Thorne (Random Romance)

by Charlotte McConaghy

  ‘All of them.’

  ‘Jonah read them,’ Isadora replied. ‘He saw ignorance, of a kind. He explained that they were too muddled in the head to be truly aware of why they were doing it. He thought it must have been due to warder manipulation.’

  ‘So there are illegal warders using Pirenti soldiers to move their victims north,’ I mused. ‘It is clever – if anyone is discovered, it will be the soldiers. But what purpose does it all serve? And why you?’

  ‘They wanted Jonah,’ Penn said. ‘His magic.’

  ‘So they’re looking for warders they can recruit,’ Finn surmised. ‘Which is why they took me too.’ Then she added, ‘And I think they want bonded couples.’

  ‘Why?’ Isadora asked.

  ‘That first leg of the journey. Sin’s men were looking for warders and bonded couples.’

  ‘You think it connected?’ I asked her.

  Finn nodded. Didn’t explain why.

  We mulled it over for a while. Two things we now had to deal with. The end to the bond, which we were no closer to finding than we had been on day one. And rogue warders kidnapping people.

  ‘My da’s information could be in the berserker mountain,’ I said finally. ‘And the warders are taking people north. So I will go into the ice and hope to find answers to either issue.’

  ‘Not alone,’ Isadora said.

  ‘You would not survive in the ice. I say this not to insult, but because it is too dangerous to trifle with such truth.’

  ‘You expect me to come this far and then give up?’ she demanded.

  ‘In the morning,’ Finn interrupted. ‘Tonight we sleep. In the morning we decide.’

  Isadora’s jaw clenched, but she nodded.

  To me, Finn said, ‘I’ll sit with my brother a while.’

  I nodded, sharing a long look with her, then took Penn and steered him out to another room.

  ‘You ready to sleep, mate?’ I asked him. He shook his head, then promptly walked to the window and climbed out. ‘Penn!’

  Poking my head out, I saw him scamper down dead creepers on the side of the building. Quickly I descended the stairs inside and circled around to the courtyard. It was empty, but I could smell the boy, and found him in the stables.

  He was sitting inside one of the stalls, nuzzling a sleeping horse. ‘Shhh,’ he ordered me.

  I nodded, watching him. Carefully I entered the stall and sat down in the straw. Penn was stroking the horse’s brown hair in time with its breathing; it was amazing that it had not spooked at our entry, but remained calmly on the ground.

  ‘They give you peace?’ I asked.

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Do you miss Griggor?’

  Again he didn’t respond. And then, abruptly, he said, ‘I had a pegasis.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘He was the first Griggor. I belonged to him.’

  I had seen the way Ava was with her pegasis Migliori, and knew it to be a very deep bond.

  ‘They killed him,’ Penn said, emotionlessly.

  I blinked, felt something in my chest tighten. ‘Who did?’

  ‘They took his energy and he died.’ He stroked the horse again and again. ‘Now they’ve escaped.’ My mouth was dry. ‘Who, Penn?’

  ‘Ma and Da.’

  I gazed at him in the dark. ‘It could have been anyone who escaped.’

  ‘It was them.’ He looked at me then. Met my eyes, which was unusual for him. ‘They have rot inside. They’re going to hurt people.’

  Finn

  Isadora crossed to sit in the window, and I was curious about the fact that she wouldn’t leave Jonah, even now that I was here.

  ‘What’s happened between you?’ I asked bluntly.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You care for each other.’

  She didn’t look at me, but I could feel her discomfort rolling off her in waves.

  ‘I don’t want him hurt,’ I said, not because she didn’t already know that, but simply because something in me felt the need to say it out loud. For myself more than for her, probably. ‘I don’t know anything about you,’ I added.

  ‘There isn’t much to know.’

  ‘I don’t believe this is just about the money.’

  ‘Am I meant to care what you believe?’

