Soul Marked: After the Fire Book 1

by C. Gockel

  Lionel momentarily loses the beat, remembering her hand touching his when his neighbors had called him “half-breed.” It hadn’t been some brilliant strike of inspiration; her empathy had been hard won.

  “Am I doing something wrong?” Tara asks.

  Giving a little shake, Lionel says, “No. Let’s work on a turn.” He catches the rhythm again and spins her out.

  She turns gracefully back into his arms as though she’s been waltzing for much longer than five minutes.

  Only twenty-nine, and already she’s lived so much.

  The notes of a waltz swirl around Tara. The music is played on a sort of harp, a lute, a flute, and a hand drum. She wonders if they might be magical because they have much better acoustics than she would have imagined. A firm hand rests on her back, and another grips her hand. The handsome elf in front of her, Jaben, smiles as he leads her through the steps.

  She tells herself that she’s glad he isn’t Lionel. She’d sensed how quickly Lionel’s ardor cooled when he discovered her age, and that’s obviously not going anywhere. Luckily, every elf in the village, and a few from neighboring villages, has wanted to dance with her, making her feel like a princess—or, as one of the little boys said, “A Valkyrie princess!” Before every dance, Lionel had insisted she extract a promise from each partner not to try to get her real name, and it’s worked.

  The music rises in volume, and Jaben, just a few inches shorter than her, with dark hair and sparkling blue eyes, leans toward her ear. “How long does it take to fly by aeroplane to Scotland from Chicago? A week? A few days?”

  Tara nearly loses her balance, remembering Jaben’s wife’s comments on the MacGregors. But leaning in, she whispers back, “I think it is about six hours, but you may have to stop in London … maybe eight?”

  “Hours …” whispers Jaben.

  Tara feels a little dizzy. He’s planning on going to Earth. “Are you planning on leaving soon? Could you get me to the Chicago World Gate?”

  Jaben leans in and whispers so close his breath tickles her ear. “The queen’s forces and the Dark Elves are still fighting for the World Gate. Her Majesty's forces are currently laying siege. No one can get in or out. Kalee and I are going to join the fight on the side of the Dark Elves.”

  Tara swallows.

  “Don’t worry, girl!” Jaben says, squeezing her hand. “The queen will see you home. If not through that gate, then another. She knows of many and won’t need to send you through a war zone.”

  Tara shivers. She doesn’t feel very reassured. She bites her lip. And why is she asking? After the stunt she pulled with Lionel, the Dark Elves aren’t going to let her go through their gate.

  The music slows and comes to a stop. Releasing her, Jaben bows. Before he’s even stepped away, Tara feels Lionel at his shoulder. He may not be romantically interested in her, but he’s kept his promise to look out for her.

  Jaben eyes Lionel, smirks, and says to Tara, “Thank you for dancing with me.” With that, he scampers off. The musicians start putting away their instruments. Elves come up to her and wish her good night, to thank her for dancing with them, and to tell her how well she did at the Elvish reel—it hasn’t all been waltzing, but it has been really fun. One little Elven woman cries, “I never thought I’d live to see a real human!” Which makes Tara grin ear to ear. She can see why a fellow might stay here for fifty years … but she has to get home to her mother.

  Besides the constant pesky attempts to get her name, the only thing that is uncomfortable is the way they treat Lionel. It had taken large quantities of alcohol for them to even look at him.

  “It’s late,” he says as the crowd disperses. “Shall I show you to the guest cottage?”

  The guest house is within sight, but Tara sees Rolleim in that general direction. She hadn’t gotten an oath of no-name-extracting from him. “I’d like that,” she says.

  Lionel leads her toward the little cottage. In the fading glow of the bug lights, Tara sees Rolleim examine Lionel through narrowed eyes. Apparently deciding he doesn’t like what he sees, he vanishes into the shadows.

  They pass a little house with the window open and a man says, “It’s cold, let’s close the shutters.” Which makes Tara look, and then her eyes cross as a naked woman reaches out to close a shutter. Behind her is a man also without clothes, and he is obviously rarin’ to go. They both wave cheerfully at her. “Good night, Tara of Chicago,” they exclaim before the shutters shut.

