by LJ Swallow
“Oh look, here's your vampire knight in shining armour,” Keir says, walking towards me.
I struggle to my feet. “Leave her alone.”
“She came here, what did she expect?”
“Dahlia underestimated you, fine. But leave her alone. She's not a threat to you.”
We circle around each other, scoping for attack. I wait for Keir to hurt me again, but he smiles, an arrogant turn to his mouth.
“You're all just an irritation, wasting your time figuring out how to fix me. I was broken before this happened; now I'm fixed.”
“I don't care about any of that. I just care about Dahlia.”
The truth; I don't want to be dragged into this war. If I keep him talking, Dahlia could take a chance at running. Behind Keir, Dahlia pulls herself to her feet and moves further into the shadows. Taking his chance at my distraction, Keir lunges and I sidestep him. He sneers and moves toward Dahlia instead. Before he can touch her, I smash into Keir and knock him out of the way.
Yeah, he's taller and broader, but I'm a demon too, and off guard, he's weaker than he thinks. Keir lands with a satisfying thud, but immediately pulls himself back up.
The clouds clear the moon, and a new light shines down on Keir’s angry face. I wait for an assault by whatever force he used to move me without touching, but it doesn't come. Our circling continues and I'm under no illusions. If this remains me versus him, I'll lose.
Soft footsteps approach and I'm aware of Ava's presence next to us. A slow sneer creeps across Keir's face.
“Ava, I should’ve known you wouldn’t be far away. Did you bring my soul?”
“No,” she says in a low voice.
“Pity. I’ve plans for it.”
This could be my chance. Ava could distract him; we take him down and run the hell away. My ragged breaths are accompanied by growls.
“Jack, leave it,” says Ava.
“I wouldn’t have touched Dahlia if she’d stayed away from me,” Keir calls in Dahlia’s direction. “I’m not your soft-hearted, pathetic Keir anymore. I’m who I should be, and if you’re not with me, you’re dead. End of.”
“And now there are three of us, so fuck off, Keir.”
Keir crosses his arms over his chest, smile slipping into uncertainty as he looks between me and Ava. “Yeah, I’m not hanging around with you two. I’m bored now.” He turns to Ava. “Dahlia let slip you and my old friends have plans to reunite me with my soul. Pass a message on. Tell them to leave me the fuck alone.”
Then he turns and walks away. Just like that. We have to stop him; we're missing our chance. I begin to follow, but Ava catches my jacket and pulls me back. What the hell?
“Leave it; there’s no point getting into a fight with him. Even if we won, what could we do? We don’t have the crystal.”
I shrug her off, she's right.
“Jack?”
Dahlia.
I'm pulled back to her, away from Keir. Instinctively, I know she's okay physically, but I need to know why the hell she did this. Kneeling down, I pull her into my arms. Dahlia shakes, and I drag her onto my lap, stroke hair from her face, and kiss her cheeks.
“He was going to kill me,” she whispers to herself, to me, to the shadows.
“He's gone.”
“Yeah, but he might be back. This isn't safe.” Ava hovers nearby and the pain in her voice is evident as she glances at his retreating figure.
I know what she's thinking. We both know how strong the relationship between Dahlia and Keir is. His one last link to his old humanity has torn, and whatever they all think, I don't believe he'll ever return to the old Keir. If he doesn't care about the people he loves, he's lost.
As I consider this, something else huge hits me. I'm holding Dahlia, and I'm not focusing on her smell or the sound of her blood. Sure, I can hear Dahlia’s life force pounding through her small body, but demon Jack isn't here. The love I hold for Dahlia pushes all this out, and my need to protect her supersedes everything else. This is the Dahlia scent I once loved more than the smell of blood—the same shampoo in her hair, the vanilla perfume she wears. The tension leaves my body, and I relax into the moment of holding her safe.
33
DAHLIA
The three of us left the park, but I don't remember much of the walk back. All I could see was Keir's face as he bent over me, threatening me. I believe a hundred percent if Ava and Jack hadn't arrived, I'd be dead. Last time Jack brought me home, I was in shock after Ava told Asher and Eli that Keir had killed. That’s nothing compared to now. This time I hope Jack stays with me; I need him more than ever.
As I sit here now, I shake. I haven't stopped shaking since we left. Jack sits beside me, rubbing my shoulders and doesn’t speak. My chest hurts; the grief over Keir’s action rips through my body and matches the aching from his attack.
A voice in my head whispers that this has to stop.
No more.
My life turned upside down for the second time in a year, and I can’t deal with any more pain. I can’t allow people to hurt me. I create a barrier in my mind to hold back thoughts and memories of Keir. Concentrating on resuming my breathing, a strange serenity comes over me, as I will Keir out of my mind. Maybe I’m in shock, I don’t know. It’s as if my brain has shut down and severed him from my life.
I never want to see him again.
He doesn’t exist anymore.
The speed with which this happens shocks me too. This happened before, when I lost Jack. I had to close my mind as if he never existed, my only way to deal with the anguish ripping my life apart. Bruises circle my arms, and I stare at them. From now on, anybody who hurts me is dead to me; perhaps I should’ve accepted my Keir died weeks ago. I take in a huge breath, and as I exhale, I push Keir from my heart.
