Flare of Villainy: The Imdalind Series, Book 10

by Ethington, Rebecca

  Well, I had walked right into that one.

  “I love you, Míra,” I whispered, both of us frozen as though time had slowed. Maybe it had. Or maybe it had sped up judging by how my chest was trying to take off. “I love your hurricanes and your sweeping calms. I love the broken bits, the messy bits, and the sarcasm bits that I never know how to react to. I love all that you’ve overcome and while I may not love the past, I do love the future. Yes, I am older than you, and I may not act on those feelings just yet. But someday I hope you will be mine.”

  I was sure I was missing something, or had said something wrong, but Míra jumped up, wrapping her arms around me as she hugged me, as her cold wet nose pressed against my neck. I hadn’t even realized she had been crying.

  “I’ll take that for now,” she whispered in my ear before pulling back, a look that only spelled trouble in her eyes. “But if anyone in the Ryland fan club comes knocking, it’s not my fault if they end up dead.”

  “Míra,” I scolded, but she just giggled and skipped to her bed, grabbing the pieces of the letter before pressing them back into my hand. Her skin against mine, her magic pouring into me.

  The two powerful waves connected, crashing like their own storm as they begged for more. She just smiled, even as I froze, my heart begging for her.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll only kill the blonde ones.”

  20

  Ilyan

  The handcuffs had made a return.

  Although this time they were in the form of zip ties. The thin band of plastic dug into the skin of my wrists as they strapped me to the leg of the chair I sat in. They pulled me down into an awkward fold, the skin rubbed raw from the pressure.

  It was the line of pressurized fire around my wrists that I felt first. A pain in my head came second as the chair shifted, rocking me to the side and slamming me into the hard metal seat in front of me. The world spun as the pain doubled, the impact from where the butt of the gun had knocked me out swelling as a new pain flowered over my skull.

  Groaning as everything shifted, the world slowly began to swim into focus. The sound of wheels on a track buzzed in my ears, the signature chug-chug that I had heard for so many years when I worked on the railroad rising to meet it.

  I attempted to shift my weight, but my arms held me in place as the train continued to shift and sway. Resigned to my uncomfortable fetal position, I opened my eyes to a battered train car. Ribbons of moonlight flowed over the darkness of the long space revealing lines of dilapidated chairs beside broken windows that worked to flood the cabin with frozen air. Everything shifted as the train jerked again, an old chandelier rocking dangerously from a single wire as a chair two rows up completely toppled over.

  A groan followed the collapse, the sound out of place against the creaking of metal and wood. It was only after the sound, after the chairs began to shift against their bolts that I realized that this must be the transport that the Russian had spoken of.

  Attempting to shift again, I looked from chair to chair, seeing the shadows of a few others as they flitted in and out of the dark blue light. Each occupant swayed awkwardly from their own chair, their bodies flopping dangerously from the weird positions they had been placed in. Heads rolled, mouths lolled, and each and every one of them was as unconscious as I was supposed to be.

  The train shifted again, slamming my head into the heavy metal chair once again. Pops of bright white light speckled my vision as pain blossomed through my skull. The pain spread through my bones in a rattle before congregating in my joints in little tense pockets. Clenching my teeth, I kept the yelp of pain restrained, although only just.

  “Hey,” I hissed through the dark, my voice a slur thanks to some drug they had given me. To ensure ‘safe passage’, I supposed. Either that or this was just how it felt to wake up from being knocked out.

  The train rocked and this time I groaned, the same word coming again, although I wasn't sure if it was said to the other unconscious passengers, or whoever was supervising. Neither responded. It was only the groan of wood and creak of metal as the train continued its journey down the tracks.

  Pain swelling, I watched the light shift over the others, the blue and black making the already forgotten space look haunted. It was calming, somehow, although that sensation could have been from the injury mortality infected me with.

  Either way, it made every sway of the train feel like a gentle lull…

  I wasn't sure if I fell asleep or was just startled by the loud horn of the train. The angry sound bled twice through the icy air as the train began to turn, every limp body twisting to the left as everything rattled and shook. I tensed at the motion, unable to fight the pull of gravity as my body was jerked to the side.

  As though it was a dance, every rag doll shifted. All but one.

  A woman that I recognized at once.

  “Ovailia?” The question was brimming with confusion as she scowled down at me, a million emotions hidden behind the hate in her eyes.

  “Hello brother,” she glowered, the sound of her voice barely audible above the sound of the train. She herself was barely visible. Dressed all in black and hidden underneath a sleek leather coat, if it wasn't for the long hair she always wore down, and the haunting blue of her eyes, I may never have seen her there.

  “I didn't expect to see you here. I wonder if they know the prize they have caught.” She grabbed the strands of my hair and pulled them back so I could see her. “With these buffoons I doubt it.”

  “What are you doing here?” I hissed through the clench in my jaw, trying to pull my head away and relieve some of the pressure from my neck, but she held on tighter, shaking me around a bit as the train shifted.

  “Collecting what belongs to me.”

