Soulbound

by Kristen Callihan

  As expected, she snatched her hand away. He ought to rejoice but missed the touch too much.

  She let out a little huff. “You really are the most mercurial demon —”

  “Mercurial?” He laughed and immediately regretted it when his body seized in protest and the open wounds that crisscrossed his chest began to weep blood. “Dear girl, my temperament is as steady as they come.”

  She snorted but her gaze strayed to his chest, and that beguiling pucker returned to her mouth. “When we first met, you acted the insouciant ass. Then you changed, becoming a brooding, snarling, cold, unfeeling —”

  “You’ve made your point,” he cut in. “And if my mood was less than appealing, it had all to do with the dour, silent weight attached to me.” She had driven him half mad with her silence. Had she expected him to be happy about it?

  Her pretty cheeks darkened. “It’s a good thing I left you then. You are far more pleasant now.”

  “Sarcasm, Miss May, is not the mark of a lady.” He rather loved her unladylike barbs, but wasn’t about to confess it now. When storm clouds gathered in her eyes, he spoke again. “Why are you here? Pleasant a distraction though you may be, you appear far better dressed for a party.”

  She was utterly lovely in her bronze satin gown that both hugged her curves and offered them up for one’s delectation, a hothouse lily both delicate and luscious. Tiny garnets glittered in her hair and at her throat, bringing out the velvet-brown color of her eyes. Eyes that were focused on his chest. Her fingers twitched over the folds of her skirts. And while Adam would like to think that her attention was due to pure feminine appreciation of his male form, he knew better. She could not stand to see a being in physical pain.

  “The party has yet to begin.” Still eyeing his wounds, she rose and went for the leather doctoring satchel she’d brought before. “And I wanted to visit you.”

  “Oh.”

  Eliza May did something he thought he’d never witness: She laughed. It was a husky sound, full and round and wonderful. Her eyes crinkled, going triangular in shape with her mirth.

  “I never thought I’d see the day,” she said, still grinning, “that the great and fearsome Adam of the GIM was reduced to a single exclamation.”

  He wanted to scowl, but could not. Not when humor lightened her fine features. It did not help that her gaze slid down his unclothed length, and his cock began to take notice. He did not mind her seeing him naked. Not that there was much to boast of at the moment. He’d had better days. But her stare was altogether too probing for his comfort. And he rather thought now was not the time for his roger to be waving about and begging for attention.

  “Keep staring,” he told her, “and I’ll assume you like what you see.”

  Slowly, she stirred as if waking from a dream and met him head-on.

  “I don’t.”

  Adam blinked. Right then, the lass certainly wasn’t one for false praise. A scowl drew at his mouth despite the fact that he bloody well didn’t care what she thought. “You don’t.” He managed to fit a world of skepticism into those two words.

  And her rosebud of a mouth twitched. “So certain of your charms.”

  He wasn’t. “I am.”

  Eliza shook her head, a patronizing gesture if ever he saw one. But her answer was not. “It seems wrong.” Her voice was soft then, thoughtful, and it held all of his attention.

  “Wrong?”

  “Yes. That I should see you unclothed this way.”

  The tight unease in his belly grew. Shame. He felt ashamed. And he hated it. “Lass, it does not bother me in the least if you see me without clothes.”

  That earned him a ghost of a smile. “I’m certain it doesn’t. But it still feels wrong. It’d be one thing if you undressed for me.” Adam studiously ignored the heat elicited by that image as she went on. “If you’d done that, I could feel free to be annoyed or disgusted.”

  Oh, well, don’t hold back, lass. His glare grew in strength. Not that she noticed. Her bloody, pitying look remained.

  “It isn’t your choice to expose yourself. Thus I cannot view your body with anything other than a sense of unfairness and anger that Mab should treat you in this manner.”

  He couldn’t say a damned thing to that. In truth, he couldn’t even look at her. He wanted her out of his sight. He wanted to be out of hers. Desperately. A first, and it did not feel like a victory.

  “Tell me why you’re here, dove.” Then perhaps she’d go and leave him in peace.

