Her mouth curved into a tiny ghost of a smile.
That one gesture arrowed through him. She trusted him.
The eagle saw it, too, and even though his wings were out, he used his claws to tear into Sutton’s back in blind, protective fury. Sutton didn’t flinch, he deserved it and more.
Carla choked, her body convulsing in a desperate attempt to draw in air. Her muscles went rigid, and she made horrible wet sounds in her chest. She was suffocating in her body as Keri’s soul was suffocating in the knife.
Quickly, he turned her over, laying her stomach across his thighs and putting pillows under her head. He stroked her back through his blue T-shirt she wore until her muscles relaxed and she was able to draw a shallow breath.
Do it, he told himself.
He picked up the knife from where he’d put it on the bed. It was warm to the touch. He pushed up the shirt, revealing the little white panties he’d put on her, and the curve of her lower back.
He didn’t want to do this. He wanted to take care of her, make her happy. Not hurt her.
His wings came around the front of him and lay protectively over her back to stop him.
Carla struggled for another breath and he couldn’t stand it. Swiftly, he shoved the wings off her and leaned his forearm across Carla’s upper back to hold her.
He knew exactly where the scar had been.
His hand wanted to shake, but he wouldn’t allow it. He would only allow fast precision. He’d make this as quick as he could for her. Without any more hesitation, he positioned the knife and pierced her skin with the tip. Then he sliced so fast he could barely see his own hand move.
He lifted the blade just as she cried out brokenly, her back arching against his arm where he held her down. She subsided into wheezing sobs.
The eagle went at his back in fury with both claws. He let the bird rip him apart while he watched the blood well and drip from the wound on Carla’s back. He looked at the knife, seeing Carla’s blood on the blade. “Please, Keri, fight for her! Carla loves you, she’s tried so damned hard to help you!”
All Carla’s muscles went limp. She stopped crying. The blood flowing from the fresh wound slowed to a bare trickle.
No scar formed.
Gut-seizing panic roared through him. “No!” He dropped the knife, flipped Carla in his arms, and said, “Carly! Open your eyes!”
Nothing. Her head rolled to the side.
The eagle let out a piercing cry and wrapped his wings around her.
Carla stopped breathing. He felt it the second she left him. “No!” He shot up off the bed and roared out, “You can’t take her! Take me! Not her!” The thought of Carla getting to Summerland and not finding her sister made him sick. She would know Keri had died and was gone forever. The grief drove him to his knees. He couldn’t bear it, couldn’t … just couldn’t. “Wing Slayer, I beg you! Take me, let Carla live and free Keri.”
He cradled Carly to him, holding her close while the eagle stroked her and cried with him. Tears ran down his face. “She only tried to do good. The people she helped …” Everything inside him broke. The pain was worse than anything he’d ever known, worse even than when his mom walked out, worse than when his father died. “It was me that pushed her, me that made her choose.”
“We don’t have much time.” The voice reverberated through the room.
Sutton didn’t answer, didn’t care. He held Carly against his chest, covered in the eagle’s wings so she wouldn’t get cold. She had been so cold. Would she be cold in Summerland?
Would she ever forgive him for losing her sister? He’d never forgive himself. Never. A shadow fell over him.
He frowned and looked up to tell whoever it was to go away. That Carly was cold and shadows would make her colder. He knew he was in some kind of shock or denial, but he wanted to stay there. He wasn’t letting her go. No one would take her from him. So he looked up to tell the shadow to move and—
His brain blanked. Hovering between him and the sliding glass door was a huge male being, over seven feet tall, with wings made of rich gold feathers woven into tight, masculine arcs that shimmered like the sun. They reached up maybe twelve feet high at the tip and when spread wide, they measured a width of at least fourteen feet. His massive arms were covered in bronze bands stamped with wings. “She’s cold,” he finally said while his brain stumbled around in the dark, bumping into the walls in his mind. A dim light clicked on. “Wing Slayer.” His god.
“Sutton. My warrior who fought for a witch who isn’t even his.”
