Lester gripped his shoulder. “We should be off.”
This chance would not come again. He groaned and nodded. “Go then. I shall join you before the next new moon.”
51
Trust
Alexia hastened downstairs. Arik didn’t inhabit the parlor or the dining room, or library. She wandered, listening for him, anxious about their remaining minutes before Sarah woke. Finally she caught words on a chilly breeze as she brushed by the kitchen. He was outside?
She neared, rubbing the goose flesh on her arms.
“. . . go then. I shall join you . . .” His words carried away in the wind.
She reached the door as he entered, and he stopped short of running into her. His face shifted from confusion to caution.
“Arik, who were you speaking with?”
He glanced out into the morning and pulled the door closed behind him. “No one with whom you should concern yourself.” She shivered and he took each of her arms, rubbing them for warmth while maneuvering her toward the kitchen hearth. “I have not kissed you yet today.”
“No, you have not.”
“Is that pardonable?”
She grinned. “Barely.”
He remedied the situation graciously. Her knees weakened and she nearly collapsed—would have if not for his sturdy embrace.
He laughed. She laughed. He set a chair next to the playful flames and pulled her down onto his lap.
“Arik!” she gasped.
His arms wound about her, lips hovering at her ear. “Are you sufficiently warm?”
By all that was proper and good, she should give his cheek a good slap and flee, but she couldn’t do it. She snuggled up against his chest. “No.”
His chuckle rumbled beneath her cheek. She loved the sensation, and the rhythm of his heart in her ear, and the calm seeping into her skin.
“This is exactly how I have imagined it.” A tremor shook his voice. “The two of us, a simple life.”
She lifted her head. “Who do you have to join?”
The crease in his brow deepened. He looked into her eyes. Sorrow harbored in his, a desperate morning sea with no end to the gray clouds. “I’ll show you.” He brushed her cheek. “Come with me?”
Her pulse leapt. Her mouth became an instant desert. She closed her eyes to keep him out and sat up straight, looping her fidgeting fingers together. Could she simply disappear—never resolve the ill feelings between her and Father, never say goodbye to Sarah, give up any and every expectation she’d ever had for life? Would she be expected to be a lady on this other side, or a serving girl as her mother had been? More importantly, what did he expect from her? Marriage? To live in sin? Some other arrangement she had never conceived?
“Alexia?” His hand stilled hers. His nose brushed across her jaw, mouth inching closer to hers. “Forget I asked.”
She nodded and surrendered to his kiss.
***
They slipped behind the carriage house while Sarah scolded a lazy stable hand.
“Do you really want me to leave with you?” she asked. His sad looks had returned and she would do anything to banish them.
He seized her fingers. “I want for your happiness.”
“Above your own?”
He nodded stiffly.
“Tell me why, Arik, why must we keep this a secret?” She lifted their clasped hands. “Sarah would be so happy for us, and if I leave with you—”
His head bowed, eyes squeezing shut. “I have stayed away from you to protect you. Please understand, I was entirely willing to forgo my own desires in favor of your safety.”
“Was?” She toyed with a lock of his ginger hair.
“You have rather forced my hand.” He smirked at her and she grinned in return. His smile faded. “If the Soulless discover us, they will come with a fury you have never witnessed.” His thumbs stroked across her cheeks. “For some of them erroneously believe I can restore them, and they will use anything I treasure against me.”
He treasured her. She let a tremor of joy run through her. “But to tell Sarah—”
“You must choose one world, ours or theirs, and sever all ties to the other—to protect those you love.” His eyes pierced hers, brows low. “If you tell Sarah, John will apprehend the intelligence from her.”
She bit her lip.
“I am protecting us all by hiding what we are.”
She swallowed. “And what are we?”
He leaned down, resting his forehead against hers. “Destined? Damned? Some call it both.”
She shivered. “But John knows. He said I had been touched—”
“John knows nothing!” His eyes flashed a hurricane. She fell back a step. “You cannot believe a word he utters. He will say anything to confuse and weaken you, anything that might win you over.”
She stared.
He moaned and shoved her down.
Her ankle tweaked. Fingers of pain shot up her leg. “Wha—”
“You should be more careful.” He retrieved her from the ground with an indifferent air. “The footing here is somewhat uncertain.”
“Lexy?” Sarah appeared around him, arriving at her side in an instant. “Are you hurt?”
Alexia gave him a black glare as he set her upright. “No.”
He gazed back innocently enough. A secret wink issued, for which she seared him with her most potent scowl.
“Ouch.” She limped and tottered backward. He caught her before she met the ground.
“Did you hurt yourself?” he taunted.
“I most certainly did not!”
He huffed to Sarah. “She is so fragile. What do you do with her, really?”
She suppressed a chuckle and brushed off the back of Alexia’s dress. “I shall have to place her in your care, if you have no objections. Can you aid her inside?”
With no more effort than lifting a child, he scooped her up. She marveled at his strength, and how good it felt to be cradled against his chest—resisting the urge to turn and kiss his sweet-smelling neck.