  “Why did you treat me as you did?” Her voice was calm, quiet, and yet it rang like a shout between them. He ought to have expected the question, but it surprised him all the same.

  Adam braced himself against flinching. Inside, however, an uncomfortable feeling coiled like a knot. All those months he’d held her captive, he hadn’t wanted to tell her the truth. The utter rot of it was that he’d been embarrassed and afraid. Afraid that she’d laugh in his face, embarrassed that he needed her, based on nothing more than a bloody curse. A man ought to have a choice over who his life mate should be.

  But he couldn’t say all that now. Not with Miss Eliza May staring a hole through his skull. Flushed, he cleared his throat. “As I said before, I was cursed.”

  One delicate golden brow lifted. An annoying prompt to continue. He scowled. “I’d lose possession of my freedom if I did not find my soul’s other half in the allotted time frame.”

  Her silence was smothering, making it harder for him to get the words out. “I had a saving grace, however. It was prophesied that my soul’s mate would be one who died before her time yet stubbornly clung to life, and that I’d know her upon sight.” He shifted his arms, trying and failing to alleviate the ache in them. “The light of her soul would match mine.”

  For a moment, she simply stared. Her voice, when she spoke, was crisp as burnt toast. “And you can see the light of souls.”

  Before he’d been stripped of his powers, yes. Adam merely gave a curt nod. Eliza’s eyes narrowed, her sweet mouth turning down at the corners. But she said nothing, forcing him to finish his confession. “It is why I created the GIM, you see. In return for their immortality, they had to bring me stubborn souls who refused to die.”

  “So you were searching all this time for —”

  “You.” He met her eyes. “Your light is an exact match to mine.”

  With those words, Eliza cocked her head as if he were a particularly odd object she’d happened across. And never had he wanted to rage and snarl as much as then. It wasn’t as though he wanted to need her. Or that he loved her. Hell, he barely liked her.

  He opened his mouth, the temptation to say all that and more too great to resist, when she spoke over him. “And you think we are soul mates?” A sharp, half laugh cracked through the air. “Are you mad?”

  “Madam,” he ground out, “you cannot begin to fathom how much I wish I were.”

  “Oh, I believe I have some idea,” she said, rising with a rustle of petticoats. “Let me see if I have this correctly. You believe me to be your soul’s mate, and, as a result, your first course of action was to put me in chains and force me to be by your side henceforth.”

  When put that way… Adam stared back, unspeaking. And Eliza made an unladylike snort. “Well, isn’t that simply brilliant thinking on your part.” She paced before him, her skirts snapping around her legs with each brisk stride. “Certainly, the best way to court a woman is to keep her prisoner.”

  “I wasn’t trying to court you. I was trying to secure you.”

  At his mulish retort, she halted and spun round to face him. High color stained her cheeks. “Secure me?”

  Hot, uncomfortable regret made it hard to answer. “I was not thinking clearly.”

  “Obviously.”

  He shot her a look. “I only knew that, after hundreds of years, I’d found you. I wasn’t going to risk losing you.”

  With a huff, Eliza leaned against the cell wall and crossed her arms over her chest. She look
ed him over with the cool detachment he’d become accustomed to. “One would think,” she said after a moment, “that I’d know it if you were my soul’s mate.” Her nose wrinkled. “A ridiculous notion, at any rate.”

  He concurred. However… “And yet when you ran away, Mab took claim of me because you had rejected our bond.”

  Her mouth fell open, her eyes going wide as tea saucers. “Bond. Is that what… you blame me?” Again she laughed. “Good Lord above. You needed my acceptance, and yet you treated me like a slave. You are mad.”

  And what could he say? Those had not been his finest hours, driven by a sort of madness that had sound logic fleeing in the face of a base, nearly animalistic need to claim what was his.

  From the moment she’d opened the cellar door, Eliza knew it was a mistake to visit Adam. Nothing in his behavior proved her wrong. Yet she found herself unable to leave him now. Not when he lay prone and bloody, needing aid, even though she knew he’d never admit to it. Now that he’d confessed, her head was reeling. Soul mates? Impossible. Ridiculous.