  ‘Isadora,’ I said. ‘I’m trying. You don’t like me. But you’ve saved my brother’s life, and I want for there to be something more between us. I want … This whole thing has to mean something, doesn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can’t we make it mean something then?’ When she didn’t respond I shook my head. ‘I’m your friend, whether you like it or not, whether you are mine or not. I will care for you and fight for you always, because that’s what happens when you go through this kind of stuff together. I know that’s sentimental, but I also happen to believe it.’

  The pale, wraith-like girl finally turned to look at me. She was silent a long time, and I had no idea what to expect. Then she murmured simply, ‘Very well.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Please. No more emotion.’

  I kissed Jonah again, then headed for the door, wanting my husband. Before I reached it, Isadora said, ‘He has softened you.’

  I smiled, surprised by her insight. ‘No. It only looks that way.’

  Thorne had arranged another room to be rented. This was where I found him, blessedly alone.

  ‘Where’s Penn?’ I asked breathlessly.

  ‘Sleeping with the horses.’

  ‘Thank Gods. That was too long.’

  ‘It was twenty minutes,’ he laughed.

  ‘Twenty minutes too long.’

  ‘Come here.’

  I went to him; he had my dress off in an instant. I felt things inside me quicken and tighten and heat up all at once. I was swept away by the mightiest of ocean tides and I had not a hope of fighting it – would never want to fight it. He drowned me, stole my breath, immersed me in sensation and feeling and something bigger, sweeter – more infinite. I saw a million things all at once, things that were him and things that were me. And I knew after the one nightmarishly numb night that I was lucky to have the power I did, to feel all of Thorne when we touched.

  We didn’t waste any time, trembling with the same need, one that had been growing for a long time, every single second since the day we first saw each other in that square. His mouth was against my collarbone, breasts, shoulder, neck. His hands placed me on the bed, took my hips, pulled them up against him.

  I was gripping him so hard that my fingernails broke his skin; there was a wild creature inside me and she was longing to burst free. Her heart was made of raven’s wings and her teeth were sharp like steel.

  Our eyes locked as he finally moved inside me; I felt like I’d been waiting my whole life. My heart was against his heartbeat. I could feel the vibrations of it through his skin, but so too could I feel it in my own soul. My gift, my curse. Right now his heart was light as a feather and full and whole. It was beating through my body and my bones felt tight, aching.

  Moving on top of him, I ducked my mouth to his chest. Thump thump thump through my lips, against my tongue, into my pulse.

  He sat up, kissing me hungrily, large rough hands in my hair, along my spine, under the curve of my breasts and gripping my hips. As we began to move faster against each other he looked at me once more, and his eyes slipped scarlet.

  I gasped. Thorne hadn’t disappeared – he was still here in every look, every touch. They were both here.

  ‘At last,’ I murmured.

  Thorne flipped me over again and moved deeper inside me.

  We reached that aching, shivering, exploding place together, holding tight, and when it was over we looked at each other and –

  and as one our eyes shifted to gold.

  Thorne

  I was revelling in the disastrous perfection of our bodies together when I felt the cage crumble around him, my beast, and with no resistance from me he filled my limbs with his strength and
his passion and his hunger. I felt, for the first time in my life, one with him.

  And that was entirely because of Finn. I looked at her, could hardly believe she was real, could feel everything building inside me and taste the salt of her skin on my lips and the way she trembled around me and under me and then –

  Our eyes turned gold.

  And I knew we’d bonded because I’d allowed the beast a single moment of freedom.

  It rushed through me – a heady, dizzy wave of love and death and lives stretching out around us. I felt the threads of our souls wrap around each other and link interminably, knitting together until there was no longer two but one, stronger and more whole than we had ever been separately. It was like fire, burning through my skin, setting every inch of me alight with a kind of agonised pleasure.

  But with it, with the joy, came a sudden realisation, like the tolling of the bell, a warning of final doom. We were the dead walking.

  Wrenching myself away from her and leaving us both cold, I felt swollen with horror.

  ‘Thorne?’

