Soulbound: A Lone Star Witch Novel

by Tessa Adams

“This is a long way from fine. Who hurt you?”

  I don’t know what to say to that. “No one.”

  “I don’t believe you.” He traces a finger over my neck to my collarbone, stopping just short of the upper swell of my breast. I look down, realize he’s tracing one of a dozen or so bruises, just on my chest area. Between the bruises from two days ago and the ones from tonight, I’m a Technicolor mess. Red, black, blue, purple, green, yellow. Throw in some orange and I could pass for a rainbow.

  I don’t make that observation, though. Declan already looks more dangerous than I have ever seen him.

  He steps back, starts to walk around me, and I try to plaster my back to the wall. I don’t know what I’m more ashamed of—the bruises or the Sebas that so obviously reveal the tie I feel to him, even after all this time.

  He wraps a hand around my shoulder, and though his grip is gentle—tender even—it is also inexorable. I know he won’t be denied, not in this.

  He curses when he sees my back, low and long and furious. “These are whip marks.” He traces one with a soothing finger. I flinch anyway and he jerks his hand back. “Did I hurt you?”

  I shake my head no, though it’s not exactly the truth.

  “Is it just your upper body? Or is there more?”

  I flinch. His tone is so icy it feels almost like a blade sliding along my flesh. I scramble away from him, but there’s nowhere to go.

  He notices, pulls himself back. “I’m sorry,” he tells me. “You have to know I’d never hurt you.”

  I do. At least, I think I do. “This isn’t what you think.”

  “Tell me what it is then.” He’s prowling the room now, pacing the length of the back wall like a tiger in a cage.

  I don’t know what to say. To tell him that I’m connected to the victims this way makes me vulnerable and I can’t stand to be that way—not to him. Not again.

  Plus, though he might have viewed Lina’s body yesterday, I doubt they shared with him the extent of the damage. If he doesn’t already know everything that was done to her, I don’t want him to see the evidence of it on my body. I have no problem fighting with him, but explaining this—showing him this—seems cruel.

  “It’s nothing,” I repeat. “No big deal.”

  The temperature drops so fast and far that my teeth actually start chattering from the cold. He must hear them because he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and after long moments, the room warms back up to its normal temperature.

  “Thank you,” I say when I can talk again.

  “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know. It’s some weird psychic thing.” Please, let him leave it at that.

  “Tell me.” He looks calm and controlled, but his eyes are wild. Dark. Bottomless. Seething.

  “They just showed up—”

  “Goddamn it, Xandra! Don’t bullshit me. Who the fuck did this to you?” he roars, as the final, tenuous ribbons on his control snap free. Power surges through the room, shattering the lightbulb in one of my lamps and making the others flicker.

  “I’m trying to tell you!” I snarl back, even as I wrack my brain for something that will make this whole thing sound less terrible than it is. But in the end, I’ve got nothing. After three days of hell, my brain is fuzzy and I’m coming up blank.

  Besides, there’s a little voice inside me whispering that if I can keep Declan from seeing the extent of the damage, maybe it won’t be so bad to have him know. He’s lived a long time, is more powerful than I can wrap my mind around. Maybe he’ll have some idea of what’s going on here.

  I glance up at him, hoping for some reassurance that I’m doing the right thing, but one look into his face tells me I’m doing the only thing. There’s no way he’s letting this go, no way this is going to go any other direction than how Declan wants it. That chafes a little, but in the end, I know when I’m beat.

  I cross the room, sink onto the bed. Gesture for Declan to do the same. He’s seething with rage, but he does what I ask without a word of dissent. And then he just waits, immovable and impatient.

  “I don’t know how to explain,” I finally start, holding up a hand when it looks like he’s going to say something else. “But the first of these bruises showed up after I found Lina down by the lake. More showed up tonight.”

  “They just showed up?” He sounds skeptical. “For no reason?”

  “Not exactly.” I go on to tell him what happens to me when I find a body—and what Lily and I surmised the other night. I try to skim over the worst parts, not wanting him to figure out all the awful things that happened to Lina, but I can tell by the look on his face that Declan reads between the lines quite well.

