Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (32 page)

“Nelly, Bran and Cecil are the only ones I know of. I hear the screams though. There are others.”

Nelly.
Alexia swallowed hard. The poor cook!

Her husband’s good humor faded. “There will be a fight on the way out. Creatures litter the exit.”

“Oh, I got a good fight in me to be had.” Regin saluted. “Get to it then. Ye have business, I assume, and I’ve got a dungeon to clear.” He moved to the next cell and threw the door wide as Kiren pulled Alexia away.

They sped into the unknown, silence so heavy that every breath felt like a scream. They made it to the second circle when a whisper of cloth froze her. She stopped. Two creatures breezed around the corner and paused.

She closed her eyes.
Ten seconds back, make a turn in the tunnel and circle back around.
She seized the moment and jumped.

Kiren halted when she teetered. “Dearest?”

She dragged Kiren around the corner as the two beings shuffled by. He turned a questioning eye on her. She pulled him along, leaping to safety with every encounter. She jumped back more and more frequently as they neared the inner circle and Kiren gifted her with doses of energy as she wearied. Still, Alexia could feel the weight of exertion in her tired muscles, the way her vision occasionally swam, the increasing ache at the back of her skull. 

They rounded the corner and came face to face with one of the Soulless. She gasped and reached back thirty seconds, but before she could grasp the moment, Kiren grabbed hold of the creature. Its mouth flew open. Sickly energy trickled into his skin. The limb beneath his fingers withered and narrowed as its life bled into Kiren. The creature dropped to the floor.

Alexia turned on her husband.

“I can give life, and I can take it,” he admitted softly, not meeting her gaze.

“It cannot be dead?”

His head shook. “Weakened.” He tugged her onward and added softly, “May God forgive me.”

The inner circle.

They skidded to a halt at the ring of the sanctum, lamplight glistening off slow ripples of a pond that occupied the middle of the chasm, reflecting lines of radiance from lamps across two doorways, one on either side of the water. Kiren aimed for the nearest one, energy rippling through his fingers, the sense that his medallion was near. He threw the door open.

Sixty-Six

From the Shadows

A robed being stood in the corner. Another prisoner? Alexia waited for red eyes to appear, but only darkness filled its hood.

Kiren held perfectly still. “Identify yourself.”

“Welcome to my home,” the woman spat.

Brazen alto smacked Alexia with an undercurrent of rage. Kiren trembled as though he’d been speared by an arrow to the heart. Chills flashed down her arms, but it wasn’t her own reaction, rather Kiren’s horror. Who was this?

“Deiliey,” he whispered. “Let me see you.” His voice trembled with longing.

Alexia squeezed his fingers, needing him to explain this, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He was mesmerized. She needed him to look at her, just to look at her. Why couldn’t he tear his eyes away from the shrouded woman?

Slender hands slid from beneath the cloak, her skin ivory smooth. The curve of her nails was like almonds, their edges chipped and dirty. She lifted her hood away.

Short hair grazed her jaw, unevenly hacked off and white where it reflected lamplight, but dark at its roots. Pale skin turned upward, a pointed chin, a thin nose and high cheekbones. Lashes lifted, a wave of luminescence skittering across them.

Jade eyes cut into Kiren.

He extended his fingers, reaching for her—as though in a trance. His eyes were wide, his breathing shallow and quick. Yearning burst through their connection, a desperation that left Alexia leaning toward the woman. How did she have so strong a hold over him?

Deiliey’s jaw tightened. “Do not look at me that way. I do not want your pity!”

“This is not pity.” His Adams apple bobbed, a rush of emotion exploding behind his words. “This is love.”

Alexia let go of him, her breath catching.

Sixty-Seven

The Other Love

Bitter guilt and soothing relief pooled in Kiren’s mouth like curdled milk. The lamplight flickered odd shadows across the folds of Deiliey’s cloak, beveled with dark rivets, mysterious and lengthy, like her disappearance. How long had he believed, hoped, and yet feared she was dead?

Alexia pulled away from him. He distantly registered the movement, but Deiliey stood before him. Deiliey! He ached to wipe the uncertainty from her gaze, to ease the tremble in her cheek. Time had not been good to her, robbing her face of its roundness and stealing the kindness from the lines of her mouth. He wished he could have protected her, that he could turn the clock back and start again.

Deiliey backed away a step, her eyes squeezing. Her shoulders rolled back.

And there it was in her stare and the smoothing of all expression—blankness, apathy. She didn’t care. His emotions had failed to reach her once again. His toes bit into his boots, the muscles in his back and legs taut.

“It is time, Kiren.”

He flinched. He didn’t know which hurt worse, the way she spat his name, or the dread of her insinuation. It couldn’t be time. Not yet. There were still things undone, events that must take place.

