Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2)

by Crystal Collier

  “Soulless cannot be killed.” The woman stepped around her and started back to the inn. Alexia knew differently. She had slain one once.

  “These will not be harming anyone anytime soon,” Mae said.

  “We are going to leave them there?”

  “Their friends will retrieve them. Not to worry.”

  John stood in the doorway, mouth a tight line.

  Alexia stumbled to her feet, certain the power of gravity had doubled in the last hour. “And what about the enemy within?”

  Mae paused. “Who do you think alerted me to the situation?” A smile lifted the corners of her lips. “John is my friend and guest, just as you are. I have provided him safe haven on moonless nights to stave his hunger, and while he is on these grounds he can taint no Passionate—intentionally or otherwise.”

  John cleared his throat. “Unintentionally. It has never been my desire to harm my fellows, as you fully know.”

  Or so he’d professed. Alexia scowled. “And yet you chased me toward them.”

  He shrugged. “You ran. None of my kind can resist the chase.”

  Kiren could not possibly have known the devil resided here, but Mae did. How could she not have warned them?

  Mae shuffled toward the entrance. “He is awfully brave to stay here in my presence. Is that not so, John?”

  “You are a woman to be feared and honored.” He half bowed and stepped back for them to enter.

  Alexia plodded after them, catching herself on the wall to steady her trembling knees. Propping herself on the doorframe, she crossed her arms and shot John a glare. “You would rid yourself of him if you had witnessed what I have. Was there no harm in raping Sarah of her gifts, in robbing her of the life she should have known?”

  John stiffened. “Sarah is the only one I...”

  Mae touched his shoulder, and his head bowed. “We all do things we regret.” Her blank gaze lifted. “Except for those of us who are able to change the past.”

  Alexia tensed. What did Mae know? Could she see despite her blindness? Had she witnessed Alexia altering the child’s fate?

  John stepped forward, offering Alexia a chair. “Perhaps you would hate me less if you knew my story?”

  She scowled but took a seat, gratefully. Mae bustled about the kitchen, a comforting presence to counter his.

  “Before all this,” he motioned down his form, “I was like you—raised among humans, oblivious to our differences. I had a family—a wife, sons, even a daughter, all human, or mostly so.” He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “He did not find me until well after I came of age, for I did not possess enough of the blood to be noticed. What I did have was a gift for healing—not as strong as his, mind you. It started as a talent for seeing what was wrong, and thus an ability to prescribe the correct treatment.” He dropped into a chair across from her, elbows landing on his knees. “I served a small community as their doctor.” A sad smile tugged at his cheeks, eyes far away. “In Wilhamshire.”

  She closed her eyes. The bustling town reared up in her mind, the winding streets and shop fronts, the tavern where she’d once weathered a night after Miles saved her and Sarah from the Soulless, the house on the hill where Kiren had imprisoned Bellezza—Haunted House of Stark.

  “My given name is John Stark, after my father, and after his father.”

  Alexia gasped and sat back.

  His brows scrunched down. “I met him over a patient one day. He observed my treatment and informed me I had rare gifts. I belonged to a secret race. To prove his point, he healed the child I had been treating, and proceeded over the next many weeks to teach me how.

  “His home had been discovered by the Soulless, and he had been forced to vacate. While passing through Wilhamshire, he heard stories of my successes, and came to investigate. For a time, he resided in my home, until he was able to establish a new residence I have yet to discover. He became my…my children’s godparent.”

  His fingers clasped into his knees. “But one day, after spending the night at a patient’s sickbed, I returned home to find my wife and children murdered in a most brutal manner.” His eyes darted from one wall to the other, cheek twitching. “The Soulless had come in search of him.” He met Alexia’s gaze. “My entire life was gone.”

  She shivered. It couldn’t be true. John’s family had not been massacred because of Kiren, had they?

  “I went after them. He told me not to,” his head shook, “but I was determined to have my revenge.”

