Soulbound: A Lone Star Witch Novel

by Tessa Adams

  “So you didn’t even bother to ask me? To talk to me about it? You just picked up and left?”

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  “By keeping me ignorant?” I know I sound skeptical, but I can’t help it. While I’ve finally made peace with a life without magic, it wasn’t an easy road to get here. It took years, years of my life I could have spent learning my magic so I wouldn’t be in this situation now—a sitting duck for a sadist with vengeance on his mind. “By leaving me latent?”

  “Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.”

  “And sometimes it’s hell. Either way, it wasn’t your decision to make. But you made it. Just like you made the decision to finally come back and find me, right? Your being in Austin now is no coincidence.” I pause, see the truth of my words on his face. “Did you know about the killer? Did you know he was going to do this?”

  “If I had that kind of inside line, don’t you think I would have stopped him before he’d killed one woman, let alone three? Before he tortured them—and you?”

  I don’t know what I think. This whole conversation is so confusing, especially when you consider I’ve gotten only about five hours of sleep in the last seventy-two. But still, I’m not ready to let this go. Not when Declan is being candid with me—or at least as candid as he’s capable of being. I’m not stupid enough to think he’s telling me everything. There’s too much that just doesn’t fit.

  “So, you came back and it wasn’t for him. Something must have brought you here—must have made you decide you no longer want to protect me.”

  For the first time since I met him, he looks torn. Not just like he doesn’t know what to say, but like he doesn’t know what to do. It’s a strange look on him—and a strange feeling for him, I’d bet. Declan is the man with the plan, the one who always knows what’s going on.

  “Of course I still want to protect you,” he finally says, sounding anguished. “I may not be doing a very good job of it, but I’m trying.”

  “So what are you doing here? Why did you come back?”

  “Because I need my magic!”

  It’s a real kick in the ass to realize I was holding out hope that he would say he needed me. Which is ridiculous, of course. We barely know each other, no matter how it feels to the contrary.

  “I need the power I once had,” he continues, “and I can’t get it any other way than being in contact with you.”

  “And if you didn’t need the power?”

  He looks away, doesn’t answer, though his jaw moves convulsively.

  “You never would have come back,” I say with a calm I am far from feeling. “I would have been latent my whole life.”

  “Do you think I enjoy seeing you like this?” He gestures to me. “Bruised, emotionally battered, in danger? Do you think I like being the cause of it? Why wouldn’t I try to keep you from this if I could?”

  “Because it’s not your decision to make! It’s my magic, my life, that you’ve been playing games with for the last fifteen years.”

  “This isn’t a game!”

  “You sure about that? Because it’s beginning to feel a whole hell of a lot like one to me. One where you hold all the cards.” That’s when it hits me, the knowledge that’s been there all along just waiting for me to put the final puzzle piece together.

  I don’t want to believe it, though, so I cast around for another explanation. Any other explanation. None comes to me, and I finally ask, “How could you have left Ipswitch without explaining any of this to me?”

  “It wasn’t my job to explain it to you.”

  “Bullshit. Why were you at my Kas Djedet, if not to enlighten me?”

  He doesn’t look at me, doesn’t say anything at all. And that’s how I know I’m right.

  “You were going to kill me.” Even as I say the words, I’m desperate not to believe them. Desperate not to understand that the man I’ve spent the last eight years of my life pining over, no matter what lies I told myself, could be so unworthy. “You came to my nineteenth birthday party with the intention of killing me.”

  He looks tormented, but I can’t work up any sympathy for him. “I couldn’t do it. The second I saw you up on that stage, trying to create fire, I knew I’d never be able to harm you.”

  “But how did you even think you’d get away with it? I’m a princess of Ipswitch, for the goddess’s sake! My parents, and the Council, would have hunted you to the ends of the earth.”

  He doesn’t answer me for the longest time. And when he does, it’s reluctantly. With no hint of arrogance at all, only rock-solid truth. “They wouldn’t have been able to touch me, Xandra. Not with my magic fully restored.”

  I think of the moment by the lake when the tree caught on fire.

  Of the moment on stage when Declan burned and burned and burned.

  Of how he touched me earlier, so tenderly, and took away the brand my brother—one of the most powerful wizards in existence—couldn’t do anything with.

  And I realize he’s probably right. He could have killed me without any kind of repercussions. That he didn’t makes it better somehow, and also worse.

  “Get out,” I tell him.

  “Not until you let me explain.” He doesn’t move from his spot by the window.

  If he explains any more my brain is going to spontaneously combust. “Contrary to recent actions, I’m pretty good at figuring things out all on my own.”

  “You’re not thinking straight right now. Which is understandable, but you need to let me take care of—”

  A blast of magic—of overwhelming power—wells up inside of me, then slams across the room to strike the wall inches from where he’s standing. He doesn’t flinch, but the look in his eyes turns wary, like he’s just now clueing in to what he’s dealing with. “You may be older than I am. You may be stronger than I am. But you don’t have the right to tell me how I’m thinking or what I’m thinking or if I’m clear or not. Not after everything that you’ve done.”

