Gulp

Songs are like children. They come about beautifully. They grow up. They change. They mature. And one day you stand back to nostalgically analyze them, wondering if they're ready to face the big bad world. I question if I will regret this move or kick myself for not having made it sooner. 

Today I am registering with Last.fm and placing my music *timidly* in their care. (Deep breath!) It will be available to purchase and listen to once I've completed the process--and next week the first number will find its way here. (I'm taking Thanksgiving weekend off. You should too.)

Enjoy the holidays!

IMMORTAL

A brief introduction: Immortal is a musical. Yes, a musical. I love music, and occasionally (not nearly as often as I should) I actually sit down and write it. (Rather than books.) This project is my second baby--and what I mean by that is, kid #2. Born in 2003, it has evolved and taken us such strange places as NYC, upstate New York and Orlando. In the subsequent years I hope to see it take us many many more places.

Without further ado, the teaser:

Do you want to live forever?  

Three hundred years, dodging shadows, avoiding sunlight, fleeing the family who created and then vowed to eradicate him… Lucas can no longer outrun the hunter.  

Fate has brought him to his hometown in the late 1700’s, the place it all started, the locale of his nemesis’ family, to her.  

Three centuries of surviving, never looking back on the life he lost--the guilt it harbors, the insatiably tainted thirst or the pain of isolation, Lucas feels for the fist time the hope of something greater. If he is capable of love, is he capable of redemption?  

And will the hunter, her uncle, kill him before he has the chance to find out?

The End...for now

I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey, but it’s far from over. To pre-empt questions: Yes, there is a sequel. 2 in fact. Book 2 is about 30% done, and one day (when I have more time to throw at it--around the other crowding projects) it’ll find its way here or to a tangible book store near you. (Fingers crossed.)

If you are looking for the LAST CHAPTER of Dark Moon—actually the last two, they’re not here. (For protection issues.) BUT, if you would like to read the end of the book send an e-mail to darkmoonfinalchapter@gmail.com, and I’ll be happy to e-mail on the PDF. (Last two chapters only.)

So what’s next?

Well, you’ll notice the brief description way way up there at the top of the page claims books, music and more… Yup. I’m ready to make good on that, I think. As soon as my technological brain catches up to the artistic one I’m going to post a few songs. Yes, you read right, songs—from my second child, Immortal the Musical.

Tell-it-to-me-Tuesdays and Free-chapter-Fridays will continue, but perhaps with a more…diverse flavor. Look for new works, short stories, music, teasers and more!

Thank you for reading!

Crystal Collier

Chapter 42 Implosion

Shards of wood stopped in mid-air, ricocheting halted. It was magnificent, the pattern of suspended lumber—if I could pull away from the brilliant red eyes beyond.

Shadows filled the cracks, waiting calmly for the mess to clear.

I stood, trying to breathe, fighting in the effort. The air didn’t want to move. It hung stale and heavy.

Time. I could manipulate time!

I gasped.

Then this was the true meaning of my ability.

I turned to witness the faces of terrified individuals, some ducking, others shielding themselves, Father attempting to move in front of me.

Reflected candlelight pulled my eyes to the wall. A mounted sword…

I let go of the candlestick and stood in awe as it remained—floating in air. I shifted and felt the weight of my clothes, but they could not stop me. Intense pressure weighed my limbs, but they would yield! I had to save him!

I took hold of the very chair I’d sat in day after day waiting for Mother to utter her devastating message and pulled. It wouldn’t budge. No matter how I strained it wouldn’t surrender.

I turned back to the wall. Miles stood below the weapon…

I pulled myself up onto his shoulders, dazed that he remained so solid, sturdy as stone. My fingers slid over the brass hilt, but it felt as concrete as everything else.

Yes, I could manipulate time, but I couldn’t use it to aid me!

Then I realized.

I was the only thing out of proper time. If I allowed seconds to move, even slowly I might be able to force other objects into submission. Could I control it?

I glanced back at Kiren, face so white, illustrious, beautiful…

I had to make it work. I had to save him! He wanted to marry me!

An intense ache started at the back of my skull as I yanked the rapier from its brackets. Splinters commenced their journey in slow motion. Miles bent forward under my pressure. I leapt off, watching as the sword dropped tediously toward my outstretched hand, batting away wood chips with the other.

The headache burned, but I could cope. I had to save Kiren!

My fingers clasped over the brass grip, wielding it forward with all my strength. It inched.

Specters glided over the threshold.

A little faster…

The pain in my head lessened. I swung my weapon around, catching the first intruder across the jugular. Whiffs of smoke split his form—enveloping my vision. I stepped forward gasping when I faced two brilliant sets of eyes. My hands trembled, blade coming between us. Their shapes rent before my scream escaped.

I rounded.

Five more reached toward me. My throat constricted. I shook the weapon at them, barely able to look. Each burst into a puff of inky cloud when it met the blade. I leaned back, waiting for the vapor to clear, daring again to move forward.

Something shocked my arm. I swung. Another misted. I swept the sword from side to side, blindly moving forward, terrified out of my wits.

I reached the hall.

Shadow mists regrouped at the end of the passage, a line of undaunted assailants materializing back into their previous form.

Impossible!

Three more lunged at me. I shrieked. My sword came down. Two dissipated. I dropped to the floor, lifting the blade over head. The last landed on its edge and crushed down on top of me, dead.

I struggled out from under, dazed. How had I done it? What had I done to defeat this one?

No time to think!

Darkness engulfed me. I swung sightlessly through the mass, wondering how long I could keep this up. My brain felt like it would explode! The strain…

I turned to see Miles right behind me, eyes wide, rod ready.

They came in a new wave.

One rushed me. He moved faster than the others—faster than should be possible. His blistering eyes burned as he reached for my heart. I brought the sword down. He dispersed.

He broke the time barrier!

I faced six more before it happened again. My heart raced. How long would it be before they all join in? How long before my abilities no longer made a difference? How long before we would die?

I could feel it now, the exhaustion—like a hundred bricks pulling on the back of my brain. I felt sluggish, weary, sick…

Nausea.

I fell back, suppressing the need to vomit. Blackness shuddered before my vision—but I didn’t know if it came from them or my stuttering mind. Maybe I’d done enough. I had fought a good fight. It was time…

No! I wouldn’t-

My knees were suddenly beneath me. I looked up and saw Miles, swinging around fluently at nightmare figures. The seconds shuddered quicker and quicker, the ache dulling fractionally with each instant.

All was lost. We’d be taken!

I struggled to focus on Miles. Could I do it? Could I fulfill his request? Could I kill him…?

No.

Everything moved now. People screamed, dark forms billowed nearer, iron fire-prod whooping through the air.

“Forgive me…” Dana, Kiren. My hold on the sword loosened. I was not strong enough. I could not save him.

Shrouds encircled me, hungry, ready to converge.

I hugged myself. Cold. I felt so cold, but not for long.

The blade crushed against my chest beckoned. I had one last option, one last means of escape. Could I? Which would be worse? Eternal hunger, or death?

I lifted the weapon.

Light…

Warm and heavenly. It broke over me in calm radiance, subduing fear and halting dread—the substance of peace. It filled the entire room, all I could see, all I could feel. I was serene. Tranquility permeated where it touched my skin. I breathed it in…

The sensation disappeared. I rounded expectantly, but the soulless lay in lifeless heaps across the floor. The others stood in awe as much as I.

Kiren…

He sat half way up, eyes closed, fingers clasped over a palm-sized pendant. I dropped the sword and hurried to his side, dizzily landing. He caught my hand.

“You did it! You saved us!” I kissed him. I didn’t care that anyone watched. I didn’t care that my brain felt like fire. I didn’t care what happened next. We were alive!

“I think I need a redressing.” He grunted.

I laughed through my tears.

His bleeding had slowed, but it hadn’t stopped. The corner of the bed sponged moistly with dark liquid. He leaned backward again, coming to rest with great effort.

“I love you!” I kissed him once more. “I love you.”

His breathing calmed. I sat, steadying myself and taking in his magnificence, realizing with astonished joy that we had survived. He was going to marry me! Tears of joy found their way amply down my cheeks.

People moved by in dazed apprehension, steadily draining from the chamber, out after Miles.

I gazed again at Kiren, swallowing back a wave of queasiness from the motion. He looked so peaceful, so calm, so quiet—like a shining star against the night sky, or a ship amidst a sea of waving black…

Yes, black corpses—monsters, empty things…

My chest constricted.

I rose. My knees wobble, arms weak, cold sweat breaking out…

“Alexia!” Father caught me.

I couldn’t be here—but I couldn’t leave Kiren! My head felt like an immense anvil that wanted to drag me down, down, down; drown me in a sea of lifelessness!

I leaned on Father, unable to do anything else, unable to fight as he removed me from the chamber. I shook in his arms, wobbly from the threatening vertigo.

Dead! They were all… And he too looked…

“Hush now.” Father calmed.

More bodies occupied the hall—including the one I severed amidst the fight. I looked away.

My face felt wet—though from tears or cold sweat I cannot say. I shut my eyes, working to keep upright, unable to cope with the hapless forms Father steered me about—hardly cognizant of anything beyond the flashes of pain tearing through my head with each movement.

We reached the stairs. The entry door below lay in a thousand pieces across the floor, night yawning beyond. Another unmoving shroud rested on the steps.

“Johnson, Taggart,” Father called. The men came immediately. “Deposit this out back.”

He settled me on the steps as they lifted the shell at my feet, and he hastened away with them. I turned dizzily to keep from watching and noticed Miles.

He perched at the edge of the stairwell, peeking around the bend. Skin pale, eyes wide, shaking. In his fingers the metal bar remained, knuckles white.

I snapped out of my helpless state.

“What is it Miles?” I managed, frightened by the frailty of my voice and the twinge of pain that fired each word.

He stared back.

“You can put that down. It is over.” I heard myself say distantly as though someone else spoke. He crawled nearer.

I pushed the exhaustion away. For him I could be strong. For him I had to be brave. When faced with the terror in his enormous eyes, my own pains didn’t matter.

I reached over and loosed the prod from his grasp, startled by the black shadows marring his palm. I pressed his fingers open. Long cindered imprints marked the flesh. It felt frigid. Skin pealed about the ash, ash that wouldn’t rub off!

“What happened?” I breathed. “What is this? Did they touch you?”

He snapped out of his trance, glancing warily at the milling servant below us. “Metal, iron. It burns…”

“But not me.” I countered. “Why did it not affect me?”

“You are half-blood.” The way he said it left me feeling both ashamed and relieved.

“It will heal in time?”

He opened his mouth to respond and jumped. His nostrils flared wildly, face whiter than before, mouth open in terror…

“Miles? What is it?”

“No…!”

“What?”

He looked at me. “They are coming.”

I trembled. “No, you are wrong. They all ready came! We beat them!”

His hollow grey eyes halted me.

“How many? When?” I demanded.

“Hundreds. Soon? Hours?”

“What are we going to do?”

“Die.”

“Miles!” I shrieked.

He stared back blankly. The help stopped in their tracks and turned to us. I worked to calm myself.

“They are coming for Kiren?”

The confusion in his face felt so total I nearly landed into its trap.