  “Elves aren’t modest,” Lionel whispers. “But they mean no harm.”

  “Oh, I know they didn’t mean anything by it,” she whispers. “I was just surprised.” She almost says, “When in Alfheim, do as elves do,” but she doesn’t think she’s ready to do as they just did. “And not offended,” she says instead.

  Lionel smiles at her. They reach the cottage and he says, “Would you like me to help you start the fireplace?”

  The night is chilly, but instead of saying yes, she says, “If I’m going to sleep, won’t that just be wasted effort? I mean … the sparks …” She’s stalling. She’d like to see more of him, even it is just to talk, and since he found out her age, that seems all it will be. Only talking will be … nice, she tells herself.

  “They’re magic. The sparks won’t jump out and catch the house on fire,” he says. “And it’s no effort.”

  Tara melts. “Yes, please then.”

  They go into the little cottage and Lionel raises his hand and the fire in the hearth of the common area lights up. A few quick steps, and he vanishes into the bedroom. Tara doesn’t follow. She hears a whoosh and sees the glow of flames.

  Lionel emerges from the room and asks, “Are you tired?”

  “Not really,” she admits. Although she wonders if it is just him being here that’s giving her a charge.

  “I’ll make tea,” he says, and goes over to the fireplace and swings a kettle on a lever into the flame. For the first time, Tara notices a little tray with teacups nearby. Kings need tea, apparently, even if they don’t need a kitchen. She sits a little uncomfortably on one edge of an overstuffed sofa.

  Lionel comes over to the sitting area. He skips the sofa, and looks at the heavy chair that is directly to Tara’s right that looks almost like a throne. Lionel frowns at it, as though some unpleasant memory still sits there, and sits down on the ottoman in front of Tara instead.

  “I wish I had a little gray box that could play all sorts of music for you,” he says.

  Tara smiles at his joke. “A computer,” she says in English.

  He smiles back. “Gibberish.”

  Flames in the fireplace crackle, and the silence between them feels uncomfortable. She wonders what he’s doing here, but doesn’t want to ask, because maybe then he’d go and she doesn’t want that. He’s funny and kind, and has looked out for her here, just as she did for him on Earth, she supposes. After tomorrow they’ll never see each other again, and that thought hurts.

  Lionel’s so close she’d only have to lean a little bit forward to kiss him. But he’s looking at the chair again, glaring at it as though admonishing it for spying on them. Who knows, it could be a magical chair, and it could be spying on him.

  But the silence feels more oppressive than just a nosy magical chair. She almost asks him if something is wrong … and then realizes that he’s come home to be called “half-breed” and something in their journey made him grow and changed him painfully. Of course something is wrong.

  “What will you do?” Tara blurts out instead.

  Lionel’s gaze meets hers.

  Tara waves a hand at him. “I mean, you’ve changed … and I don’t really understand why … but I know that it hurt.” Physically and emotionally.

  Lionel rubs his jaw. “I will have some trouble.” He takes a deep breath, pulls the key chain around his wrist out from under his shirt, and clasps it tightly in his hand. “I’ll never be the steward to the queen again.”

  “Because you’re … not full elf?”

&n
bsp; Lionel shrugs. “It’s more complicated than that.” He sighs. “I realize that as a magician, even a minor one as you say you are, that you might not think that being a steward is a great vocation, but I liked it. Yes, there were a lot of tedious chores, but working for the queen, I met people from every realm.” He picks at the keychain. “My placement was interesting, if not particularly grand.”

  Tara swallows. She actually understands him perfectly. “My placement … as a minor magician …” She smiles at the job title he’s given her. “Is interesting … if not particularly grand.” Lionel’s eyes come back to her and she looks down at her hands.

  “I never could decide on what to be,” Tara admits. “As a minor magician, well … I get to be a little bit of everything. Cleaning viruses off of people’s computers can be tedious, especially when it’s the same virus over and over and it is the same cat GIF.”

