Knights of Souls and Shadows, Book 1

by Kristie Cook

“If you want someone to blame, blame our father,” Saoirse agreed.

  And I did. He’d been behind it all—our deaths at the Vault and the carnage afterward, releasing my powers and more carnage as a result. Papa Miguel . . . the vengeance Dani swore on my mother, when it wasn’t her fault. So much blood and death and ruined lives, and so much more that would still come.

  Rage and hatred stormed through me now. I was going to kill that motherfucker the first chance I had.

  “Mmm . . . that’s more like it,” Saoirse said, licking her lips as she basked in my hate. A few moments later, my emotions deescalated to a more manageable degree.

  Though my guilt still lingered, the memory a stain that would forever remain as another black blemish on my soul. Regardless of the Shadow king being the one to push me into the pile of tinder, I’d still chosen to light the flames.

  “So now you have your powers back and the maturity to learn that control,” Saoirse replied, standing again. “We begin again in the morning.”

  She sifted away, I assumed to her room for the night.

  Sadie stood, then leaned over and grasped my hands, pulling me up in front of her.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said, keeping one of my hands in hers and leading me through the archway toward my room.

  I slowed as we approached the double doors, forcing her to come to a stop, too. We needed to say goodnight here, because if I let her in my room . . .

  “Sadie,” I began.

  She stepped up to me, placing a finger to my lips. “Not now.”

  She opened the door and stood back, gesturing for me to enter first, and I thought I’d misunderstood her intentions. I turned to apologize when she shut the door, her body between me and it. Her hands wrapped firmly over my shoulders, pulling me up against her, as she angled her mouth over mine.

  The softness of her lips was everything I remembered it to be. Her sweet floral scent flooded my senses, and I could taste her even before the tip of her tongue brushed over the crease of my mouth, teasing me until I opened for her. My hands gripped her face as the kiss deepened, our tongues plunging and dancing together, and everything we’d been holding back began to rush to the surface. Her hand slid to cup the back of my neck as she pressed herself closer into me, eliminating anything but the thin fabric of our nightclothes between us. She spun me around, crushing me against the door with her body as our tongues continued their duel, making her moan into my mouth. My breasts swelled and tightened at the mewl, my core enflaming with need.

  Releasing my hold on her, I ducked under her arms, stepping away. “Fuck,” I panted. “This isn’t . . . I can’t . . . we shouldn’t—”

  “Oh yes, we absolutely should.” She pushed me so hard, I stumbled backward several steps until my legs hit the side of the bed and I fell onto it.

  Grabbing the hem of her shirt, she lifted it over her head, prowling toward me with a look in her eyes that made me think of a lioness stalking her prey. I couldn’t help but be turned on, even when I knew this was all wrong. We were only setting ourselves up for something we could never have. For heartache and agony and grief.

  But . . . would one time really be so bad?

  Her pants were gone, too, by the time she reached the bed, leaving me gaping at miles of golden flesh, dark pink nipples tightened into points, and beautiful ornate elf markings scrolling across her chest and into a V between her breasts and another one just below her belly button, pointing downward. She’d kept those hidden from me before, and my tongue slid over my lips, wanting to run over those raised markings . . . and the rest of her.

  “Don’t tease,” she said, her voice husky as her hands gripped my knees and pushed my legs apart so she could step between them.

  “Not teasing,” I whispered. “It’s a promise.”

  Her full lips curled sexily, those electric blues lighting up like I’d never seen before. And then she pounced.

  I landed flat on my back, Sadie on her knees, straddling me, her mouth crashing down on mine. My hands went to her hips as hers traveled under my top, lifting it as she went, her fingers skimming over my sides, my ribs, under the swell of my breasts, which ached for her touch. I groaned when she pinched my nipples, lifting my hips against hers. She laughed against my neck, where her tongue swirled and her teeth bit.