“For who?” He asked.

The mistake hit me. “I-I mean, for him?”

He pulled himself out of the mental ambush he’d fallen into. “They want something else now.”

“What else could they possibly-?”

“Time.”

The world faded out for a moment. I couldn’t comprehend what he meant to tell me. I knew it had something to do with Dana, something to do with what happened tonight, something to do with…me? They wanted me?

“To-to weaken him, right?”

His head shook.

“…I do not…why?” The right question wouldn’t come.

Miles’ trembling amplified. He rose, visibly shaking from head to toe. Dark circles under the eyes made his abnormally gaunt face appear half purple. They were near. I worried how terribly he fought the draw…

He took a step.

“Miles!” He stopped, looking back at me with dispassionate eyes. “Do not let them take you. Think of Nelly, think of him, think of…me.”

His fists tightened. He rocked backward with great effort.

Father was returning. I needed him. I’d have him help me restrain Miles until the danger passed.

The ghastly youth looked up suddenly, charging down the steps.

“Miles!” I clambered to my feet unsteadily, crumpling, catching the rail and pulling myself forward, hurrying after him. By the time I reached the doorway he had exited Father’s property.

I pressed through the open frame, out into the night. I had to stop him!

Cool air caught my cheek, and then nothing. An absence of wind.

I stumbled and gravel scraped my face.

They were here.

I pushed myself off the ground. Dizziness rushed upon me in waves. The sweltering in my ankle had returned, only now it blared blindingly.

The hedges guarding the house from the road blotted Miles from view. He wouldn’t return even if I screamed for him, and I had to return to Kiren, to safety.

I turned to the house.

A hunched shroud stood between me and the lighted doorway. I fumbled backward, staggered, tripped on my skirt, rolled.

Another creature appeared from around the side of the house, flowing black robes limp in the absence of a breeze. More raven forms surfaced in the night following the first, brilliantly murderous eyes, a great rolling tide of black…

I had only one course to follow.

I scrambled blindly away on hands and knees, veering unsteadily to my right, to the left, landing on my elbows, tearing my skirts.

Why hadn’t they overtaken me? They could move so much faster! Did they enjoy my flight? Perhaps they mocked me with the hope I might escape?

I lunged between gateposts that marked Father’s property and froze.

Multiple crimson pupils burrowed into me from the wooded shadows—hungrily piercing. How many? Forty maybe?

Miles stood only a couple paces ahead of me, whimpering in terror.

They circled us, gazing furiously, hateful eyes blaring down.

I grasped Miles’ quaking hand and held it firmly, seeking for strength. He looked down at me, awed curiosity morphing into concern.

I smiled.

He stared back uncertainly. A buzz ran down my arm and I could see a grime-covered girl, sprawled on a dusty night road. Raven locks curled about a tortured pale face, green eyes wide. She was beautiful…

And I had seen her dead.

My dream returned, the one from the night I came of age, the night all of this started, the moment I changed—this beautiful girl lying in the road, dead, alone, Kiren gazing upon her with those impossibly blue eyes.

I let the dread sink. This was it. No more tomorrows. No more stolen moments. No more sunrises. No more him…

Miles’ fist tightened. I looked up at him and words filled my mind, words that weren’t mine.

Why did you follow me? I could have drawn them away!

I stared, awed.

In his grim countenance I recognized for the first time a person of beauty, the one these terrible beings could never touch, the reason Kiren trusted him so totally. I’d never forget that.

I squeezed his hand in return. “Would you have drawn them off, or would they have infiltrated your will?”

His eyes closed.

The circle about us solidified.

“I am sorry Miles.”

“No.” He breathed gripping me tighter. “Run Alexia!”

The words startled me. Run where—and how could I go anywhere while he kept his crushing hold on my fingers?

Dana’s voice echoed through my mind: ...the absence of time…

Creatures converged.

Torrential agony tore through my head. My body collapsed as I leapt—not stepped, but leapt out of time.

Chapter 41 Subterfuge

What Father saw must have finally registered.

“Alexia!” He caught hold of me, squeezing me with more heartfelt emotion than I’d ever seen him display. He turned on the injured. “I see you have finally obtained your outstanding reward.”

“Father!”

“You do not know him Alexia, not the way I do.” Still facing the wounded, “Did you think you could get away with locking her up?”

Kiren huffed sardonically.

My enraged parent advanced. I rounded in front of him.

“Father, stop!” He yielded to the pressure of my sullied hands. “He has been shot! He is bleeding!”

He looked at me. “What do I care? Let him suffer.”

I gave him a severe frown. He wavered guiltily.

“Father…”

A stifled moan pulled me away from my parent, remembering my errand. I caught sight of the hairpin clasped over my neckline and knelt, handing the pliable metal to Kiren.

“Will this work?”

“It could.” He breathed, shuddering as he took it.

“You dared hide her from us?” Father accused. “After everything we have done?”

“No one hid me.” I growled. “I stayed away.”

“From him?”

“From you. From both of you.” Kiren pinced the wire experimentally, eyes catching mine at the confession. “Like you wanted.” I assured and looked to Father. “I thought Roger would release you if I did not come back.”

He stood speechless.

“Brandy.” Kiren demanded with effort, indicating the bottle positioned conveniently on the study table.

“Where have you been Alexia?”

I slid past Father to the beaker. “Safe.”

He snapped out of it. “Margaret, bring a towel and fresh water quickly.”

I returned to Kiren’s side and handed him the bottle, fingers lingering on his. He smiled privately for me. I couldn’t help myself. I kissed his trembling cheek. He leaned into me, and I slid onto the floor next to him, holding him.

Father lifted the smoking pistol.

“John.” I informed. “John shot…him, and took Sarah.” I squeezed Kiren tighter, voice softening. “John is going to hurt her.”

“Nonsense. He loves Sarah.” Father refuted.

“Love did not stop you from hurting Dana.” I accused.

He flinched.

“He is her husband now.” He corrected. “What he does with her is none of our affair.”

The tears began to surface. “She will never be the same. Never-”

He would not come to grips with the reality unless he saw it for himself. She may as well be dead. That would be more merciful.

The servants returned. They positioned a towel beneath Kiren’s leg. He doused his wound and hairpin in brandy, tearing the pant leg back. I looked away.

“Alexia, come. This is not a good place for you to be.” Father insisted. I didn’t want to leave Kiren’s side.

“Go.” He encouraged, sweat beading his forehead. “It will be over soon enough.”

“But-”

“Go Alexia.” His voice steadily penetrated my concern. He was right. He would be fine.

I wiped his brow, kissing it one more time before allowing Father to escort me from the room.

“What happened here?” He breathed indicating my limp. “How did you…where did you-?”

We both stopped.

Miles stood in the main entry, wide-eyed. At sight of me he bolted the door shut and rushed forward. I went to meet him, haltingly.

“It is all right.” I preempted. “He is hurt but-”

“They are coming!” He countered.

“They who?”

He grabbed my shoulders turning me the other way. “A safe place, where is a safe place?”

I didn’t get a chance to answer for we’d reached the study.

“My Lord,”

Kiren looked up. “How many?”

“Twenty? Thirty?”

The immortal pulled himself up, threatening consciousness as he did. Miles and I were at his side in an instant. The servants who’d been aiding him fell back startled.

“Get away from the windows!” Miles commanded.

They looked at one another, hesitating.

“What is happening?” Father caught up.

“A siege.” Kiren’s expression turned grim. “Gather every living person in the place now!” His attention returned to Miles, swallowing his pain. “How long?”

“A minute…maybe.”

Then he looked at me. “A room, no windows, one exit, is there one in the house?”

I filtered through my mental list of hideouts…

“Rosalind’s room.” Father stated definitively.

We all looked at one another. I hadn’t been in that chamber since Mother passed away. I didn’t know if I could confront it…

“What kind of threat are we facing?” He persisted.

“You do not want to know.” Kiren’s heavy tone more than convinced him of the fact. “Move everyone there, now!”

Something grated across the barred entry. Scratching—like hundreds of nails over the surface.

Miles grabbed his head, screaming.

“Go!” My love called, pushing me forward.

I stumbled, he stumbled. Somewhere in the house a window crashed inward. A wail burst from the kitchens. We raced up the stairs, the four of us and all the help within ear shot. More glass broke. Another scream reached our ears.

The scraping at the entry subdued, instead building to a low moan.

We reached the top of the stairs. Groaning wood echoed up after us.

Kiren half-collapsed. Miles slid under his arm and hefted him around the corner.

Crash!

Splinters shot into the wall behind us. Father threw a door open and all twelve of us pressed in.

We settled my love on the end of the bed, his face peaky.

I brushed back his sweat-doused hair. “You said you could fend them off.”

The door slammed shut, Father’s hands trembling in the dark as he activated the lock.

“Come away from the door.” Kiren advised. “Stand behind me.”

People moved to obey. New screams issued from the hall, friends who tried to escape in time, subordinates who were too slow, people begging for us to let them in.

“That’s Lea!” One woman advanced. “We have to-”

Father caught her. Miles stood in her path arms crossed, face stone. She backed down at his repugnant countenance.

“Behind me!” Kiren voiced clearer this time, impossible to refuse. We fell into place.

“Why can we not let them in?” I begged, torn by the cries, tears biting down my cheeks as others uttered the same query amidst themselves.

“No one is out there.” He whispered back. “This is what they do. They are trying to lure us out.”

“And if you are wrong?”

“Then I am wrong.” His brow drew.

Someone lit a candle.

I noticed how conscientiously he focused and began to wonder if he would faint. The bleeding continued generously, synched rag sopping about the wound…

“If only I had your gift now.” I breathed.

He looked at me, sudden clarity in his eyes. “If we live through this, I am going to marry you.”

My heart leapt. I felt dizzy and elated and impossibly giddy all at once.

“If?”

He nodded.

“So I can shoot at you again?”

He laughed shortly. “What you did took great courage.”

“What I tried to do. I never should have asked you to go!”

His fingers landed tenderly on my cheek. “You are too benevolent to ignore the suffering of others.”

“And you are too good to be bound to one so thoughtless!”

“I made that decision-” And then he sucked in a quick breath, torment squeezing his eyes shut. I wished desperately I could do something to ease the pain.

“I am going to hold you to that promise.” I vowed, attention drawn to his skin, so white I could already envision him lifeless.

“Good.” His fingers fell away from mine. “This may be our last-”

“Do not say that!”

“I cannot…I…I love you…Alexia…” The struggle ended, his eyes rolled, full weight slumping backward.

“No, please, no!” I gasped.

Miles caught him.

“I love you! Do not leave me! Please! I need you!” I looked to the beauty-less boy. “Tell me he is alive. Tell me!”

He placed a hand to Kiren’s chest.

“He is…” I could see a word forming, not the one he supplied: “resting.”

“Tell me the truth Miles.”

He swore. “Why do you have to be so persistent? He is weak.”

“Is he going to…die?” The final word barely escaped. Miles met my gaze. He didn’t have an answer. Instead I witnessed the terror.

Nails grated across the exit.

“Phase two.” He moaned. He straightened tensely, watching the door.

It was up to us then. We must somehow deflect them, Miles and I. I swallowed, resolving upon the task, wondering what we could do and how we would survive.