Alexia covered her mouth.

“You are wrong,” Kiren grated through clenched teeth.

Deiliey’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Have you ever known me to be wrong?”

“Yes.”

Her fists balled. He dove into her gaze and reached for her thoughts.
The Vatican hall reared up in her memory. She cringed, wearing nothing but her revealing chemise, her womanly shape exposed. Bishops and priests stood, their jaws dangling as they worked to fathom how this woman had fooled them all for decades, her stolen robes drooping from Kiren’s hand. She couldn’t breathe. They would kill her—worse—for this betrayal. He had taken everything from her! His brow furrowed.
I am sorry
, he had mouthed, but she didn’t believe him.

Deiliey blinked. “You left me for dead.”

Alexia gasped. Kiren half turned her direction, speaking to them both, “I allowed you to escape.”

Deiliey’s lip twitched upward. “Shall I return that favor? Is your life worth so much more than mine?”

“Corona—”

“Tell me!” she shouted, grabbing his suit coat, her face inches from his. A hint of apple blossoms rolled over him, almost masked by the earthy fibers of her covering.

Kiren closed his eyes. He wanted to confess how deeply he regretted his actions every day, how much he loved and feared her, how thoroughly he realized he had failed her. But the truth—after he had banished her for the good of the Passionate—would make no difference in how she hated him.

Her breath raged hot across his cheek.

“I am sorry,” he whispered. The hollow echo of his words filled his ears—like the gaping emptiness within her that he could never fill.

Sixty-Eight

Corona Deiliey

A hand clamped down over Alexia’s shoulder. Searing fingers bit into her. Hisses clacked about her.

Blackness swooped in. Fiends crooned, ivory nails gleaming murderously down.

“No!” Deiliey’s cry echoed through the cavern.

The creatures screamed in unison, falling back like dominos. One plunked into the black water outside the door, another crumpled against the wall, a third tumbled to the floor. Alexia uncovered her head.

The woman stormed toward her, burlap robes swooshing around her feet. Short, dark hair fell across her cheeks, pale skin ghostly, crimson eyes a bonfire in her ethereal complexion.

Crimson? They had been green but a moment ago.

Kiren lay on the floor across from her, clasping his temples, eyes squeezed tight.

Alexia gasped and pressed backward. The woman halted over her, glaring at the fallen creatures. They groveled and slunk away, disappearing into the shadows.

Who was Deiliey? The queen of the Soulless? And more importantly, if she was so powerful, why had she not harmed Alexia? Wasn’t she Kiren’s past lover? How could he have lied to her all this time?

No decaying stench wafted from the woman, rather a pleasant spring pollen mixed with dirt. Her face and hands were smooth and perfect, no exposed bones. Deiliey reached down and caught Alexia’s arm, tugging her forward.

Alexia stumbled. Her rescuer dragged her across the cavern and Alexia wanted to resist, but she already planned to jump back in time and prevent Kiren from being harmed. Curiosity kept her moving.

Deiliey snapped and one of the Soulless grabbed Alexia’s other arm and shoved her into the adjacent room. In the center stood a stone pedestal, like a lonely, gray finger. Dull links glimmered atop it, leading to a diamond-like wedge of metal.

There it sat, a simple pewter face that called their world to war.

Deiliey pushed the door closed. They occupied darkness alone, except for a faint light that emanated off the necklace.

The woman’s eyes pierced Alexia’s. They were all that existed, those vibrant, ruby circles, rings of eternity, lucid promises of joy and pain. They didn’t hunger, but promised to feed her hunger. They didn’t ache, but promised to soothe her suffering. They were everything she could ever want, the promise of forever, the hope of a million lifetimes all wrapped into one.

“Welcome, Alexia Dumont, to the inner sanctum of the accursed.”

Alexia couldn’t think beyond the promise in those wide eyes: the hue of violent roses at full bloom, the blush of ripe strawberries, the color of life.

“You will not fight us.”

Of course she wouldn’t. Why would she do such a silly thing while everything she could desire was within arm’s reach?

Or was it?

She frowned, certain something was missing, but what? Or whom?

Those eyes crushed down over her, like a barrel of burning coals, erasing all but the fire. It seared into her brain—flaming fingers that slithered, gripped, and tore.

She screamed, eyes flying shut.

Blackness.

Stone pressed against her cheek.

“Very well done, Alexia.”

She lifted her head. The woman sat next to her, fingers curling and uncurling like she wanted to reach out. Why? To further torment her? To prove her superiority? To prove once and for all that Alexia didn’t deserve Kiren?

“You were able to resist my control.” Her tormentor’s pastel lips curled upward. “It is true. You are the one.”