  When I’m done, silence reigns. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, barely breathes for long seconds, until I’m all but squirming in my seat, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He doesn’t look angry anymore—doesn’t look anything, really—but I can sense a volatile fury simmering just under the surface. Instead of calming him down, my explanation has made only him angrier.

  Minutes pass and I’m just about to chalk this whole open communication thing down as a really bad idea when Declan finally speaks. “He’s connected to you.”

  “That’s what I think—”

  “That wasn’t a question. I was telling you what’s going on. Somehow this bastard has figured out a way to link with you.” His eyes skim over my body. “Are you marked?”

  My hand flies to my collarbone, and the circlet of Isis that has been with me forever.

  He sees the action, shakes his head impatiently. “By him. Have you been marked by him.”

  I nod reluctantly, knowing as I do that he’s going to insist on seeing the brand on my thigh.

  Sure enough, his eyes go to my lower half, the only part of my body he can’t currently see. “Show me.”

  “It’s on my thigh—” I start. Before I can finish my sentence, he’s fumbling with my jeans. For one, brief second I flash back to that moment at the Capitol, when I felt him inside of me, and I freak out. I claw at Declan, shove him away.

  He lets out a low hiss and at first it seems like he’s going to force the issue—which I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive him for. I’m not thinking now as I push away from him, pressing myself into the corner in an effort to protect myself.

  He gets it right away, which only makes things worse—for both of us. Though his entire face closes down so that I can’t read any emotion in it, I can feel it seething in him. An overwhelming force he has only the most tenuous control over.

  He swallows convulsively a time or two, so that when he speaks his voice is gentle. “Why don’t you go take a shower, get cleaned up? Then you can put some shorts on and show me. Does that sound okay?”

  I don’t even bother to nod. I just grab a pair of pajamas and run for the bathroom. Which makes me feel like a coward and an idiot, but I can’t do anything about either right now. I need some space, a chance to regain some perspective. And I need to be clean. I can’t do any of those things in my bedroom, with Declan watching me.

  I turn on the shower and strip out of my jeans and underwear. Then, as soon as the water is viciously hot, I step under it. Let it wash away all the filthy things inside me. Except it isn’t working—I can still feel all the obscene and terrible things he did to those women.

  I’m furious, horrified—at both him and myself. It didn’t happen to me, he didn’t actually touch me, and yet here I am whimpering in the shower. It’s a disgrace, to me and to those women who suffered so wretchedly at his hands.

  I’ve been in here long enough, too long really, and I tell myself to woman up. To get out of the shower and go face Declan—who is even now calling my name from the other side of the door. And yet I don’t make any move to turn the shower off. I can’t.

  Instead, I reach for my puff and shower gel and I wash myself from head to toe, again and again. I pay no attention to the bruises, scrubbing so hard that they all begin to ache and twinge even when I’m no
t touching them. It doesn’t matter. I want to be clean.

  I’m okay—I hold it together—until I get to the bruises on my upper thigh. The ones where he held that poor girl while he—

  That’s when I break. I slide down to the shower floor and start to cry, harsh, wracking sobs that hurt my whole body. I want to stop, but I can’t. I keep feeling him on top of me, ramming himself inside of me. Inside of her, I remind myself viciously. Not me. Her. She’s the one who had to live through the violence—not me. All I experienced are the residual memories and I’m falling apart. It’s ridiculous, demeaning, infuriating, and yet I can’t get off the shower floor.

  I don’t know how long I sit there, arms wrapped around my knees as I fight against the memories and emotions bombarding me from all sides. Lina’s experiences blend with this other girl’s until I can’t tell one apart from the other. Which is somehow worse, like who they are and what they suffered doesn’t matter. And it does. It really does.

  The water goes from hot to cold and still I sit there, rocking back and forth. In a corner of my mind, I hear Declan on the other side of the door, demanding to know if I’m okay. But his words don’t register—nothing does but the pain and the filth. I reach for the shower gel.