The pain lanced through him, ripping open the wounds. “Don’t punish her. Take me. Let her live. She can free Keri to go on to Summerland.”
“She’s not yours, Sutton.”
He’d rather be a shade for eternity than hear that. But he finally and irrevocably conceded, “I know.” How could he have ever thought Carla belonged to him?
“You have to let her go. She’ll re-bond with Keri, but you aren’t letting go.”
He stared at his god. “I cut her. Hurt her. That’s the last thing she’ll ever know from me and you don’t think I broke our bond?” He cradled her body, unable to stop holding her. “I killed her.”
Wing Slayer bounced on the air, his wings darkening to a burnt color. “If you don’t, Carla’s soul isn’t going to make it and neither will Keri. Carla’s soul left her body and is trying to pull Keri, but she can’t form the bond with her that she needs to. She’s still holding on to you. If you don’t break your bond with her, Keri will die off and Carla will fade into a shade.”
“No!” he bellowed, his mind twisting and bending with the sheer horror of it.
“Let her go. If you truly love her, let her go.”
He closed his eyes, wondering how Carla had done it. How she had made the terrible choice to let her sister go to save him. But if he didn’t do it, Keri’s soul would die, and Carla would end up a shade, roaming the between worlds, no longer able to feel the sun or moon or love that witches needed. He couldn’t let that happen. And finally, he was totally humbled and prostrate before his god. He kept his head bent and said, “Tell me what I have to do.”
* * *
Carla looked around in surprise. She was back in her body. What was happening? The last thing she remembered was Sutton, holding her, begging her to live and Keri to help her. Then a strange lightness took hold of her and she had been able to see him holding her body. She realized she must be dead and had tried to reach Keri in the knife to pull her soul out, but she hadn’t been able to do it. So she’d just … hovered near Sutton.
She took in her surroundings. Beautiful vines with large white and purple flowers that wove alongside a long graceful road paved with colored stones. Up ahead, the path gave way to soft grass surrounding a rock waterfall that splashed into a pool. A gentle mist lightly touched her skin. She wasn’t even walking, but gliding while a soft breeze lifted her hair.
She recognized where she was, the astral plane, the place she’d pulled Sutton into that first time. She didn’t understand. Was she dead? She thought she was, but she was clearly in her doppelgänger body, dressed in the same T-shirt and panties she’d had on earlier. How was that possible?
And why?
She turned and saw Sutton walking beside her. Seeing him made her vividly aware of her heartbeat, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He wore the same pants and boots he’d had on on the physical plane, only now the wings of his eagle jutted out from his back, the brown and black feathers spreading out across her back. Sutton’s arms, chest, and stomach were even more powerful than she remembered to support such a majestic bird.
“You have your wings. That’s wonderful!” She wanted to touch him, to feel all his skin and feathers, but something felt … off.
He turned to look at her, his eyes lighting up.
Then Keri appeared in the pathway in front of them. “Carla, you’re here! You and Eagle!” She held out her hands.
Sutton’s head whipped around.
His wings lifted and fluttered in excitement. “Keri.”
“Sutton?” Jealousy and fear bubbled like a rancid stew in Carla’s stomach. She loved Keri, and wanted to rejoice in seeing her. Except now she understood. She’d had this dream before as a warning. The Ancestors hadn’t been able to reach Carla then, so they’d blessed her with a dream of warning. But she’d ignored it. She’d known Sutton wasn’t hers, and she’d taken him anyway.
Now Keri was here to claim him. How? Keri’s soul was still in the knife, how could she appear here? She wore the black yoga pants and top that she’d died in, only there was no blood on them now. Something was wrong. Carla put her hand on Sutton’s arm. “It’s a trick! Asmodeus or—”
He didn’t look at her, but stared at the image of her sister. “No trick.”
She dropped her hand. He didn’t want her touch, he wasn’t there for her. He had never been hers. And now … her nose clogged, her eyes burned, and her stomach twisted in agony of rejection.
The eagle wing pulled away from her back. Sutton finally turned, his face remote, his eyes dull. “I’m sorry, Carla.” Then he jerked away from her, as if he couldn’t leave her fast enough, and strode toward Keri.
