She could have Rook walking beside her through life if she could convince him they were meant to be.
It was odd feeling such a way when her mind said she had only known him a few days.
Her heart whispered she had known him forever.
“Mother Earth, get rid of this damned spell.” She turned to Serenity, a smile wobbling on her lips. “I want to remember him again.”
She couldn’t take her instincts and her mind warring anymore. She knew Rook. He was more than just a relative stranger to her. Her mind could offer blank patches all it wanted when she tried to remember him, because her heart filled them in, grew warm and light whenever she encountered a gap in her memories, and she knew it was because of him.
Because she loved him.
That love had transcended the boundaries of the spell. It had broken through it despite the spell’s attempts to strip her of her feelings as well as her memories.
It was a struggle to focus as Serenity approached her and took hold of her hands. She closed her eyes and drew down a slow breath as Serenity’s power flowed over her skin and didn’t resist it as it met her own magic. She answered all of Serenity’s questions about the spell she might have used, telling her which ones she had at her disposal, and tried to be patient as the petite blonde worked her way through counter spells.
A shadow moved across her mind, sending a shiver over her skin, and she snapped her eyes open.
“You’re close.” She could feel the spell she had cast being drawn to the surface, and could feel it as it resisted the words Serenity chanted in a low voice as she gripped her wrists.
Isadora twisted her arms so she could clamp her hands around Serenity’s wrists and form a stronger connection between them. As the spell surfaced, she locked onto it just as fiercely.
“It’s Melchizedek’s Fifth Incantation of Order.” She conjured the reversal spell in her mind as Serenity nodded and tightened her grip on Isadora’s wrists.
They chanted it together and her eyes slid to half-mast as power built between them, swirled and grew stronger, causing the fine tips of her silver hair to float and dance.
She felt eyes on her, hot and searing, and glanced at Rook. Her gaze locked with his as he looked over his shoulder at her and a sudden crush of emotions threatened to take her legs out from under her as they turned liquid, all of her strength flooding from her in response to the memories stirring back to life inside her.
Centuries of mourning him, yearning for the chance to see him again, aching to touch him and hear his voice lightening the darkness in her heart swept over her, stealing her voice so Serenity had to continue alone. Tears filled her eyes as she looked at him, as memories of the time that had come before the long dark days without him resurfaced, warming her heart.
Mother Earth, she loved that man who was looking at her with a wealth of concern in his eyes, in a way that said he wanted to come to her and comfort her, but didn’t want to ruin what was happening by intruding.
He needed to come to her.
Damn, she needed to go to him too.
She needed to hold him in her arms and feel his around her. She needed to know he was alive and he was finally back with her. She needed him, more now than ever, wasn’t sure she could breathe until she was being held by him, was breathing him in and soaking up his warmth.
The flood of memories continued, darker ones surfacing that tore at her aching heart and had her lost in thoughts of how she was going to tell him everything that had happened to him, and to her. He needed to know. His memories were locked away, but she could tell him things about himself, could help fill in the blanks so he could know what they had been to each other once.
And what she wanted to be to him again.
She was so swept up in the need to go to him and tell him everything that she didn’t notice what Serenity was doing until it was almost too late.
Her wrists burned.
Isadora snatched her hands back. “Don’t!”
Her chest seized as she looked down at her wrists, afraid she would be able to see the spell inscribed on them. Relief stole another piece of her strength from her as she saw only pale skin and fading bruises, and felt the spell was intact, still hiding the markings from everyone.
“What’s wrong?” Rook barged into the room, darkness spreading outwards from around his crimson eyes as he glared at Serenity and then looked at her.
Isadora shook her head. “It’s nothing… just… she almost broke the spell.”
“The one that makes you forget me?” His expression softened and the tension drained from his broad shoulders as the darkness around his eyes lifted. “You mean the spell that protects the one you cast between us.”
Her eyes widened and heat burned her cheeks, scalding them with the intensity of a thousand suns. “You know?”
He nodded. “I figured it out. You’re immortal because you’re bound to me… you want to protect the spell from people because you want to protect other immortals from witches who might abuse it.”
Her gaze fell to his forearms as he removed the black leather cuffs that protected them.
“It looks like this, right?” He held his hands out to her, revealing beautiful intricate bands of markings that encircled his forearms.
She was the one who nodded this time, relief sweeping through her at the thought it was one less thing she had to find a way to explain to him.
When he looked at her wrists, she knew what he wanted.
She pulled down a steadying breath and focused on them as she held them out towards him. She whispered words that would temporarily lift the spell that concealed them. It was dangerous because it wouldn’t only allow everyone to see the markings. Witches would be able to sense it if they were looking for the spell’s unique marker in the flow of magic around the world.
She had to do it though.
She had to show Rook that she bore the same markings as him, that he wasn’t alone in this world, and neither was she. They had each other.
He moved towards her and she didn’t stop him when he skimmed his fingers over the swirls and lines that matched his. He frowned as they faded, sinking back into her skin.