“How many?” I whispered.

“Too many.” He shuddered, then met my gaze. “If they get through, please, kill me.”

“Miles-”

“I’ve felt it Christy.” He moved to the other side of the room, throwing open a cabinet, disheveling the contents, pulling back the edge of the mattress. “I know what it’s like. I don’t want to be one of them. You don’t either.”

“What are you looking for?”

“Iron.”

My eyes turned to the mantle in the room. A prod waited in the dim light…

“Iron?” Father pressed. “What about steal?”

The boy halted. “You have a sword?”

“Mounted.” He indicated. “There.”

The door trembled. We all turned.

Silence.

Did they leave? Had they abandoned the attack? Were they drawn away or distracted?

“Miles!” I grabbed the prod, tossing it to him.

His grip rounded the bar. A quick shiver quaked through him.

Moaning wood rang…

Everyone fell back. The door beveled inward, creaking. I reached panicked for the first projectile I could find, a candlestick.

The door exploded.

Pain shot through my cranium.

Save him…

Chapter 40 Misfire

Pain riveted through my head—greater intensity than I’d ever experienced.

Instantaneously I lay in the dark, calm and alone. I couldn’t see anything, smell anything, hear anything…

I rose, but spinning in a circle didn’t reveal more than already met my perception… I started to panic.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” A haunting female voice echoed back, “Alexia.”

Someone moved toward me. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel the presence.

A circle of illumination beamed down on me. I stood alone in the gloom, wearing a topaz dress I recalled from last year’s ball.

Had I failed? Did John get Kiren? Did he get me? Is that where I’d gone—the emptiness that followed having your “soul” drained?

A silhouette manifested, not tall, but certainly bold. Long dark hair plumed about a determined youthful face, poignant green eyes and a dulled roseate gown. She looked older than me, though not by much—three years perhaps.

“W-who are you?” I managed.

“You do not recognize me?” At the question her voice softened, a light ambience that felt humble and, familiar?

I squinted as if that would give greater clarity and she stepped into the circle of light.

She was passionate! Her brilliant clear skin, compellingly alluring eyes and unabrasive keel stated as much, but something about that face witnessed I should know it…

“Do you see?”

I shook my head.

“I am your mother.”

I blinked back.

“Dana.” She continued.

She looked too young to be a mother—least of all mine. Yet unnerving as it may be, her presence felt comfortable, intimate—like speaking with Sarah, or Rupert, or Miles…

“Dana is dead!” I protested.

“Yes I am sure that is true,” the response left me speechless, “but we are in the absence of time.”

I peered at her more closely. “The what?”

“Absence of time. I like to call it stepping out.”

I shook my head to see if this hallucination would shatter, but it remained resolute, unpretentious and sweet…

“I have been waiting for you.”

“For me?”

Elegantly long fingers touched before her. “You are the successor of Grandfather Time.”

I blinked, wondering if I’d heard right.

“Grandfather Time?”

“He was my father.” Her endearingly sad smile spoke of a treasured relationship, not unlike mine and Father’s, but certainly one more tender. “When I came into the world he died—for there can be only one: one to govern the flow of time. Yet at the same time he did not die. Not to me. He was here, waiting for me, ready to teach and guide. I became the Maiden of Time, and now this heritage has passed to you.”

She waited silently for me to grasp the concept, a long, long silence.

“If there can only be one,” I processed, “how can you be here?”

“This is the absence of time.” She reminded gently. “I stepped out an instant before you entered the world. When I leave this place I will end my mortal life.” Her serene pale smile penetrated my shock. “But it will not be a sad death—do not worry for me.” She stepped closer, reaching out, eyes twinkling intently. “I have finally seen that my pains are worth their extent, and you, you are exactly the young woman this world needs.”

I swallowed.

Her fingers landed on my arm, solid and real. “Great things are coming Alexia, great things of which you play an important role.”

The gentle way she spoke reminded me of Ethel, so dear, so patient, so kind. The optimistic light in her eyes left me questioning what exactly she expected of me, and if I would not ultimately disappoint her. I wanted to believe her. I wanted to trust, but fears and doubts lingered.

“What did you leave me?” I tested. “What did you ask him to give me?”

“My father’s time box.”

A time box? Not a puzzle box?

“A-and what else?”

“A hairpin. Forgive me. It is the best I could do with short notice.” She stepped closer. “You are exactly as I dreamed you.”

I fell back. “You had the dreams?”

“That is how I knew.” She assured. “But you are all ready aware of that.”

“You brought me here?”

“No. You brought you here.”

This was too much. I could actually do things, like Lester, like Miles, like Kiren?

I gasped remembering, “Did I…? Did I save him?”

She turned away. “You can come to this place any time you like. It is your decision—your sanctuary, and I will be here to help until you deem my assistance unnecessary.”

“But did I save him?”

She remained perfectly still. Evidently she didn’t intend to answer.

“How?” I moved on. “How do I come here? And how do I go back?”

“You want it.” Came her elevated tintinnabulation. “And now that you know…”

I blinked at her. That’s all I had to do? Want it?

“Alexia?” I focused on her tangible face again. “Tell Charles I never blamed him. Tell him I love him.”

She spoke the truth. For an instant I felt to glory in that one small fact, that my parents had indeed loved one another, that they still did—even parted by the grave.

“I will tell him.” I nodded and closed my eyes, wanting more than anything to be back in the study, to see what happened, to know if I had succeeded, to hold Kiren and save Sarah…

A surge of pain jolted from one temple to the other and then…

I opened my eyes.

I landed on my stomach, the carpeted study floor cushioning me, pistol bouncing away. The wind rushed from my lungs.

Kiren gasped. A thump sounded and then a moan.

“Arik!” Sarah shrieked.

I clambered to my knees, eyes flashing to the dark outline behind my aunt. Crimson pupils peered from the shadows, shape shuddering…

“Sarah!” I warned too late. John had her. He squeezed her. The scent of searing flesh…

“No!”

I leapt up, but froze. Kiren lay in the corner, blood staining his lower shirt, streaking the rug…

John glared at me. His hollow eyes sent my heart tremoring. He growled and leapt.

I fell aside.

He soared past, Sarah’s pain-laced scream scorching my ears as he dragged her away. My headache flared. Sarah reached for me, eyes wide in frozen horror as John yanked her through the grand entry.

I shook the pain away, but the image remained, Sarah begging for my rescue—and I, helpless to do anything…

I failed her. I couldn’t save her. Sarah was gone—worse than gone!

Voices. People were coming, the startled help.

Kiren!

I stumbled to my love’s side. Had I hit him—or did John? I only remembered one gun shot, but I might not have noticed a second as a result of stepping out.

The Lord’s name rolled off my tongue as I caught the scent of blood and witnessed its brilliant trail across almond-hued fibers. “…no! Please no! I cannot…”

“Lest you defile that pretty mouth further…” The beauty of his voice—the sound I feared I’d never experience again, the sound that even now threatened to end forever—it tightened into a moan.

“Kiren!”

“No.”

The rebuke startled me.

“Do not call me that, not here. Not where others can hear.”

“I am so sorry, so terribly sorry, so incredibly sorry!”

He breathed, more pain…

“I-I did not-I could not-” My eyes felt moist.

“You missed.” He assured.

“I what?”

“You missed.” He reaffirmed, pointing to a hole near the joint of wall and ceiling. “John did not.”

The guilt flourished through my aching chest. His face blurred in the rush of tears as I realized how utterly I’d failed him and how terribly we would both suffer for it.

“Remind me never to rely on your marksmanship.” He half chuckled, and groaned.

“No, no…”

His fingers landed on my cheek, drawing my eyes to his. “Why did you come?”

“To save you.”

“Save me?”

“My mother sent me.”

He met my eyes. “Dana?”

I nodded.

He seemed honestly perplexed, but whatever might have followed disappeared under a wave of agony. His bloodied hand clasped over mine and placed it to his lower thigh.

“Hold pressure here?”

I stared bewildered as he pulled back the hem of his shirt, tearing the end in a strip. The blood came from his leg, not his torso! I could have shrieked for relief!

“I expected this.” He informed as he braced his limb up. “Either him or me, but you might have just scared him into aiming awry.” He pulled the material about his leg, tightening it with a gasp. “Ahh… I shall never take for granted a bullet wound again.”

“Can you mend it?” I whispered.

“That would be nice.” He grunted taking a deep breath, “But it does not work that way.”

“We need a surgeon?”

“Please no. I will tend to myself. I only need something to remove the ball.”

I rose to find the necessary tool and halted.

Father stood in the doorway, jaw agape.

Chapter 39 Haste

I worried. I tried to dream about Kiren, to see where he was, if he’d succeed, but it wouldn’t come.

Morning.

The others whispered in the kitchen, fretfully arguing. Upon sight of me they stopped, going their separate ways. Only Miles lingered as if he would reveal what had been said.

I followed him hastily out the door, finally catching him in his backyard haven. He glanced at me as I entered the barn and returned to his business with focused effort.

“Miles…”

He tugged a bottle of oils off the shelf and settled before a saddle.

“Miles do not act like this. Everyone else is treating me this way, but we, we are friends right?”

His eyes flashed my direction. “Why did you send him away?”

“To save Sarah.”

“And who is going to save you?”

I blinked. “What?”

He went to work on the saddle. I hurried over to him, sitting close, placing a hand on his arm.

He tensed. I let go.

He sighed. “They are worried.”

“Worried the soulless will hurt him?”

He met my eyes. “Worried they will come for you.”

I gasped. “But I thought they did not know about this house”

His head shook. “No. Not unless…” He got up angrily. “Not unless they followed me back.”

I rose, recalling his terror the night he returned from delivering Sarah’s letter. “But surely they did not see the building or they would have come all ready!”

“Maybe. I lost them a few miles out. I hope…”

“You lost them?”

He straightened.

“How in the world could you outrun those…those…?”

He looked at me, color thickening. “I didn’t say I outran them.” And then he fell back into his seat.

I resumed my own waiting for him to continue. Several awkward moments ticked by.

“Please Miles?” I touched his hand again. He stopped.

“When they…when they scarred me,” his face crinkled in disgust, “they left some of what they are in my skin. It prickles sometimes and I know they are close.” He took a deep breath. “If I…if I let the taint take over…”

Take over? I leaned away, letting go.

“I’m not one of them.” He pledged quickly, pleadingly seeking my eyes. “I do not hunger, but I…I feel them. I can make them not see me, but it costs.”

I remembered him trembling and pale, hunched over his knees at the back door… “The sickness?”

He nodded.

“Oh Miles…”

He looked away, returning to the saddle.

“They do not know about K- about the master and I, so there can be no danger. And even if they did, they must believe I am dead—like everyone else.”

He frowned. “Let’s hope they have not found your letter.”

My blood froze.

* * *

I stole a horse in the afternoon. I could cope with the silence that followed me through the house, but the tension in their restless faces-! And we still had three days until the moonless night!

Kiren’s refuge came into view the fifth time I looped back—although I didn’t realize it until I halted at the heart. It remained just as I recalled: beautiful, serene, and…lonely.

I dismounted and wondered for the fiftieth time if we’d ever enjoy the tranquility together again. The terror of my unaccounted letter stole over me.