  Except Declan is suddenly there, opening the glass shower door and turning off the water. His face is white, his eyes livid with more emotions than I can hope to name. But his hands are tender as he squats next to me in the shower, shoes and all, and wraps a towel around me.

  He murmurs to me as he dries me, soft nonsense words that make no sense but that somehow fill up that empty, aching space inside of me. When he’s dried all the parts of me he can reach, he picks me up and carries me to my bed.

  I tense when he lays me on it, but he just walks back into the bathroom for my pajamas. Then he turn his back and gazes out the bedroom window as I pull them on.

  “Can you show me the mark now?” he asks hoarsely, and I nod before I realize he can’t see me.

  “Yes.”

  He nods and turns slowly, his hands hanging loosely at his side where I can see them. Part of me is horrified that he thinks I’m this fragile little flower, but another part is thankful for the treatment. Which just goes to show how messed up I really am right now.

  I stand up and turn around, legs spread so that he can see the mark that curls from the back of my thigh to my inner thigh.

  His breath hisses out at his first sight of it, and he sinks to his knees behind me. “Can I touch it?” he asks after studying the brand for long seconds.

  I nod, bracing myself for the same excruciating pain I felt when Donovan touched me.

  Eighteen

  Except with Declan, there is no pain. Just the soft brush of his fingertips over my skin as touches the mark for the first time, and the softer sound of him murmuring ancient words of safekeeping.

  He says the spell again and again, and I can feel heat blooming on my thigh wherever he touches. Not sexual heat, just a healing warmth that takes away pain from the mark that I barely even know I was feeling.

  When he finally pulls away, I start to turn toward the mirror, to see what he has done. He stops me with a hand on my leg.

  “I can take the bruises from you and the pain.”

  It’s a question from a man used to doing exactly what he wants, and I know it’s a concession based on my fragile state of mind. It makes me angry—not at him, but at myself for being so weak. For needing someone to take care of me.

  And yet, at the same time, I want to take him up on the offer. I hate these bruises, hate what they stand for and what they remind me of every time I glimpse or think about one of them. If I could look in the mirror tomorrow morning and see again, maybe I could forget that there’s a part of me that will never be the same again—no matter if I get rid of one bruise or all of them.

  “Xandra?” he asks from where he’s kneeling between my thighs.

  I nod. “Please. I would appreciate it.”

  “Okay.” He stands in one effortless movement, ushers me over to the bed. “Lie down. It’s going to take a few minutes.”

  I’m nervous though I don’t want to be. I tell myself it’s stupid, that Declan is trying to help me. And while I know it’s true, the memory of earlier is fresh in my head and I’m afraid. I don’t want to hurt like that ever again.

  I do what he says, stretching out across my bed with my eyes wide open. I wait for him to do something, to murmur a spell or touch me or something, but for long seconds he just stands there. Eventually, he sinks to his knees beside the bed.

  “Is this okay?” he asks as he reaches for my foot and gently rubs his fingers over my heels and arches.

  Surprisingly, it is. “Yes,” I say, my body relaxing marginally.

  “I’m going to try my best not to touch you,” he tells me, “but there are going to be times I have to. Tell me if I do anything you don’t like and I’ll stop immediately.”

  I nod, and he lets go of my feet. Even so, I can feel him touching me, his hands skimming over my feet and shins and calves. A healing warmth flows through me and I swear I can feel the sore spots lessening a little more with each second that passes.

  Eventually, he moves from my lower legs to my knees. Under his ministrations, the huge scrape on my left knee disappears, followed slowly by the bruise on my right. He moves up a little more, to my thighs, and I can’t help myself. I tense, lock them together.

  His magic disappears immediately, along with the heat that’s been warming even the coldest spots inside of me. I’m instantly bereft and I turn my head so that our eyes meet, so that he can see I’m being truthful. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I know it’s you.”

