The Space Between (The Book of Phoenix)

by Kristie Cook

  Leni ignored my apprehension.

  “It’s the tree from the journal,” she said excitedly. “We’re here. It’s . . .” Our souls felt out for the Gate. “It’s under the water.”

  With confidence in her instinct, she dove our light down into the water. Pushed us down, down, down, deeper than this part of the harbor should have been, until we finally hit the sandy bottom. When we did, bright beams of light flamed from the sand in front of us.

  A warm feeling swarmed around and through us.

  “The Gate welcomes you,” Mira said.

  I moved us closer to it. Theo held his hand out, blocking us.

  “Not yet,” he said. “Before you can accept the powers of the Gate and be Forged, you must understand the Gate and the expectations of you. If all goes well, you’ll be Forged. Made stronger, faster, less fragile. Given certain gifts that will allow you to fight the Lakari better. Then, you’ll be ready for your first mission.”

  “How?” we asked.

  “By the Gate’s energy,” Theo said.

  “The Gate to all the worlds,” Mira answered before we could ask. “Also, a shortcut to a special part of the Space Between. As Guardians, your primary job is to guard the Gate to keep souls from passing through it, in or out. The only souls you can allow to leave Earth through this Gate are the Broken ones so they can rejoin their other halves.”

  “You cannot allow any souls through the Gate and into Earth,” Theo added more directly. “Enyxa is trying to open it for more of her Lakari to swarm through. You can’t allow it.”

  “Understood.” Thankfully, Leni felt the same need as I did to say this although we both had enough questions to interrogate them for hours. “If that’s our primary job, what are our others?”

  “You help the Broken and the Lost,” Mira said. “After Separating their souls, Enyxa sets them on an endless loop to the same worlds, keeping them from finding each other. This is why Earth is becoming so populated. And so hopeless. You will help these souls before they grow Dark. This is the service you chose for this life cycle in the Space Between. Do you still accept it now?”

  How could we not? I knew what it was like to be ripped apart from Leni’s soul, when she was Jacey. Almost felt it tonight. Nobody should have to endure that. And nobody should have to live increasingly miserable lives searching for true love they’ll never find.

  “What if we don’t?” Leni’s energy created the question, and I understood when I felt her emotions running through us.

  “We don’t know,” Mira admitted. “Nobody has ever denied, especially you, from what we understand.”

  “Will we go back to how we were?” Leni pressed. “Will my parents remember me?”

  “Little bird, I understand—”

  “Will they remember me?” she repeated.

  “We really don’t know,” Mira said. “It’s possible, but your physical bodies likely won’t make it if you don’t accept and Forge. So even if your parents do remember, they will be burying their daughter shortly.”

  Leni’s emotions spiked within us. I tried to pull her in tighter, but we were already as close as can be.

  “Leni,” I murmured to her, “if we die, your parents will have to live with the grief, and we’ll have to start over. We’ll be separated for another twenty or so years.”

  “This is what you chose in the Space Between,” Theo reminded us. “Your whole lives—and many other events—have been based on that choice.”

  Leni’s energy shuddered through us as she recalled everything we’d been through, more me than her. And she decided. We wouldn’t let it all happen for nothing.

  “We accept,” we finally answered.

  “Very good,” Mira said. “But before you may be Forged, now you must understand yourselves. Jeremicah, you finally released yourself from blame, the only reason you made it this far. But you must understand life on Earth is messy. Things happen. You can’t control everything. You especially cannot control Jacquelena. You must forgive yourself when you are at fault. You must trust yourself and your Twin Flame. Remember, she is your light.”

  “Jacquelena,” Theo said, “you must believe in yourself and trust your instinct. Know that your Twin Flame is there to catch you if you fall, but don’t be afraid to take risks. You will have to take many in this life. You two must be able to trust yourselves and each other, as well as your guides and the other members of the Phoenix. Listen to your instinct. Trust each other. Work as a team. If you cannot do all of these, you will fail in your duties for the Phoenix. Do you understand?”

  After everything we’d been through and barely survived, how could we not?

  “We understand.”

  “You may enter the Gate,” Theo said, stepping away from the lights shining upward from the sand.

  After a few beats of hesitation, Leni and I knitted the energy of our souls as closely together as possible, and moved into the circle of light. The beams shot up higher around us and became a solid wall of light enclosing us in a cylinder and pulsing a rainbow of colors. For no more than a second, holes appeared in the round wall, and we barely caught glimpses of entrances to other worlds. The openings filled in with color before we could see anything beyond.

  The water disappeared, as though drained through the sand below us, and bright light filled the cylinder, followed by intense heat. Our souls welded together as white-hot pain seared through us. A force pressed us harder into each other, compressing us, melting us, shaping us, broiling us. We silently screamed as we were pounded into each other, heated again, and molded more, repeating the process until I thought we’d become nothing more than embers and ashes. Then finally.

  Cold water poured over us.

  We strengthened.

  We hardened.

  We were Forged.