I sat, listening to the little brook gurgle by. I pulled out my little puzzle box and played with it absently as I pondered.

John must be close to Sarah, which meant if the dispatch came into her possession he’d know about it. Not only that, he would undoubtedly surmise my general location based on the stretch of road I disappeared—which only reinforced Miles’ fear. My greatest hope is that the epistle got buried in a stack of clutter at the Wilhamshire house. Maybe I aught to go retrieve it…but would the soulless be watching?

I returned to the enigma twirling through my fingers, pondering how my mother dealt with this strange world—the relief she must have felt in leaving it, the dread of every moonless night…

The box flailed open.

I started. That couldn’t be right. What did I do to trigger it?

It lay flat in my hands, offering its contents freely. The silver lining revealed similar floral patterns to the exterior, but that isn’t what had my attention. A hair pin sat center, simple, straight, black.

A hair pin?

I lifted the piece of metal, studying it in the light, looking for evidence that would make it more than ordinary.

The metal felt stiff, and bare. My mother wanted me to have her hair pin?

I slid the silly thing over my collar and went to close the box when something more drew my eye. In slender fine print scrawled two words.

Save him.

I gasped.

Save him? The letters lingered, prominent against the iridescent interior.

Him who? Kiren? Was it possible? Could he be in danger? Had I sent him into doom? Why had the box opened now—now when I’d given up on the thing, now in a quiet trivial minute? How had it happened? More importantly, what did it mean?

Dana… If she could dream the future like me surely she’d have known the peril, and knowing would want to warn me—just as I’d hoped to save Sarah…

I had to go! I had to stop whatever was going to happen. I had to save him!

I leapt on the horse, facing four different directions before realizing I had no idea where Father’s home lay!

I galloped back beneath the canopy, thinking frantically. How would I find Kiren? What could I do? He had a day’s lead. Even if I rode like a maniac he could be fifty miles ahead of me! No horse could overtake that in a single day—or even two!

The house came into view, and as it did I saw Miles. He stood in my path, arms crossed, bundle strapped to his back. I pulled to a halt.

“You are crazy Christy.”

“I cannot sit around and hope.” I countered aware he already knew what went through my head. “I have to save him.”

“The best way to do that would be staying put.”

“I am going.” I asserted. “So either move out of my way or-”

“Do you even know where you are going?”

I stared back defiantly. “Maybe.”

He straightened the pack weighing his shoulders and laughed at me. Of course he knew the real answer.

“He is not going to like it.”

“Like what?”

“You following him.”

“Good for him.”

He grabbed hold of the saddle and pulled himself up behind me. “West. We go west.”

“You are coming with me?”

“Can’t let you get yourself—and the rest of us killed now can I?”

I’d never considered…

“Move, before Edward tries to stop us—and he’s on his way now.”

I nodded and he took the reins, turning our animal into the trees at the back of the property.

We picked our way carefully through for some time before emerging on a trail and picking up to a gallop.

“How far is it?” I called over pounding hooves.

“Two days if the horse can keep this pace.” Then looking me over, “Three days at the least.”

“Will he catch us?”

“Who?”

Had he forgotten so quickly about Edward?

He chuckled. “No. Lester is the runner, not Edward, and we did not leave any horses behind.”

“But he could send Lester!”

He nodded, mood incredibly too light. “If Lester were home.”

“What? But he…in the kitchen this morning…”

“He could be in another country by now if he wanted, but he’s on assignment.”

I couldn’t even give room to contemplate how he knew that. “They will worry. We should have at least told them where we are going.”

His face screwed up. “And send them into hysteria?”

I had no rebuttal.

“Do not worry Christy. It will get smoothed out. It always does.”

* * *

We rode hard, bruising my rump and legs. I tried to ignore this, to be brave.

That first night we camped in the open, under shelter of an elm. I slumbered like a rock, sore, exhausted, dirty, smelly, and when I woke to stale bread and multiple bug bites Miles saw a bit more of my temper than I intended.

We mounted the road again.

“Have you been there before?” I questioned testily.

“Several times.”

“Really? Why?”

He smiled. “The master does not trust you to just anyone.”

The idea that Kiren left me in anyone’s care other than his own left me strangely resentful. “He trusted me to you?”

He looked at me, alerted by my tone. “That’s not what I meant, but yes, he did once. Remember Wilhamshire?”

I nodded. How could I forget Sarah and I’s encounter with the soulless?

“That was the first and last time. What I mean is, he had me monitoring John while you stayed with Sarah—after he left.”

“But he did not go. Not really.”

“No.”

His words left me peculiarly comforted, and at the same time unsettled. Kiren had been there, every lunar cycle since I came of age. I blushed as I thought of my love monitoring my balcony window in the dark each moonless night, him sitting in or near my Wilhamshire room, him fighting the desire to appear and take me away…

And then I remembered Miles.

“I am glad.” I stated quickly, snuffing the thought. “And I am grateful he enlisted your aid.”

His smile faded. He looked away. “It’s reckless of him.”

“What? Why?”

“I could ruin everything for him.”

I struggled to comprehend.

He exhaled. “What I told you about the soulless…it is not true.”

“Which part?”

“How they affect me.”

I stared uneasily.

“I am not always trying to escape them. Sometimes I am running at them. Sometimes so fast I don’t even realize what I have done until…” He shook.

“But why?” I struggled to comprehend.

He watched the passing road vacantly. “They call me.”

“Call you?” I touched the back of his hand. The skin felt cold.

He pulled away as if I’d stung him. He looked down ashamed. “They are my parents.”

I couldn’t help the contagious chill that settled in my bones. Of course! His parents didn’t simply die when they fended off the soulless on his behalf. The complexity of his struggles made my own shrivel in comparison. Poor Miles!

“They have been after me since…since he saved me. If I am not careful…” He shifted. “You see why I might endanger him, and you.”

And I could—in more than one way. I understood why Edward and Ethel worried the night Miles returned looking pale—why they panicked at the idea of him touching me. If he’d been caught by the soulless…

But Kiren didn’t fear him—didn’t fear leaving me in his presence, so I shouldn’t either.

“Perhaps he is demonstrating his trust in you—which you have not betrayed I might add.” I concluded for his sake.

“Or maybe he’s as sentimental as his old man.”

“What?”

He seized the reins suddenly and gave the horse a kick. At my look he supplied, “Fellow travelers.”

I held tight as we bolted through the foliage and off the road into a field of chest high grain. A whistle escaped him, and the mare dropped to the ground, shrouding us entirely behind green stalks.

I cleared my throat. “Is that part of your gift or do you simply use the animals thoughts?”

He laughed lightly. I let it go.

“Tell me what you know about his past—about his parents—about the blood feud?”

A slight growl resonated from his throat—an indication of speech that never surfaced. He crouched lower. I mimicked him.

“Miles?”

A carriage came into view. The low rumble only now registered to my comprehension.

“Let me concentrate Christy. I need to know if they see us.”

I quieted and waited. The mechanism seemed to move unreasonably slow. It bobbed back and forth on familiar sounding hinges—the same kind I’d listened to every wayward venture from home. I felt the loss again as it squeaked away, like my childhood rolling by…

“Time to go.” Miles gave two clicks and the horse rose.

“Who were they?” I breathed.

“Nobles. Rich nobles.”

We pranced back out onto the dusted road.

“Would they have known me?” I questioned.

“Probably. They are going to slow us down a bit, unless we can pass them in the night.”

I sighed.

“What are you going to do,” Miles questioned suddenly, “if you are seen? I mean your dad…”

I halted at the notion. If? If? I’d certainly be seen if I intended to save Kiren, and father, what would father do? He indisputably would not allow me to disappear again. Would he try to force me back into marriage?

Miles gave me a half-grin.

“Were you listening in?”

He nodded timidly.

“Miles!”

“Sorry.” He looked away. “There is something you can do though.”

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “All of us have the ability to blend in.”

I didn’t get his meaning.

“To fade into our surroundings, to make it difficult for them to see us—not that they can’t see us, but they don’t realize they do. Have you ever noticed when someone is watching you—even when you can’t see them, you feel it?”

I nodded.

“The opposite works. If you really don’t want to be noticed you focus on your surroundings, on the absence of thought, merging into the trees or road—thinking as if you are a tree or road. It does not work on our kind though.”

“Or on horses?” Realizing he hadn’t tried to explain this hypothesis before our encounter and mask the animal.

He laughed. “Definitely not on horses.”

The concept seemed a bit far fetched, but what didn’t these days? I’d have to attempt it. He had me curious.

* * *

The second night we passed the casual travelers and found the barn of a farmer long after dark. I stood at the door, staring up at the sliver of a moon, dreading what would happen if we didn’t arrive within a day, yearning for my love…

“He will be all right.” Miles assured.

I glanced at him. I hoped so.

“He’s been looking after himself a long time Alexia. They are not going to take him by surprise.”

I wished I could share his certainty, but of the hundred possible scenarios playing through my brain there was no rest. Would John use me to weaken him, or would I be the hero of the hour?

I tugged open the crimson box.

Save him.

Dana knew. I had to trust. She wouldn’t lead me astray.

I sighed and settled into the straw, apprehensive about what tomorrow would bring.

* * *

“…only way to bring them down. End it now and all hope for the future is obliterated!” John’s bass rang.

Sarah stared in abject horror. Her hand rested on the mantle frame, brandishing a brilliant chrome band.

“John?”

He glanced over at her desperate tone, scarlet fire radiating through his pupils, twisting the gun in his grasp.

She shivered.

Kiren shifted in the opposite corner, a medallion clutched tightly in his fingers. John turned the weapon back on him.

“Do not interfere! I cannot contain it much-”

She neared. “Please Arik, John, I know you have your reasons, but do not-!”

I woke with a start, but that could be attributed to Miles jerking my arm ardently.

“We have to go.”

I blinked into the blackness.

“Go? Wha-?”

“Unless you like pitchfork for breakfast…”

We burst from the back of the stable at a healthy pace, only seconds before the farmer arrived—or so Miles promised.

The day progressed slowly. My rump ached so badly I could hardly sit.

“We have to be close.” I muttered.

He didn’t say anything. After a day and a half we needed a rest! At least I needed rest. He seemed to be in peek shape for this type of abuse.

“We can walk for a bit.” He suggested.

“Miles,” There he went, invading again…

“I know. I’m trying.”

It felt good to be on my feet, at least until I began to experience the hard soles of my shoes. They bit torrentially into my heels, and I wondered if a larger baby existed. I’m sure Miles pondered the same thing.

“Five more miles.” He halted me when the sun had progressed three-quarters of its daily sequence. “Time to eat.”

“Are we going to make it? Can you sense him?”

His head shook. “Too far. Would not matter anyway. I never can find him unless he wants to be found. He’s probably been surveying the place today.”

“You do that?”

He grinned offering me crust will honey. “Have to know what you are up against. Does not take nearly as much preparation if he has me around.”

I nodded. “What are we up against?”

“I wish I knew.” He placed a hand on the mares shoulder and she trembled.

* * *

At dusk the house came into view.

I stopped.

Home. It brought me back to the days before the peril of moonless nights and soulless beings, before I knew to love, before I realized what it meant to be special, before I grasped what it meant to be me.