  Within a second I was naked, too, and we explored each other, sometimes with slow reverence and other times with urgent hunger. We’d never been able to do this before, too rushed with everything going on at school, never quite having the privacy to properly make love—and suppressing our physical needs because we’d known then what we still did now: this could never last. But I’d made the mistake then of holding back when it should have been all the more reason to experience at least one time together. So it was more than just the last few days of sexual tension, of forcing ourselves to ignore our bodies’ longing for the other. It was months and months of desire and need and ache that had been building into such a force that we couldn’t possibly restrain it any longer.

  This was not just the elf princess Sadie Angrec and the bizarre and dangerous hybrid angel Elliana Ames Knight. This was us becoming . . . more.

  I didn’t know how long we’d made love into the night. I’d lost count of how many times each of us had climaxed. But finally, it all caught up with me—the emotional and physical exhaustion pressing me into the soft bed, Sadie in my arms.

  “I love you, my beautiful dark angel,” she whispered against my neck as her fingers traced random shapes between my breasts and over my stomach.

  My heart grew for a beat, then shrunk into a tiny stone, a lump lodging in my throat.

  “How?” I choked out.

  She tilted her head, using her finger against my chin to turn my face toward her. “How could I not?”

  Our eyes locked, and I saw it, felt it in those blues that enraptured me so much. “After what you know . . . even now?”

  She lifted up onto her elbow and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to my lips before snuggling back down. “Especially now.”

  I opened my mouth but didn’t know what to say. How badly I wanted to say it back. I certainly felt it. But at some point—as in very soon—I’d have to say other things that would be devastating to us both. I should have just spit it out now, but then I heard her soft breaths become deeper and even out, and I peered down to see she’d fallen asleep. I wasn’t too far behind her.

  Now that the memories had fully returned to my consciousness, they didn’t torment me in my dreams, but their effects remained. I woke up gasping, my heart pounding, though I couldn’t remember what I’d been dreaming about now. Loss. That’s all I could recall—complete and total loss.

  “I had hoped you’d sleep better now,” Sadie murmured, wrapping her arms around me and pulling me against her.

  “How did you know I hadn’t before?”

  She sniggered. “Besides your haunted eyes, the circles beneath them, the screams I may not have heard but could feel?”

  I pulled back to see her face. “You could feel my screams? You make no sense.”

  She smiled, her fingers raising to brush over my lips. “I feel everything about you.”

  Our gazes held, and I felt like she was trying to tell me something—or search for something from me. But what I had to tell her . . . I needed to just do it. I’d chickened out last night, but I couldn’t prolong it. It would only hurt more if I waited. If we did this again.

  As I searched for the words, my mind snagged instead on how different she looked now. Her coloring had fully returned, her eyes brighter than ever, her energy stronger and more intense. Perhaps that was why her elf markings had become so prominent now.

  Her cheeks flushed as I studied her, then she wiggled out of my arms and out of bed. I rolled over to watch as she strode toward the bathroom, her light blond hair flowing down a slender but strong back, her hips swaying naturally yet still seductively, and I recalled with pleasure the feel of her perfect ass filling my hands.

/>   “Sorry, but I got hungry in the middle of the night,” she said as she passed the dresser where a vase of flowers stood. Well, not flowers anymore. Just stems. I laughed as I fell back onto the bed.

  “Sadie with no flowers is a very sad Sadie,” I said as she returned, sauntering toward me. “I think you need them more than you realize. They make you . . . glow.”

  She laughed, pushing me over as she climbed back in bed. “I’m not better because of the flowers, silly. This is because of you.”

  Shit. I wasn’t expecting that. I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling, again searching for the right words. “Sadie, I have to tell you something.”

  Pushing up on an elbow, she leaned over me, and I didn’t miss her bare breast sliding against my arm. How could I? I was hyper-aware of every inch of her. “I have something to tell you, too. Something I’ve known for a while, even back at school. But with our circumstances . . . both of us having to return to our own worlds, not knowing if we’d ever see each other again . . . I didn’t think it fair to lay it on you then.”

