“Ah yes. I had not been around another female warrior in a long time. The Circle met rarely back then because travelling was not as easy. Valeria had left to live with Darius over a century before Merrit’s arrival. I was used to strong-willed women but even Valeria was reluctant to question me.
Merrit questioned everything. She said I had lost myself and she was determined to find me.” His eyes grew soft. “And she did. We trained together, we hunted; she pulled me back into society for a while so I could remember what it was to be human. Her quick and honest tongue did land us in a few scuffles but I found myself inexplicably addicted to her company. It was a day or so after the Battle of Poitier, we had been hunting together for ten years, and we were hunting a soul eater who was preying on the dying soldiers. The soul eater found Merrit and I barely got to her in time to save her. I knew then.”
“Knew what?” Eden asked in a hushed voice.
“That I loved her. That I could not live without her.”
“What did she say?”
Cyrus burst out into laughter as he remembered. “She said… ‘Well it took you long enough, Cyrus of Persepolis.’”
Eden smiled. “She was already in love with you.”
“I was a fool to have not seen it.”
A sweet silence fell over them, and together they sat staring as the flow of traffic grew busier, and more people descended out onto the streets, hurrying to their work. Eden’s eyes caught on a couple as they came out of their apartment and kissed before turning to walk off in opposite directions. Her eyes followed the woman, who turned a couple of times to look back at the guy. “I’m sorry,” she whispered without looking at Cyrus. “I’m sorry you lost her.” He was quiet a moment before he replied softly, “I am sorry you never got to know her.” Chapter Eleven
Standing Ground… Underground
“By now I would imagine you realise that the only way to kill a soul eater is by decapitation,” Cyrus said as they walked back toward the Douglas home.
Subconsciously, Eden guessed she had known that because of what she’d witnessed in her parents
— well — her father’s home when the soul eaters had been decapitated. An image of Stellan’s death flashed across her eyes before she could stop it and she winced, shuddering at the sick, morose feeling that stole over her. “Yeah, I got that part.”
“Good. Well, it is not as easy as it may sound-”
Eden grunted. “Uh what sounds easy about decapitation?”
“Oh. Right. I keep forgetting you are more seventeen year old American teen than ancient warrior.”
“Yeah well just give me a few days.” She grinned cockily trying to shake off the pall cast by Stellan’s memory.
Cyrus didn’t smile back. “This is serious, Eden. Your training here will be pivotal. I cannot send you out to hunt if I am not absolutely confident in your abilities.” She felt her defences rise. After all, hadn’t she already fought off Neith by herself? She had done pretty OK in the past, and now that she didn’t have the hunger messing with her she was able to concentrate fully on all the skills she would need to acquire to hunt down monsters.
“Fighting Neith is not the same as fighting soul eaters. Soul eaters are stronger than Neith; that is why Neith train twice as hard as we do.”
Perturbed by his intuition Eden glowered at him. “What, have you been taking lessons from Noah on mind reading or something?”
“No.” Cyrus smiled now. “But I am coming to understand you, and what I do not know, Noah has told me. He knows you very well, Eden.”
The thought of her ex-best friend sent her heart into palpitations. To forgive or not to forgive, that is the question. “You know it’s really clear whose side you’re on.”
“I am not a teenager, Eden, I do not take sides. I would just like to remind you that Noah was under orders and he disliked lying to you. He does care about you.”
“You think I should forgive him?”
“Enough to let him prepare you. He is excellent at what he does, Eden. He will make you an excellent hunting partner if you can allow yourself to trust him.”
“I trust you.”
“Then trust me when I say you can trust Noah.”
Cyrus came to a stop outside McLeish’s home and Eden slowed to a halt beside him. She found herself staring at the ground in concentration, chewing on her lip as she thought over what Cyrus was suggesting. Noah had hurt her. In fact she was pretty sure Noah may have broken her heart. There was no way you could just shrug off that kind of hurt like it had never happened. But she also knew in that rational part of her brain she now owned that Noah hadn’t meant to hurt her. He was just doing his job and, from what she had witnessed so far, the Ankh were kind of big on duty… even to the point of being arrogant elitists. Was it possible to come to some kind of halfway point concerning the first guy who had ever crushed her?