I gazed at the building from without the gates. It had been so long! Why did I feel like an intruder?

Miles swore. “You have to get inside.”

“Now? What is-”

His eyes flashed my direction. They burned darkly, menacing, terror ridden… I didn’t need any more motivation.

“Christy,” He stopped me, “you need a gun.”

I gasped. “A gun? Why would I…?” Did he know that John possessed one? Did he expect me to duel with the soulless?

“Metal—primarily iron. It’s the only dead substance. It burns the soulless. It burns us. It can pierce their dead hearts.” He took the horse’s reigns. “You know where your father keeps his pistols.”

It wasn’t a question.

“It will stop him. Do not be seen.” He advised and backed into the trees.

“You are coming with me?”

A rather comical look broke his face. “Be careful Alexia.”

And he’d gone.

My backside felt black and blue as I rounded to the rear of the house. I slid through the back door, past the unoccupied billiards chamber and across the upper hall. I peeked around the corner. The vacant corridor stared back. I sped down it, stopping at the conservatory door.

Locked.

I cursed my fate. This was it. Kiren would die because I couldn’t open a stupid lock I had picked a hundred times as a child! If I had a nail, or leaver, something…

And then my eyes landed on the hair pin clipped at my neckline.

I slid it off and pressed it into the lock. It took some doing, but I knew the mechanism. I heard a grating “click.”

Noise down the hall pushed me into the dimming confinement. I didn’t notice the satchel-sized crate until my ankle smashed into it, making a ruckus. I pulled the door shut, lock virtually silent as I refastened it.

Footfalls hastened my direction. I gripped the knob as the pain began to register, praying the person on the other side didn’t have a key.

They kept going…

I breathed a sigh of relief and seized my mother’s mangled gift from the floor, straightening it.

It looked like I’d lumbered into Father’s newest addition, still unpacked. I gazed about the room at the mounted weapons.

The place hadn’t changed a bit. Dust hung hilts, antique firearms, glass caged relics…

The desk.

I staggered over, marveling at how viciously my limb ached and pulled the top drawer open. The case waited, set of ornate silver pistols inside. Next to the box rested a powder horn and linen wrapped balls.

Father taught me how to duel when I turned ten, although I never understood the purpose. Mother hated the idea. I thought it fun until I accidentally shot a canary. I hadn’t picked up a weapon since. Perhaps Father wanted to be certain I knew what it meant to defend a woman’s honor. Then again, perhaps with her foresight Dana had requested it of him.

I slid a pistol from the case with shaky hands, measuring the powder as I had seen him do a hundred times. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I had to be insane! Did I really intend to shoot John? Could I? Could I bring myself to do it?

I settled the wadding covered ball into the barrel and closed my eyes. If I didn’t think about it, if someone else pulled the trigger and not me, if I could be someone else for two seconds that’s all it would take!

The ramrod rattled into the barrel. All I had to do is pull a trigger…

I put the weapon down, eyeing the primer. I couldn’t do it!

But I had to save him! Kiren would die unless…unless I…

I picked it up. I had to.

My leg had begun to swell. I suppressed the pain and hurried to the door, listening.

I took a deep breath and pushed the exit open.

Down the hall I glided as fast as I dare, wincing with every step. Movement turned my head. One of the servants…

I flattened against the wall, unable to slip through a doorway and out of sight. Miles had better be right!

I closed my eyes, imagining the empty wall, that I didn’t exist, that no one stood in this space waiting for discovery…

The butler’s pace didn’t break. He padded on, carrying a vase away down the passage.

I couldn’t believe it. I stood in plain sight and he hadn’t noticed me! This was incredible! It was absurd!

I was wasting time!

From the darkening top of the stairs I could see the lit study door, propped wide. I swallowed, heart quickening. Had the conflict already begun?

“Do not interfere! I cannot contain it much-”

“Please Arik, John, I know you have your reasons,”

Sarah…! I dashed down the stairs, not caring if anyone saw me, not caring how badly it hurt. I had to stop it! I had to save him! It couldn’t end this way!

“But do not hurt my husband!”

Her what? I halted, trying to make the words register. There was no time!

My finger slid over the trigger, study coming into view. I lifted the gun. I knew where John stood, next to the hearth, next to Sarah…

A new shock of pain ran up my leg. I stumbled. The floor advanced toward my face. I felt the doorframe catch my shoulder, and as it did the gun sounded.

Chapter 38 Through Another's Eyes

Despite my protests Edward dragged Kiren away the instant we returned to consult on matters of pressing importance—more liabilities he didn’t want me worried about. I appreciated now what that meant, the abundance of secrets in his care.

From anxious boredom I found myself outside, watching while Miles sharpened kitchen knives.

He grinned. “I cannot believe you had no idea we are all passionate.”

I shook my head. “How could I? I have not been around our kind much.”

“All the more reason we should have seemed odd.”

I shrugged. “I do not leave home often.”

He chuckled.

I decided to stop with the small talk. “You are angry with him?”

His smile faded.

“You all are?”

The flint drew too hastily across his blade. “Leave it alone Christy.”

“I wish you would not. You should not be. Please Miles?”

“He hurt you.” His jaw tightened, focus redoubled on the knife he worked.

“And he healed me.” I wanted to deny his accusation, but the truth stung too deeply. I didn’t want to face it, didn’t want it to be true, but my heart still struggled to comprehend that the nightmare had ended.

When no retort came I decided to address a new subject. “I am told your ability is something spectacular.”

He looked up ingenuously.

“Ethel said you understand animals?”

He huffed, rolled his eyes, and shook his head, “It is kind of an annoyance for most of us. They can’t keep things from me.”

“Beg your pardon? The animals?”

“Uh…” He quit working, looking at me. He began putting his things away soberly.

“What? What is it?”

“Maybe you should be inside.”

“Are you no longer allowed to speak with me, or are you stalling? I am going to find out in the end.”

He stopped, studied me for a full minute then returned to one of the blades. “I see through other’s eyes.”

“W-what?” I laughed, but he didn’t rescind the statement. I stared. Surely I heard him wrong.

“See through their eyes?” I tried.

He shoved the final knife forcefully into the carrying leather.

“Whose eyes?”

He played absently with the last flint. “Everyone’s?”

I realized at that point my jaw hung.

He gathered up his things and aimed toward the kitchen.

“Wait Miles.” He turned back slowly. “What exactly do you mean by…?”

A heavy sigh escaped him. “I can show you.”

“Show me?” Then I realized his meaning. “Show me, please!”

He dropped his burden and offered a hand vertically, palm facing forward, fingers up… I mimicked his action and as our skin touched thoughts and feelings overwhelmed me.

…I circled helter-skelter about two giants, breaking their images into a hundred facets, searching for any hint of food. An enormous hand batted at me. I settled securely on the wall, watching the behemonths, droning out their booming voices…

…I scrubbed tarnish off a silver candlestick, objectively studying Nelly, curious if she’d neglected the chore on purpose or out of ignorance…

…The taint of fresh meat drew my nose. I pressed between great leafy branches and halted, pulling up my long black nose, trembling. Two uprights stood at the end of the clearing…

His hand fell away.

I noticed the red fox, vacillating frozen, preparing to flee.

I gasped. “You see all that?”

He smiled.

“That is incredible! How did you…?”

“I am not very good at sharing.” He apologized. “Not like the master anyhow. He can show you exactly what he wants. Me, you get what you get.”

I put meaning to his words. What a phenomenal talent! To see through another’s eyes, to understand how another being thought, how they felt…!

“That is amazing! Show me more!”

“I’m glad you appreciate it, but no.”

Another thought hit me. “We were seeing through Ethel—cleaning the silver! Do you often see through people?”

He sobered.

“Miles?”

He looked away. “Sometimes.”

I rounded to face him, the fox scurrying at my movement. “Sometimes?”

His eyes flickered apologetically to mine. “Most times.”

I stood astonished, mystified, dazed, awed…appalled.

“Have you…have you ever…?”

He stalked back toward the house. I followed.

“It’s why he took me on, why he kept me around. The others, they’re special alright, but none of them are dangerous.”

Pity flared at the statement. “Dangerous how?”

He turned back and looked me right in the eye. “I know what others think Christy. I know what they feel and why. Sometimes I can even make them think things. I manipulate them as easily as clay.”

The rigidity of his tone brought me back to reality. It’s true. With his calm, unobtrusive exterior and persuasively seductive voice he wouldn’t have much difficulty talking a person into anything he wanted, even action they’d never intended.

I still hadn’t said anything.

“So…” I started.

His eyes remained on my face, watching like he feared I’d reject him.

“Do you,” I asked at last, “manipulate…?”

He shook his head. “The master has been teaching me not do what comes most naturally.”

I nodded. Then a new thought.

“Have you…?” This felt awkward. “Have you seen through me?”

His nodded shortly.

“Oh.” My cheeks flushed. “Often?”

He shrugged.

Well, that was something.

“Recently?”

He looked guilty.

“Now?”

His head shook rigorously. “I try not to.”

“How does it work? Is it creatures you have touched or seen?”

He seemed honestly perplexed I was still talking to him. He watched me, uneasily. “Proximity.”

My eyes widened. “How close do they have to…?”

His lips pursed. “A mile.”

I nodded with concern.

“It helps if I’ve connected physically with a being before, and occasionally there are ones I can’t penetrate. The master keeps me out of his mind. He’s the only one who can consistently do it. Nelly’s pretty good. Ethel, Lester, Edward, they try. Usually they succeed, but I don’t try to get in, I really don’t intend to most times. I mean, it just happens, like breathing. Makes it hard to…”

“To what?”

“To sleep.”

What a novel idea.

“And how would I keep you from my mind?” I continued, concerned.

“I won’t.” He promised haltingly. “Not unless you say…” He swallowed and started again. “Not unless you invite me.”

I suffered a loss of words. “And why would I do that?”

“I don’t know.” The wonder in his open eyes made me laugh.

“How would I invite you?”

His nostrils flared. I waited for him to say something, but he just watched me. It hit me then. Flaring my nose?

I laughed again. I simply thought it a quirk of character when Nelly’s rage around him boiled into pulsing nostrils, but to know what it meant…!

“You are joking, right?”

He shrugged.

“That is the most ridiculous…!”

When his grey eyes met mine they harbored awe. “You’re not afraid?”

“I admit, it is going to take some thinking, but oh! If only I had such an amazing gift!”

A small grin played at his lips. “It’s no more amazing than dreaming the future.”

Yes, he would know about that… “But I cannot control mine! At least you-”

“Can sometimes—and not without years of working at it. You will master yours too eventually.”

“It will come.” I agreed. “What about you? When did yours manifest?”

“I was four.”

“Must have made for an interesting childhood.”

“You have no idea.”

* * *

I leapt out of bed. My gown caught on my legs and I stumbled forward landing against the door. Sweltering ignited in my chin and elbow but it didn’t matter. I threw the barrier open.

I raced down the hall, oblivious to anything but the distant dark door. It had been real! It was going to happen! I had to stop it!

I met the wood in panic, grasping at the handle. It wouldn’t give.

“Kiren!” I pounded. “Kiren! Kiren!”

