Souls (Runes series)

by Ednah Walters

  Callum smiled at the man and turned back to me with his training face on again. I expected the strangers to leave, but they leaned against the wall like they were planning to stay and watch. Great. All I needed today was more people watching me get my butt handed to me.

  I watched Callum warily as he moved to a spot ten feet from me and faced me with a calculating gleam in his eyes that I had come to dread. “Open yourself to your Mori, Sara. Feel its power and let it guide you. Its survival instincts are strong and it wants nothing more than to protect you, because without you it cannot exist.”

  Do you hear that? I said to the beast crouched sullenly in the back of my mind. You need me a lot more than I need you, so you’d better behave. I forced my mind to block out everyone else in the room and focus only on Callum’s face. His eyes always gave him away a split second before he made his move, not that knowing when he was about to strike had ever helped me. I lowered the wall holding back the demon, feeling it flutter with excitement as its cage opened. At the same time, I reached for the glowing power at my center and pulled back a thread to wield if the need arose. The demon was strong, but it was no match for my Fae power and we both knew it.

  My Mori and I saw Callum’s eyes flicker at the same time and the demon reacted first. It rushed forward in an attempt to fill my mind and make my body obey its commands. For a second, I allowed it – before the old memory surfaced. I could still feel the scorching heat of the demon beneath my skin, and the helplessness of floating in the vastness of the demon’s mind.

  My walls shot back up just before Callum plowed into me and sent me soaring backwards again. This time, instead of colliding with the wall, I found myself snatched from the air and pulled against a hard chest. “I think our little bird has had enough flying for today, Callum.” Laughter rumbled through the chest of the man holding me before he lowered me to my feet. Embarrassed, I looked up into the sapphire eyes of the blond stranger, but there was no mockery in his expression. If anything, his smile was kind, indulgent.

  “I think you are right,” Callum agreed. “No less than thirty minutes in the baths, Sara, and use some gunna paste.” I made a face and his expression grew stern. It was no secret that I would rather suffer a few aches than eat the awful putty-like medicine. “If I see you limping at dinner again, I will hold you down and feed it to you myself.”

  I nodded reluctantly because I knew he would follow through on his threat. Mumbling a goodbye to the newcomers, I hurried to the equipment room to shed my padded armor. Then I escaped the training area before Callum decided to feed me the nasty gunna paste himself, like he did on our second day of training.

  The dark paneled hall in the training wing was quiet except for the muffled sounds of combat coming from behind the closed doors. Mohiri warriors spent a lot of time training when they weren’t out saving the world. The stronghold housed at between thirty and forty warriors on a given day – not including the teams that came and went – so the training rooms were always busy this time of day.

  I pushed open the heavy door to the women’s baths, relieved when I saw the empty chamber. If I was lucky I could get in and out of the bath before the room got too busy. The first thing I did was go to a cabinet in the wall and retrieve a can of gunna paste. Scooping out some of the green paste with my finger, I grimaced and put it in my mouth. Within seconds, a dry, bitter taste coated my tongue and every corner of my mouth and I had to force myself to swallow the paste instead of spitting it out. Even after it had gone down, the foul taste lingered and I knew it would take at least another five minutes it to go away. I silently cursed Callum as I did every day after training. It didn’t change things, but it made me feel a little better.

  Stripping off my sweaty clothes, I immersed my body in the nearest of the six rectangular tubs sunken into the tiled floor. The hot cloudy liquid bubbled softly and I moaned blissfully as it immediately began to soothe my aches and pains. I didn’t know what was in the water; just that it came from a deep underground spring that fed into massive tanks somewhere under the building. There, it was treated with special salts and purifiers and piped into the baths in a constant flow. That was as much as I cared to know about it, other than the fact that it did wonders for the body if you stayed in it long enough.

  I closed my eyes and tried to relax and not think about my abysmal training session, or the dozen other negative thoughts that often plagued me in the week and a half since I got here. It’s not like you expected it to be like home. I just had to give it some time, to get used to the people and my surroundings. I had never been comfortable getting to know people; making new friends didn’t come as easily for me as it did to Roland and Peter. A wry smile touched my lips. One more thing I had to work on.

  When my thirty minutes were up, I climbed out of the tub to stand beneath the shower. Cleaned, dried and dressed in fresh pair of drawstring pants and t-shirt, I left the bath chamber and headed to my suite on the third floor of the north wing. Westhorne was a Mohiri military stronghold, but there were no barracks here. My suite was almost as big as my loft back home, with a much larger bathroom and a small combined living room and kitchenette. The furnishings were richer than I was used to, but I did love the antique four poster bed. And the fireplace would come in handy if the winters in Idaho were anything like I’d been told.

  I opened the window and took a deep breath of fresh air. The view outside my window was so different from the one I grew up with. I missed the ocean, but there was something about snow capped mountains that made my breath catch every time I saw them.