“OK.” Eden nodded, lifting her head to meet Cyrus’ dark gaze. “I’m not quite ready to be friends with him but I will… I will trust him. I can do that.”
The Princeps face softened. “I am glad. Inside this training centre are some Neith aware of what you are. We need to be careful. We need to be together in this.”
“There you are.”
Eden and Cyrus looked up toward the house to see McLeish stepping out of his front door. She followed Cyrus as he made his way towards the Councilman she didn’t trust.
“Good morning, Councilman,” Cyrus greeted him formally.
McLeish nodded, his lips set in a grim straight line. “Mornin’, Princeps. Ms MacDouglas. You’ve caught me just in time. I have to leave for work in ten minutes.” Eden furrowed her brow as her eyes swept his attire. He was dressed in a dark navy suit.
Somehow she couldn’t see him as the businessman type.
“Councilman McLeish is a police officer. A Detective Inspector with the Lothian and Borders Police,” Cyrus explained as they stepped inside the house. “We have many Neith in positions of authority, Eden, in case incriminating discoveries are made and we need to cover them up.” OK, that sounded creepy and ominous. “Incriminating discoveries?” It was McLeish who answered, his eyes washing over her face with little expression, “Bodies of soul eaters. We need to be able to dispose of them. We have people on local boards of authority who deal with the cemeteries, so we can usually bury soul eaters there without recourse. Sometimes, however, we don’t have time and if those bodies come back to haunt us we need people, like myself and others, who can make the questions go away.”
Eden gulped. How had she not thought about all of this? You were pretty preoccupied with your own crap, remember. Torture chamber in the basement. The hunger to kill your best friend. PSAT’s.
You know, the usual. “Gotcha.”
“It’s a good thing your eyes have changed colour,” McLeish suddenly said, and she found herself abruptly caught in his burning gaze. “They were unnerving.” The reminder that he didn’t trust her because of her heritage burned. It wasn’t like it was her fault.
She had been born that way and she had done her damnedest not to hurt anyone. She had fought against her nature and she was trying goddammit! Before Cyrus could remark (and she could feel his own bristling tension beside her) Eden stepped forward, narrowing her eyes on the Councilman. “I expect that to be the last comment you ever make about my heritage, Councilman McLeish, or I’ll consider it a breach of our agreement to keep what I am quiet.” She watched as his jaw clenched, his arms crossing over his chest defiantly. He clearly didn’t like being dressed down by a teenage girl. He shot her a withering look before turning to Cyrus as if expecting his reprisal on his behalf. One casual look at her guardian and all she saw was onyx pride in his eyes. She turned back to the Councilman, her eyebrow quirked up expectantly.
Glowering, McLeish lowered his crossed arms and nodded tightly. “Understood.”
“Now that we are all clear, I would like to take Eden into the training centre.” Cyrus took hold of her arm gently to guid
e her through the house.
“I’m afraid it’s busy this morning. It’s a bank holiday so some of my people are off work today and the kids are off school… word spread about Noah being here yesterday and well… they’re all excited at the possibility of training with him.”
“Well, they will have to wait their turn. Noah is promised to Eden.” She shivered at Cyrus’ word choice. It sounded so romantic and enticing… and she completely hated the little treacherous butterflies that emerged out of their cocoons in her stomach at the thought of her and Noah in a sentence together, as if they were a couple.
“Of course,” McLeish growled and strode past them out of the kitchen door and into the large backyard. A high wooden fence bordered the entire yard from their neighbours, but the theatre next door was pretty hard to miss. At the end of McLeish’s yard was a large wooden shed. “How are you going to explain the fact that she’s not already trained?” Eden looked to Cyrus. Yeah, how were they going to explain that?