  I turned away from her gold eyes, those gold, gold eyes. I couldn’t breathe, felt my chest cavity cracking open so that understanding could devour my heart with greedy glee.

  ‘Thorne.’

  ‘No,’ I managed to utter.

  ‘What?’ she demanded. I heard her get up and move towards me.

  ‘Don’t,’ I said quickly, trying to rein in a million thoughts, a million feelings.

  ‘You don’t!’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you dare turn away from me. Not now.’

  ‘I’ve just condemned you to death!’ I snarled. The beast was howling. I smashed my fist into the wood of the dressing table, wanting it to hurt, but all it did was splinter the wood. ‘Don’t you see? I’ve numbered your days! They come at me, again and again. I am challenged by men infinitely more savage than I am, and one day I will not be able to defeat them any longer, and you will die with me!’

  I wanted to break things. Destroy the whole world. Tear it down piece by piece until my hands bled a river of blood.

  I turned to see Finn standing in a shaft of moonlight, still and expressionless. I was struck abruptly by the sight of her, the curves of her in shadow and light, the tousled golden hair and –

  And a look in her eyes that froze me still.

  ‘You might not be savage, my love,’ she murmured, ‘but I am.’

  My heart clenched; a dark thrill ran through me. What she’d really said was: I will learn to be, for you.

  She smiled and it was a cold smile. ‘You think I would let them kill you?’ A shake of her head. A few steps towards me. ‘I already told you. I will make you strong, Thorne. As strong as it takes to beat them back, one after the other, until no one in this Godsforsaken country would ever be foolish enough to try to take what is yours.’

  I kissed her, my Wild Girl. Because she was loyal. And that, I thought, might have been the best thing about her.

  Chapter 17

  Finn

  Over the next hours the world changed. The impossible happened, the inexplicable: I lost him.

  What the bond meant was that Hess could no longer be right. She had said that one of us, and only one, would die at the end of this journey. Now it was either both or neither.

  The other thing it meant, although this was true even before we’d bonded, was that there was no way I was letting him go into the ice on his own. It was vast and unforgiving up there – how could he possibly hope to find where the warders were taking people?

  So I had a plan. Thorne would undoubtedly find a way to stop me, which meant I had to do this without telling him. I’d sneak out while he was sleeping. But now I wasn’t sure how that was going to work because he hadn’t slept a wink and was instead standing at the window, where he’d been since the moment we bonded.

  And it was starting to scare me.

  It scared me even more when he got dressed and donned his boots.

  Clearly, he didn’t believe I had the strength to help him fight and win. He was convinced the odds were against us – that some day soon he would be killed in a challenge, and would take me with him. Dread was heavy upon him – I could feel it from across the room.

  ‘Thorne?’

  He wouldn’t look at me. I could see his silhouette against the glass, and the night beyond seemed infinite.

  I crossed to him and placed my hands along the length of his spine.

  ‘I love you,’ I whispered, my lips pressed into his warm body.

  Still nothing. So I placed my hand on the back of his neck. It caused a rupture inside me. A shock of disbelief. He was pulling away from me with everything he had. With my hands on his skin I could feel it. I could feel his heartbeat through his body, and it was giving me nothing. Panic burnt.

  ‘Come back,’ I tried. ‘Thorne. Come back.’

  But he wouldn’t. I couldn’t make him.

  Sliding around to his front, I reached for his face and tried to look into his eyes. ‘All those words of love you spoke to me. All the stories. Hundreds and thousands of them. I lived off them. Breathed with them.’

  It hurt, a nameless hurt. An inexplicable one. A hurt that filled all of me, and all of my years to come. I ached for the waste, the time I’d wasted keeping my love from him, as if it cost me anything to give.

  ‘What are you trying to do?’ I pressed. ‘How can you think that this is the answer? This is never the answer. You can’t will the bond undone.’