“I can’t let them out for long.” She wished that she could, because she had been enjoying the feel of his hands on her, his light caress that had heat rolling through her veins again.
“You hid them to protect Rook. You were afraid someone would recognise you had bound yourself to a powerful being and they would use it against you.” Apollyon appeared in the doorway, his blue eyes narrowed beneath the tightly knit black slashes of his eyebrows as he looked at her wrists. “Or you feared someone would use you against him.”
“It’s more than that.” She looked from Rook to him. “Rook is right, and I don’t want it being used by witches to bind an immortal to them against their will. Magic is a balance. To make me immortal, it has tied my life to Rook’s, but it has also affected him.”
“How?” Rook frowned down at her.
“I’m not sure…” She tried to hold his gaze but her courage faltered as his frown deepened. “I’m not sure what might happen if you did die. I’m not sure you would be reborn. You said you didn’t care… that one life with me was enough for you.”
The darkness that had been filling his eyes faded away, and her heart went out to him when she felt his need to remember the memories he had lost and how it was a source of pain for him.
Pain she could ease.
She took hold of his wrists and focused on them.
Rook pulled free of her grip and gruffly muttered, “It’s fine… let it go. I need some air.”
He walked away before she could stop him, pushing past Apollyon and disappearing from view. Her gaze shifted to the other angel, one who had always been open with her, kind and a friend.
Apollyon sighed. “Rook believes the Devil took his memories for some reason.”
It was possible. The Devil had known Rook was bound to her and it was like that deviou
s creature to do whatever it took to keep hold of something that could prove valuable to him, even robbing someone of their precious memories.
Her stomach tightened and swirled as she thought about that, as her mind conjured the reason Rook had been stripped of his past.
It was her fault.
She had managed to escape Hell and had gone into hiding, grief-stricken and convinced Rook was dead. The Devil had somehow made Rook fall and had taken his memories to keep Rook under his sway, had made Rook serve him waiting for the day that she resurfaced and he could send Rook after her.
Because he wanted the talisman.
He would never find it. She would never tell him. History could repeat itself and she would endure it all over again. The talisman she had created to protect the bearer of it was too important for her to break, even more important than keeping the spell that bound her to Rook out of the hands of witches.
Besides, she didn’t know where the talisman was now.
She glanced at Serenity.
She didn’t want to know.
Serenity was of her blood and could tell her, which meant she had to get away from the young witch as soon as possible.
Which meant convincing Rook to leave with her.
CHAPTER 14
Isadora found Rook on a small terracotta-tiled terrace, early evening light casting golden highlights in the tangled strands of his short dark hair. It caressed his shoulders too, accenting muscles that were tense beneath his black t-shirt as he braced his hands against the wrought iron railing opposite the door.
She moved to stand beside him, keeping only a small distance between them, and mirrored his stance, taking hold of the railing and gazing up at the sky above the elegant townhouses opposite her.
“I… I’m sorry for everything that happened to you.” There, it was out there now, no longer burning inside her, destroying her from the inside.
The guilt she felt didn’t lessen. It only grew more intense as his head swivelled towards her and his eyes landed on her.
“It wasn’t your fault.” His deep voice curled around her, offering comfort she refused to take, because he didn’t know what he was talking about, wouldn’t say such a thing if he remembered what had happened.
“It was.” She kept her eyes on the sky as it changed colour, the threads of cloud that laced it making the sunset beautiful, but her focus was on the man beside her, one who deserved a thousand apologies from her.
He deserved to know the truth too.
She breathed slowly to steady her racing heart as nerves began to get the better of her and pushed herself to continue, to let it all spill out of her, not only so he would know about the life he couldn’t remember, but so she could lift some of the burden from her own shoulders.
She had been waiting more than a thousand years to tell him she had been a fool, had ruined something wonderful because she had been headstrong and reckless, and hadn’t listened to him.
She had been waiting centuries for his forgiveness.
“You were against me going, so I slipped out in the night when you were sleeping. I went to meet with someone who said they could get me the ingredients I needed to make the talisman stronger, as close to perfect as it could be.” She tightened her grip on the metal railing and lowered her head as guilt churned her stomach again. “You were right to be worried though… the ‘people’ had turned out to be demonic angels.”
“When you were out of it after the forgetting spell backfired, you talked about demons taking you.” He twisted to face her and leaned a hip against the railing, trusting it far more than she could.
She supposed if he fell, he had wings to stop himself from hitting the ground.
She glanced at his back.
“Are they better now?” She jerked her chin towards his chest when he frowned, confusion dancing in his eyes. “Your wings.”
He shifted his shoulders. “All fine now. Fit for flying again.”
She was glad to hear that.
She inched closer to him, a little shuffle of her right foot she hoped he didn’t notice. The need to be near him was strong, born of the fact she was afraid he would be angry with her when he learned the truth and she didn’t want him to leave. She needed him close to her.