No noise came from within, but I continued to batter the barrier.

It opened. I fell into his grasp, the instant pressure of his calming grip warming my frigid arms. He wore a loose white shirt, chest exposed, hair unruffled as though he’d never slept, eyes wide with worry.

“You have to stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Sarah…” I breathed.

He tensed. “A dream?”

I nodded.

“Tell me.”

Doors clicked open behind me, feet in the hall, people coming to see what caused this outburst. I realized alarmed I hadn’t even taken the time to throw on a robe!

He slid me into his chamber, settling me on a stool and kneeling before me. His incredible eyes consumed my attention wholly, drowning out the approaching onlookers.

“What happened?”

“I…it was…” How to explain?

I held up a hand. Why should I explain when I could show him? He took my fingers and I closed my eyes, recalling the vision in full vivacity.

She sat in father’s study, pondering. The curtains blotted out the last of sunset. Embers cast soft shadows across her brooding face, heavy lines of sorrow creasing her brow.

Rattling.

Her head turned.

A face hid in the shadows, only his large silhouette and glittering earring identifying the being.

“John…?” She rose. “Oh John! I cannot-”

He stepped closer, catching the light. His eyes shone wide, pupils brilliantly red.

She trembled. “W-what…?”

His arms circled her, crushing her voice, fingers burrowing, searing into her back. The smell of burnt flesh molted the nose…

Kiren sat back. I could see the thoughts processing, brain working, possibilities churning…

“He is going to kill her!” I gasped.

By now several faces hovered at the exit. Whispers echoed at the suggestion.

“You have to save her!”

He looked at me then back to the ground. “He is not going to kill her.”

My breath caught. I fell to the floor next to him, catching his shoulders and forcing him to look into my eyes.

“What do you mean? I saw it! It is going to happen!”

He met my gaze, brushing my hair back calmly. “What you witnessed is not her death. He…he was turning her.”

I gasped. “No…!”

“Lexy,”

“Please no! Please stop him!”

He touched my chin where I could feel a bruise forming. “I, I cannot.”

“What do you mean cannot? That is what you do! You must!”

“This is different.”

“But you have to do something! She is one of us! You have to-!” Tears burst through as I struggled to comprehend why he’d refuse me.

His arms circled me, pressing my cheek gently against his exposed skin.

“You cannot let her become one of them!” I begged.

“I want to help her. I want to stop it,” he sighed, “but she chose this Alexia. I warned her. I tried to prevent it.”

“What do you mean?” I looked up at him.

“She will not join us. She decided to remain in their world, and I…” His gaze averted.

“You what?”

His brow tightened. “We had an agreement, you and I.” I could see how he struggled issue the next statement: “She is not part of your life anymore.”

I saddened at the realization. He asked me to forsake my family for him, for us…

The tears came thicker now. Could I? Could I stand to dream of my loved ones, to see their fates and never intervene? I agreed to let them go…

But this was different! Sarah would suffer eternally if we did not interfere!

He brought a handkerchief to my wet cheek. “I love you.”

I pushed him away renewed determination. “If you love me you will save her!”

“Alexia,”

I glimpsed movement at the door. The others wanted to intrude but they kept their distance.

“You will save her…if you…”

His jaw tightened. He rose. He rounded to his closet and retrieved a loose vest, sliding it around his shoulders.

“Lester, prepare my horse.” He called fastening buttons and pulling his hair back in a band.

“Yes sir!” The spectators scattered.

I hurried to his side. “Kiren…”

His fingers landed on my cheek. “You are sure about this?”

I nodded.

His heavenly eyes darkened. “I love you Alexia.”

“And I love you.”

His thumb traced my jaw, gaze turned down in consternation. At last he looked at me. Only guileless affection filled his eyes. He kissed me—urgently, passionately, longingly. I lost myself in the connection, feeling the need to penetrate deeper and then I’d been set free.

He brushed my cheek and turned away.

I followed.

I chased him down the hall and into the entry. There he paused for Edward to aid him with a jacket, tucked into some boots, and took a bundle of staples from Nelly.

He stepped to the door, halted and looked up at me. His expression shone grim, smile tight, but in his eyes all the tenderness I could ever hope to find in this life.

He bowed for me and disappeared.

I advanced a step as though yanked by the invisible tie that connected us. When would I see him again? Would he make it in time? Was it wise of me to send him away? Could John hurt him? Had I doomed him? Myself? Both of us?

It wasn’t until I settled back in my room, unable to sleep, that I realized…

He kissed me as though it might be his last.

Chapter 37 Responsibility

I sat. Perspiration left the back of my neck clammy, hands trembling.

Taffeta hangings blocked out the light, pale gold riveted with intentional blemishes. I connected the dots a moment, trying to recall the reason my heart pounded, but the memory had faded into an unwilling subconscious. Then I remembered…

Arik! No, Kiren! He was here!

I leapt up. At the foot of the stairs I caught the sound of voices.

“…this way or that…” Edward.

I hurried toward the kitchen.

“…not long…you will see.” Kiren!

“…lost in your own clutter…muddle headed…” Nelly…

I rounded the door to, “And what do you expect to happen?”

The adorable cook faced my love—his back to me—her elbows stationed on the counter for support while he sipped calmly from a cup. Ethel busied herself putting up dishes behind Nelly as Miles leaned easily in the corner, Edward rubbing his temples and crossing paths with Lester.

Before anyone had a chance to move Kiren rose and approached. How he knew I stood there left me stunned.

All eyes turned absently away as he placed a quick kiss on my lips. I gathered it would have been longer if not for the crowd.

“Sleep well?”

I nodded.

“Good.” He took my hand, entwining fingers, and returned to the counter. “Are there any tarts left?”

He sat and effortlessly pulled me up on his lap. I reddened instantly, but the embarrassment was made worse everyone else’s shock. He returned intentionally oblivious to his saucer and little red book.

“Would you like butter?” Nelly asked me, recovering.

“Yes, thank you.” I hawed, trying to communicate with him the difficulty he put me through, but he feigned over-interest in the miniature script. I tried to slip off his lap and take my own chair, but he wouldn’t have it.

“Well, I had best return to the charts.” Edward bowed and made a hasty escape.

“Yeh, Miles,” Lester started up, but the boy did not seem to be paying attention. He was the only one openly watching me now.

“Miles!” The lad’s attention returned to the runner. “Let’s get to that fountin.”

He nodded, straight brown hair falling loosely over his eyes. He followed Lester out the back, stopping to give me one last expressionless look.

“Here you go dear.” Nelly insisted, handing me the buttered pastry. “Eat up won’t you?”

The back door smacked shut.

I smiled in awkward appreciation.

Ethel rubbed her hands on her apron and exhaled. “Well then, I will be returning to those sheets. Seems someone around here does not realize when the stitching is coming loose.”

Nelly laughed although we felt the comment pointed at her. “Go back into retirement you old goat!”

“Watch who you are calling old Nelle-ninety!”

The cook brushed her off as Ethel departed.

“How about a glass of milk?” She offered easily.

“Thank you.” I took it. “Nelly, are you really…ninety?”

Her eyes turned to Kiren—who nodded absently.

“Ninety-four.” She smirked. “But I am young when compared with that one.” She motioned the direction Ethel had gone. “Two-hundred and sixty.”

I ate humbly, shocked by her blatant confession. I felt by all intents and purposes like a babe.

The cook finished putting dough out to rise and took her leave of us.

“Listen to this:” Kiren spoke finally, pointing to a section of text in his tome and shifting me so that I had no choice but to view it. “‘Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies.’ I agree.”

I gave him a look. “What are you reading?”

“Proverbs.”

“The bible? Are you serious? What are you, some kind of recluse parson?”

“Once.”

That dazed me. “Oh?”

“Friar actually, but that was a long time ago.”

I nodded. My, the things you shouldn’t ask…

He smiled up at me with a teasingly-serious kind of look. “We all have to believe in something Lexy.”

“Christianne.”

“Whatever.” He closed his book. “God is real and he takes a direct hand in our lives.”

“You really believe that?” I pressed.

“Well look at the evidence.” He finally let me down. “He sent me you.”

I blushed.

He kissed my bright cheeks. “Shall we go for a ride?”

I swallowed down what remained of my pastry and followed him out back.

The stable felt strangely off without Miles’ presence, cows moaning at us in confusion.

“I think you would enjoy reading the bible yourself.” Kiren beamed as he removed a saddle from the wall. “Life is easier knowing how deity interacts with man, easier to see the patterns, easier to believe when you glimpse evidences. I find immense satisfaction in the read, though several of the translations are off.”

He stepped into the gray’s stall.

“And you know this because?”

“Well, because I have read some excerpts of the original text.”

Once again I wondered. “In Latin?”

“Oh no, Hebrew and Greek, then translated to Latin.” He synched the girdle. “This is the English version, but I think I shall go back to the Greek. I like the characters.”

“You have read all four?”

He smiled. “Here now.” And he handed me the reins of one of the fastest saddle jobs I’d ever seen.

We emerged from the musty confines. The sun hung lazily to the west, day extremely warm.

“Where are we going?”

He hefted me up. “I thought you liked surprises.”

I realized with sudden shock it had to be June as he climbed up behind me. The seasons had gone by so slowly I never expected summer!

“Ready?” He breathed.

I felt his arms round me. “I am now.”

He kissed the top of my head and off we plodded at a light trot, out into the trees. Amazingly none of them touched us.

“Miles is angry with me,” he sighed, “—on your behest.”

“I am sorry.”

“Nelly too.”

“Oh no.” I moaned. I didn’t envy anyone who fell victim to her wrath.

“I dare say I have even received one or two black looks from Edward. What have you been telling them in my absence?”

I shrugged.

“You have infiltrated my family quite successfully. I think they like you more than they do me.”

“Your family?”

He smiled.

“But Edward said…” I stopped. His fingers had gone rigid against my arm.

“What did Edward say?” The request felt tight.

“Nothing.”

“What did he say?” And he turned me so that he gazed into my eyes. No hiding the truth now.

“Your family was killed in some kind of blood feud.”

He chuffed, gaze turning instantly to the trees. I couldn’t read his expression.

“What did happen to them?”

“Nothing.”

“Kiren please,”

“Nothing.” His eyes had become hard, distant, the place that didn’t allow me in. We covered a good couple miles in the silence before he pulled to a stop and dismounted.

A little rock spring gurgled off to my right, florescent foliage of the most fantastic variety blooming about the grove; magnificent blues, vibrant pinks, vivid yellows and violets. The trees curved around the outskirts, shaped in the form of…people?

He dismounted and took my hands.

“What is this place?” I breathed.

“My own sanctum.” He supplied as I landed. “The one haven no one knows about.”

“You keep it a secret?”

“I refrain from making it known, yes. It is not often I find a moment’s peace.”

I turned to examine the foliage. “These trees are…”

“Yes. Rather fun do you not think?”

I gazed at him in wonder, then back to the living-wooden sculptures.

“What one can do with a little creativity.”

“You grew them?”

He shrugged.

“And the flowers?”

