Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2)

by Crystal Collier

  His eyes turned down. “I know, and I am sorry.”

  The regret in his frown twisted her heart. She caught his face and lifted it. “Well, I should not mind so much having servants to do the laundry or clean the chamber pots.”

  He broke into a low chuckle.

  She pressed her forehead to his and kissed him lightly. Her equal. “I will have you for my husband, no matter how many complications are involved, no matter how many things for which you hold yourself accountable. I love you.”

  A bird twittered from a branch overhead, the distant glow of sunrise painting the sky a lighter shade of blue.

  Hope.

  Kiren grabbed her, eagerly aiming for her lips.

  The ground shook. They both stumbled, and Kiren caught Alexia, grabbing hold of the bedpost.

  Forty-Two

  Infiltration

  A chill tickled down Charles’s spine. He halted mid-step and counted to five. It was his imagination. How many days had he spent in this hidden estate, and despite the strange breezes and occasional disembodied whispers, he and that cook remained the only two occupants.

  At first he’d felt like a prisoner. After Nelly explained the situation, how his being out in the world would place Alexia in danger, he’d resigned himself to their strange library, hourly walks through the halls, and the occasional raid of the wine cellar. The chatty woman keeping him company would speak of the weather, maintenance about the house, and odd facts of nature, but never a word about his daughter or her soon-to-be husband. The quiet was driving him mad!

  Early morning light trailed across the hall, bars of gold against a figurative jail.

  Panting rasped in his ears. He spun.

  Two shrouded figures stood at the top of the stairs, their robes robbing the hall of light. Ice raced up the back of his legs. He gasped and reached to his hip where a sword would have been mounted in his soldiering days. His fingers wrapped around air.

  The creatures turned toward him. One stepped into a streak of light, and crimson pupils pierced through the darkness of its hood.

  Show no fear in the face of the beast.

  His breathing slowed. In the room to his right he would find furniture he might mangle into a makeshift pike or shard, but to buy himself time he’d have to barricade the door and he couldn’t think of anything substantial enough to keep two grown men from breaking through.

  They slunk closer.

  The floor trembled. Things clattered over in the rooms, echoing into the hall. A vase crashed. The creatures halted and widened their stances to remain upright.

  Blinding whiteness whipped out of nowhere.

  Forty-Three

  Quake

  Kiren caught himself on the bedpost and steadied Alexia. The rumbling faded.

  How strange. England had never been prone to earthquakes.

  An avalanche of crashes echoed through the branches, a distant clattering. Birds skittered free, launching into the sky like dust motes from a disturbed drapery.

  Kiren’s blood froze. This was no freak quake.

  Nelly.

  He launched through the trees, stretching his senses beyond the branches.

  Shouting. Deep voices. Hissing.

  “Kiren, stop!”

  Vertigo tore at his insides, spinning him mentally back toward the little woman chasing after him, his match, his perfect other half. He bit down. How was he supposed to keep her safe and rush to his friends’ aid? Why did it have to be one or the other?

  “Go back, Alexia,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Ripe chance of that happening.” In a blink she was sprinting at his side.

  He almost missed a step. “You just jumped.”

  “Slowed...time,” she panted.

  His fist tightened. She would kill herself from overexertion given half an excuse. “You should not be following me.”

  “Then make me stop.”

  He grinned. He could do it, but she would find means to punish him later as payment. His smirk dropped as he glimpsed her white skirt. “You are not dressed.”

  “I am enough for you.”

  He ground his teeth. “Alexia—”

  “It was the estate, was it not? That noise?”

  He clenched his lips, focused on the careful placement of his feet. She jogged at his side, eyes straight ahead, brows low. He wondered how she had the energy to keep up with him until she blurred in his periphery. He was out pacing her, and she kept taking breaks, then catching up with him.

  Such a strange reality.

  The trees thinned and he reached out to slow her, scanning the horizon. Where there should be a building, sky met his view. Rubble covered the ground.

  He swallowed.

  Alexia’s jaw hung open. He waved for her to stay as he moved forward. Dust covered the ground like powdered snow, layered in a wide circle well beyond the collapsed timber and stone. Decades of work in ruin.

  He snapped to attention, scouring the grass for signs of passage.

  There.

  Dusty footsteps converged at the east end of the grounds. He hurried over and bent to trace the debris.

  Nelly had been here, just before a struggle. Or Charles.

  The tracks bled away south in snowy prints. Two grooves lined the trail, likely the drag of unconscious feet.

  Captured. One of them was a prisoner—like so many missing others—and would become a feast on the next new moon.

  He would stop them this time.

  Kiren followed the confusion of prints, trying to discern which of the two had been taken, but it was useless. How had they discovered the location of his house? Granted, Ethel had not been here to obscure it with the mist, but the only way they could have known of its location was if...

  Miles.

  They must have gleaned it from Miles the night they learned of so many Passionate hiding places. How many had been taken because of that single night?

  He glanced back at the rubble, his chest constricting with tightness.

  If Charles hadn’t escaped, if instead he lay buried somewhere in that mess... Kiren couldn’t swallow the lump.