  After some time, minutes or hours we didn’t know, the light faded around us. As it did, Leni pulled away from me. Her soul did, but yet, it also remained in mine and mine in hers. By the time the lights dimmed into the sand, we were separate, yet still connected, and staring at each other. She looked like her normal and uninjured self, curls and all, though not quite there. Her soul gave the image of her physical body. I looked at myself doing the same, then I reached out for her hand, and my soul could feel hers clasping mine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, no longer able to hold that in. “For almost getting us killed. Again. Most of all, for doubting you.”

  “Don’t. You were only trying to protect me.” She smiled. “And I love you for that.”

  I moved closer to her, wondering if she’d feel as good like this as she did in her body. Her breath heated my lips as I leaned in closer.

  “I love you, too, babe,” I said. “Always have. Always will.”

  The sound of a clearing throat came from behind me. The lights in the sand had almost completely dimmed, leaving just enough to show Mira and Theo still there—their souls, anyway—hovering in the water, waiting for us.

  Shit. I owed them an apology, too.

  “Sorry. About everything,” I said.

  “As are we,” Theo said. “It would have saved you a lot of physical pain right now.”

  “We thought we’d lost you for a minute or two, Jeric,” Mira said. “Thank God you found your light. Our healers are doing the best they can on your bodies. Your souls are very strong, so there’s no danger, but your Bonding will help speed the healing process.”

  “When you’re ready, concentrate and you can snap back to your bodies,” Theo said, and then they were both gone as if they’d done just that.

  My body had moved, but I could still feel its hold on my soul, which I supposed meant I was still alive. Which was a good thing. Leni gave a slight tug and could feel it, too, which was a really good thing. But before she could snap back to her physical self, I grabbed
her soul’s hand and shot us upward through the water, breaking the surface, and into the sky, which was beginning to lighten with dawn.

  “Jeric, look,” Leni said, her floating body facing toward the abandoned hotel that was apparently the Phoenix headquarters. Or something. We really didn’t know much at all yet, but that was okay. There was plenty of time to find out.

  I turned toward the building, not really wanting to return to our bodies yet, but that’s not why she looked so intently at it. The first three floors of the hotel appeared to have been replaced by the mansion—the same mansion from Micah’s and my dreams, from Jacey’s drawing, from Leni’s postcard—as though the hotel had been built around it.

  “I don’t really want to go back quite yet,” Leni said. “Do you?”

  I grinned at her and pulled her hand again. She floated into me, a quick bump, but the collision sent a wild arousal through me. Wanting to feel it again, I pulled her once more, closer, and the projections of our souls slid into each other, and we became one. I actually wondered if we ever had a reason to have normal sex again because this was so much better.

  “If everybody could make love like this, the world would be a much happier place,” Leni said. “Enyxa and her Lakari wouldn’t even want to be here anymore.”

  True. But I was selfishly glad we had it to ourselves right now. Especially when everyone was oblivious to us, our souls intertwined in complete bliss as we flew through the early morning sky. Like a phoenix, risen from the ashes, we soared high over the water and the rooftops as the city awakened below us.

  About the Author

  Kristie Cook is a lifelong, award-winning writer in various genres, from marketing communications to fantasy fiction. She continues to write the Soul Savers Series, a New Adult paranormal romance/contemporary fantasy, with the first four books, Promise, Purpose, Devotion and Power available now and the next book coming in June 2013. She’s also written a companion novella, Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella, currently available. Over 180,000 Soul Savers books have been sold, with Promise peaking at #54 on the Amazon Top 100 Paid list and at #1 in the Amazon Fantasy category.

  The Space Between kicks off her second New Adult paranormal series, The Book of Phoenix.

  Besides writing, Kristie enjoys reading, cooking, traveling and riding on the back of a motorcycle. She has lived in ten states, but currently calls Southwest Florida home with her husband, three teenage sons, a beagle and a puggle.

  Connect With Me Online

  I love to hear from and connect with readers. Please don’t be shy.

  Email: kristie@kristiecook.com

  Author’s Website & Blog: http://www.KristieCook.com

  UK Fan Site: http://www.kristiecookfansite.co.uk

  Soul Savers Series Website: http://www.SoulSaversSeries.com

  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AuthorKristieCook

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/kristiecookauth

  Want more by Kristie Cook?

  — Soul Savers Series —

  www.SoulSaversSeries.com

  Promise

  Purpose

  Devotion

  Power

  Genesis: A Soul Savers Novella

  Soul Savers Book 5 (June 2013)

  — The Book of Phoenix Series —

  www.TheBookofPhoenix.com

  The Space Between

  Stay tuned to the author’s site at www.KristieCook.com for updates on new releases, excerpts, special events, appearances and signings.