  Lionel blinks at that, and he mouths the word gibberish.

  Smiling bashfully, Tara soldiers on. “But I also create devices to help detect dark energy, and I knew what that magic-blocking wire was based on conversations I’ve overheard from Dr. Eisenberg.” Leaning forward, she whispers. “I don’t think I was actually supposed to overhear, but I did.”

  Lionel grins. “Some of my magical abilities, like becoming invisible and creating illusions, I’m not supposed to know, but do because I overhear things.” He winks. “Those are skills that lords and ladies don’t like their servants knowing.”

  Tara snickers. She can imagine servants are supposed to be figuratively invisible, not literally.

  “I have access to the queen’s library, too, so I know many other things I’m not supposed to know. It’s how I know things about Abrahamic religions.” Shrugging, he adds, “I like learning about everything.”

  “That’s why I’m only a minor magician!” Tara says. “There are so many things I could have been—”

  “You were allowed to choose?” Lionel asks, sounding startled.

  Nodding, Tara says, “But I like everything too much to focus on one thing. My job is so varied. I fix things, I build things, sometimes I even write press releases for Dr. Eisenberg when he wants something in ‘plain English.’ I may only be a minor magician, but I have more than I need, and I like it.” She just doesn’t have everything she wants—like someone to share her life with.

  The teapot whistles and Lionel gets up and returns minutes later with cups of something steaming and fragrant. Tara holds hers in both hands, letting the warmth spread to her fingers. “What will you do?” she asks.

  Sitting back down, Lionel says, “I … there will be options.” He swallows. “If not here, then maybe among my father’s people.” Tilting his head, he appraises her. “You have choices,” Lionel says. “Perhaps that explains it …”

  Tara sits up expectantly, waiting for him to finish the thought.

  “... You seem a lot more mature than a twenty-nine-year-old elf.”

  By saying it, she feels Lionel has decreased the tension in the room by half. She can’t help laughing a little. “I kinda noticed that surprised you.”

  He gives her a crooked smile, revealing the dimple in his left cheek. “It did catch me off guard, but I’m over it.”

  The fire crackles. Tara finds herself nervously lifting her tea cup to her lips, and then jerking the cup away when she finds it too hot.

  “May I?” says Lionel, setting his own tea down and reaching toward hers.

  Tara nods, not sure what he has in mind.

  Instead of taking the cup from her, he wraps his hands around hers and blows onto the liquid. Snowflakes form in the steam. Smiling with delight, Tara catches one on her finger and watches as the delicate lace-like pattern melts into her skin. Then she looks down at the cup. The liquid within has a crust of ice on top.

  “Oops,” says Tara, gazing down at it. “I think you overdid that a little.”

  “Tara,” Lionel whispers.

  Tara lifts her gaze and finds he’s still leaning close. His pupils are wide and dark. His hand hasn’t left hers, and next to the now-cold cup seems fever hot. She glances at his lips, just inches from her own. She looks back up and nods, Yes, though he’s asked no question. He holds her gaze with his own. Time seems to have physical weight, and it feels like it is crushing her.

  And then he leans forward, and his lips are finally on hers, warm, soft but firm and insistent. Tara’s eyes slide closed, her heart pounding, her fingers itching to touch him, and a perverse desire to laugh rising in her chest because it is a perfect kiss. She's breathless when Lionel pulls back. His free hand goes to her ear. Tracing the top with his thumb, his eyes search hers. “After tomorrow, I won’t see you again,” he murmurs.

  Tara’s chest constricts. “I know.” And she hates it. She likes him more after just sitting and talking to him.

  “I want,” he whispers, “to give you a long goodbye.”

  “Long goodbye?” Tara tilts her head.

  Lionel smiles. “I seem to have given you all the words of my language, but not all the phrases.”

  “What does it mean?” Tara whispers.

  Hand ghosting down from her ear, to her face, and then her arm to her hand, he takes her fingers and says, “I’ll show you.”