“The demonic angels took me to Hell.” She tried to shut out the vision of that grim and terrible realm that invaded her mind, the memories of searing fiery rivers, choking thick air and screams that rang in the air.
Mother Earth, those shrieks and cries had never stopped. They had been constant, tearing at her, keeping her on the edge. Sometimes, they had been her screams.
The worst times, they had been Rook’s.
She closed her eyes, needing to push that memory aside before it tore down her strength and stole her voice.
Rook’s hand came to rest gently on her shoulder.
Isadora leaned her head towards it, raising her shoulder at the same time, a need to press against him and steal comfort from the feel of him filling her. He didn’t take it away as her cheek pressed against his knuckles, kept it there for her and she was thankful for it. She needed his strength right now.
“The Devil came to see me more than once… demanded I told him where the talisman was and who I had made it for. Whenever I refused, he…” Her throat closed.
“Tortured you,” Rook said for her and she nodded, shifting her cheek against his hand. He turned it and cupped her face. She lifted her eyes to his as he brushed his thumb across her cheek, his expression soft and filled with understanding. “I know the things he does.”
She didn’t want to ask whether he knew because he had been present, because he had been one of the angels who had done the Devil’s bidding in his vile prison, tormenting those he held captive. She didn’t need to ask. It was there in his eyes, laced with a flicker of a guilt she found surprising given what he was now, but also unsurprising at the same time because he was still Rook.
Whatever the Devil had done to him, however that wretch had shaped him, he was still Rook deep inside him, where it mattered most.
The heart that beat in his chest, the soul that was bound to hers, was the same as it had always been.
“You found me,” she whispered, the thought of what she had to tell him next trying to steal the voice she had just found. “They… hurt you to get to me… did horrible things to you in front of me… but you refused to give in, and so I refused too. I drew from your strength… your unwavering belief in my need to protect the one I had made the talisman for, because it had been a great strain on me to create it… it had almost killed me.”
She shook her head when he looked as if he wanted to speak and edged closer to him, until she could feel his heat and smell his rich masculine scent more clearly, and the fear that was building in her ebbed away again.
“The Devil was furious. He raged so violently all of Hell was shaken by it and so was I. I was terrified… but you… you were unmoved, calm despite the storm surrounding you.” Tears lined her lashes as she remembered how he had knelt before her, blood streaming from the deep lacerations that covered his bare body, his wings distorted and broken, stained crimson and black, and how he had looked at her, his gaze unwavering, steady and filled with love, with courage that had bolstered her own, until what had happened next. “He moved me to another room. I tried to stay with you, but I wasn’t strong enough to fight the men who held me. They hurt me… and I couldn’t hold back the screams. Whenever I screamed, they hurt you to make you do the same.”
His lips flattened and darkness crossed his features, bringing out that ring of crimson in his irises. His anger flowed into her through the point where he touched her, where his thumb kept up the light caress that soothed her, offering her comfort she badly needed as she thought about what they had done, and tried to piece together the truth for both of them.
“He brought in witches. I remember feeling power not born of Hell, but I was so out of it. The pain… it was… it was too much and I found it hard to focus
. I was so tired.” She frowned as she struggled to recall what she had felt then and make sense of it. “Our connection… it shattered and I thought you… I thought… you were… dead.”
His expression sobered, but the flicker of fury in his eyes remained. “Now what do you think happened?”
What did she think?
She searched his eyes, seeing his need to know in them, how deeply he wanted to understand how he had come to fall.
She raised her hands and wrapped them both around the wrist of the one he held her face with and focused on it. “Now I think he used the witch to make us both believe the other was dead.”
Grief had consumed her, pain that had blinded her to everything other than escaping, running from the hurt and somehow surviving until she was strong enough to either avenge Rook, or meet him again in his next life.
“He wanted me to suffer for refusing him, and I’m sure he thought it would break me.” Her eyebrows knitted as she battled to remember what had happened.
It had been a blur.
Like when Rook had fallen through the ice and she had almost lost him.
“I was… there’s darkness in me… in all of my bloodline. It took control of me and he couldn’t contain me. I… think I might have destroyed half a cellblock before escaping.”
Rook’s right eyebrow lifted and a teasing smile curled his firm lips, one that removed some of the sombreness from the air and gave her relief. “There is a part of the western wing missing. I always wondered what happened to it. Figured the Devil had lost his temper… not a little witch.”
Heat tried to creep onto her cheeks at that, but she tamped it down. “My family have a history of destruction.”
It ran deep in their blood.
“So you escaped, and I fell.” He tipped his head up and looked at the sky, his gaze distant as it traversed the gold-edged clouds.
Pain beat inside him and it flowed into her as she brushed her fingers over the markings on his forearm, wanting to draw his focus away from what had happened to him and back to her.
“I can help you remember, Rook.”
His turquoise eyes slowly drifted back down to her.
Bound Angel (Her Angel: Bound Warriors paranormal romance series Book 4) Page 14