Had the woman been attempting to seize possession of her mind—invading as Kiren, Miles, or Edward, but grabbing the reins rather than gleaning or planting information? Deiliey’s eyes no longer burned red, rather they were dark in the pulsing light of the medallion.

Alexia sucked in a breath. “You control minds?”

Hopeful eyes lifted to hers. “Those too weak to resist.” She picked at the hem of her sleeve. “There is one, only one who can withstand me.”

Chills seeped into Alexia’s skin. Had Kiren been controlled by this woman? And for how long? She gasped. That must be why he feared Deiliey, and perhaps also why he loved her. Her heart ached. Had her husband been taken against his will?

Deiliey shifted. “I apologize if I frightened you. It is difficult to keep them under control all the time. Locking them on the other side of the door helps.”

The Soulless. Then she did command them. When they had come for Alexia—the night Miles sacrificed himself, the night Kiren fought them off, the night she truly began to use her gift—their eyes had beckoned her, just as this woman’s had a moment ago. Miles had said they were coming for her, not to consume her, but because of her gift.

Alexia pushed up into a sitting position, her head spinning. Kiren’s necklace lay across from them, pulsing with a golden glow.

“I am Deiliey,” the woman’s head bobbed demurely. “Corona Deiliey.”

Alexia squirmed, uncomfortable with her companion’s expectant stare. Were they to be friends, despite the hold this woman had taken on Kiren? “You are clearly not Soulless. Why are you here?”

The lines deepened around Deiliey’s nose. “I am the subject of unfavorable circumstances, but that story can wait for another time.” She brushed a hand through the luminescence cast by the medallion, finger shadows cutting across the walls. “Let us say, I am here by choice to preserve my existence, but no, I am not one of the Soulless.”

“Your eyes...”

The woman scooted forward. Her skin was rough and her mouth turned downward naturally, as though she’d long ago forgotten how to smile. “My gift is to possess the minds closest to me. By that means I am able to preserve my own existence here, but it has proven...” Her gaze shifted away. “...precarious on more than one occasion.”

Alexia bit down. Like when she possessed Kiren’s mind and it nearly resulted in her death—as had been insinuated? “You attempted to possess my mind.”

“To protect you from them.” Deiliey lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender.

“To confirm your uncertainties about me,” Alexia shot back. She was not going to play this woman’s game, and she had to know why Corona wanted her. “What is it you think I am?”

The woman leaned forward, her breath quickening. “You are the one who can save us.”

Alexia glared. “From destroying one another?”

Deiliey reached out, as though to touch her, but stopped short. Alexia burned the woman’s fingers with her stare, hating her like no other. Corona’s hands came together in supplication. “You can go back. You can stop the destruction of the Passionate.”

Leaning as far away as she could, Alexia scowled. So this was her intention—manipulating Kiren and controlling him in order to force her obedience. “I cannot. It is beyond my ability.”

“It was,” Deiliey lifted a hand over the throbbing metal, “but no longer.” Her mouth worked, overly excited, nothing spilling out, then starting in a rush. “The pendant, it gathers power from the life about it, as though siphoning light off every source in existence, only a little so as not to do harm. It strengthens the bearer beyond any natural capacity, even beyond understanding.”

So it could strengthen the bearer, but what did that matter? “Only one person can use it.”

Deiliey shook her head. “No, only his bloodline can utilize it, but you will one day bear his child.” The woman’s eyes gleamed. “With his heir growing inside you, you will be able to use his pendant. You can go back. You can intervene and stop our people from being destroyed.” 

“Then why have you taken the medallion?”

“I could not come to you. You had to come to me.” The smile faded. “Do not allow him to prevent you from fulfilling your destiny like he did to me.”

Alexia blinked.

Deiliey tugged at her sleeve. “He is so afraid of what’s to come he will allow our people to grovel, to suffer, and to succumb to fate.” Her voice softened. “Love makes us do strange things.”

Alexia’s throat tightened as her mind whirled into a realm she didn’t want to consider. Love. How did this woman know so much about her husband, and more especially, what had he meant about loving her? Was he manipulated by her, or had he naturally cared for her? He had been so sincere in his proclamation.

Alexia slipped into her memories, reliving the many times Kiren had pushed her away, the fear constantly in his eyes, the sadness that always possessed him. There was another woman, despite his insistence otherwise.

She knew one thing for certain. She did not trust Deiliey.

The woman rose, brushing debris from her skirt.

“It is truly possible?” Alexia scoured the woman’s face for the slightest tick, any hint that she lied. “I can go back?”

“It is not only possible, it is inevitable.”

“And how can you be so certain?”

Deiliey licked her lips. “Because you are my mother.”