Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2)

by Crystal Collier

  The first of the Soulless slipped into the clearing.

  “Go, you foolish woman,” he commanded.

  Elizabeth took Ethel’s hand as the mist swirled into the air.

  “I will still come after you!” Elizabeth growled between hazy whorls.

  She wouldn’t. She knew how utterly she depended on him for her own protection. The whiteness swallowed her and Kiren turned.

  Wraiths poured into the glade, silent as midnight, ethereal cloaks obscuring all but their murderous crimson eyes as they circled him. Decay assaulted his nose. Their bodies should have been laid to rest long ago but were kept from their graves by this impossible curse.

  His heart sped.

  How many of these poor souls had he failed? He couldn’t think about that now. It was time to release them from their suffering.

  Before they finished him.

  Kiren lifted his medallion. He sucked in and focused his energies through the pendant.

  Blinding light bloomed from his fist and warmth radiated from the metal beneath his palm. Rays descended like pure sunshine, settling over the upturned heads of the now motionless creatures. Kiren lifted his face to the warmth. It was heaven, beckoning him to abandon his physical tabernacle and ascend. His body weighed him as though the earth wrapped its fists about his legs.

  A wraith thumped to the ground. Its decaying corpse lay sprawled, rotted fingers outstretched beneath frayed cloth. Others reached for the light, one by one.

  A tug pulled at Kiren’s gut—the release of strength—the price of freeing the tortured soul.

  Another fell.

  Three more.

  Kiren gasped for air. He clutched at his chest. An invisible hand had reached down his throat and seized his lungs. It tore upward, pulling him inside out. He dropped to his knees, unable to breathe past the pain.

  Bodies pelted the ground about him.

  Power suctioned out of him like sand through a sieve, flowing faster and faster. Only a few black pillars stood in his hazing periphery.

  He tightened his grip around his medallion. He had to hold on. Just a little longer...

  Blood stung his nose. Warm liquid dripped down his lips. The whiteness about him winked into black, glistening black.

  Thunk.

  Nine

  Close

  Kiren blinked into wakefulness. Night stars glittered against the cool metal of his pendant, lying in the moss next to his head. He sucked in a breath, startled by how thin he felt, like the life had been leeched out of him, leaving a narrow husk behind. He tried to lift his hand. It didn’t move.

  How much time had slipped by while he was unconscious?

  His heart beat too slowly. Not enough oxygen flowed through him. Very soon his brain, then body, would cease functioning. He slumped into the earth, breathing and focusing on the life about him; the moss, the breeze, the call of a bat, slumbering insects beneath the soil.

  Please, he asked.

  The ground beneath him warmed. Minute swirls of energy seeped into his prostrate form, tingling through his skin.

  Enough.

  He closed his eyes and utter a silent prayer of thanks. The murmur of rustling material perked his ears. A bare foot whispered away from moss, and pressed down again, closer. So careful.

  Hurried footsteps darted toward him. A hand landed across his brow, trembling, then at the pulse in his neck. “Master, you do too much.”

  He tried to smile for Ethel, but his cheek merely twitched.

  Ten

  Rights

  Alexia was relieved when Ethel returned with Kiren, but the pallor of his skin set off the glacial fire of his eyes before they closed and would open no more. Alexia had only seen him this drained once, and it terrified her.

  “There must have been fifty Soulless lying in that field,” Ethel said. “It is a wonder he is breathing at all.”

  His head rested in Alexia’s lap while she brushed hair away from his face. “How many has he subdued in the past?”

  “Once as many as twenty, but not after draining himself with so much healing.” Ethel rubbed her lower back. “Let us pray there is no lasting damage.”

  “Did he burn himself out again?”

  Alexia’s head jerked up.

  Lamplight illuminated leaves, melting away the tree’s shadows to reveal an aged fellow with bouncing gray locks, carrying a candle lantern and wearing a handsome dress suit stitched so finely it could only have been spun by Ethel’s loving skill.