  If only I had the freedom to explore them, I might have felt better about my change in scenery. So far, I had been pretty much restricted to the grounds. Not that I hadn’t tried to go beyond the border of the property, only to be caught and returned twice. They told me it was standard procedure for new orphans and it was for my own good, but I suspected my past escapades might be have a little more to do with it. I longed to walk in the woods and hike on the mountain trails without someone treating me like a five year old who had wandered away. It wasn’t like I was going to run off. We were in the middle of nowhere and the closest town was five miles away. Even if I did head for town, Butler Falls had a population of a whopping four thousand, and more farm supply stores than restaurants. Not exactly a magnet for vampires, especially with a Mohiri compound next door.

  I turned away from the window with a sigh, and hunted for a pair of jeans and a shirt in my ridiculously huge closet. Who needed a closet the size of a small bedroom anyway? My clothes took up half a rack and two shelves. A few days ago, the rest of my boxes from home had arrived and most of them still sat unopened on the floor of the closet. That still left almost three quarters of the closet bare. Claire, the woman who had shown me around the day I arrived, told me they had set up a line of credit for me to buy anything I needed, but so far I hadn’t bothered. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to go and my old clothes served me well enough. Besides, I felt weird about spending Mohiri money when I barely knew them.

  I grabbed a warm coat and a paperback from my nightstand. The book was one of Nate’s and I’d read it before, but reading it again made me feel a little less homesick. I tucked the book in my pocket as I left my room.

  As I descended the stairs, the murmur of voices grew louder the closer I got to the first floor. It was lunch time but the last place I wanted to be was in the crowded dining hall. Instead, I left the building by the door in the training wing that opened to a courtyard at the rear of the building. To my right was the wide, deep river that bordered one side of the property where I’d found a good spot on the bank to sit and read. I started that way, but the call of the woods was stronger. Besides, I always had the feeling someone was watching me when I went near the river. No doubt they were making sure I did not fall in and drown myself.

  I passed a group of warriors carrying bows and swords and they nodded politely but didn’t speak to me. As beautiful as Westhorne was, I was constantly reminded that it
was a military holding. The Mohiri had dozens of compounds across the US alone and at least ten of them were like this one. The rest were community compounds that were even more fortified than Westhorne, but were less involved in military operations. I did not have to ask why I hadn’t been sent to one of the Mohiri communities. If the vampire Master ever figured out I was still alive, no one wanted to take the chance of him attacking a compound full of kids. So I came here instead.

  Home sweet home.

  The scent of pine surrounded me when I entered the woods. Overhead, I could see only patches of blue sky through the canopy of branches, but the sun still managed to seep through, its rays casting a dappled pattern of light across the ground. It was so quiet here and the only sounds came from the birds in the branches above my head. I took a deep breath, imagining I was in the woods back home in New Hastings and I could almost pretend Remy or one of his little cousins was about to sneak up on me like they used to.

  I shook off my melancholy because the woods were too beautiful to allow sadness to mar them. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I wandered aimlessly through the trees, content just to be outside and alone for a while. It will get easier, I told myself like I did everyday. They had a lot more rules here than I was used to but the people were not unkind, even if they were different. Just because I didn’t feel at home here, it wasn’t fair of me to judge the whole Mohiri race after less than two weeks.

  You mean it’s not fair to judge them because of him.

  Thinking about him would only make me angry, so I made an effort to focus on anything but him. I stepped into a small sunny glade where the air felt ten degrees warmer than in the shade of the big trees. It was a chilly day, almost too cold to sit outside, but it was infinitely better than being inside. I closed my eyes and raised my face to the sun, listening to the quiet sounds of the forest and breathing in its rich earthy smell. Yes, this will do nicely, I thought as I stretched out in the grass with my book.

  I barely got through two chapters before a small brown rabbit hobbled into view and stopped at the edge of the trees. Even when I’m not using my power, it seems to broadcast to animals and other creatures, letting them know I am safe. But gentler creatures like rabbits are still a bit wary. I laid my book by my side and reached for my power, sending a stream of it toward the rabbit. His nose twitched and he sniffed the air for a minute before he started moving forward. I let him come to me, not moving even when he touched his nose to my hand. I let power flow from my hand into him until he lay against my side trustingly.

  I sat up slowly so I did not startle him, and laid my hand on his back to feel for the source of his injury. It didn’t take long to find the swelling and inflammation in one of his hind legs. I moved my hand until it closed around the injured leg and felt around for the extent of the damage. “Don’t worry, little guy. I’ll have you fixed up in no time.”

  A familiar heat welled in my chest and flowed down my arm to my hand where it sought out the injury, enclosing it in a healing fire that easily knit the hairline crack in the bone and burned away the swelling. I felt the leg return to its normal size and I withdrew my power and lifted my hand from the rabbit. “There you go, as good as new.” I’d like to see Callum do that, I thought smugly. I might not be warrior material but I had other gifts. Perhaps I’d be better off if I stuck to healing and left the killing to the real warriors.