“I told you. The story is that she has been raised by Valeria and I, and I have been overprotective since the death of my wife, but now that Eden is almost eighteen I have decided it is time she takes up her duty.”
“And you really think they’ll believe that?” McLeish’s eyes may not have rolled but his tone did it for them. Eden really wanted to punch the guy.
Cyrus’ voice grew low and menacing as he retorted, “They will believe whatever you tell them to believe.”
Finally the Councilman looked unnerved, paling at Cyrus’ ‘scary voice’. “Of course.” Eden hurried after Cyrus as he followed McLeish into the dark shed. He flicked a switch and she glanced around. It was full of tools and other random crap. What was this? He smirked evilly at her (such a child!) and flicked another switch. She gasped as the floor opened beneath them, a concrete staircase leading down into a brightly lit hall.
“This is the access to the training centre under the theatre,” Cyrus explained, nudging her forward.
“Thank you, Councilman. I can take it from here.”
“Your boy and Valeria are already inside.”
“Is Tobe?” Eden asked just as McLeish was about to leave. She really hoped the girl was there because even though she had decided to trust Noah, it would be nice to have someone there that she kind of counted as a friend.
McLeish frowned at her question and she just knew he wasn’t happy about the idea of her befriending one of ‘his people’. “Aye.”
“Great.” The smile she threw him was deliberately taunting and she enjoyed the way he ground his teeth before storming back out of the shed. She turned to Cyrus and said dryly, “I don’t think he likes me very much.”
Cyrus shrugged and began descending the staircase. “It does not matter. You asserted yourself with him. It was good.”
Grinning at the praise, Eden forgot to be nervous as she followed him underground. The dank corridor veered to the right and Eden’s smile promptly slid off her face. The halls were so oppressive.
She drew in a deep breath, trying not to feel claustrophobic. As they walked through the downwards sloping halls, noise began filtering towards her, grunts and cheers and the buzz of murmuring.
Cyrus took a left and stopped in front of double doors. “You ready?”
“Are they all going to stare?”
“Yes. But only because you are with me and you are Ankh.”
“A few of them know though. Those people we met a few days ago. They know. They’re going to look at me like I’m a freak.”
“Then those are the ones you are going to pick to spar with. A few beatings should knock the judgement out of them.”
Eden laughed. “Yeah, you think so?”
“I know so.” He heaved a sigh and gripped the handle on the doors. “Today you will spend your time in here, training with Noah and possibly October if she wishes it, in hand to hand combat. When you are ready I will take you into training room two further up the hall. There you will learn weapons training.”
“Wait.” Eden stopped him before he could open the door. “Weapons training?” He reached out for her, brushing a stray strand of hair off her face. “Do not look so nervous, Eden.
Surely you noticed we only fight with swords?”
Now that he mentioned it…
“The art of decapitation,” he explained wryly. “We are warriors, we do not believe in guns. We fight only with swords.”
“But the soul eaters use guns. My mo-I mean Celine had one, Ryan shot you.” Cyrus nodded. “Yes, but we are immortal, Eden. It takes much to kill us and like the soul eaters, decapitation or a sword through the heart usually works best. Guns do not kill soul eaters, they barely even slow them down, and stray bullets can kill innocent bystanders. So we fight with our bodies and with swords.”
“OK.”
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah, let’s get this done.”
As soon as Cyrus swung the door open and stepped inside a hush fell over the room. Eden realised McLeish’s idea of busy and her idea were totally different. There were about forty people in the room. She’d been expecting hundreds. Her eyes swept the area, widening. The ceiling was way higher than she’d assumed it would be so the training room wasn’t nearly as oppressive as the halls.
In the far corner of the massive gym hall was a weight area where a few Neith were working out.
Beside it were exercise machines and monkey bars. The rest of the room was taken up by four large mats where four partners sparred. Neith were scattered around the edges of the mats, watching and waiting for their turn. The sparring partners had stopped too at Cyrus and Eden’s entrance and Eden’s gaze locked on Noah who stood on the far left mat, a Neith warrior on his back, his arm twisted in Noah’s fist. Noah’s foot was planted firmly on his chest. Eden grimaced. That looked uncomfortable.