  “I don’t believe in soul mates.” She hadn’t meant to speak, but, then again, it was best to tell him straight out.

  “Neither do I,” he shouted, his swift ire shocking her into silence, as he glared a hole through her head.

  “Then why —”

  “Because I saw your light.” He bared his teeth when he growled out the words, reminding her of a wounded animal. “I took one bloody look at you and began to feel again. Do you understand what it means to feel nothing that is good or real?”

  She did. She’d felt it for a mere twenty minutes when she’d first died. To live that way for centuries was an endurance she did not want to contemplate. But he wasn’t finished with her. His tendons stuck out like thick ropes as he strained towards her. “I was bloody desperate, you ken? I was promised my suffering would ease upon finding this elusive soul mate, and lo’ you arrive with your bloody golden glow, making me bloody feel again. So, aye, I’ll play the fool. I’ll believe whatever I damn well have to, if that’s what it takes to find some measure of peace.”

  Well then. Eliza licked her dry lips. “All right. Neither of us believes in this farce —”

  “Oh, I believe in it,” he cut in, rather snidely. “I simply don’t like it. Do you suppose I fancy being beholden to a woman who loathes me?”

  “For good reason.”

  He rested his head against the grimy wall and sighed. “Fair enough. Now, what do you want?”

  Biding her time, Eliza soaked a length of linen with cool witch hazel. Under the slashes of his brows, Adam’s deep-set eyes narrowed, and a low growl of protest rumbled in his throat as she came near.

  “I… don’t…” His ruined pectorals twitched. “Need help.”

  Gently, she lowered the cloth onto his chest. His body tensed, ropy muscles bulging in response, and then he let go with a sharp breath. His tension eased on a sigh. “Better,” he rasped.

  Eliza prepared another cloth and assessed how she could best help him. Two separate lengths of chains, each attached to heavy cuffs around Adam’s wrists, held him fast. Secured to a set of rings driven into the stone cell wall, the chains had been pulled tight and forced his arms up over his head so that he was stretched out and barely able to move.

  “Lean forward, if you can, and let me see to the rest.”

  With a muffled grunt, he complied, tilting his big body towards her. She was able to reach around his neck and drape the cloth along his shredded shoulders. So set was she upon her task that she did not consider how close she’d brought herself to the man. Not until the heat of his breath ghosted along her neck.

  Every hair upon her body stood on end, and she froze, aware of her own breath and of the way her breasts brushed against his chest. She dared not turn to meet his gaze. It did not matter. Awareness lit between them. Of his cheek and hers mere inches apart. Of his scent, that delicious amber and myrrh scent. It had her eyes fluttering, wanting to close if only to heighten her sense of smell. He made a small, strangled sound, barely audible, and yet it struck the core of her.

  Get away. Get away now! But she could not.

  Unwanted and uninvited heat coalesced between her legs and spread outward, up her torso and down her thighs. Her eyes closed then, as she held herself very still for fear of leaning closer and pressing her now heavy breasts against him. And it disgusted her. She could not be attracted to this man. Not him. Anyone but him.

  The sound of his indrawn breath and the feel of his lips brushing her neck had her eyes snapping open. Her body tensed further.

  “Are you…” – she swallowed past a wave of heat – “smelling me?”

  He was silent for a moment. “Aye.” Defiance shaped his tone, and then it went husky as he inhaled again. “Aye, dove. I cannot resist. Your sweetness is a ray of sunshine in this hell.”

  Craning his neck forward, he drew in another deep breath, and a low, rumbling groan escaped him. “Gods, but I could drown in the scent of you and not be sorry for it.”

  The realization that she’d nearly arched her neck to give him better access finally snapped her out of her heated fog. Eliza reared back. And Adam regarded her through lowered lids, not at all repentant, but as if daring her to come back to him.

  “That is enough,” she said, wishing the words came out steady and firm. “I’m not here to —”

  “Get me off?” he supplied lightly, a wicked gleam entering his pale amber eyes.

  She gritted her teeth. “Yes, that.”