  She straightened up, but couldn’t look at the man, the person who had lost everything because he showed kindness to a vagabond.

  John mimicked her. “He spared my life even after I became one of the Soulless, and we have danced the dance ever since.”

  Mae placed a hand on Alexia’s shoulder. “John is a good soul.”

  He rose and extended a hand of truce. “We are family now, whether you like it or not, and I will not make the same mistake twice. I protect my own.”

  She glared at his offering. “Is that what you did to Sarah?”

  His brow scrunched.

  Her fists balled. “You destroyed her.”

  He bowed his head. “While at your father’s home, I chained myself in the cellar on moonless nights, but the child sabotaged my restraints and set me free.”

  Alexia’s teeth ground together. Bellezza and her selfish whims!

  “I had only enough time to warn Sarah and flee, but before I could escape, your fiancé arrived. The standoff ate my final moments of sanity. Desperate to escape, I shot a blind bullet and the next thing I consciously recall, Sarah lay in my arms, her transformation complete.”

  Her fury gave way to trembling. Again he had lost, because of Kiren. No, because of her. She did this to Sarah. To John.

  Her chest felt hollow.

  “Forgive me, Alexia.” His extended hand dropped to his side. “You know how dearly I love her.”

  She gave a stiff nod. She had watched their relationship develop, the first truly healthy romance she’d observed.

  Mae delivered a meal to John and shooed him below. He went with an exhalation of thanks and a few brief exchanges.

  John and Sarah both suffered because of Kiren, because of her. Her eyes stung with waiting tears. She had done this to them both.

  Mae settled across from her, silently waiting. Alexia brushed a sleeve across her cheeks. She just wanted to sleep, to let all this settle, and to really understand what she’d done only a few moments ago.

  “I felt the shift.” Mae’s voice startled her. “Maiden of Time.”

  Thirty-Five

  Fall Out

  Kiren pulled his hands through his hair, working again to process Ethel’s report.

  Bellezza had escaped.

  With Charles’s assistance.

  This was just one more headache he didn’t have time to process. What was he supposed to do about Bellezza—especially now that the Soulless had knowledge of the Passionate’s hiding places?

  Ethel’s head was bowed. Lester scrubbed a hand over his face. Miles was seated, picking at the grass between his feet, teeth grating back and forth silently enough no one else could hear it, but it set Kiren’s nerves on end.

  “I can go after her.” Ethel straightened up.

  “We cannot spare you,” Kiren said. “Not with this new threat.”

  Lester nodded. “Agreed. We have to warn the others o’ what’s comin’.”

  Miles pounded the ground. “The only safe place is scorched earth, and we can’t possibly bring everyone there.”

  “Or across the great waters.” Lester cocked his head.

  Kiren let out a heavy sigh. “We must again unite our kind and pray our unified strength will be enough to repel the enemy.”

  “But what about them Breeders?” Lester grated. “They ain’t be willin’ fer to join forces.”

  “Elizabeth North was,” Kiren reminded. He didn’t mention that she’d fought him every step of the way until he revealed the identity of
her father, a man who had been most anxious to reunite with her. Edward had never dreamed his daughter would know him, and Kiren had granted them some time to bond, even amid the crisis.

  Tight expressions and worry filled each face.

  “If they recognize the direness of the situation,” Kiren continued, “perhaps they will cooperate peacefully. Last night, terrible as it was, may have been the very incident we needed to persuade them.”

  Miles shoved to his feet. “And if they decide to fight us instead?”

  “You will know it.” Kiren nodded. As much as he hated placing so great a responsibility on the lad’s shoulders, it was what he’d been groomed for. Kiren had only hoped he could shelter Miles a few more years.

  Ethel wrung her hands. “I do not like it.”

  “Aye,” Lester agreed. “But it be time.”

  They all turned to the elder, Ethel’s face a mix of terror and shock. Miles’s brows tweaked, his mouth a tight frown.

  Kiren blew out the breath he’d been holding. He’d been worried Lester might disagree, and as the oldest of them, his opinion carried the most weight.