  My brows came together, unease setting in as I wondered what kind of truth she kept. A different unease than what I was already feeling in regards to my own truth.

  We both opened our mouths at the same time, words tumbling out and over each other before we stopped ourselves and laughed awkwardly.

  “I need to say this first,” we both said, again at the same time.

  Then there was a knock at the door, and I sighed. “I guess Saoirse gets to say her thing first.”

  I grabbed a wrap off the chair on my way to the door, bracing myself for Saoirse’s reaction. She already knew Sadie and I had a past. I could tell she’d sensed the tension zapping between the elf and me every time we came near each other or our arms brushed at dinner. She also knew about my future, and I didn’t know if she’d be more pissed off about the betrayal to her brother or to Sadie. With a deep breath, I pulled open the door, about to spew something about how this wasn’t what it looked like and I’d explain later, but my breath caught in my lungs.

  Tor’s large, powerful body stood at my bedroom door, not Saoirse.

  His aqua gaze traveled over me as I finished tying the wrap under my breasts, his nostrils flaring. Heat flushed up my chest and neck when I realized what he scented—lots and lots of sex. His eyes flicked behind me, to Sadie sitting up in my bed, covers held to her chest, making it even more obvious she was naked underneath. There was no denying what had gone on in here. Tor’s laser sharp focus came back to me, his expression like stone, a flicker in his eyes the only sign of any kind of emotion.

  My stomach sank, and my heart squeezed into a tight ball.

  “Saoirse said you had a breakthrough,” he ground out between gritted teeth. “She’s waiting for you outside.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked away.

  I closed the door and leaned against it, a string of curses rumbling under my breath. I would explain to him that I knew this could be nothing, that I still planned to keep our deal, that I understood if he felt the need to send Sadie away. My heart cracked at just the thought, but I’d known all along this would happen.

  I just . . . I hadn’t thought about how much this would hurt him. Truthfully, I hadn’t really thought about his feelings at all, which made me feel even worse. Of course, I hadn’t expected him to be home already. It hadn’t been two weeks yet. Had it?

  I looked up. Staring at me from the bed was another heart I was about to break. I probably should have gone after Tor, but some kind of realization slid over Sadie’s face, that crack splintering all the way into my soul, and I thought my whole being was about to shatter.

  What a wonderful morning this had turned out to be.

  “What was that about?” she asked, her voice small. She hadn’t missed a thing.

  With heavy steps, I crossed back to the bed and sat on its edge. Unable to meet her eyes, I stared at the quilted pattern of the duvet, tracing a finger over it.

  “I think I should go first?” I said, trying to be a smartass and partially hoping she would stop me. But she remained silent. I blew out a long sigh and finally looked up at her. “The deal I made with the king . . . It wasn’t just to serve him, to let him use my power. I’d—I—” Damn. This was even harder than I expected it to be.

  Her hand landed on my mine. “Elliana, I know about your deal. I know that you’re supposed to marry Tor.”

  I looked up at her in surprise. “You do?”

  “Of course. You think anybody here could keep that secret for this long?” She lifted a shoulder in a small shrug. “I’d been waiting for you to tell me, and I thought I understood why it was so hard. Until just now. You care for him, don’t you?”

  My gaze dropped again, my hands squeezing together in my lap. “More than I ever thought I could.”

  “Do you love him?”

  I pondered this for a moment before lifting my gaze to hers. “No. I thought maybe I could, but now . . . He’s not you, Sadie. But—”

  “That’s all I need to know. You know about my own predicament. I’m supposed to marry Shadow royalty, too.”

  “Still?”

  “Of course. My people need the alliance.”

  “But . . . you’re related.”

  “Not to the entire royal line. There’s some cousin on Tor’s mother’s side who will qualify. I think that’s one of the many pieces of business he’s been gone to attend to.”