  He mocked a shrug but then winced. “Fair enough, sweeting. But as you continue to ease my pain, while ignoring the place I need soothing most, I cannot help thinking you mean to tease me.” His hips shifted the slightest bit.

  The urge to slap him was high, but Eliza sank into herself where it was calm and nothing could affect her. She’d learned that from him. Nothing like being chained to a man to teach a woman about self-preservation. When she spoke, her voice was a shard of ice. “You’re trying to drive me off, aren’t you?”

  He seemed to flinch in surprise before sagging a bit. “Yes.” Mulishly, his gaze slid away before returning with renewed defiance. “Though I did not lie. Your scent is an addiction. I want more of it.”

  No, she would not react. “And yet you want me to leave.”

  At this, he let out an exasperated snort. “Gods, woman, can you no’ get it through your head? If they find you with me, you’ll be in a world of trouble. As will I.” His outstretched arms tensed as though he was straining to break free. “What I cannot understand is why you keep returning. Is it amusing you to see me this way?”

  “What? No.”

  “Have you a death wish then?”

  “No.” Her hands fisted her skirts. “I —”

  “What?” he snapped when she hesitated. “Out with it, girl.”

  “Do not bark at me! Nor am I a girl.”

  Adam paused his attack.

  For a long moment, they simply glared at each other. And then the wind went out of Eliza’s sails. “I cannot live amongst these people and keep my sanity.”

  “That’s the first reasonable thing you’ve said yet.”

  She found herself fighting a smile. “Surely not the very first.”

  He clearly fought one as well. “I’ll concede. You’ve said a few more.”

  Eliza laughed, short and soft. Then she looked away, a sudden burning in her eyes making her fear she’d soon weep. And she abhorred weeping. “There is a man. He… his…” Hell, she hated to even say the bastard’s name. “His name is Mellan.”

  Adam’s swift intake of breath had her turning back to him. He’d gone bone white, his lips peeled back in a macabre sneer. His eyes hid nothing, not to her at least.

  “You know this man, don’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Not when he wore that look.

  “Yes.” Adam’s sneer turned to a snarl. “He’s a right, ruddy bastard. The question is, how do you know him, lass?”

  Her icy
fingers clenched. “I knew him in Boston. I – my grandfather Aiden died. I didn’t have a dime…” She trailed off, disgust and hot humiliation writhing within. “Ah, well, you know such tales, I suppose. I needed safety and security.”

  “And you sold yourself. To him.” Adam’s words whipped like a lash.

  Eliza glared at him. “He pretended to care, wanted to be my protector. I was naive and foolish.” It was a sad testament that she’d rather Adam believe she’d sold her body than confess the reality of what Mellan had her do. There were worse things than being a whore. “Before I knew it, he claimed that he owned me.” Eliza pinned Adam with a stare. “Sound familiar?”

  The man had the grace to flush. He grumbled a bit but said no more.

  “I ran from Boston to get away from him. And now he’s found me.” Bile burned up her throat as she thought of it. “Worse, Mab claims he’s her brother, and that I am to marry him.” The very idea that she’d marry her uncle… Good God, that Mellan was her uncle, made her ill.

  Adam had grown utterly still, his golden eyes roaming her face as though he saw everything all too well. “Mab is your grandmother,” he pointed out softly. “Which makes him your granduncle.”

  “Oh, well that makes it much better, thank you,” she choked out.

  His big body sagged. “What have I to do with all of this? Tell me.”

  She drew in a bracing breath, regrettably, since the room was foul. “I’m leaving. And I’m taking you with me.”

  His response was not what she’d expected. Rearing back until his thick head hit the wall, he scowled fiercely. “No.”

  “What do you mean ‘no’?”

  An imperious black brow rose. “Need I give you a definition of the word?”

  Eliza sat back on her heals, a huff of shock leaving her lips. “Why on earth are you fighting me on this?”

  His narrowed gaze slid away. “There are some things a man cannot outrun. Nor a woman. They will hunt you down, and believe me, they will make you hurt for your desertion.”

  “Which is why I need your help.” Thick-headed demon.