  Standing, he guides her to her feet, and then draws her across the room. She follows as though floating on a string. She feels like their bodies are magnets, longing to come together, and if they just get a little bit closer, they’ll snap into place. She can feel her pulse racing; her fingers hold the partially-frozen cup tight. Lionel’s almost in the bedroom when her steps falter.

  Lionel turns around, reels her in, and their bodies come together with all the rightness she’d imagined. Lionel strokes her face, her ears, brushes back a loose tendril of hair, and then he kisses her again. It’s more urgent, and she’s getting lightheaded. She’s not sure who spins them, or when she starts backing up, but suddenly her back is against the wall, Lionel’s lips are making their way down her neck, she has her free hand on his ear and she’s rolling her thumb over the point and gasping for breath. His hands are slipping to her hips and she feels him inching the dress up. Her eyes slide to the side. In the bedroom, she sees golden firelight. The bed looks warm and welcoming … not that she needs to be warmer. She feels like she is on fire … but … but … but …

  He lifts his head from her neck, kisses her lightly, and then his eyes go to the doorway and come back to her. One of his eyebrows lifts. His hands keep pulling up her dress, inch by agonizing inch, his body is flush with hers, his knee is pressed between her legs, and the friction of that against her is glorious.

  She strokes the point of his ear. She loves how soft it feels and how warm. In her other hand, the teacup is still cold. Magically cold … She takes a sharp breath. She has no idea what she’s doing here, what the sexual mores of this world are, she could get pregnant if they’re not careful. These thoughts fill her mind, but as Lionel leans in to kiss her again, it is her heart that speaks. “What about your soulmate?”

  He pulls back. He’s so beautiful in the firelight, his face bathed in its orange glow. “I haven’t met her yet.”

  He’s beautiful and she wants him, and maybe she should do this so that when she’s old and grey and is surrounded by cats she can look back and think about Lionel.

  But then Lionel leans in, and Tara ducks her head, so his forehead rests against hers. She can feel heat radiating from it. Her eyes slipped closed. There are a lot of things that they could do that wouldn’t risk pregnancy and thinking about them makes heat pool inside her … but would he push too hard for more? That’s what her head says, but her heart speaks again. “You could meet her at any time.”

  “Tomorrow?” He says it lightly, chidingly, but there is a tightness in his jaw … that finely chiseled jaw that she wants to explore with her fingers and her lips. She can still feel the bite of his stubble like an echo on her skin.

  She’d wanted him to declare her his soulmate. H
er words were her heart’s gambit to draw it out. She gulps. Crazy heart. There are no such things as soulmates. Not for humans, at least.

  She thinks of the doctor who only dates black girls to upset his parents and feels herself going cold. She can’t be an experiment, a rebellion, or a practice run. Swallowing down her hurt, she whispers, “Maybe you’re too young to find your soulmate, but I’m too old not to be looking for mine.” Not that she believes humans have soulmates, either. Not the way elves have them. If she does this, she’s going to pine for Lionel for a long, long time, and she can’t do that.

  “Humans don’t have soulmates,” he says.

  The words cut through the air, and maybe her heart.

  “But we do have souls,” she says, and it comes out a shout. Her soul needs someone who sees her more than a one-night stand. Her lip trembles and her free hand balls into a fist.

  Lionel frowns. “Tara Lupita Gibson …” His voice sounds exasperated and far away. Tara’s hand unknots and her lips part. Lionel backs up and Tara hears a crack. She and Lionel both jump as the teacup she’d managed to not spill because of the ice crust falls to the floor.

  “It slipped,” Tara says, dropping to sit on her heels, more because she is afraid of what she will do if she has to look at Lionel.

  “No,” he says, dropping beside her. “I’ll pick it up.”

  It’s then that she notices she’s still holding the handle of the cup. Among the fragments on the floor is a solid chunk of frozen tea. Tara’s eyes widen, and the last fragment slips from her hand.

  Head bowed, not looking at her, Lionel says, “You’re right, Tara, you do have a soul.”

  Tara doesn’t move, a lump forming in her throat.

  Lionel’s voice trembles. “Please go.”

  It’s the tremble that makes her pause.

  “Go!” Lionel shouts.