  A hand landed on his shoulder.

  He whirled. Alexia jumped back.

  He slowed his breathing and reached for her. Her fingers slipped between his, tightening and pulling him closer.

  “Kiren?”

  “I have failed again.”

  “You have not—” Her mouth remained open, eyes widening, fixated over his shoulder.

  He turned.

  Two scarecrow forms stood on the edge of the clearing, their ragged cloaks flitting in the wind like the black flames of a dying world.

  He threw Alexia behind him. They couldn’t taint anyone, not in the daylight, but they would attempt to overpower him or injure them both, and what if there were more of them in the trees?

  The accursed sprinted across the distance. Alexia grabbed his arm and stepped forward, assurance and steadiness filtering through her grip. She met his eyes. Urgency flashed in her depths, and a warning: Go to safety. Meet me back here when you have help.

  She vanished.

  Kiren whipped toward the Soulless and gasped. Alexia stood behind the creatures.

  He blinked his eyes clear.

  “You!” she yelled. The Soulless stopped and turned. “I hear rumors you are searching for the Maiden of Time.”

  Kiren tensed. What was she doing? He raised a hand, begging her silently to stop.

  She lifted her chin. “Here I am.”

  Their heads swiveled, leaning one direction, then the other.

  “What are you waiting for?” she called.

  They turned on her. She blurred, appearing half a second later at the edge of the trees.

  He stared, unable to move. He knew she had the potential, but seeing her use her gifts with such strength! How had he found himself a companion so gifted, one who put even him to shame?

  She blurred and disappeared entirely. He wanted to go after her, but she was rig
ht. There was nothing he could do for her, and Ethel would be waiting by now. He sprinted back the way he’d come, shame filling him with every step. He should be the one protecting Alexia, not the other way around.

  A strange bubble formed in his gut. It wouldn’t settle, and it irked him.

  They were not equals. She was his better—in every way. Why should that bother him?

  Ethel waited for him at the designated spot, mist whisking off her arms and hair in a nervous haze.

  She rushed forward. “Where is she?”

  “The wooded estate.”

  Her eyes shot wide and she seized his arm, instantly sucking him into the cloud. His feet touched down over the uneven rubble of his demolished house. Ethel was gone before she’d fully materialized. She appeared a second later, holding Alexia’s arm.

  Kiren threw his arms about Alexia. His mind screamed the number of things that could have gone wrong. He would never put her at risk again.

  Never.

  Ethel’s shoulders slumped, her knees crunching into the snowy debris. “The Soulless are not far.” She reached out, and Kiren caught her elbow before she toppled over. Dark rings hung beneath her eyes, skin a gaunt white.

  “Do you have enough strength?”

  “I do.”

  Kiren frowned. She was getting old, and the strain of recent days had been so great.

  Ethel looked him right in the eyes, head bowed knowingly.

  He took Alexia’s hand and nodded. The world faded into mist.

  Forty-Four

  Favors

  Charles batted at the mist, the hall clearing. The golden-haired child crouched before him.

  He backed away across the shaking floor, raising his hands, unsure if he should fist them or flatten them in surrender.

  Behind her two dark figures staggered forward.

  She burst into smoke and appeared right in front of Charles, seizing his wrist. Odd warmth swarmed into his skin, intoxication far deeper than that found at the bottom of any bottle. His eyelids drooped, her nutmeg aroma the only thing he craved.

  “Charles Dumont.” Her soprano stole his breath, so like the hymn of tinkling bells. Who cared that the world was quaking around him! “You saved my life. Now I save yours.”

  Plaster from the ceiling crashed next to him. “What the—”

  “Hold your breath.”

  She had cast her spell on him. Rage pumped through his body. How dare she touch him! How dare she exert her influence and cloud his brain! “I am not—”

  White mist wrapped itself about him. He choked and gagged, closing his mouth. He hung suspended, like in a dream, surrounded by nothing but silence and the distant rumble of angry winds.

  Weight returned, his feet touching down. The fog cleared, sucking inward as Bellezza formed in the center.

  He ripped his wrist free, disgusted, terrified. “What are you?”

  Her head tilted and she mimicked his bass, “Thank you for saving my life, Bellezza. I am eternally indebted to you.” Her lip lifted in a snarl. “And here I thought Alexia learned her manners from you.”

  Alley walls locked them in, tight enough he could touch both sides without extending one arm fully. He peered over her head as the call of wagon wheels rattled across cobble. Fresh bread and grime mixed in the unmistakable stench of a small town.

  “Where have you brought me?” he demanded.

  “My, my. Temper.” She smirked. “I knew I liked you for a reason.”

  His nostrils flared. “The Soulless, how did you know? Why did you come?”

  She shrugged and took a little hop skip toward the alley exit. “I was tracking them.”

  He grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around, bolting her down in his grip. Her teeth locked together, lips peeled back, eyes a quagmire of murder. He had seen her like, angry lads on the battlefield who had something to prove, and he would not be intimidated by the act.

  “Why?”