Noah was sooo going to kick her ass.
Just as she thought it, Noah caught her look and smirked cockily. Eden sighed inwardly and crossed her arms over her chest. The problem with Noah was that he was too damn sure of himself.
He needed someone like her. Someone who would a throw a curve ball every now and then, otherwise he would just recycle the only two expressions he had in his repertoire: careful stoic blankness and arrogant smirk. Relaxing her own features Eden gave him a friendly-ish nod and watched with delight as his eyes first widened and then narrowed suspiciously.
Not being mad at Noah might be more interesting than she’d thought.
Chapter Twelve. Taking it to the mat
No amount of supernatural grace could ever make Noah a good surfer. He’d tried a couple of times but each time his Ankh strength had failed him and he was constantly being thrown off balance and buried by the waves. Life with Eden was kind of like that. Yesterday in training he’d almost crushed the Neith under his foot when Eden had given him the nod.
She was talking to him now?!
Of course he’d tried desperately to scramble for equilibrium, his cool calm that made him so…
cool. But by then it was too late. She had seen his surprise. It didn’t stop him from trying to regain some semblance of casual nonchalance by smoothing his features and instructing her in hand to hand combat. And still Eden surprised him. She listened to him without comment, only doling out smart ass comments to October who was her sparring partner. Together he and Tobe, and that annoying nephew of Councilman McLeish, Cameron, walked Eden through a number of varied manoeuvres the Ankh had taken from different martial arts. They started off with the grittier stuff, grappling and boxing, using the ancient Greek art Pankration, some Judo, and Hawaiian Lua. All of them taught how to take down an opponent and keep them down — flips, hammer fists, neck cranks, eye gouging, bone breaking, tracheal grip chokes, arm locks… anything a warrior needed to know about incapacitating a soul eater if they found themselves without a weapon that would actually kill it. And Eden was a fast learner. In fact, Tobe was covered in bruises and Eden had had to be reminded more than a few times th
at she was stronger than Neith and to go easier on the young warrior. These martial arts were the deadliest of their kind and Noah had to focus absolutely so that no one got hurt.
It was only after training, as they headed back to Tobe’s and Cameron (dick) said a flirty goodbye to Eden, that Noah could dwell on the fact that Eden was actually treating him like a person again. He’d looked to Cyrus for answers but his Princeps was too busy praising his adopted daughter for her great first day.
At dinner that night Eden hadn’t actually talked to Noah, but whenever he did speak she didn’t throw him her normal death stare. So yeah, he was off-balance and hated that Eden could do that to him. He couldn’t afford to be off-balance doing the job that he did and that’s why he had to turn down Christopher’s invitation to go investigating what sounded like a soul eater den in the apartments above a club in New Town. According to Chris there hadn’t been a den in about five years and the last soul eater to hit Edinburgh had been two months ago. So yeah, possible den, big news. Just the kind of thing he usually jumped on. But he couldn’t because all he was thinking about was if Eden forgave him and if so what that meant for him? He was turning into a freakin’ milksop.
Guess he couldn’t make fun of his dad anymore for being whipped. Noah sighed and flopped down on the pallet he had made on the floor in the room he was sharing with Cyrus. Cyrus hadn’t turned down the invitation to investigate and he’d had to shut Eden down when she’d asked to go. She and Tobe had retired to Tobe’s room to grumble about being left out. And Noah… Noah had watched her walk out of the room, wondering what it would be like to train with Eden, to wrestle her to the mat, her slender body with curves in all the right places flush with his… he groaned and beat at his pillow.
I had this coming, Noah thought wryly. He’d messed around with so many girls, broke so many hearts and made so many of them cry. This was payback. Growling in frustration he slammed upright, pulling out three pieces of paper each with a Neith girl’s phone number. They’d accosted him at different times during the day, seeming to enjoy his cool perusal, his monosyllabic responses.
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