“Foreign mostly. I work hard to maintain them.” And he tickled one as if to demonstrate. It turned its drooping head my direction, crimson plumes revealing a violet and yellow speckled interior. I was speechless. He grinned at me. “I know, strange. What can I say? I have developed quite an attachment to them.”

“Not strange.” I countered. “Well, maybe, but it is a good kind of strange. Makes you feel more…real.”

He smirked. “Because I like flowers?”

“Because you have a hobby.”

“Ah…” He rounded away. “Well I probably have too many of those. Too many for someone with so much demand.”

“What ever do you mean?”

He motioned to the rocky structure and I realized it formed a nice even surface. I took a seat.

“I told you I am a…leader for my kind.”

I nodded.

“Well, it goes deeper than that.”

Deeper? Was that possible?

“I am more like the head guardian of our races—self induced, but responsible nonetheless.”

“Guardian? Why you?”

“I will get to that.” He held up a hand. “But first let me explain.”

I smiled encouragingly.

“When one of us comes of age it is a dangerous time—the period of change in which we are most susceptible to the soulless.” He moved past me. “It is the moment our emotions or passions rage at their height. Any child will be consumed by the soulless in that hour unless they have guidance, protection.”

I nodded pensively. He’d mentioned something about this at Sarah’s.

“The problem is, if they—the soulless do attack there is only one way to fend them off, and I possess that. Accordingly I must make myself available each time one of ours passes through maturity, to be safe.”

Well that answered my query. “How often does that-?”

“Not very. Once a year? Sometimes there are dearths, sometimes an abundance. There have even been occasions when I am needed in two places at once. I tell you that is fun.” He smiled at me.

“Like Miles and I?”

He appeared mildly surprised. “Like you and Miles.”

“So then whom did you choose, Miles or I?”

He laughed. “Thankfully Miles goes most everywhere I do, so I did not have to decide.”

My breath caught. “Then you did come—on my sixteenth birthday?”

His head bobbed briefly. I wondered how differently I would have endured that evening if I’d been aware of his presence.

He knelt and caught my fingers, tracing the nails. “It constituted one of the hardest nights of my life.”

I didn’t understand. “But I was still…ugly.”

He looked up at me confused. “Ugly? What are you talking about?”

“I had not changed yet.”

He was at a loss for speech. Finally he persisted with, “Alexia, you have never been ugly.”

“Not to you maybe.” I skirted demurely. I recalled a time when people politely refrained from commenting my unbecoming physique for my poor parent’s sake.

“How could you ever think yourself ugly—you whom I love?” He tucked closer, staring up into my eyes. “You are the most fascinating creature in all of existence to me, always have been.”

I swallowed, too dazed by the honesty in his eyes to believe anything else. Had I been mistaken? Had this unnatural beauty always been there, locked inside?

He brushed my cheek, bringing me back to reality.

I swallowed. “So you venture off to protect those of us coming of age—so to speak?”

“Yes, but there are other concerns that pull me away from here: when one of us goes rogue and threatens to expose the others,”

“Like Bellezza.”

A nod confirmed this, “or when a mortal becomes ensnared by one of us and the mess of their disappearance has to be sorted out.” He sighed. “Then there are mundane things: moves, changes of identity, transference of property, near discovery, rescues… And the life altering occasions: marriages, deaths, births, christenings, anniversaries… Because I cannot be everywhere at once I have trained others and given assignments, but it is still an awful mess.”

I nodded.

“My job would be significantly easier if not for love. Until recently I loathed the notion, which is what makes our relationship all the more incongruous.” He pressed my fingers to his lips. “This must be fate’s way of putting me in my place.”

I smiled.

His immeasurable eyes chased mine. “I have spent decades building up resistance to every temptation imaginable, but you crumbled all that with a glance.”

“Is that not what it means to be in love?”

His face warmed. “I suppose.”

I moved to kiss him, but he stopped me with a hand to the shoulder.

“You have to know, because I posses the tool that can destroy the soulless they are constantly seeking to extort my weaknesses, of which you I am afraid, are first and foremost.”

That sobered me.

“This is the reason I stayed away. For your safety.”

I bit my lip. “So you are saying they will come after me?”

“They cannot harm you, not here, not with me, but they would.” His hand tightened. “Yes, given the chance. They would use you, your family—anything you hold dear. They may still. You have to be prepared for that, especially since I cannot always be by your side.”

I nodded slowly.

“I hate to do it, but I must insist you forsake Sarah, your father, Rupert and all others—for their safety, for yours,” he stared openly into my eyes, “for mine.”

I let the news settle, taking his hand and squeezing it purposefully. “This is what you meant by leaving behind everything I love?”

“My life is in your hands Alexia.”

“Christianne.”

His drew me against him. “Whoever. I cannot lose you.”

Chapter 36 Dispell

Arik-Kiren aided me onto his horse, his speckled gray and quickly saddled up behind me, returning his arms to their rightful place.

Lester and Edward battled back and forth about some trivial household detail while Ethel pledged to join us soon. Off we flew, through the deepening night, and though the air snapped with chill I felt none of it. The warmth of his touch, the amazing realization I could look up and there he sat—it’s the only thing I comprehended. I stared the entire way.

I wanted to speak, ask a hundred things, know the mysteries behind this house—how he’d come to be here, his names, why he worked for Northam…but it was enough simply to be near him. I didn’t need more. I wouldn’t remember a thing he told me anyway so I held my tongue, studying his beautiful face for fear it would escape me again.

Two lamps out front warmed the house, tiny lights glittering in the lower floors. Drooping dark branches made it feel cozy, navy sky almost totally obscured.

The stallion halted.

Arik-Kiren leapt down and I fell into his grasp. His eyes touched mine curiously, asking what I thought of his home—probably not realizing I’d seen it a hundred times before. My silent response must have pleased him, for his smile widened.

Nelly welcomed us back as she kicked Miles out the door to attend to the horse. Even her loud mood and bewildered stares could not disturb our calm.

Arik-Kiren guided me like in a dream from the entry to the library, where he sat in the corner of the wide leather couch and pulled me across his lap, mouth persistently engaging mine. The others could be heard scuttling by but they didn’t disturb us.

At last he held me. The fear of loss had subsided, but the assurance of his solidity hadn’t quite taken hold.

I took a deep breath, head resting against his chest. “How is it possible?”

His gaze turned to mine questioningly.

“How can I be so happy?”

His grin broadened. I mapped the edges of his face, brushing back the bronze locks.

“I ask myself the same.” He kissed my forehead.

When I returned to his face, a crinkle broke the brow. His eyes met mine. He closed them.

“What is it?” I whispered.

His lips pursed together before he voiced in his all too controlled baritone, “How soon must we return you to your father’s house?”

“Never.”

He squeezed me. “But what of your intended husband?”

I shook my head, “I have no intended husband, unless you care to volunteer?”

He laughed. “And all this was but a ruse?”

“I do not think you heard correctly.” I informed. “I am Christianne, and I have no impending duties or family. I am an orphan.”

He smiled sadly. “You are giving them up?”

“It is all ready done.” I looked the other direction to keep him from seeing the forming tears. “Father cannot tolerate me embracing what I am. He will never understand.”

“That is not true.” He lifted my chin.

“But it is. Why else would he agree to marry me off—shuffle me into society? Why else would he hate you?”

Kiren silenced. His attention turned to the floor and I sensed some greater knowledge waited in his stillness.

“He says tragedy follows you.” I persisted. “He believes all our kind are doomed to sorrow, and that we bring it upon those with whom we associate.”

His eyes leapt suddenly to mine. “You talked with him about me?”

“Well yes.”

“Did he learn about our—”

I nodded, uncertain how he’d receive the news.

He looked away, groaning. When he resumed speaking it was hardly more than a whisper. “Do you want to know why he hates me?”

I nodded, eagerly.

“I asked her not to go with him.”

“Her?”

“Dana did not listen. When she died, she did so begging me to watch over you. I wanted to honor her wishes, and so I have, but it was best that you be raised by your father, not us.” His hand tightened over mine. “He hates me because…because I had to reveal what passed to his marital partner.” He paused, individually examining each of my fingers. “Ironic then that I should fall in love with you, ask you to leave behind your home and play the hypocrite.”

“Why did you not?” I breathed.

“Not what?”

“Ask me to leave with you?”

The serious air about him startled and excited me. “I intended to.”

I held my breath.

“I meant to force your hand at Sarah’s, make you choose, but I… It does not matter anymore.” He dismissed the discomfort. “Tell me, what is the cause of all this commotion? Did you run away?”

I gazed innocently upon him. “Did I? Is that what they think?”

“I cannot say.”

“You did not speak with Sarah?”

“I…” He watched me steadily. “She believes you went astray, but I…”

“You what?”

His mouth snapped shut. He traced my cheek absently with a finger. At last the words came. “You have inherent abilities my love. We all do. Yours have begun to surface, but I have yet to discover their extent. Have you?”

“Abilities?”

He climbed up and caught the end of a potted vine, the only plant in the room. “You glimpsed mine, but let me demonstrate the full scope. Do not be afraid.”

I didn’t see how playing with a creeper could possibly cause fear, but no sooner had I thought this than the limb sprouted. It spilled over the shelves and writhed forward. I leapt back, pressing into the sofa.

He let go. It stopped.

“Touch it.”

I leaned forward tentatively and reached for the plant. It felt ordinary.

“How did you…?”

“Growth.” He smiled. “I can enhance the generation of organisms and shape them.”

I looked at the creeper again, uncertain how I should feel about all this.

He approached slowly, watching me for signs of distress. He must have decided I wouldn’t run because he slid next to me.

“The question is dearest Alexia,” capturing my hands, “what can you do?”

I shook my head. “Nothing.” The word sounded less than a whisper. Then I corrected with, “Dream the future? Nearly die?”

He laughed.

“Did you wish to escape?”

“No.” I insisted.

“Not even underneath—in the deepest recess of your conscience?”

“I do not…I did not have anywhere to go.”

He closed his eyes. I witnessed silent torment pass over him. “Forgive me.”

I nestled back into his embrace.

“When we first start our abilities stem from suppressed emotion. Take Lester for example. He wanted to run away. He ran—faster than any being has ever run.”

I startled. “He is one of us?”

“They all are Alexia.”

“Christianne.”

“Whatever.”

I felt the wonder swell from unknown recesses. “Ethel, Nelly, Miles, Edward?”

“Every last one.”

“What can they do?”

A cautious frown crept over his face. “You will learn.”

“M-Miles, he talks with animals-”

“Among other things.”

That puzzled me. “And Nelly, it has to be something with food-”

He chuckled. “They are unique. Many passionate share abilities, especially in a bloodline, but these, these are some of the rarest talents you will encounter. I do not advise prying however. What one can do is rather personal, unless volunteered. Which reminds me, you should not tell anyone about your dreams.”

“Why not?”

“Trust me.”

I nodded. “And you work for Northam? Why?”

His froze. “I think you are a bit mixed up.”

“Mixed up?”

He looked away. “I am Northam.”

I gawked, waiting for him to start laughing, but he continued to grimace at the wall.

“You?”

He nodded.

“That is impossible! You would have to be-”

“Allow me the opportunity to explain.” I quieted as he took a deep breath and started again. “I am what you might consider a leader.”

“A leader?” The idea seemed too incredible. “Like a magistrate or sovereign?”