“Dahlia.”
I turn my face to Jack's, stare into his familiar fringe-covered eyes, and smile slightly as I push his hair.
“You haven't spoken for the last half hour.” He pushes my hair behind my ear in return.
“Oh. Didn't realise.”
Jack leans in and places his lips softly on mine. I pull back in surprise, and he hangs his head.
“Oh.”
“No, you're just... near me.”
“I want to be near you.”
“But, I mean near me, relaxed, and not holding yourself back as if I might bite you.”
Jack grins at my topsy-turvy view, a human telling a vampire that I won’t bite, then kisses my nose. My cheeks. Across my face to my ears and, as I sigh, he pulls back again.
“Everything came into focus tonight. The last couple of hours, terrified whether I'd see you again—that was Jack's reaction. Your Jack.”
“You've always been my Jack.”
“I guess I’m accepting I am, because if you can accept me for what I am, I will too.” He pushes hair away. “But I’ll never be the same guy you met in the snow.”
His shoulders slump a little and I touch his face. “I’m not the same girl, remember?”
Jack lies back and stares at the ceiling. “I thought my life and relationships would be complicated once I left home and was forced to grow up, but I never expected this.”
“If we strip away vampire Jack and damaged Dahlia, there’re two people who love each other underneath.”
He twists his head. “Damaged Dahlia?”
The blood. The fear. The tortured dreams and memories never leave. I can have weeks when the moment Jack died doesn’t play on a loop in my head; days I almost find the Dahlia who had stars in her eyes. One day, with Jack’s help, the trauma might soften. “I’m not the same girl; we both have our own demons inside.”
Shifting across the bed, Jack rests his head in my lap and looks up. “I’ll help you control yours, if you help me control mine.”
I smile at his flippancy. “Mine are in my head, Jack. I can banish mine one day.”
“And I can learn to control mine.”
Calm and comfort push the events of t
he night away as our new emotional intimacy stretches across the shadows. We have a future; not the one Jack and I planned, but one we can work on making right.
“We can do this. Just me and you,” I say.
Jack wrinkles his nose. “I think we need help to deal with some of this, but the rest is up to us.”
“And if there’s an us, I can do anything.” I lean forward and brush my lips against his, my hair falling over his face like a curtain. “I love you, don’t ever leave me again.”
“I’m here, and I’ve loved you since the first day I caught you in my dreams.”
He winds his hand into my hair and pulls my head towards him, kissing me softly. I hold his face, deepening my kiss. Jack makes a small noise, one I recognise from human Jack as wanting more from me, and I hesitate, worried his want isn’t all about my kisses.
“Is it my hair? Too much?” I pull it back over my shoulders.
“Not your hair, your mouth.” Jack sits and gathers a ponytail into his hand, holds it to his face, and inhales. “If I can enjoy the scent of the Dahlia I love, without wanting more, that’s worth anything I go through to keep the demon under control.”
I don’t want to talk about this, about what he needs to control; I just want to be Jack and Dahlia. I kiss him and push my hands under his T-shirt, surprised by how warm his skin is, not human warmth, but not as cold as his hands. The muscles in his stomach tense and shoulders stiffen.
Jack pulls back. “This is crap, but we need to start again. I can’t cope with your skin on mine, not yet. Your lips, I can just about manage...”
So I shut him up with a kiss, and we wind ourselves together, finding the lost Jack and Dahlia. Her and now, we’re the Jack and Dahlia who met, hesitant in the snow, but wanting to melt into each other.
Bleary eyed, I wake up and find Jack still with me. Not in my bed, but at the desk on the laptop. With his earphones on, gaming. I stare, unsure whether to be upset or relieved. He's here, and he's exactly my Jack.
I go to him, pull his headphones off, and he looks up in surprise. Smiling, he bends his head backwards and kisses me. I hold his head and enjoy the connection in our kiss.
“Gaming, Jack? Really?” I tease.
“I don't sleep, and I don't want to be creepy vampire sitting in the corner watching you.” He shakes his head at my confusion. “Doesn’t matter. But I know you wanted me to stay, so I did.”
Jack spins his chair around, and I sit on his lap, wind my arms around his neck for a proper kiss. A kiss to push the world from our minds and remove everybody else further from my memories, back into the darkness of the year without Jack where they all belong.
“How are you this morning? After...”
I smooth his hair. “After my best friend tried to kill me, but the guy I love came back to me?”
He blinks, eyes softening as he strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. “Sorry, it took me this bloody long to realise we can make this work if we both try.”
I hug him to my chest, my funny gaming guy whose soul tied me to his world. The guy who left his world, the same as I left mine. Whatever the future throws at us, we have our new life together, and if we can work through this, we can conquer anything.
34
TWO WEEKS LATER
DAHLIA
Keir’s back. Ava risked her life to return his soul by seducing him until she was so weak she was unaware of what she was really doing. Unfortunately, Ava took it on herself to do this before getting the go-ahead from Asher and Eli. Once again, Ava causes a problem. Eli was midway through organising a safe place to move us to, knowing once Keir was returned that Zach would pursue him. The plans weren’t fully in place, and when Ava called informing us what she’d done, we have to prepare to leave. Even the normally calm Asher reacted badly to this.