  The rabbit shifted his weight and did a few hesitant hops before he decided his leg was working right again. “See you around,” I called to him as he went happily on his way. I lay back in the grass again to recover from the healing, and I was surprised to realize I wasn’t feeling drained at all. Strange, even a small healing usually required a little recovery time. If anything, I felt energized, restless. I got to my feet and started walking again. There was a small lake less than a mile from the estate. I’d seen it on a map in the library, but the first time I tried to go to the lake there I was detained. Maybe this time I’d get lucky.

  “What the –? Not again.” I came to a halt when my scalp began to tingle and my hair crackled like it was charged with static. My palms and the bottoms of my feet started to grow warm and itchy and currents raced along the skin of my arms beneath the sleeves of my coat. A rustling sound made me look down to see the dead leaves around my feet quiver, even though there was no wind.

  As quickly as it had started it was gone. What is happening to me? It was the second time I’d experienced something like this in last four days. I suspected it was an undine thing because Aine had told me my powers were still developing, but there was no one I could ask about it. I wished I knew how to contact her. She promised to visit me soon but I had a feeling that the Fae had a different concept of time than everyone else. For her soon might mean a few weeks or a few years. I had no idea.

  “Ugh!” I yelped as a spot in the center of my chest began to itch and a cold knot formed beneath my breastbone. This was new. The coldness was not painful but it did feel uncomfortable, and it alarmed me that it was exactly where I’d been stabbed a month ago. Aine said the faeries had healed me completely, but what if she was wrong? Even the faeries had admitted they were not sure how my body would react to the vampire blood that had been on the knife.

  Rubbing my chest, I resumed walking and hoped the cold knot would go away. I turned and started back toward the stronghold and, to my immense relief, the knot began to ease. Whatever it was, it seemed to be going away on its own.

  “Someone’s been a bad girl again.”

  I jumped a foot in the air when the voice spoke from behind me. I spun around to face the man who had so easily snuck up on me. The red haired warrior standing less than five feet away shook his head at me and gave me his ‘you know you’re not supposed to be out here’ look.

  “I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” I grumbled at him.

  “Do what?” asked another voice and I let out a small squeal as I whirled around again to find a grinning mirror image of the red head. “Damn it, guys! Stop it!”

  Laughter filled the woods as the twin warriors moved to stand side-by-side in front of me. Seamus and Niall were so identical that I doubted even their mother could tell them apart. They were the same size with bright green eyes, spiky red hair and boyishly rounded faces. Right now they sported identical mocking smiles.

  “Now where would you be off to this fine day?” asked the one I thought was Niall.

  “Just taking a walk and I was already headed back. You can go back to patrolling or whatever it is you do out here.”

  “Unless you are planning to spend the night in the mountains, you’re headed in the wrong direction,” said the other who might or might not be Seamus.

  Mountains? I must have been thrown off by all the weirdness I’d been experiencing a little while ago. It wasn’t like me to get turned around in the woods.

  “Come on, back you go.” The twins moved to flank me and I held up a hand to stop them.

  “I can make it back on my own. Just point me in the right direction.”

  “Sorry lass, we have our orders.”

  “Oh come on you guys, not again.” My plea fell on deaf ears and I found myself being escorted along a trail I hadn’t even known was there. The twins were watchful as if danger was hiding behind every tree, walking with me between them like a wayward child… or a prisoner.

  “I was only getting some fresh air. You can stop treating me like I’m some fugitive.”

  The twin on my right spoke – I wasn’t sure which one and I’d given up trying to tell them apart. “Isn’t that what she said the first time, brother?”

  “Aye, and we were near fool enough to be taken in by that sweet smile,” replied the one on my left.

  “That was over a week ago. How long are you going to hold that against me?”

  “And what about three days ago?” asked the right twin.

  “I told you I just wanted to hang out by the lake for a while. Where is the harm in that?”

  The left twin sn
ickered. “Like the last time you went to hang out by a lake, huh?”

  “How do you know about that?”

  He gave me a lopsided grin. “We’ve heard lots of stories about you.”

  “Which is why you won’t be pulling the same trick with us,” added his brother. “Though I am starting to feel a wee bit sympathetic for those guys.”

  The trees thinned and I saw the stone walls of the sprawling building I now called home. We passed the edge of the woods and stepped onto the wide green lawn. “I think I can make it from here,” I told them.

  Neither of them took the hint and they stayed on either side of me as we walked toward the building. I folded my arms mutinously and went with them. No one had told me when I came here that being under Mohiri protection meant being treated like someone in a juvenile detention center. The twins were always good-natured about it but they were still my guards no matter how you looked at it.

  We neared the courtyard outside the training wing where two men stood talking, and as we approached they turned to watch us with knowing looks. Two men walked around a corner and I recognized them as Callum and the blond man who had shown up in training earlier. Callum gave me an amused nod, but the blond man’s expression was unreadable.

  I pulled away from the twins without a word and marched toward the door, trying to hide my anger and embarrassment. I knew I said I’d give it a try, but I couldn’t take much more of this. If this was going to be my life from now on, I wanted out.

  I was almost at the stone archway of the courtyard when I heard shouts and saw the two men in the courtyard staring behind me with horrified expressions. What now? My heart raced as I whirled, expecting to find an army of vampires descending upon us.