  I tensed as my head finally dropped, the heavy thing looking back to her as she drifted in and out of focus.

  Her hand moved from my head to my chest, palm flat against the tattered shirt I wore as my heart rate accelerated past what was normal or healthy.

  “I will leave this for later, however. I have more important charges.” She smiled at me as I looked back, only seeing the bright blue of her eyes for a second before she leaned over me, lips nestled in the hollow of my ear.

  “Take care of it will you?” Her voice had changed, the tone filling with a sincerity that wrapped around us both, so many memories of growing up together traveling on its back.

  Her breath was hollow in my ear as she waited for an answer, hand tightening around my shoulder as the scent of her perfume permeated the icy air. I said nothing, I couldn't. I could only watch as she kissed me on the cheek, the love I saw there fading as she stepped away.

  “Ovailia,” the whisper of her name never left my lips as the train continued to rock, the motions pulling her in and out of my vision like the flicker of a candle. Until, with one final rock she was gone altogether, leaving a girl with spiky black hair and a nose ring behind.

  I only saw the unfamiliar girl for a moment before she too left with the rock of the train, another horn sounding as we began to turn, and my head intersected with the chair once more.

  21

  Ilyan

  “Ilyan?”

  Her soft voice pulled me out of the distorted darkness of the train car and right into the bright white beach of our Tȍuha. I knew what it was before I opened my eyes. I could hear it in the waves and the call of the birds, I could smell it in the salty air.

  “Joclyn,” I sighed her name as I turned to her, instinctively reaching out and pulling her into me. “Můj navždy”

  The hot whisper of her breath over my neck as she burrowed into it sent shivers down my spine.

  Pulling her closer, I pressed my lips against her jaw before finally opening my eyes to the intense silver grey of hers.

  “Joclyn, I whispered, letting the tips of my fingers run over her face.

  The sensation rippled through her and she shivered, but the look in her eyes made it clear that we both knew what was missing.
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br />   “Do you think you made the right choice?” she asked, vocalizing my fear in a way that I could not.

  Fitting seeing as she was only a projection of the woman my soul longed for.

  “I am not sure,” I admitted, my focus shifting to the way my fingers were running over her skin, as though the more I focused the more likely it would be that I would feel her magic connect to mine.

  “I still question the loss of my magic. But being here, with you, knowing what I do…” I hesitated, pressing my palm against the curve of her neck. “I couldn't find you without knowing about you. About Imdalind. About what we have been through. About this place.”

  She smiled, the pure joy I had seen all those years ago in the sight, and all those times since streaming out from her.

  “And now?”

  “And now that I have remembered you,” I hesitated, leaning closer as I pulled her into me. “Now, I can find you.”

  For years I dreamed of her, I held her in my arms and fantasized about being with her once again. I longed to kiss her, to press my lips to hers.

  I never did.

  Perhaps it was the fear of the man without memories, the insecurities of not knowing who I was and what the girl before me meant to me.

  Now, I knew. Now, nothing was going to stop me.

  I pulled her into me as I kissed her, pressing her body against mine as I wrapped my legs around hers, winding us together.

  My lips devoured hers, pressed against hers as I felt her tongue flick against my lower lip. I groaned at the touch, the soft feeling of her kiss growing into an intense pressure as she leaned against me, her arms pulling her closer.

  Hands ran over skin, lips pressed against necks, and everything was a tangle of passion as I finally gained the touch that I had been longing for.

  The sensation was different without the charge of our magic as it interacted, different, and yet somehow the power was still there.

  I had felt my love for her before, felt the strength of my commitment and passion, but without the connection in our magic to back it up, I felt it so much more acutely.

  It was just as strong as I expected it to be.

  “I know this is not a true Tȍuha,” I whispered between the kisses that I pressed against her neck. “But this…”

  “The love is real,” Joclyn moaned as she shifted herself ever closer, “perhaps this is too.”

  As much as I wanted to believe her, I knew it was not true.

  “Not yet,” I gasped as I pressed my hand against her collarbone, holding her away from me just enough that I could see the silver sheen in her eyes. “But it will be soon.”

  She smiled at the promise, that same coy joy dancing behind her eyes. “Sounds like you have some work to do.”

  “I do,” I whispered, letting my finger trail down the line in her jaw. “I have so much to talk to you about.”

  “I am sure I do too,” she smiled. The game in her voice was apparent. “I hope you find me.”

  She smiled as she leaned closer, her eyelashes tickling against my cheek as she closed them to kiss me.

  I felt her lips for the briefest moment before they were gone, gone like the sound of the waves, gone like the salt air.

  And all that was left was the smell of antiseptic, a familiar rhythmic beeping undulating from somewhere in the distance.

  My eyes fluttered open to the same red flowers, the same yellow light that streamed from the open window. Only this time, instead of the bitter mountain air it was crisp, cool. It reminded me of the meadowed hills in France where Wyn and Thom had made their home. If I closed my eyes I was sure I could see the tiny three-room cabin he had built. He only told me later that he had refused to use magic on the precious thing.