Sarah bit her lip, scowled, and accompanied them as far as the carriage house doors to chastise the stableman further.
Alexia laid her head against him, ignoring the gathering heat in her damaged limb. “Why did you do that?”
“So I could be alone with you longer.”
They entered the house. He carried her all the way to a sofa in the study where he sat her next to him. “May I look at it?”
Her face reddened. Show him her ankle? She hadn’t even worn stockings today!
He pulled her leg across his lap and slid back the hem.
“Arik!” She reached to stop him, but froze at the sight of the bulging skin.
He winked and placed a hand over the wound. A sprinkling of ice tickled below the flesh, tingles that reverberated through her leg and left her desperate for him. The freeze simmered into a fire, fibers pulling back together, skin shrinking back to its healthy state. He pulled away.
“Just like in Wilhamshire,” she said.
He tugged the hem of her skirt back over the exposed skin, brow scrunching. “When you were attacked on your father’s grounds by—”
“I thought it was you who attacked me.”
“—one of the Soulless.”
She shuddered.
He tucked his hands up under his arms. “You were unconscious for two days.”
“Two days?” She blinked.
“I . . .” He hesitated. “Do you remember any of it?”
Snippets of memory flashed through her mind, the gashes on her arms from unrelenting branches, wicked bruises across her chest that made it difficult to breathe, and the sickly smell of her own blood.
His gaze flitted away, guilt in his grimace. He’d been reading her. “I did not believe it was possible, bringing someone back . . .”
She shivered. From becoming Soulless—that was what he meant to say. She held up her hand, palm forward.
His cheeks drained of color, paling to match his wh
ite scar. He rose and paced away.
“It scares you, what you have done?” She rubbed the creases of her skirt.
He rounded to face her, eyes squeezed at the corners. “I have never been more—” He groaned, ran a hand through his hair, and paced across the floor.
She stepped to his side and slid her fingers through his, pulling him to a stop. He met her gaze. “Will you share it with me?”
He bit his lips from the inside. A nod.
Her vision shuddered.
Lilting motion blurred into a night-stained forest. Panic beat through him, heart racing against the inevitable.
“Help!” The call echoed distantly. “Father! Anyone!”
He homed in on the cry, beating back the branches. They bent away from him.
“Help me!”
A scream. Smack!
Please God, no! He sprinted faster. The trees curved visibly back, forming a clear path.
“Please.” No more than a whisper.
Desperation blurred his vision. Not her, anyone but her!
He burst into the clearing. The black caped thing knelt over a limp and torn body. It hissed.
“Please,” her failing request.
The creature screeched, launching at him. He dodged and rolled, hitting the ground next to her and freeing his pendant. Sudden light filled the grove. It radiated the corners, washing shadows away. The Soulless lay still.
He tucked the necklace back under his shirt and perched over her. He lifted her head. A giant gash penetrated her forehead, bleeding profusely. He clasped his hand over the wound and sucked in as reality quaked. She was almost gone. He moaned and settled her down, moving on to the next wound. The dress exposed her full back, shorn at the hems. Her skin, badly seared, lay black and open, pooling with dark liquid.
Terror. Could he do it? Could he heal this and stop the transition? Was it too much?
He placed his hands over the severed flesh. Strength instantly drained out of him, being bled dry by her greedy body.
He gasped. He was too late. She was one of them already, and if he didn’t let go now . . .
No! Tears blinded him as he focused, envisioning the wrecked vertebrae at her core and forcing them to knit back together, the robbed marrow to regrow. His arms trembled, breathing shallow, concentration hazy. Blackness crept over his vision . . .
Arik let go.
They stood watching one another. She blinked back tears. It felt so real, so impossible, so awful! She couldn’t comprehend even now that she had been the lifeless body face down on the forest floor.
He brushed the tears from her cheeks before turning to the window, hands clasped at his back. “I woke a day later, too exhausted to move. You were whole, unconscious, but whole.”
A sob escaped. She circled and threw her arms around him. “You were willing to sacrifice yourself for me?”
He smoothed the hair back from her face and gave the slightest nod.
She pressed her lips desperately to his, needing him, grateful for him. He requited her urgency with passion. Their arms wound about one another as his mouth consumed hers totally, the world forgotten. His body fitted perfectly to hers. He pulled her curls loose and sent them tumbling free, hands stealing earnestly down her neck, landing purposefully on her back, drawing her nearer.
White brilliance poured over her, the perfect balance of nothing and everything all at once, and only he occupied the space. Is this heaven? Her mind staggered. She had never felt so complete, so total!
A gasp.
Crack!
She pulled away, still in his arms.
Sarah stood in the parlor entry, jaw hanging.
52
Sharing
The bowl Sarah had been carrying lay shattered on the floor, water spilling across the floor boards, cleaning rag still clasped in her hand.
Her mouth snapped shut. “Well, if that’s the way it is!” She turned and swept down the hall.
Alexia reddened from head to toe. She couldn’t look at Arik, too shocked by her own behavior and missing hair barrettes. What must he think of her—attacking him like that?