  I realize I’m speaking through clenched teeth and pause, force myself to take a few deep, calming breaths. “Now I would like you to go. I’m not angry. I’m not even that upset. I’m more than happy to talk with you more tomorrow or whenever you’d like, but I can’t do any more tonight. I’m exhausted and I. Need. You. To. Leave.”

  At first it seems like he’s going to argue with me. But as he looks me over with blank eyes, something shifts in his expression—and the room. He turns, walks toward my bedroom door. Then stops before he’s halfway across the room. Without looking at me, he says, “I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

  It’s a heartfelt apology from a man who rarely, if ever, apologizes. But I’m not ready to accept it. “I have evidence to the contrary.”

  He does look at me then, his lips twisting into that half smirk I first saw all those years ago. “You’re tougher than you look.”

  I lift my chin in blatant challenge, unwilling—unable—to give an inch. “I’ve had to be.”

  “No doubt. Good night, Xandra.” Though he’s halfway across the room, I feel his hand stroke my cheek, his fingers brush against my lips. And then, from one second to the next, he quite simply disappears.

  For long seconds, my brain goggles at how he does that, but in the end, I let it go. Power is power is power, and I have more than enough to think about without worrying how Declan does what he does.

  Instead, I focus on everything he told me—and everything he didn’t. For all his talk of our souls being connected—which seems to fit even though it sounds like crazy talk at the same time—there seems to be a lot of death wrapped up in all of this. Not to mention the stink of black magic.

  Not just from the warlock who is even now killing women who look like me, but from this whole thing. People aren’t just born like this. Obviously, or Declan would have been connected to someone else long before I was ever conceived. And I don’t believe I was born connected to Declan either.

  My hand creeps up to play with my mark
from Isis. She gave me this when I was born, as a symbol of the enormous power with which she had gifted me. Sometime after that, sometime after I was touched by the goddess, is when our souls were connected.

  But how?

  Why?

  By whom?

  And another question I am beginning to believe is the most important one of them all. Is whoever did this also somehow connected to the brutal deaths of Amy, Lina and the woman last night?

  Twenty

  “I’m not sure what happened last night, but keeping up with your social calendar is getting to be a little too challenging for me, Xandra. Not to mention seriously freaking me out. You need to get the hell up. Now.”

  I open bleary eyes to see Lily standing over my bed, her face concerned and more than a little exasperated. “Who’s been calling?” I mumble as I rub my hands over my eyes. I swear, it feels like I just went to sleep.

  “Who hasn’t been calling? Your mom, Salima, Declan. Your brother wants me to tell you he has lunch with his fiancée’s parents and that you are not to leave the house until he gets back. And”—she pauses, pretends to think for a second—“oh, yeah. A cop is here to see you. Says his name is Nate and that you’ll know what he wants. What the hell happened last night, Xandra?”

  I don’t answer her as my stomach sinks down to somewhere around the vicinity of my knees. Either I wasn’t as inconspicuous as I’d hoped to be at the Capitol or there’s been some kind of break in the case that’s led Nate straight to my doorstep. Either way, I’m pretty sure it’s not a good thing that he’s here at—I glance at my alarm clock—ten thirty in the morning on New Year’s Day.

  “Can you stall him?” I ask hoarsely. Not forever. Just until I get my head on straight. Which, come to think of it, might be forever after all.

  “What do you think I’ve been doing?” Lily asks with a frown. “But he’s getting impatient, so I suggest you brush your teeth at world-record-setting pace.” With that, she flounces back out of the room.

  For long seconds I don’t move, just sit there trying to clear the last of the cobwebs from my brain. Considering I hadn’t had so much as a glass of champagne last night, it’s much harder than it should be.

  Voices drift down the hall to me. Though I can’t make out the words, I can hear the impatience in Nate’s tone, the barely concealed panic in Lily’s. That panic is what finally galvanizes me. I stumble out of bed and to the bathroom.

  It isn’t the world’s fastest toothbrushing and grooming session, but in less than ten minutes I’m walking toward the living room on unsteady feet. Again, I didn’t drink last night, but it sure feels like I did. I’m shaky, queasy. Not to mention having the mother of all headaches. I swear, if this nightmare doesn’t end soon, I’m not going to be able to function.

  Nate, who’s been sitting on my couch—an untouched cup of coffee on the table in front of him—leaps to his feet at my appearance. He’s across the room in seconds, his face concerned as he wraps an arm around me and guides me to the nearest chair.

  Maybe I’m not under arrest after all.

  “You look like hell,” he bluntly tells me when we’re both seated.

  “I went to bed four hours ago. What do you expect?”

  “What’d you do last night?” His eyes search mine. But Lily chooses that moment to bring me a cup of coffee—thank the goddess—and I use that as a chance to glance away. I’m a lousy liar on the best of days, and that’s without looking straight into the guy’s eyes while I do it.

  “Oh, you know me. Party, party, party,” I tell him blithely.

  “I didn’t think you’d be in much of a party mood after discovering Jacqueline French on the Capitol grounds.” He takes a blasé sip of his own coffee as he drops the bombshell, but every muscle in his body is tensed for a fight. Or my flight, I’m not sure which.

