounded at the cottage door, the echo carrying back to him from inside like the hollow pulse of his own clock, one that would cease ticking if he were caught. A candle flickered in one window—burning before dark—his signal that this was the right house.

He glanced back over his shoulder, tapping a nervous hand against his leg. The twist of shadows across a dipping field tightened his throat.

The Kingdom faction could be out there, just waiting for him to make his move, and as soon as the sun disappeared, the others would be in his head. Wind whistled past his ear and he jumped, scanning the hollow.

Grass rustled. He whipped toward it.

Nothing.

A razorblade of orange hung over the horizon, coloring the tips of weeds from dusky to flaxen. The hue reminded him of cork-swirled pasta, a dish he used to consume with gusto.

Joseph lifted his shaking fist again.

The hinges creaked, and a large square man filled the frame, his bald head glistening with sweat. Putrid waves rolled off him.

Joseph wrinkled his nose and shoved a twine-wrapped bundle into his hands.

The man grunted and turned. He disappeared into the house, slamming the door shut.

Joseph sprinted back down the lane, as light as a gelding in a summer prance as he glanced at the sky. The last sliver of sun glimmered over the horizon. He’d done it in time!

Letting out a heavy sigh, he slowed and hefted his pack from a weary shoulder. Three deliveries since Amos wrangled the necklace from their enemy, and now it was time to ensure his knowledge would not reach the others.

He slipped a golden vial from the bag, wondering if his companions had reached their destinations. Five of them had fled, each with the same number of packages—one of which contained the stolen medallion. His. He had no idea which of his deliveries it had been, or what would become of it now, but he believed it would return to their hands after the moonless night—when the boy, Miles, could not tap into their shared thoughts and glean its whereabouts.  

He lifted the vial to his lips, pausing. This was going to hurt. The poison would cause damage he may never recover from, but it was worth the price—keeping the medallion away from their foe.

He tipped the glass back.

A hand wrapped around his, pulling the glass away. Liquid lapped at his lips.

No!
He pulled harder. The vial was torn from his grasp. It spiraled through the air, its contents glimmering in the last of the light. The glass smacked into the hard packed road and exploded. 

He lurched forward, but fingers bit into his arms. Dropping to his knees, he scuffled as far forward as he could, fixated on the disappearing venom. If he could lick up some of it from the dirt, it might be enough!

“Hold him.”

The cold words sank into his core. He knew that steel voice—one he’d heard a hundred times echoing through the collective conscience of the Soulless right before his allies were destroyed by light. Dread melted into his bones.

He swallowed dryly. Three shadows draped over him as the poison seeped into the earth. He leapt toward it, but a grip of iron held him.

“Have you absorbed enough?” the Kingdom leader asked one of his compatriots.

Joseph’s muscles clenched. He turned his head, pinned to the ground by a stare that carried the weight of the ocean.

The boy, Miles, held him firm, cheek twitching. Behind him the would-be king stood, and to his right the gray-headed runner, Lester, clenched and unclenched his fists. Joseph’s limbs shook.

But wait! The Passionate ruler no longer possessed his weapon.

The last glimmer of sun remained on the horizon. Another minute and they would be the ones at Joseph’s mercy.

He barely contained the grin.

“He does not have it.” Miles’s voice reminded him of the Christmas fiddle his uncle used to play, deep and sorrowful, impossible to ignore. “But I know where he has been.”

His captor threw him to the ground. Joseph twisted and glimpsed the young man, his skin sallow and sunken, his eyes too deep, his teeth uneven and wide.

“Elizabeth?” Their blue-eyed leader turned.

A woman with flaming hair stepped forward, a scowl on her pretty face. Her damask dress looked to belong in the high courts of London.

Joseph scrambled backwards on his elbows.
Red Pain
. They all knew of her. Ten years ago she’d been attacked on a moonless night by four of his suffering brethren. She’d turned her gift on them, and he still remembered the vise-like agony seeping through their shared consciousness.

No one dared approach her.

She glared at him and touched her temple. Daggers sliced into his brain.

He shrieked and tumbled back. Invisible blades chiseled through his nerves, shredding them, the claws of a leopard raking over sinewy cloth. Nothing remained—nothing but the frayed illusion of draining arteries. He tried to lift his arm off the road. It didn’t move.

The party turned and walked away, the leader and youth nodded back and forth as though carrying on a conversation without words. The glow of the sky was fading. Any moment the change would happen and his companions would know he’d failed.

He closed his eyes and welcomed the sting that should preface tears, if tears were possible.

Footsteps ground toward him.

His eyes snapped open. The bald man who’d accepted his final delivery stood over him, a dagger in his fist.

Joseph’s pulse quickened.

“Sorry ’bout this, mate.” He knelt and lifted the dagger over Joseph’s chest. “She said this dagger were blessed. Straight to the heart, she said.”

Joseph wished he hadn’t looked.