  “Edward.” Alexia blushed, recalling how Edward had approached her father on Kiren’s behalf two years back, causing her to believe he petitioned for her hand.

  He bowed in true gentlemanly fashion. “Nelly sent me to retrieve you before she worries us out of a winter storage. She must have eaten seven jars of pickles already.”

  A blur of motion gusted into the clearing, catching her skirts and whipping them. Alexia reached to steady herself and met youthful black eyes. Lester grinned toothily and gave a nod. Those eyes didn’t look right against his aged skin and wind-tossed hair, but they never had.

  “All accounted fer?” he asked.

  Bellezza hissed.

  “Why is the young Bellezza here?” Edward asked Lester quietly.

  “She has decided to join our faction.” Alexia turned on them, receiving startled stares from both men.

  “And such excellent timing!” Edward straightened his coat and turned to Bellezza with a bow. “You possess the strength, do you not?” It wasn’t a question. He catalogued all the Passionate and their unique gifts.

  The girl’s glare narrowed.

  “How very fortuitous! The estate is not far if you would be so kind as to carry the Master.”

  Bellezza rolled her eyes. Shaking her head, she muttered, “What I get for siding with fools.” She picked up Kiren, shifting him over her shoulder like he weighed no more than a shawl. Turning an expectant stare on Edward, she growled, “Well?”

  “Right this way!” He led on.

  “Sparrow.” Lester helped her up and fell into step beside her, almost as though he were guarding her.

  “You do not approve of Bellezza joining us,” she guessed.

  “There be some souls what are so tortured they ain’t never goin’ to straighten out.” He nodded toward Bellezza, his gaze filled with compassion and earnestness Alexia yearned to embrace rather than shun. She and Lester had rarely spoken, but he did possess a kindness, a steadiness she had witnessed only in Kiren. “She is one never to be trusted.”

  “Is that why you treat her with such disdain?”

  Lester wrinkles fell slack. “Had ye seen what she’s done...”

  Alexia toyed with her engagement ring. Kiren had confessed that Bellezza killed several noblemen, and she’d heard whispers of how it was accomplished—severed hands, impaling, hanging, drowning in brandy, fires...all slow jobs, torturing her victims beforehand.

  “But you disliked her before that,” Alexia reminded.

  His head bowed. “Be careful ‘bout her. Don’t trust her.”

  She’d been told she trusted too easily, that she believed too readily in the good of others, and perhaps that was true, but she didn’t want to live in a world where every relationship was shrouded in suspicion. It would kill her.

  A half-grin puckered Lester’s cheek. “S’pose that wedding ain’t goin’ to happen tonight. But it will happen.”

  She blinked up at him, baffled by his need to reassure her. Of course it was going to happen.

  “Ye must guard him from the beasts what will steal yer happiness,” he continued. “Ye can’t be blinded to the dangers.”

  “I will be careful.”

  “Even if it means denyin’ yer own kin?”

  She glanced at Lester and bit her lip, that stab of sorrow resurfacing. He was definitely referring to Sarah.

  Her aunt was dead to her. Dead. And not dead. As one of the Soulless, Sarah would endure eternally, chained to the man—no beast—who had claimed her sym
pathies and damned her to this reality. Insatiable hunger would drive her to feast on the remaining Passionate.

  How would Alexia react if her aunt suddenly appeared? Embrace her as a friend? Run?

  An ominous building emerged from between trees. Cobble echoed under foot as they rounded the pleading angel fountain, filled with glimmering water and mulch. Grand doors waited and they slid under their arc, mahogany seraphim in their surface foreboding.

  Edward stepped in ahead, lighting the tapers to either side with his lamp and pressing the doors open.

  Alexia was home. Not her father’s house, but the place she’d truly come alive—the place she hoped to make her own, once married.

  Glazed wooden floors reflected back the light, bringing out an inlaid pattern she suddenly recognized mimicked the forest floor. Stairs waited ahead, dark but welcoming, factions of light catching the stained glass at their apex.

  The ground trembled. A glass chandelier above them jingled menacingly.