  Read an Excerpt of Promise

  Be sure to check out Kristie Cook’s bestselling, award-winning Soul Savers Series. Read on for an excerpt of Promise, Book 1:

  1st Place - 2010 Royal Palm Literary Award - Fantasy (Published) by Florida Writers Association

  ****

  “An exciting and fascinating fantasy of demons and angels, highly recommended” - Midwest Book Review

  “This is an interesting story with no happily-ever-after, at least not yet...Tristan is a great tortured hero” 4 stars - RT Book Review

  “A page-turner that keeps the reader spell-bound to the end, eager to discover what comes next” - The Charlotte Sun

  ****

  When Alexis Ames is attacked by creatures that can’t be real, she decides it’s time she learns who she really is, with or without the help of her mother, who guards their family’s secrets closely. After meeting the inhumanly attractive, multi-talented Tristan Knight, however, Alexis retreats behind her façade of normalcy...until she discovers he’s not exactly normal either. Then their secrets begin to unravel.

  Their union brings hope and promise to her family’s secret society, the Angels’ army, and to the future of mankind. But it also incites a dangerous pursuit by the enemy - Satan’s minions and Tristan’s creators. After all, Alexis and Tristan are a match made in Heaven and in Hell.

  ****

  “It had me up late at night to ‘just read another chapter’” - Author Jessica Bell

  “I would recommend this to anyone who has read Christine Feehan’s Carpathian novels.” - P.A. Fleming

  “Promise is a book bursting at the seams - with an ending that’ll leave you wanting more.” - L. Reeves, A Life Bound by Books

  “...completely blown away by the writing, story line, and characters...” - Jessica, Total Bookaholic

  Chapter 1

  9 Years Ago

  The sensation of being watched clung to me like a spider web, invisible threads bristling the back of my neck and down my spine. I brushed my fingers across my shoulders, as if I could drag the feeling off and flick it away.

  It was ridiculous, of course. Not just ridiculous to think I could pull it off so easily, as if it really was strands of a web, but it was even more absurd to feel it in the first place. Nobody ever held that much interest in me. Occasionally, people stared with curiosity when they picked me up on their “weird radars,” but usually they just ignored me. No one ever watched so intensely.

  Yet the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the feeling as I visited my favorite Washington, D.C., monument for likely the last time. I sat on the stone steps with the stately Thomas Jefferson behind me and gazed over the Potomac River tidal basin, enjoying the peace just before sunset. Well, trying to enjoy it anyway.

  I blamed the ominous feeling on my unruly imagination, with it being twilight and the sky looking so foreboding. It was the perfect backdrop for one of my stories. The sun hung low—an eerie, orange ball glowing behind a shroud of haze, a column of steel-blue cloud rising around it, threatening to snuff it out. I envisioned something not-quite-human watching it from the shadows, waiting to begin its hunt under the cover of darkness.

  That’s all it is, just my fascination with mythical creatures, I told myself. Uh-huh. Right.

  Surrendering hope for a peaceful moment, I hurried to the closest Metro station. The feeling of being followed stuck with me on the train ride home, but at my stop in Arlington, I forgot the sinister sensation. Some kids from school stood near the top of the escalator as I stepped off. I’d witnessed before their favorite summer activity: dressing in all black and hassling people exiting the Metro station. So mature, but what can you expect? They were younger—they hadn’t graduated with me over a month ago—and apparently, still stuck in the rebellious phase that I’d never been through myself.

  I usually took the elevator to circumvent them, but had been too distracted tonight.

  “Hey, there’s the weird girl who heals,” one of them said loudly to the others. “It’s s’posed to be really freaky to watch.”

  “Hey, freak, got any tricks to show us?” another called.

  I pretended not to hear and crossed the street to avoid them. My eyes stung, but no tears came. I wouldn’t allow them. It was my own fault—I’d been a
klutz with the Bunsen burner in Chemistry and my lab partner saw my skin heal the burn almost instantly. People harassed me about it every day the last two months of school. If I didn’t let them get to me, they were usually just annoying. Usually.

  Night had crept its way in during my ride home. I walked quickly through the bright commercial district and turned down the darker residential street for home, still four blocks away. Footsteps behind me echoed my own. I quickened my pace. Two more days. That’s all. Just two more days and we’re out of here.

  “C’mon, dude, we just wanna know if it’s true,” a boy’s voice said.

  “Yeah, just show us. It doesn’t hurt, right?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Three teens followed me and I caught the glint of a blade in one of their hands. I realized their plan to satisfy their curiosity—slice me open and watch the wound heal. What is wrong with people? Of course, it hurts! Bungalow-style homes lined the street, each with an empty front porch. Not a single person sat outside on this summer’s evening. No one to witness their fun and my agony. My heartbeat notched up with anxiety.

  Pop! Crack! The streetlights along the entire block blacked out at the sounds. I inhaled sharply and halted mid-stride. The footsteps behind me ceased, too.

  “What the hell?” Surprise and fear filled the boy’s question.

  A couple appeared from nowhere, three houses down, standing in the middle of the street. It was too dark to see their features and I could only tell their genders by their shapes. The woman’s high-heeled shoes clicked on the pavement as they walked toward me. The man, big and burly, pulled his shirt over his head and handed it to the woman. Without breaking stride, he took off one shoe and then the other, leaving him with only pants. What the . . . ?