“Like a friend.” He corrected. “A friend who cares very deeply about what becomes of them.” He rose and returned to the vine he’d spontaneously sprouted. “All of them.”

“How old are you?” I managed. “Edward said you had been his master forty years.”

His hand hovered over the life form. “Edward often exaggerates.”

I peered at him.

He gave in finally with, “I am older than I ought to be, and younger at the same time.” His eyes landed on my face. “I have not felt so…young at anything in a long time.”

“How old?” I repeated. “How many years?”

His mouth twitched at one end. “Centuries.”

My brows shot straight up. “Centuries?”

He smiled and looked away.

I tried to swallow that one, but it would not go down. “You do not look a day beyond twenty-three!”

“Another of my gifts.” It sounded grudging.

“Centuries?” I ingested the news.

Centuries. Huh. On the bright side, at least he hadn’t said millennia.

I shook it off.

“What of the others, ones like me? Will I grow old and wither while you remain in this façade of youth?”

“I cannot be sure.” He breathed.

I sensed he didn’t want to talk about it. I’d have to sort this one out on my own.

“When did your abilities start?” I tried the new subject, then flinched. “How old were you?”

“I have always had them. My breed is different, purer.”

Purer? Should I be insulted?

“You mean better.” I corrected.

“No, I mean purer.” He blinked genuinely. He sighed. “In the early days they all were, but most like me were taken to a new world and only a fraction of our kind remained.”

“The twenty-three.”

“The twenty-three.” He echoed. “Further diminished by the birth of the soulless.”

“And then there were ten.”

“Only ten.” He agreed. “It was inevitable we should eventually mix with humanity—that or cease to exist. Mortal blood has diluted much of our heritage.”

“We?” I caught. “Am I to understand you were one of the ten?”

“No.”

But he did not meet my gaze. Curious.

“The others—not the twenty-three, but everyone else,” I pressed, “where were they taken?”

“To another land, one we cannot access from here.”

I rose. “What land?”

“A different one.” That appeared to be all I’d get. His stern face softened. “I do not know how to explain it. Perhaps in time you will come to understand.”

“My mother, was she purer?”

“I do not know.”

“She was not one of the ten?”

His head shook.

“What about my grandparents, or their grandparents? Are any of them still alive? How far back does my line go?”

“I have searched, but am unable to learn anything of your mother’s heritage. It is as though she simply materialized. Perhaps Edward will be able to assist us in our hunt.”

“Edward?” I puzzled.

“He has a mind for lists and numbers. Keeps me straight on most of the important facts.” He smiled.

I fought back the alarming number of questions now battling for consciousness as his fingers stroked up my arm.

“How much of this can you stomach in one sitting?”

I shrugged. “As much as you ask of me.”

He halted, listening to something distant, something I couldn’t hear. His eyes returned to mine. “It is late.”

“Is it?”

He touched the lines around my eyes. “You are tired.”

“Am I?” I hugged him fiercely. “Do not make me leave you, even to sleep.”

He kissed me on the head, and I felt his voice darken. “I will not.”

* * *

I woke periodically through the night, frightened he’d gone, but he remained, pillowing me on the library couch. I dreamed, dreamed about home and Father weeping, dreamed about Sarah solemnly embracing John, dreamed about my gloriously intriguing love—that he led me somewhere, somewhere far away and if I took my eyes off him he’d be gone…

I opened my eyes. Relief rushed over me of the greatest degree. He sat, toying with my hair.

“Kiren…”

“I swear I shall never tire of that.”

I kissed him. “Did you sleep?”

“Why on earth would I?”

“Because everyone sleeps.”

He tucked a finger under my chin, turning it his direction. “And lose a single instant with you?”

The door plumed inward. Nelly and Ethel hurried in.

“There you are!” The cook bellowed.

Ethel halted, fixated on the vast creeper that occupied half the room. Her meditative frown turned questioningly to my love.

“Could you be a more selfish lout?” Nelly raged.

He smiled at her. “Good morning Nelly. Ethel, I am glad you have rejoined us.” Helping me up.

The cook rallied on, “Can’t you see she’s exhausted? Look at her! What are you thinking keeping her up all night? And with what excitement you must have filled her head…!”

He stretched, yawning.

“You two are no good for each other!” She accused as Ethel swept past her to my side.

Nelly burned another dark look on him. He laughed.

“You have a bed awaiting you.” My soft-spoken benefactress took my arm. I felt too tired to protest.

He cleared his throat. “I must inform you ladies, I promised not to send her away, so as long as she insists…” And they all looked at me.

If Nelly’s scowl hadn’t been enough convince me to back down, Ethel’s patient curiosity would have done the trick.

“No, I-I will go.”

“If that is the case,” he leaned toward me and exhaled, “sleep sweetly.”

I felt the warmth of his breath, the fresh scent that always accompanied his person and it left me delirious for him. He kissed me abruptly and remained as Ethel towed me away.

“…giddy idiot…” I heard Nelly muttering as we entered the main hall.

Ethel agreed, “Does a heart good to see him that way.”

I was glad she approved.

She brought me upstairs to the largest of the guest’s chambers where the bedding had been turned down. She helped me undress and settle in.

“I have been meaning to tell you,”

I looked into her smooth face, waiting for the revelation to break.

“I knew your mother child.”

I started at the news.

“I found her in the woods, like you.”

“Like me?”

“I do not know where she came from or why she wandered the forest alone—barely a child…” She brushed a lock from my face. “She was as good as my own. When I saw her beautiful little box in your possession, I knew you for hers.”

“Dana?”

She tucked the blanket up about my neck. “And no soulless is going harm my Dana’s child.”

“It was you!” I realized. “You rescued me from the soulless—you in the mist!”

“No dear. I am the mist.” Her fingers thinned into a haze and briefly disappeared. A second later they solidified, bearing my mother’s gift—the one I left at her cottage.

“Do not be afraid.” She assured, placing the crimson box in my care. “You are safe here with us, always. Rest now.”

I nodded.

“So young.” Her smile drew on my face wearily. “So innocent. Stay that way.”

And she left.

Despite the amassing quandaries to ponder—or perhaps as a result of their abundance, I was asleep the instant the door closed.

* * *

“Arik!”

Sarah…?

I opened my eyes. A smoking pistol burned the rug where it lay, next to my hand…

I slid away from the weapon, disgusted, disoriented, frightened—confused. The back of a mahogany upholstered couch met my gaze. Father’s couch—in Father’s study!

I clambered to my feet. Sarah and John stood next to the hearth, eyes turned to the back of the room. I looked. Kiren lay in the corner, blood defiling his white shirt, streaking the carpet…

Chapter 35 Broken

He stood, handsome as the first time we met, so much the same and so much different. Overgrown ginger hair waved about his face, stout chin turned questioningly up, shoulders once proud daring to lift again. He stepped closer, deep eyes never leaving my face.

Tears threatened. I tensed, preparing for a rejection I knew would shatter my heart completely.

His hands reached slowly, one landing on my cheek, the other halting uncertainly in midair. I froze, too astounded by my quaking knees to think.

“You are alive!” He drew me to him with such force that the rest of the world disappeared. “Blessed God in heaven, you are alive!”

Tears flowed. I could do nothing to stop them. The captor of my heart had returned and he loved me!

Or did I mistake his actions for something else? Could his relief be nothing more than gratitude his “assignment” had not met an untimely demise?

I should hate him. I had to remember that! He abandoned me, and he couldn’t possibly be…Northam’s assistant?

But even as I tried to hold onto the anger and disbelief, I felt it slipping away. The pull of his fingers against my back, the way his nose nestled next to my ear, the power with which he crushed me to him, all these witnessed that he loved me. I felt complete, whole for the first time in ages!

Ethel, Mister Hampton and the cantankerous Lester exited the room at our display.

The feel of his lips against my temple prompted unexpected joy, utter euphoria spreading from where his skin touched mine clear down to the tips of my toes. He loved me, and I loved him!

His mouth caressed its way toward mine as flashes of thought grazed through my conscious: him standing outside my door in Sarah’s Wilhamshire home, listening to my ragged torrents of anguish… Him sitting at the foot of my bed while I slumbered, reaching out, stopping himself, withdrawing from the chamber… Gazing up from the gardens though a dark sky at my lit window, fists clenched as he fought returning…

I pushed him away.

We stood watching one another as I struggled to comprehend what I had witnessed.

“You left me!” I remembered.

He looked down.

Tears resurfaced, blurring his troubled face. I didn’t know if I should lean toward him or away, seek to comfort or procure a safe distance, frightened he would awaken this need once more only to disappear.

“With John there, and the danger, how could you…?”

His brows drew, still unwilling to meet my eyes.

“I was nearly, I could have been…!” I swallowed back the terror of my near-rape. “If not for Rupert…!”

His jaw clenched. A tight line appeared between his closed eyes.

I couldn’t look at him anymore. I turned my back. Quiet filled the gap as I wiped my eyes, attempting to silence raging emotions.

He abandoned me. And now, now when my heart had found solace, now that I had a home I loved more than any man, now when I had finally begun to believe in happiness—now he returned to crush my hopes!

I could not afford to love him.

“I will make this easy for you.” I whispered. “You should go.”

No response.

His fingers slid over my arms, causing a shiver, mouth coming down next to my ear. “No.”

He was kissing me, the sheer fervor breaking me entirely, making me to forget why I’d been angry, stealing me away to that haunted silence that had become his heart.

He held me firmly away, grip terse. I tried to push back into his embrace but he was unyielding.

“I never left.”

I blinked. “What?”

He looked as though he wished he could rescind the statement.

“You were gone! You could not possibly have…”

He inhaled shakily.

“You were there all along?” I attempted.

His eyes shut, lips pressed together in determined force. My grip had tightened on his sleeve.

“Watching me?”

His cheek twitched.

“You sat by and watched me cry?!” I pushed him back—the better alternative to smacking him, for which he appeared prepared. “Why did you…? How could you…!”

“You did not need me.”

My jaw dropped. “You are the most conceited, selfish, heartless a-”

I would have continued, but his lips halted mine again. They pressed urgently, sorrowfully, needingly. They felt so real I forgot my wrath.

“Every day, every day I fought. Just to hold you, to feel your lips, to touch your hair…” He kissed my locks, brushing a finger over my mouth. “I argued you would forgive me in time. You have no idea how difficult it was to stand by, to let others protect you!” He pressed me firmly against him. “And when that wretched blueblood attacked you,” I felt the tremor shake through him. “I could have killed him Alexia. I almost did!” His fingers pressed rigidly across my back, “But no. I could not interfere. You had a life to live and I had to let you.”

“A life that was not worth living without you!”

“You still do not comprehend the implications of loving me.” He sobered. “But you will. It is time. I will tell you anything you want to know—anything that I can.”

“Why did you make me think you had left?”

“You have no idea how terribly I hungered to break the silence, but I did it for your safety. And then, that night…” He shuddered. “Oh Alexia, I would have given anything to hold you!”

I remembered the night vision, the tears streaming down his infallible cheeks…

“I nearly broke. Nothing could have kept me from you. Nothing but you.”

I looked into his face. “Me?”

“You do not remember?”