  “Nelly?” Edward called casually.

  Bellezza turned wide eyes to Alexia.

  She gazed back, startled by the girl’s reaction, wondering what it meant.

  “Scared the livin’ daylights out of me!” A squat woman emerged from the right hall. A kerchief was tucked about her round face, occasional corkscrews peeking from below. She hugged a dusty apron across her wide form, tiny black eyes dancing about the chamber. “It would do to give some warnin’.”

  Alexia clasped both hands in front of her. She’d missed Nelly’s rampant chatter and motherly bullying—and her pastries. Definitely her pastries.

  Nelly’s face bloomed into a cheery melon. “Alexia! Bless my soul!” She circled, squinting, the scent of cloves and dough wafting up. “Look at this, you’ve thinned out!” She jabbed at her stomach. “You haven’t been eating proper.”

  “You are not accustomed to seeing me in a stomacher.” Alexia laughed.

  “Stomacher, posh! I know starvation when I see it.” The woman froze. All mirth—all life drained from her merry cheeks. She stepped past Alexia through the door. “The Master, he’s not—”

  “Overexerted.” Edward placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Well, that’s a fine way to spend your weddin’ night.”

  Alexia’s cheeks heated. “We are not—”

  “Of course you’re not.” She waved a hand. “But you shoulda been.”

  Bellezza carried Kiren up the stairs into the west wing with Edward leading the way. Alexia followed with a candle.

  Windows paneled the front wall of Kiren’s chamber, covered in rich brocade drapes. In the corner sat a simple desk. Along the back wall a bureau and several dark-framed portraits hung, as well as wide curtains which revealed a narrow balcony beyond night-blackened panes. Directly center stood his bed—four posters intricately carved with blossoms and leaves. Emerald hangings waited to be drawn about the mattress, and though it should smell like dust, a hint of Kiren’s oaken musk hung in the air, quickening Alexia’s pulse.

  Edward rolled a meager mat at the foot of the bed.

  A mat?

  Alexia scowled at the bed.

  Bellezza snorted. “He would.” She deposited Kiren, heaved a laugh and strutted out into the hall.

  “Edward, will he not rest more peacefully—?”

  “No, my dear.” He smiled an apologetic grin, joining her in the doorway. “He never sleeps there.”

  “Then why should he possess such a fine piece of furniture?”

  Edward shrugged, pulling the barrier shut. “Should anyone come upon this house or should we be forced to allow entry, such furnishings would not seem out of the ordinary. However, if for so grand a building the Master’s chamber housed only a rug?”

  “I thought no one could find this house.”

  He smiled. “No human or Soulless. Still that leaves some wide category of individuals. Believe me, the Master has contingency plans should anyone else find their way here.”

  “Other Passionate?” She suggested, “From the Breeders?”

  His smile faded. “I have first watch tonight. It is possible Ethel’s twin will follow her through the mist, and while I think Sybil is quite noble, we do not want her or her Breeder friends taking us by surprise.”

  “Ethel has a twin?”

  “They share a bond. One can join the other simply on a whim. Time and again they check in—occasionally in a friendly manner, but most often in a less than cordial way. You see, Sybil is precisely everything Ethel is not—fierce, unreasonable, jealous. She has chosen a different cause to support and it affords the two some pain.”

  Alexia crossed her arms. “And that is why Ethel resides at that shack in the woods? Lest her sister should come looking for her?”

  Edward sighed. “It is very unwise for my dear, sweet wife to occupy the same space our Master hides so many of his secrets.”

  That one hit Alexia over the head like a bludgeon. They were married. It made sense. She could hardly imagine someone as good as Ethel engaging in immoral practices—especially after Kiren’s revelation about their laws—and certainly the mist maiden and Edward had a physical relationship.

  Which she didn’t want to think about.

  Alexia frowned. “You never told me you were married.”

  “You did not ask.” He winked.

  Bellezza stood cross-armed in the hall.

  “Come, dear,” he said to the child, “allow me to settle you in.”