  That memory was one of the few that mixed good with bad in a seamless wave. The emotion washed over me and I gasped, chest tensing as the intensity caught me off guard.

  Much like everything else the sensation was intensified without my magic to stifle it.

  Just like the pain in my head…

  I turned from the window to the heavy wooden door that was inset against the yellow wallpaper. The whole room was different from the hospital I had been in Kiev, the layout was wrong, the smell that drifted in through the window didn’t even match. But that wallpaper, that wallpaper was exactly the same.

  I stared at it, the low hum of my heart rate monitor picking up as I attempted to sit. My movements, however, were hindered by a single padded strap wrapped around my left ankle.

  Heart rate turning into a thunder, I threw the blankets from me, revealing an old stained hospital gown and one of the padded restraints that had held me down for years.

  Without thinking, I pushed my magic to serge, just the same as I had always done. The concentration, the strength, it was all there, but nothing else responded.

  This was going to take some getting used to.

  My sigh turned into a growl as I shifted my weight, ready to tear the metal padlock on the ankle restraint off with my bare hands. I didn’t get a chance to try.

  The door swung open with a clatter and I jerked, throwing the blanket back over the thing.

  Instead of the angry Russian, or the line of soldiers, however, it was a woman. My hope swelled as she backed her way into the room, heart thundering at her long brown hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck.

  “Kaye!” I practically yelled her name, relief at seeing her, at seeing the one person who could possibly get me out of here.

  All of the hope was dashed, however, as she turned around, revealing a nameless woman with bottle green eyes and a comfortable expression.

  “Who?” she asked as she shuffled in, pulling a large metal rack behind her.

  “I… ummm,” I stammered, failing to come up with an adequate response.

  She didn’t seem to care, however, she just smiled kindly, and continued to roll her cart in, bringing it right up to where I sat up in my bed.

  “It’s Borscht again today.” Her smile faltered somewhat, the light in her eyes dimming as though she was delivering bad news.

  I felt none of that, after so long of unknowingly eating meat, a bowl of beet stew sounded divine. Unless… “Does it taste bad?”

  Her smile softened, a gentle clang hitting against the side table as she set a bowl and a few rolls down on my bedside table.

  “No.” She didn’t even look at me, her focus was only on the bowl as she carefully removed the foil. “But it has only been borscht here for a year.”

  Her honesty caught me off guard and I looked away from the soup that my stomach was growling in need of, to the young woman with a kindness so different from what I had seen before.

  It was such a stark contrast that it made me wonder if it was all a dream.

  “Where am I?” My own stomach twisted at my question.

  The woman froze in her task of putting yet another roll on my tray and turned to me slowly, the trepidation I had expected to see there before flooding her once bright eyes.

  “They don't want me to tell you that,” she whispered, glancing at the door as she began to shift through something in the bottom of her cart.

  “The Republic?” I asked part of me hoping that I could get some answers out of his woman.

  She only nodded, and while it was enough, I could feel myself needing more.

  “I do not have much time,” she hissed, her voice shaking as the fear I had expected to see earlier presented itself. “I only bring the food… and this…”

  She shoved the book toward me, the spine bulging from a pen she had concealed inside of it.

  “A book?”

  “They say you have no memory. But I know who you are. If you remember, even a little bit, I can help.” She smiled with a pride and bravery that I would not have expected from her up until this point. “If you write letters. I will get them where they need to go.”

  Her hand was kind as she placed it on my arm, one gentle squeeze pressing against me before she stood. />
  “But the Republic…” I said, my desperation for knowledge growing as she turned to leave.

  “They are not the SSU. They will not hurt you the same, although they may not be kind.” Her back was to me now, her cart clattering as she pushed it toward the door. “Read the book. Fill its pages for me.”

  Her instructions were a hiss as the door opened, the wide wooden slab opening to swallow her whole and dispense the blonde individual that I had expected to see the first time.

  I was only barely able to conceal the book underneath the covers of my bed before his focus shifted from the attractive young woman to me, his interest not wanting to leave her.

  “Welcome, home, I guess we can say.” His voice was a drawl, his Russian clipped in what I could only assume was agitation.

  He walked right up to my bed, pulling a clipboard off the end of it as he made his way to the head. His focus drifted between me and the papers, the side glances tensing through my already taut muscles.

  “A slight concussion, it seems, but other than that you appear to have come through transport okay.”

  He sighed and set the clipboard down on the bed, right on top of where I had placed the book. I was shocked he hadn’t noticed that it hadn’t hit the bed.

  “I suppose now the only matter at hand is the question of whether or not you will comply, or if we will have to resort to other tactics.”

  I swallowed. The strict consonants in his words made it clear just how serious he was, and that promise of torture did not bode well for me and my suddenly mortal existence.

  “What exactly do you want to know?”

  He smiled at the fear that, like it or not, was quickly taking up residence in my heart.

  I was sure I could battle him. I was sure I could win. It was only one restraint on my ankle, one man, with one gun. But even with my memory of how to fight returned, there was little to nothing I could do.

  It wasn’t worth the risk.