Although she was wearing a T-shirt that fell to her knees, she felt naked and exposed as she watched him leave her. The majestic wings spread out, his shoulders and back rippling with muscles to handle the wings.
Wings for Keri. Not her.
She wanted to scream at him to come back to her, she wanted to throw herself on him and beg. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. He wasn’t hers.
He hadn’t really loved her. He’d loved Keri. He’d felt Keri through the twin bond. Sudden and shattering pain ripped down the center of her chakras and broke the false soul-mirror bond forever.
Broke her.
“No!” Keri’s voice crackled like thunder. “How can you do this?”
Confused, Carla forced herself to look at the scene in front of her. Her sister attacked Sutton, her small fists beating his arms and chest.
He stood there, taking it, not moving, not even looking at Keri, but somewhere in the distance. The wings on his back were beginning to droop, as if they were unbearably sad. She didn’t understand. Why was Keri angry and Sutton unhappy?
She told herself to walk away, to just keep walking until her soul found its way to Summerland. Her doppelgänger body should start fading since her physical body was dead.
But she was gliding, without a will of her own, being pulled to Keri and Sutton.
Keri stopped beating on Sutton and threw herself at Carla. “Don’t let him do this.”
The confusion inside of her kept multiplying, but a lifetime of love opened her arms to catch her sister and hug her. Carla closed her eyes, inhaling the light incense scent that always clung to her sister. Her first thought was that Keri felt odd, almost like something was missing. Then she felt the scar on her back, the place where Sutton had cut her, heat and tingle. Keri started to feel more solid.
She leaned back and looked at Keri. “Did you feel that? What happened?”
Keri’s face filled with joy. “You’ve pulled my soul from the knife!”
Carla felt it then, the bond that had been with her for a lifetime. She and Keri, joined once more, and she felt her sister’s utter relief and joy at being freed from the knife. Her smile was shaky, but heartfelt, and she said, “You can go on now. Find your way into your next life.” Tears filled her eyes. “Please forgive me. You saved my life and I failed you and took your eagle.” The shame and grief bubbled over inside of her, a thick bitterness that burned her throat.
“Carly, it wasn’t your fault,” Sutton said in a low voice.
She jerked from Keri’s hold and said, “Don’t call me that. My name is Carla. I’m not your Carly. I am not yours!”
He folded his huge arms over his chest as if to protect his heart. “Sorry, I won’t. Carla, I didn’t want to break our bond, but I had to. You died. I tried to save you, I swear I did. I got the knife and I tried to reunite the two of you.”
She remembered that. “You cut me. But it didn’t work.”
The skin tightened on his face and he nodded. “You died anyway. Wing Slayer came and said you wouldn’t leave, that cutting you hadn’t broken the bond. I didn’t believe him at first, I cut you. Hurt you. You trusted me and I cut you.”
Carla’s skin pebbled at the pain in his voice. “I knew why you did it.” She hated that her heart bled for his pain. But now she knew that it was the Wing Slayer’s god-magic that had brought them all there.
“Wing Slayer said Keri’s soul was going to die and you were going to end up a shade if I didn’t break our bond. He told me that you don’t belong to me.”
Her chest hurt like two hundred pounds of rocks were being piled on it. She had done this. She had known the truth. It was her fault. “You were reacting to the twin bond. To Keri.”
He looked miserable and frustrated. “I couldn’t let you go shade. I couldn’t let you suffer like that! And even if you somehow found your way to Summerland, I couldn’t let you get there and find out Keri wasn’t there. You can hate me, you can believe I didn’t love you. But I can’t let you suffer.”
His words were so real, so Sutton. Just like her headache, when she had told him not to touch her, and then he’d appeared to be in pain. But when he was taking her pain, feeling her pain for her, he looked fine. All the time he’d held, kissed, or touched her. Made love to her. Her. Not Keri. He had fought to save her, screaming at Keri to fight for her.