  “I can show her where to stay,” Alexia volunteered, certain she didn’t want Bellezza near any of the men in her life after what she’d learned in the woods.

  His brow rose. He glanced back and forth between them. “If that is what you would like. Goodnight to you both, then.” He bowed and returned to the lower levels.

  Alexia smiled at the girl, but Bellezza returned a calculating scowl. She likely had Alexia’s motive figured out, but it mattered little.

  “Right this way.” Alexia aimed toward the guest chambers at the opposite end of the hall.

  “You have no idea how deep you are in this dung pile.” Bellezza scoffed, eyes traveling up and down the walls.

  “And here I thought it was a rather fine house.”

  Bellezza huffed, leveling next to her. “Your life is going to be plenty miserable without my help. Sorry I tried to kill you.”

  “I do not mind.”

  “Honestly?” She sneered. “I would mind if I were you. I would mind a great deal. I would mind so much I might kill you for attempting to kill me!”

  Alexia laughed awkwardly. “I am afraid killing people is not something I do.”

  “Yet.” The child glanced up dolefully. Her frown deepened. “You will learn that anything worth living for is worth killing for.”

  Alexia stopped at the second guest chamber. What emotional scars severed Bellezza’s ethics so severely in those impressionable childhood years that she couldn’t imagine a peaceful living? How had she endured? “We have lived very different lives. I should like to know of yours, if you are willing.”

  Bellezza frowned, swiped Alexia’s candle and moved into the darkness. The door slammed shut in her face.

  Expected.

  Eleven

  Desire

  Morning roused Alexia to a slightly less aching head, and the whisper of action on the floors below. She halted at the top of the stairs, examining the sculpted flowers across Kiren’s closed door. Surely he should have awakened by now. She wrung her fingers. Perhaps his injuries were greater than could be sustained. Perhaps he was slowly slipping away into the next life because no one considered he might need medical treatment.

  Or perhaps she simply ached to see him.

  She tested the ivory knob and the door clicked open.

  Kiren lay where they’d left him, unmoving except for the slow rise and fall of his chest. His pendant bulged beneath his coat.

  No harm could come of examining it closer while he slept, could it? He might never know, and she was dyin
g to understand its importance.

  Alexia entered and pulled back the curtain, sending a stream of light across his comatose body. She neared slowly and glanced again at the open door. To close it, to isolate them...

  Breathe.

  She knelt. The cool buttons loosed easily beneath her fingers and his coat fell back. The charm had found its way between his vest and thin shirt. She touched the chain tentatively, sliding along its length, gliding toward the hidden treasure beneath his waistcoat...

  Fingers seized hers.

  She jumped.

  Fierce blue eyes sought hers beneath lowered brows, the purest night sky littered by a sea of stars. She looked away, furtively.

  “Are you undressing me?” he whispered.

  “What?” Her cheeks flamed. She backed away.

  Kiren rolled onto his elbow and pressed off the floor, stumbling. Alexia reached to steady him as he propped against one of the bed’s four posters. He shook off the dizziness and pulled her close.

  Her breath caught. The press of his hands on her back, the heat of his body so near hers, the aroma of his oaken musk... Her heart thumped like a rabbit’s, and she couldn’t help thinking: very soon he would be hers.

  She couldn’t meet his stare. “Kiren, I-I was not attempting to—”

  A finger landed across her lips as he probed her gaze. His eyebrows tightened. He released her.

  “Shall I assist you?” He slipped out of his coat.

  She gasped. “Kiren!”

  He chuckled, unbuttoning his waistcoat.

  Alexia could not believe what he was doing and she couldn’t look away. He wouldn’t honestly undress before her and chance such overwhelming temptation, would he?

  The waistcoat dropped to the floor, leaving a thin shirt to veil his chest. His pendant sat atop, a flattened pewter diamond with symbols etched across the surface like calligraphy-styled runes. A larger Z with a cross stroke and rounded tail engraved its center, encircled by a ring of smaller characters.