  Ethel pushed her sleeves up. “Then let us be to our business.”

  Miles tugged a hand through his hair, shuddering. Pity tightened Kiren’s gut. Oh that he could spare the boy!

  Kiren rolled his shoulders back. “Lester, Ethel, gather them in. We will converge at the inn and make our plans with equal say among the factions, see if we cannot unite as a nation.”

  Those words remained in his ears. A nation. Had the Passionate ever been fully united since the crusades? And would they welcome another war with humanity by coming together in their strength? He prayed not.

  “Gather them in.”

  Thirty-Six

  Purpose

  “Maiden of Time?” Alexia’s fingers curled in a tight ball. She hadn’t told anyone—not Kiren, not Sarah. “How do you know about that?”

  “You went back, did you not?”

  Alexia nodded, her head a wide, cottony ball. She realized Mae couldn’t see her motion. “Yes.”

  “You saw what I did to the Soulless. Have you met any Passionate more powerful?”

  Alexia held her downy-stuffed head still. “No.”

  “But I have.” The blind woman reached across the distance. “And she sits before me now.”

  “You are mistaken.” Alexia rose and pulled back, stumbling into the wall, knees threatening to fail her. Her muscles felt like jelly.

  Mae smiled. She seized Alexia’s hand, her skin pulsing, bursting with life. “You have the power to shape the world.”

  Alexia swallowed, her voice small. “And you, the power to destroy it?”

  Mae’s smile remained although her head bowed. “Some give life. Some take it.”

  What a terrible gift! Alexia’s heart tore in two. “And that is why you occupy scorched earth?”

  The woman’s mouth tightened.

  “I rescued the child tonight, but I could not save Sarah. I was not strong enough.” Alexia took a deep breath. “If I could have reversed the minutes, only a few, I might have delivered her from this fate. Why did it not manifest then?”

  “Our gifts develop as we do, strengthening as our power to wield them increases.”

  Alexia blinked. “But if I can go back, we never need lose the medallion.” She jolted toward the door, blackness inking out the room. Fingers held her firmly in place, the back of her knees smacking into a chair. She blinked her vision clear.

  The woman’s smile had shrunk. She squeezed Alexia’s hand. “Do you trust me, Alexia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then allow me to help you.”

  They spent the evening discussing strength, motivation, and how to trigger one’s ability. By midnight, when they retired, Alexia had a greater sense of how to access her talents and how they drew from her body’s reserves. She could decide where the energy came from rather than destroying her brain—as seemed her default—but it would take practice and focus. Still, she had no greater understanding as to why this door had opened now instead of when she needed it most.

  Dana. Her mother. She would have the answers Alexia needed.

  She closed her eyes. All she had to do was want it, stepping out of time to the absence where her mother waited—a woman she’d never had the privilege of knowing.

  “You have questions for me.” The soft voice eased Alexia’s lids open.

  Too-green eyes, like her own, peered back around raven locks that curled freely down the breathtaking woman’s back. She knelt next to Alexia, only a couple years older than herself, head cocked, half-smile welcoming.

  “I am sorry that I have not been to see you since—”

  “Time does not exist here, Alexia. You go, and the same instant you return. I am here for you.”

  “As you were there for my father?” She couldn’t help the smart. Even so, the hurt in her mother’s lowered gaze sent prickles of guilt into her stomach. “Why did you allow him to marry another woman when you still so ardently adore him?”

  Dana’s brow twisted. She sat back and heaved a great breath. “I begged Charles not to leave for the university without me, but he felt to honor his father, he must. I intended to follow him...”

  “You were prevented?”

  Dana rubbed at her nails, focused on the cuticles, but far away. “It was the middle of the night when he came to me. I did not question it. He would leave in the morning and we had often been quite intimate, though not entirely.” She hugged herself.

  Alexia placed a hand on her mother’s arm.

  “It was not Charles in the darkness.”

  Alexia pulled back, shocked.