He looked even worse now. His skin tight and stark over the bones in his face, his crossed arms bulged with tension, his hands curled into fists. His wings, his beautiful wings, drooped on the ground like a pile of wet feathers. And his eyes were full of misery, looking at her.
Not Keri.
Her.
Wings. “How did you get wings?”
His shoulders bunched. “Desperation. I told the eagle you’d be proud of him and he forced out wings.” The wings lifted an inch or two off the ground and fluttered.
Carla’s heart squeezed at the truth. They had loved her, the man and the eagle. Her eyes filled with tears, her nose burned and her throat ached. She looked away, unable to bear it. “So you’ll find Keri? When she reincarnates?” Why the hell was she asking? Keri had her arm around Carla, trying to comfort her. No one did this, no one intended for this horrible nightmare to happen. It just did—Sutton and Carla were soul-crossed lovers. They weren’t supposed to fall in love.
Keri and Sutton were supposed to be soul mirrors.
The pain made her head spin. “Don’t answer, please don’t answer.” She heard her sister crying almost as hard as she was.
Then Sutton’s hands were on her arms, hauling her up against him. “I had to let you go.” His big hand covered the back of her head, pressing her face against him. She could smell the musk and forest-pine scent on his warm skin and her heart broke all over again. She just nodded, unable to speak as sobs racked her. How could her astral plane body feel so real? How could she be dead and hurt so much? In seconds she felt herself being pulled from his arms, separated by a force they couldn’t see.
“Please, Wing Slayer, a few more minutes,” his voice was thick and his arms held her tighter.
She was yanked from the astral plane and snapped back into her body.
Sutton was on his knees between the bed and the wall in his room with Carla in his arms. The grief for her choked him, made his chest hurt and tears leak from his closed eyes.
A soft sigh drifted up from Carla, and Sutton went rigid. He didn’t move a muscle.
He could feel her breathing!
He snapped open his eyes. The woman in his arms lay quiet, her eyes closed, but she was breathing. Her skin was a natural tone and her witch-shimmer glowed silver. He could see her breasts rising and falling beneath the shirt. “Carla?” He didn’t call her Carly. She had told him not to.
She gave a long sigh. The seconds str
etched out. Sutton heard the hushed conversation outside the door, along with Jerome’s strident tones. But in this single moment of time, he didn’t have room for them, not even Carla’s mother. Only Carla.
Then she slowly opened her eyes. “Your wings are gone.”
His wings didn’t matter. “You’re alive.” A whisper was all he could manage. His heart went wild in his chest and the eagle bounced joyfully inside the tattoo on his back. “How can you be alive? I felt you die.”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel sick anymore. I feel fine.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Except for my back. It burns a little where you cut me.”
Sutton couldn’t get a grasp on reality. Seeing her on the astral plane had been hard enough, and then she’d been ripped from his arms and he’d been flung back to his physical body, believing she’d gone on to Summerland with Keri. How could she be alive? And what did the burning in the cut mean? “Is it Keri?”
She tried to move her hand to her back, but Sutton held her too tight.
“Hold on.” While still on his knees, he shifted her to her feet so that her back was to him, and slid his hands to her waist to steady her. “Let me see.”
She reached back and lifted her shirt.
Dropping his hands from her, he saw the backs of her thighs, then her butt in the little panties and struggled to keep his mind on the cut. Not Carla’s body, not the feel of her skin, not the lavender scent of her.
She wasn’t his. Wing Slayer had told him that. He knew that was why his wings were gone. What he didn’t know was why she was alive. But he was grateful to Wing Slayer and would honor his god’s decree that Carla wasn’t his.
The hem of the shirt lifted past her panty line and he saw it. The scar was there, just like it had been before they’d made love the first time. Seeing the jagged line tripped a swirl of emotions, it was visible proof that Carla wasn’t his and it hurt. But he knew how much Keri meant to Carla, and being able to free her soul would make her happy. He wanted her happy. Fisting his hands to keep from tracing the line, or touching her in any way, he said, “The scar is there. You have Keri with you.”
Soul Magic Page 32