  I studied her face as questions tumbled over one another in my mind. “Even knowing that we can’t be together . . . you still—”

  “Elliana Knight, I have full confidence that we will find a way to be together. I will not break your heart.”

  I pulled away. “You can’t make such promises.”

  “I can. I know because—”

  There was another pounding on the door, this one much harder. We both glared at it as though we could see through it.

  “Yasta, Elliana!” Saoirse barked through the wood. “Get your ass out here now!”

  Chapter 25

  I stopped in the kitchen for a cup of tea and something to eat, then met Saoirse out on the back lawn. Tor was nowhere to be seen, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. I’d never meant to hurt him, and not only because of all he’d done for me, considering the circumstances. I truly cared for him, and my own heart ached for what he must be feeling right now. For what I had done to him. I wished I could be the wife he really did deserve, but everything else aside, if I could choose between him and Sadie, it would always be Sadie.

  The thing was—I didn’t have that choice.

  Sadie had high hopes for something that could not be changed, not without risking my sister’s life, and I wouldn’t do that. No, I had to keep my deal. Sadie needed to understand that and let any other lofty ideas go. We had our moment together, and it was without doubt the best night of my life, but it could be nothing more than that. It could never happen again. I needed to find a way to apologize to Tor and, if necessary, spend the rest of my life proving to him that he could trust me. That nothing like this would ever happen again.

  And the only way to ensure that was to avoid Sadie.

  So I did everything I could to stay away from her, which I thought would be impossible, but apparently she was right. Tor had been arranging a possible “alliance” with a cousin, whom he’d brought to the Mistwood outpost outside the Court of Souls. And when I heard she’d left with some of Tor’s men to meet this cousin, the truth struck me like a punch to the gut. Nobody else came to the Court of Souls. Tor wouldn’t allow it. Sadie really would be removed from my life—and go to where? The Court of Shadows? No, I couldn’t allow that either. Absolutely not. But what could I do? The longer she was away, the worse I felt about the whole situation. Faerie wine, lots and lots of faerie wine, was the only way I could numb the pain enough to sleep.

  In the meantime, Tor seemed to be doing everything he could to avoid me, because I hadn’t seen him since he’d come t
o my room two mornings ago. That made apologizing to him and trying to mend things between us absolutely impossible, and also meant Saoirse and I spent a lot of time together over the next couple of days, as I put every waking moment into trying to learn my power. Instead, I just grew more and more miserable. And bitchy.

  “Did we miss something?” Saoirse asked the middle of the third day of trying Sadie’s idea of using just a hint of my dark power combined with my other magic.

  “I don’t know,” I snapped. “You’re the trainer. I’m just the lowly pupil.”

  “I can’t train someone who doesn’t want to be!” she bit back. “And you apparently still don’t want to be. You shy away from your power every time you get close. Did we miss some fear or past grievance of yours that you need to own up to?”

  I snorted. “Well, if we need to hit them all, we could be here for months.”

  “Seriously, Elliana. I’m at my wit’s end. I honestly don’t think you’re even trying.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. I really wasn’t trying, to be honest, my mind bouncing around between Tor and Sadie and my sister and my parents and everywhere except on my power.

  “I’m sorry,” I said half-heartedly. “I’ve got too much going on in my head.”

  “There’s certainly something going on in there.” Her voice softened when she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I walked over to the marble steps and dropped down on one, resting my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. Saoirse sat next to me.

  Rubbing circles into my temples, I closed my eyes and posed the question, “Have you ever cared very deeply for two people, but the one you loved more than anything was the one you actually couldn’t be with?”

  Saoirse chuckled. “Can’t say that I have. t sounds miserable.”

  “It is,” I muttered into my palms.

  “But if you care for them both, then at least you’re not entirely losing, right?”

  I blew out a sigh. “I guess. But why does it feel that I am? That I’m losing everything?”