A Thousand Years (Soulmates Book 1)
Page 9
“You’ve been together for four years, and you still haven’t proposed to her?” Anabell asked, raising her eyebrows at Josef. Josef laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.
“I told him it could wait – at least until he is human. We’ve been waiting for Eadric to make his move, just in case he needed Josef’s help. Now that you’re finally together… ”
Squealing, Anabell jumped up from her seat and ran over to her friend, hauling her up to her feet and pulling her in for a hug. She had worried for days about how to tell her friend that she was never going to age, never going to be the same person ever again. But now she didn’t have too. Dylanne understood everything.
Anabell let her go and took a step back, turning the back of her left hip in Dylanne and Josef’s direction.
“We have some things to tell you too,” Anabell said as she lifted her shirt and showed them the mark they were all familiar with.
Eadric ran down the story about Dunstan and his attempt to kill both Eadric and Anabell in one foul swoop, including Anabell’s two attempted kidnappings and her deal with Lugh to save both of their lives.
“And he got away?” Josef asked once he was sure Eadric was done telling his story. Eadric nodded, clenching his jaw in thinly veiled anger at his onetime friend. He had a strong feeling that it was not the last time he would see the betrayer.
Josef’s phone blared in his pocket, drowning out any attempts to speak. He excused himself from the room to take the call.
Eadric, Anabell, and Dylanne chitchatted as they waited for Josef to rejoin them. His quick phone call turned into a twenty minute call, and the look on his face when he came back into the room told all three of them that it was not good news.
Josef was white as a sheet as he sat back down on the arm of the couch and blinked a couple times, like he was trying to get a grip on things.
Eadric wanted to ask what was wrong, but he knew better than to pry. Josef would speak when he was ready.
“Blithe was attacked last night outside the house Arden shared with her in Barcelona. They waited until he was out hunting for them to move. She was decapitated and left lying in a pool of her own blood in their living room. Arden tried to save her, but there was no resuscitating her. He made one call – to Horace – then waited until the sun came up to walk into it. By the time Lugh got to him, he was gone too.” The news hit Eadric like a hard blow to the stomach and made him double over in his seat.
Arden was one of his oldest friends. They met taking out a rogue band of Soulless in the Italian peninsula in the late fifteen hundreds. He was a great friend and a great warrior – and man. He found Blithe early compared to the others. She was the light of his life. Everyone saw a new man in him when he found her. It was a great loss – devastatingly so.
Eadric motioned for Josef to follow him to the kitchen where they could talk in private without worrying the women.
“Do they know who did it?” Eadric asked through clenched teeth, digging his nails into his palm. Josef nodded.
“There is speculation that it’s a band of organized Soulless hell bent to take out mates away because they lost theirs – or never had them in the first place. Horace, Rhoxan, and Jonah have reported talk of other, failed attempts on soul mates lives. They’re becoming more efficient, Eadric. What is going to stop them from coming after our mates too?”
Eadric grabbed Josef’s shoulder and gave him the most confident look he could muster.
“We are.”
ABOUT Brigitte Ann Thomas
Brigitte is in her early twenties. She has a bachelor’s of English with an emphasis in creative writing from the University of Tennessee. She has been writing fiction since the age of ten and poetry since the age of twelve. She loves both very much and hopes to pursue both as a full-time job. Currently, she is a loving wife and a stay at home puppy mom to a wonderful one year old German shepherd/Belgian shepherd mix and a two year old pug/chihuahua/wiener dog mix. She also writes in her spare time - or as time as she can manage.