  But I’m not running from this, not this time. No matter how much I want to. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “There are cameras, Xandra. I saw you.”

  I close my eyes, barely resist the urge to bang my head against the table. Of course there were cameras! Why hadn’t I thought of that? Not that there was much I could have done about that fact, but surely Declan or Donovan could have done something to—

  Nate shifts forward in his seat, avidly cataloging each and every emotion flitting across my face. And that’s when I know—I’m not sure how, but I do—that he’s just fishing. Declan or my brother must have taken care of the cameras after all. “Saw me what?” I take a sip of my own coffee, try not to choke on it. But my throat is so tight that I can barely get the hot liquid down.

  “Saw you on the grounds, with the body. And that cop, who had no business letting you through.”

  Okay, so maybe he’s not fishing after all. Still, it’s too late to do anything but brazen this out. “What cop?”

  Nate sighs in exasperation. “Is this really how we’re going to play it? I’m not here to arrest you, Xandra. I’m here to help you.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  He snorts. “Baby, if I had to point to one person I’ve met in my entire career as a cop who was over her head in a situation that could get her killed, I would pick you. Now, I don’t know why you’re turning up at my murder scenes or why the victims are all marked with your very distinctive tattoo, but they are. Which says to me either you’re involved—which my gut tells me you aren’t—or there’s a sociopath out there who wants you to be. And frankly, that scares the hell out of me.”

  His eyes are sincere when he leans forward and takes my hand. “I don’t want to show up at one of these scenes and find you lying there Xandra. I’d never be able to forgive myself.”

  His concern touches me. It’s different from Donovan’s protectiveness or Declan’s enraged determination, but it feels good nonetheless. Another homicide detective would probably have hauled me to jail already and the fact that Nate trusts me enough to look beyond the surface clues tells me he’s a better friend than I ever imagined. And a better homicide detective. Because, no matter how good of friends we are, I know if he really believed I was guilty that nothing would stop him from taking me in. Surely I owe him some kind of explanation to justify his faith in me.

  The fleeting thought that he’s playing me runs through my mind, that this is just another interrogation technique, but at this point it doesn’t really matter. I need to tell him some part of the truth—I just wish I knew how much or how little I could say.

  “I don’t know why this is happening.” I start with absolute truth. “I don’t know who is doing this or why he’s branding women with my tattoo. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence that the victims look like me or—”

  “It’s not a coincidence.”

  “Okay. Then I don’t know why he’s choosing women who look like me.”

  “Do you have any old boyfriends that things ended badly with?” Nate asks, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a pen and a small pad of paper.

  “No.”

  “Any old boyfriends who seemed a little bit weird or whose behavior was outside the norm?”

  Immediately I think of Declan, but I don’t think his “outside the norm” is quite what Nate is talking about.

  I clear my throat. “No.”

  He raises a brow, like he knows there’s something I’m not telling him. But he chooses not to pursue it, because his next question is “Any stalkers? Any man who threatened you, wanted more than you could give him?”

  “No one.” I shake my head. “Seriously, Nate, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt me the way those women have been hurt.”

  He doesn’t answer, just moves on to the next question—which totally takes me by surprise. “How well do you know Ryder Chumomisto? I know you said he dated your sister, but how well did you know him?”

  “Ryder?” I’m prepared for questions about Declan, but Ryder? “I don’t know. We were friends, I guess. Or we were. Before the other day, I hadn’t seen him since he and
my sister broke up.”

  “Why did they break up?”

  “The usual. They grew apart, wanted different things.” Hannah is as white a witch as they come and Ryder, like Declan, always treaded a little too close to the darkness for her. I’m not sure what it says about me that Declan’s darkness doesn’t bother me the same way. My only problem with it is I know it hides a side of him he doesn’t want me to see, a past hurt so great that it shifted his path forever.

  “Ryder’s a good guy. He wouldn’t do this.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any idea who the killer was.”

  “I don’t. But Ryder?” I shake my head. I can’t get my head around even the suggestion of it. “He’s one of the good guys, who genuinely likes women. I never once even saw him raise his voice to my sister.”

  The sound Nate makes doesn’t sound very convinced. “What about Declan Chumomisto?”

  Immediately, a wall goes up between us. I don’t know if he senses it, but I can feel it. My magic seeking to distance me—not just from Nate, but from the question itself. “It’s not Declan.”

  Nate’s eyes narrow, but his voice sounds the same as always when he says, “Why don’t you let me worry about who it is or isn’t?”

  “Because you’re wasting time, going in the wrong direction.”

  He ignores this. “How well do you know Declan? As well as you know his brother?”

  I don’t know how to answer that. I think of everything Declan did to me last night and want to tell Nate that I know him very well. But though he healed me—not to mention gave me the most intense orgasm of my life on the heels of one of the worst experiences of my life—I know very little about him that isn’t common knowledge. Or common lore.

  Twice he’s come into my life and turned it upside down and still I know less about him than a common acquaintance would, while he seems to know nearly everything about me. It’s just one more example of the power imbalance between us and it grates. Hard.