  Declan nods, reaches for my hand where it’s resting on my stomach. “We can wait for those. Or, I can do everything but the bruises on your thighs. Whatever you’re most comfortable with.” He gently places my hand next to me on the bed.

  And then the heat starts again, this time over my torn-up fingers and bruised wrists. He spends a lot of time on my scratched-up palms—especially the one that bears his mark—before moving up my forearms to my elbows and then my biceps.

  I close my eyes as he works—it feels so good that I can’t stop myself from relaxing. From giving myself over to the tenderness I can sense coming off of him in waves. I know we have a murky past and that he’s the last person I should trust right now, but I do trust him. He came for me last night, then came for me again today. And now he’s giving me this incredible gift, taking away the pain I won’t let anyone but Lily see, let alone touch.

  “Are you okay rolling over for me?” he asks softly, his mouth only a couple inches from my face. His exhalation tickles my ear and I shiver involuntarily. At the same time, the first sparks of something else—something more—kindle deep inside of me. After everything I went through tonight, they’re unexpected but not necessarily unwanted. Something good and right to chase away the dark abuses I want desperately to forget.

  “Xandra?” he asks, and I nod, rolling slowly onto my stomach.

  “If I’m going to heal the marks, I need to pull your shirt up. See what I’m dealing with. If you don’t want me to do that—”

  “It’s fine,” I say. He is the one who got me out of the shower tonight, who dried my naked body without even thinking about making a move. I tug at my shirt, pull it over my head and then drop it onto the bed next to me.

  He pauses for a second, like he’s collecting himself, and I worry that I made a mistake. That he’ll think I’m too forward. But then his hands are on me. Not just his magic, but his actual hands, his fingers skimming over the Sebas magically tattooed into my skin. Except, after he traces two, he continues on to a third one.

  “Declan?” I ask hesitantly, not sure I want to know the answer.

  “Yes, Xandra?”

  “How many stars are there on my back?”

  He traces that last one again. “Three.”

  “Last night there were only two.”


  He doesn’t say anything for long seconds, just continues to stroke the same spot until the skin beneath his finger feels like it’s about to catch fire.

  Deep inside me, the sparks glow more brightly, until it becomes a sweet kind of pain for me to lie here on the bed while Declan touches me.

  “Relax,” he tells me soothingly, as he removes his fingers from my back. I arch a little in silent protest, and he whispers, “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

  I’d forgotten that was even a concern. “I know,” I whisper back.

  I slide my hand along the bed until I find his, then tangle our fingers together. He squeezes me tightly and I swear I hear him murmur, “Thank you,” before he lets me go.

  But I should be the one thanking him. I start to tell him that, but he chooses that moment to start in on my back. His magic moves through my aching muscles and it feels so good that my eyes nearly roll back in my head. The heat winds along the old and new whip marks alike and I feel them dissolve under the strength of his healing, until all that’s left is a pleasant warmth that turns me into a melted puddle of goo.

  He skips back down to the backs of my thighs, and this time I don’t even think about protesting. Even when his hands skim under my shorts, over my rear, I don’t tense. Don’t freak out. This is Declan. There’s nothing to freak out about.

  When the last of the marks fades away, he starts to ask, “Do you want—”

  I don’t give him a chance to finish, just flip over onto my back. My breasts are exposed, but then I kind of figured they’d have to be, though I hadn’t let myself think about it. Much of the damage that was done was to them, after all.

  Declan inhales sharply, and a quick look at his face tells me it’s not a sexual thing—the look on his face as he examines my injuries is both fierce and sickened.

  “I’m okay,” I tell him. “It isn’t as bad as it looks.” Which is technically the truth, I suppose. Since it’s worse.

  “You can trust me, Xandra. You don’t have to put up a front.” He passes a hand over my hair and I have to turn my head away as tears burn my eyes. It’s ridiculous that I’m so emotional tonight, but the intimacy between us right now is overwhelming. I feel cracked open. Like every part of me is on display. In the morning, I may kick myself for opening up to Declan like this. But for now it feels right. Good. Like this is how it’s meant to be between us.