  He moved infinitesimally so that his face was in a shaft of moonlight, and I felt myself crack into pieces. Thorne took my hands and pulled them from his face, but he didn’t let them go. He held onto them with a kind of urgency, as though he was being forced, as though something bound him to me beyond his will.

  ‘You told me,’ I uttered, starting to cry. ‘You swore to me that you loved me and that you wouldn’t ever leave me. We got married.’

  Tears slipped out of my eyes and I could feel them tracing their way slowly down my cheeks.

  ‘Thorne,’ I whispered. ‘I want to follow you but I don’t know where you’ve gone.’

  He closed his eyes, and I saw tears slip free of his lashes. I could feel his heart beneath my hands; each beat was seared into my flesh.

  ‘I’ll find you. Wherever you are, I’ll find you.’

  But he turned from me, and he walked towards the door.

  ‘Don’t,’ I sobbed, striding after him. I hit him hard, and he turned, catching my fist in his huge hands. ‘Don’t leave me.’

  But looking into my eyes, he said simply, ‘I must.’

  And then he was gone.

  And my eyes had no colour.

  And my mind had no thoughts.

  And my body had no sensations. And my soul gave up, too weary to bear the weight of its own size after so many years.

  It had always been too weary. It had been born weak, my soul. He’d made it strong, but now he was gone.

  Thorne

  I would break this bond, and free her from me.

  It was all that existed in my heart now, all that I knew. I cared not about the task I’d been sent for – it meant nothing to me. Nothing to what Finn had become.

  My beast went into a deep, deep sleep, and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to wake him, heartbroken as he was.

  Chapter 18

  Finn

  At the door I stole a heavy fur cloak and hastened out into the cold night. Peering up either end of the street, I decided to try a new direction as I did not wish to see the residue of the executions. They seemed like an age ago, a thousand years in the past, when in fact they had been earlier this very night. Dawn would be arriving soon and with it a new day.

  A crummy day, undoubtedly. I was fairly certain that the whole point of bondmates was so you were assured never to be left, but hey, I’d broken that rule with gusto. My husband was the first human being to find a way to choose not to be with his mate. That felt good.

  You stupid, bloody idiot, Thorne
.

  It took me several hours to find my way to the wall and with relief exited through a north gate, leaving my name with the guard. I wanted to be found, after all.

  Spread out before me were rolling hills covered in long yellow grass the colour of my eyes. Icy wind bit into me and my teeth immediately started to chatter.

  I stood looking at the grey and black shadows of the pre-dawn world. I thought of my mother, of the gentility in her smile, the kindness in her soul. Perhaps that was why I loved Thorne so much. Because he had that same kindness, the one I had never been endowed with. Or maybe I had had it, once upon a time. But it had long since faded with the memories I refused to relive. On the day I woke to find Ma dead, I had vowed never to use my terrible soul magic again. It was a sickness, I had been warned. A deformity of my birth. Once only had I consciously broken my vow – which had been panic and nothing else, only the gut-deep survival instinct that arose when a man was about to attack you.

  But now I stood, readying myself to break the vow willingly, for better or worse. I closed my eyes and hoped she would understand, wherever she was. ‘I won’t run away anymore,’ I whispered to her.

  And then I set free a huge burst of power, enough to light up the sky above me with a brilliant glow. It rose high into the air and cascaded over the city of Vjort, blazing for all to see.

  They would come. They’d see it or they’d feel the swell of its power, and they’d come for me. It had been my plan all along. Except I’d thought that Thorne would be the one to follow my scent into the ice, not the other way around.

  My head pounded with a sharp pain. It was a blunt hammer, always. Never elegant like a needle or subtle like a whisper. My power was big, and it was savage; it killed without me wanting it to. But if Thorne and I were to survive in this world, if we were to save those being kidnapped, then I had to find a way to stop this fact from frightening me, and I had to take control of that deadly power instead of letting it control me.

  Wearily, I sank to my knees and as the sun began to rise I saw for the first time the endless ice that stretched out into infinity before me. Thinking it beautiful, I waited for the warders to come and capture me.