  “His father, Benedict, claimed me.” A single tear glistened down Dana’s cheek. “For years I endured his accosts, even bore him a child whom he would claim belonged to his wife.”

  Alexia blinked and shook her head clear. “A child?” A shiver crawled down her arms. “Sarah...”

  She had a sister, a true sister. Sarah was her sister!

  Dana clasped both hands before her, as though in prayer and pressed them to her lips. “May she forgive me, when I learned of Charles’s marriage, I could abide the union no longer. I forced Benedict’s carriage off the road.”

  Alexia knelt. “Using a gift like Sarah’s? To control wooden things?”

  Dana’s cheek twitched in a sad smile. “Not like Sarah.” She rubbed a finger along the smooth black nothingness of a floor. “I had greater command of the world than she. For me, all elements obeyed, which is likely why my time was to be so limited.”

  Multiple gifts. They could possess multiple gifts like Bellezza’s scream and ability to mist and her strength, or Kiren’s healing and thought reading and adept hearing... Might she have more than one talent? She had not only slowed time, but leapt back and altered the outcome.

  Dana’s eyes flashed up, dark under her brows. “I would have moved all the elements to be with your father, and I did.”

  Alexia knew the rest of her mother’s story. Her grandparents had died in the accident and Sarah became an orphan. Father had returned from Cambridge with his new bride, Rosalind, and Sarah fell into his custody. He returned to Dana’s arms, his one true love—whom he had believed dead from his father’s communications—and Rosalind discovered them. Their wedding bliss evaporated, but Rosalind still took Dana’s child from Kiren’s arms rather than sending her away after her husband’s mistress died in childbirth. No one knew the deception, and Alexia had always been Charles Dumont’s sole heir, until she could stand the lie no more and left to be with Kiren.

  “I am so sorry.” Alexia wiped at her own tears.

  Dana huffed a single, sad laugh. “It was always meant to be this way. I should never have lived to raise you, but Rosalind did well.”

  Alexia’s heart pinched. Her surrogate mother had given what love she could, constantly forced to face the evidence of her husband’s betrayal. Alexia ached with longing for the woman.
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  But Alexia had gone back—only a few moments—and she had saved a child. Couldn’t her mother have prevented this fate?

  “You could have changed it,” Alexia realized.

  Dana looked up. “It is one of the gifts the heir of time possesses.”

  Alexia settled next to her mother. “One of them?”

  Dana placed both hands flat on the ground. “You can mold time, but there are dangers. You can hasten the moments—though you cannot alter your physical placement.” She lifted one hand and shook her head. “If a wagon should be driven through the space you occupy while speeding time, it will kill you.” Her brow quirked, voice lowering. “Slowing time or jumping back is safer. You can alter the events around you, only a minute or two at a time. You can even evade death. Why, I escaped my own death many times.”

  “You what?”

  Dana’s fingers curled into loose fists. “You must start slowly—a few minutes at first, eventually an hour, only as far as is needed.”

  “Two days?”

  Her head shook. “You cannot control the outcome of altered days, weeks, months. The danger of changing things...” She drew in a shaky breath. “The first time, the very first time, your Father and I were married.”

  Alexia’s jaw dropped, words escaping her.

  Dana smiled. “A simple wedding. He abandoned his family and wealth for me, fleeing to dwell among the Passionate. We lived peacefully in a cottage where he slaved day in and out, working the land to provide for us, labor that had never been demanded of him before.” Her cheeks twitched. “He did not complain, but I could see the toil wearying him, and how he thought about all he had abandoned time and time again.”

  Alexia peered at her mother, too bewildered by the image of her father, high and noble, working the land with his own hands.

  Dana bowed her head. “I thought I could make it better. I reversed the years and started anew. This time Charles took me to his home and informed his father we would marry. No argument could change his mind. We were in love.” She nodded to herself. “And so we married. His father did not like it. He cut Charles off. Thankfully, we found mercy in a neighbor who housed and employed us.