What will Asher and Eli do with Ava now? They haven’t spoken about this in front of me, but I have the impression they won’t betray her to the Caelestia.
Everyone welcomed Keir with open arms, as if regaining his soul instantly atoned for the evil he committed. The barrier I erected against him in my mind is solid; all things Keir are locked tightly away in a dark corner. He ‘s tried to speak to me once Keir since he returned, but to me he doesn’t exist.
Here we are, stuck in a house waiting to leave and escape pursuit by our gathering number of enemies. Their enemies— not mine and Jack’s.
Jack walks into the room, where I’m sitting at the table with my mug of coffee. He hesitates, then sits near me but not too close. He’s gradually withdrawn from me physically over the past week, and I know why. His other Jack is with him again; the passenger he doesn’t want. We’re closer, but more emotionally than physically. I guess the physical will take time. A whole new set of obstacles exists there—much bigger than his human insecurities of last year. Jack won’t admit this, but as soon as he becomes hungry, he no longer sees me as Jack’s Dahlia because I become blurred with other possibilities for him. It’s only a couple of weeks since he fed, and Jack’s already hungry. Can we do this? Overcome and be a couple again?
“I can’t cope with all this, Jack.”
His hand tenses around mine. “Me?”
I laugh softly. “No, stupid. Them. What we’ve been pulled into.”
“But we need them.”
“Do we?” I put my other hand over his. He’s cooler than a couple of days ago, face draining of colour as his hunger grows. “Do you trust your coven yet?”
“My coven? I don’t belong to them!”
“They don’t have enemies trying to kill you. Maybe we should look to them for protection instead.”
Sinking back in his chair, Jack eyes me, a curious look on his face. “Are you saying we should leave?”
“One day soon. Not yet. But we don’t belong in the middle of the battles we’ve been dragged into recently.”
Jack kisses me and his lips are cooler than last night. I pull my head back. “You’re hungry again, aren’t you?”
“I need to leave again soon. Eli says he’ll take me once we arrive at the new place.”
“New place? Has anybody told you where we’re all headed yet? Nobody told me.”
Jack shrugs.
I slump back. Again. Is life going to be one long game of cat and mouse now? “I’m not doing this forever, Jack. I only want you. Us.”
“When things are calmer, and I’m in control of this... other me, we can leave, if that’s what you want,” he whispers.
“And now?”
“Now we’re not safe—you’re not safe. I think we should go with the others until everything settles down.”
“I don’t think it ever will,” I say in a low voice.
He pushes a strand of hair from my face. “You’re probably right, but I don’t think we have any choice right now. We’re not strong enough alone.”
“But one day…”
“One day this will just be you and me; no crazy battles and nobody targeting us. You’re not a soul hunter and I’m not part of their war either.”
I nod because I can’t speak. Jack shuffles his chair closer and envelops me in his arms. I wrap mine around him too, enjoying the safety of his love.
Asher’s voice calls through the house, urging us to bring our bags to the car, and I sigh against Jack’s chest. He’s right—what choice do we have right now? Darius freed me from my soul hunter life, so I could live in this world with Jack, but I’m not free. If I really want to be, I have to release myself from the bond tying me to these other people—the Nephilim and Ava.
“Come on,” he whispers into my hair.
“I don’t want to see Keir.”
My voice is muffled against Jack’s chest and he cups my head with his cool hand. “You don’t need to talk to him yet, but we can’t stay here.”
I take a deep breath and close my eyes. Drawing away from Jack, I touch his face. Our bags wait in the hallway and the others wait outside. He’s right, we leave with them now and make the decision
when to leave altogether at a later date.
Jack and I are chained to a life we don’t want, tethered to people who control our lives because of our association with them. Now we’re Jack and Dahlia again, we need to break the connection to people whose battles aren’t ours.
The End
The Soul Ties series continues with Fated Souls, a short novella. More details on the next page.
You can also find a short sample of Between, a paranormal romance from a different series.
Please consider leaving a review on the site you bought this book, I’d really appreciate this as reviews are important to authors.
Keep up to date on all my releases and chances for giveaways, ARCs etc ~ subscribe to my newsletter
Newsletter for LJ Swallow
http://bit.ly/1TvbfNB
The Soul Ties series
Soul Ties (Soul Ties #1)
http://bit.ly/soultiesUS
http://bit.ly/soultiesUK
http://bit.ly/soultiesAU
http://bit.ly/soultiesCA
Torn Souls (Soul Ties #2)
http://bit.ly/tornsoulsUS
http://bit.ly/tornsoulsUK
http://bit.ly/tornsoulsAU
http://bit.ly/tornsoulsCA
Fated Souls: A Prequel Novella (Soul Ties #3)
Releases July 2016
http://bit.ly/fatedsoulsUS
http://bit.ly/fatedsoulsUK
http://bit.ly/fatedsoulsAU
http://bit.ly/fatedsoulsCA
Shattered Souls (Soul Ties #4)
Releases 2017
Also available:
Between (Dark Intent #1)