His fingers squeezed too tightly over her arm. “Go. She is not going to listen to me.”
She scurried out the door, after her aunt, heat radiating her entire body. She stopped in front of Sarah who stood stone still, arms crossed.
“Have I become blind, or have you actually been trying to deceive me?”
“No, Sarah. I-I wanted to tell you.”
She grabbed Alexia’s sleeve, tugging her toward the kitchen. “Oh, yes, but you could not bring yourself to say anything when it might spoil the fun!”
Alexia dug in her heels, bringing Sarah to a halt. “He saved my life. Twice.”
Her aunt’s scowl softened. “What?”
“Please do not be angry. I wanted to say something, I just—”
“Angry?” Her face crinkled in a flash pain, but a stubborn smile twitched at her cheeks. “He saved you and you are apologizing for loving him? I have never heard a more doltish thing.”
Alexia ached to take away her aunt’s disappointment, and could not help but love her more for the forced courage and acceptance.
“Charles will be overjoyed!”
She started. “Sarah, you cannot tell anyone, please.”
“Oh, come—”
“Father hates Arik.”
“What?” Sarah laughed, her voice cracking like it might take a turn for tears. “Why would he—?”
She seized her aunt’s shoulders. “Please. This has to be our secret.”
Sarah glanced around her. Arik stood at the end of the hall, watching them.
“I will not utter a word,” her aunt promised. “But you cannot keep it hushed forever, not if you intend to—”
“I do not know what I intend yet.”
“Well, from what I saw, he at least intends.”
Gooseflesh prickled down her arms, warmth returning to her cheeks.
Sarah motioned with her rag-hand. “Do not be afraid of me. I would love to see you with him.”
A grateful smile formed on her face, but it died. Sarah would never see them together, not if she chose him.
“Now if you will excuse me, I have to rid myself of this,” she lifted the rag, “seeing how you will not be needing it.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Alexia kept her head down as she returned to Arik, placing one foot carefully in front of the other. He slipped the missing barrettes between her fingers and lifted her chin.
She smiled timidly up at him. “She keeps her word.”
“Dangerous.”
“But nice.”
He shook his head, chuckled uneasily, and kissed her.
***
Alexia did not see her aunt for the rest of the afternoon, but at dinner one might have never guessed Sarah had spent the hours raging or in tears.
“What is the matter with you two? Are you afraid to touch in front of me?”
Alexia glanced timidly at him, seated next to her—so close their knees met. He took her hand, lifted it for Sarah to see, and returned wordlessly to his meal. The connection rendered Alexia giddy, head spinning. How could he think about food when her stomach churned at the notion?
Sarah smiled at her from across the table. Alexia grinned back uncertainly.
Her aunt seemed bent on pushing them together, initiating activities that required dual participation, and when it came time to retire she proclaimed, “I am off to bed—not that everyone must follow my example.”
Alexia could hardly believe the insinuation as Sarah trotted away, leaving them alone in the upper hall.
“She is certainly approving.” He frowned, one brow raised.
“And trusting—of you.” Alexia pointed a finger right into his chest.
He pulled her into his arms. “Then perhaps I had best send you right after her.”
Her grin faded as she recalled the vision he’d shown her of the attack. No matter how much time she
spent with him, it would never be enough to sufficiently express her gratitude. She nuzzled into his chest, absorbed by the closeness, like tucking into the wings of an angel while a storm raged just beyond the windows.
He sighed.
She glanced up. “What is it?”
“I need to go, Alexia.”
Her fingers curled into his shirt. “Do you really?”
He smiled, brushing a lock away from her lashes. “There are others in need of my talents.”
“Oh.” She pinked. “Indeed. You cannot leave them to suffer because of me.” And yet the idea of separation . . . She let out a short breath, fighting the panic as it worked to seize her chest, forcing herself to speak before her throat closed off. “Take me with you?”
“We both know you do not wish to leave.”
“And if I do?”
He clasped her shoulders and held her away. His gaze drew unsteadily on hers, tides swelling, threatening to engulf her.
“I want to be with you,” she said.
His lips descended. She rose to meet them. He enwrapped her completely, devouring what little self control lingered in the height of their passions. Her body molded to his. She could feel the power of his muscles, the strength behind his determined grip, the hunger which fused them as one.
She found it then, a haze of smoky thought, clarifying into perception, an alternate thought process—his. He wanted to take her with him, to take her completely, to make her his, permanently. She glimpsed places she’d never been, beautiful secluded buildings, grand cathedrals, distant cities, a country inn, a little church . . .
She occupied a new space—not in her own head, not in his, a place between. Did he perceive her thoughts as well?
Yes. He felt her gratitude for saving her, the concerns of being abandoned by him, the fear of losing her family and dread of an undefined future, her embarrassing desperation to be what he wanted, what he needed, even the timid desire to give herself to him.
The link broke.
He stumbled back and caught himself on the wall, eyes wide.
She stepped toward him.
He lifted a hand. “Not yet.”
Alexia waited, panting with him.
Moonless Page 18