  She shrugged him off, his fingers sinking right through the mist of her shoulder. Her chin tipped downward, a teasing little smile lifting her lips. “Despite being a man of leisure, you freed me.” Her nose crinkled. “I would go so far as to suggest you did so against your inclinations.”

  He took a step back, shaken to his core.

  She giggled, her eyes sparkling. “I could see your desire, sir. I am no stranger to wantonness.”

  “You are a child,” he barely voiced.

  “I am no more a child than you are a gambler,” she hissed, advancing. “You and I are much alike. You prefer shooting to thinking, lock yourself in with your memories at odd hours, and indulge in a fondness for anything that may drown your sorrows.” She slipped past him, dragging a finger along his bicep. “I share those loves, but prefer to exact revenge on those who cause my sorrows.”

  He reluctantly pulled away from her touch. “Why have you brought me here?”

  She giggled and clapped. “I would like to propose another exchange, as our first one has concluded so nicely.” She curtsied. “You give me something I want. I give you something you want.”

  Charles prickled. “You have nothing I want.”

  She rolled her eyes. “To know the real Benedict Dumont?”

  His father’s name rang in his ears. His estranged father. Their relations had become strained after Charles returned from military training, when his father denied him the one thing he desired most: Dana.

  And then Father died in a fluke carriage accident.

  Charles shook himself.

  A grin widened Bellezza’s mischievous face. “I shall tell you precisely why your precious Dana could not come to you at Cambridge, and I do believe you will be adequately motivated to assist me.”

  “Why should you need me when you can simply—” He whirled his fingers outward to illustrate her poofing.

  Bellezza tugged at his lapel. “Because it is so lonely doling out revenge.”

  He pushed her back, reaching for a weapon that was not docked at his hip. He couldn’t afford her touch if he hoped to make it safely through this, and he suspected part of her wanted him to crumble, that all this was a test.

  She shook her head. “Whether you like it or not, you are the son of a Collector. I should be inclined to end your life, except you seem to have saved mine. I propose a truce. An alliance.”

  “Is that all?”

  Her grin faltered. “Do you know what the Collectors collect?”

  “You speak in riddles, girl.”

  Her fists balled, her lip twitching upward to reveal teeth. She stepped back, the rage bleeding from her eyes. “Passionate. They collect the Passionate—like your precious Dana who was collected by your father.”

  The words jangled through his brain, a discordant collapse of bells in the tower that had been his mental fortress. Charles’s knees quivered.

  All those years ago when he left home for Cambridge, Dana promised to meet him on the road and then never appeared. He hadn’t understood. Had she been unwell? Unable to follow? He wrote home and inquired on her state of health, only to be informed by Father that she had died from scarlet fever. He mourned his beloved for three full years, unwilling to return home for his anger with Father. At last Rosalind tamed his perpetual sorrow. He married her, received word of his parent’s death, and returned home to find Dana alive.

  He had always seen it, the shame in Dana’s eyes upon his return, the way she refused to speak of his time away, the way she clung to Sarah—a child who bore far too many physical similarities for having merely been nannied by Dana.

  He had struggled to reconcile his jealousy and rage, but Father had been dead and Dana had been a victim trapped by Charles himself. He was warned, and he still carried her off to his home. Charles had sought to apologize to Dana, to comfort her, to make amends and somehow compensate for her loss and pain, but those efforts resulted in his own fall and the birth of a child who had given his life new purpose and—in the same blow—robbed him of both his lover, and his wife’s trust.r />
  He could do nothing to punish his father, no matter how hot his blood burned, but if there were others...

  Bellezza grinned. “I should like your help in dismantling their network, Charles Dumont. Being the son of a collector, you can infiltrate their inner circle, learn all of their names, and bring that intelligence to me.”

  He crossed his arms, but his voice wobbled. “And why would I play your game?”

  Bellezza walked her fingers up his chest. “Because I will make each of them suffer the way your father should have suffered.”

  He slapped her hand away.

  Her grin widened. “I will hide you here two days while you decide, during which time I must obtain some much needed information from a Breeder informant.”

  He ground his teeth together. “You forget, I am not a gambling man.”

  “I forget nothing.” She touched his cheek, toxins swimming instantly through his brain. “One thing you may learn about me, I will never kill someone who has set me free.”

  Charles could not believe he had agreed to this. He stood at the back of the room with his arms folded as the visitor took a seat across from Bellezza. She had introduced Charles simply by stating to her company that he did not wish to find out the extent of Charles’s power. He felt more comfortable with the loaded pistol hiding within arms’ reach, but not pleased by this circumstance. Who knew what strange talent the young man possessed?

  “Tell me of Deiliey,” Bellezza demanded.

  The visitor shook his sandy head. “She is dead by all official accounts.” His Irish accent surprised Charles.

  Bellezza sat back, waving an encouraging hand.

  “Nigh three hundred years ago, she led our division. She was contendin’ against the Kingdom faction for dominance, and winnin’.” He crossed his legs at the knee. “She had infiltrated the church and was posin’ as one of the Cardinals with much influence. So much influence we got nigh whatever we wanted.” He leaned on the arm rest. “Until Kingdom reared its braided mane.”