Her Dark Soul

by Kim Knox

  “Now is not the time.” His words were hard, angered, and it soured her desire. She should’ve been grateful, but the reality of him not wanting her hurt.

  “Then when?”

  The other woman, the one who had growled at Lucas, had raised her head. Ash gritted her teeth together, wishing she could bite back the words, but Marek stopped at the shadowed archway. The darkness swallowed him, only glints of gold highlighting his face, and her need to corner him, to continue and complete their half-formed bond was fire in her veins.

  “I’m not a slave to the blood of my father.” His voice had an edge of anger that heated her flesh and she couldn’t help herself, she took a step closer. “I will not be a slave to you.”

  “We’re all equals.” And it felt strange to be repeating something Lucas had said, but they were. “And you must prove that in my flesh.”

  “You’re all unproven instinct.” He tugged her forward, taking her into the darkness of the archway. Ahead, she could almost feel Lucas, the shape and heat of him in the chilled shadows. “What you feel in your flesh isn’t real.”

  “And you know that how?”

  “Ash…” The low growl of her name shivered over her skin and she fought the ache that he said didn’t exist. “It takes more than a few words spoken into your open mind to form a bond with a dark soul. A unity, to form deomos.” Her foot slithered on the worn stone of the twisting stairwell and his hand tightened around hers, keeping her steady.

  “Then what does it take?”

  Marek descended the stairs in silence. “Now isn’t the time to discuss this.”

  The finality in his voice spiked her, running a chill through her blood with the touch of his influencing magic. A thin wash of light shone above Lucas as she stood at the door to the tunnel entrance. He lifted an eyebrow and his gaze fixed on Marek.

  “Here, take this.” Marek shrugged the bag from his shoulder and handed it to him. “Anything?”

  Lucas frowned. “Something.” He slung the bag across his chest. “More intense than the change in the air wrought by the marker.” He paused and frowned. “They’re…dogs…and hunting demon blood.”

  “Not dogs.” Marek led the way into the shadows and stopped at a wall of blackness. His hand rubbed over the wall, the sound of his skin against plaster, wood and then the grate of metal broke the harsh silence. “The custodians breed them beneath the citadel, work magic into their flesh. They hunt dark souls.”

  Cold washed over her. “But never you?”

  Hinges creaked and a slice of light edged a narrow doorway. “Not me.” He tugged the door open to reveal a corridor. Daylight carved shadows against the thin bricks. Marek pushed her out and waited for Lucas to follow before he yanked the door back into place. He slid heavy bolts back into place, securing it. “I made a point of staying away.”

  “Just in case?”

  Marek ignored Lucas’ sarcastic comment. “Only their handlers are safe. The animals are vicious.”

  “But wouldn’t Zorion be found by these animals?” she asked. Marek took her hand, her fingers lost in his tight grip. The familiar stir of her flesh almost wiped out the need for questions and she fought it. “They’d pick him out as being a dark soul.”

  He shrugged. “Not something I’m wondering right now. They can track us.” His gaze slid to Lucas. “Track a full-blood dark soul with ease.”

  “Then that gives us a plan.” Lucas lifted the bag from his chest and gave it to Ash, raiding the contents as she held it. He straightened, one hand full. “You find the marker. I’ll pull the trackers from you.”

  “No!” The word burst from her. Panic rioted in her veins. He couldn’t put himself in danger. Selfishly, she wanted her men by her. They were hers and she would keep them close. Ash shook her head against the insane thoughts chasing through her brain. “Lucas…”

  His mouth covered hers and the bag of food hit the floor, the rise of need hot and immediate. She caught her fingers in his hair, the hand that held Marek’s digging fingertips hard into his palm. Lucas held her against him, the wild clash of his lips, teeth, tongue with hers everything she wanted. His thigh pushed between hers and he swallowed her groan. He would take her—hunting dogs be damned—and Marek would see the fierce bond already forced in their flesh and ache to make his complete—

  “Enough.” The single word was a low growl that broke her mouth from Lucas with a hard sigh. Marek pulled her free. “Agreed. We split up.”

  “Marek…” His cold glare silenced her.

  “We have to get to the marker.”

  “You don’t even know where it is!”

  Marek’s mouth thinned and he began to stride down the narrow tunnel. Hastily, Ash grabbed the pack and stumbled after him. “Zorion doesn’t leave the palace complex. He will have the marker brought to him.” The clatter and row of the street echoed over the brick walls and Marek stopped at the open entrance. “Keep moving, Lucas. Take to the river if you can. Water confuses them.”

  He gave a brief nod. He cupped his palm to her cheek and Ash leaned into his hot touch. The brush of his lips against hers was too little and dissatisfaction burned a sour ache down to her belly. Lucas’ mouth found her ear. “I will stay safe, I promise.” She felt the curve of a smile against her skin and it twisted her heart. “And Marek? Well, I think our primary is hot with jealousy. Just as he should be.”

  A wry smile broke across her mouth. She doubted it. “Good luck, Lucas. You’re mine…and I hate losing things.”

  His smile deepened to a grin and his soft laughter warmed her. “As you command, lady.” He stepped back, straightened, and fixed his dark gaze on Marek. “I won’t fail you.”

  Marek didn’t reply, but glanced back down the tunnel. “The magic securing those bolts won’t hold them for long.”

  Lucas took another step back, turned and disappeared into the crowd, weaving around a slave-carried litter and then, even as Ash’s eyes strained to see him, he vanished beneath the high, brick arch of the aqueduct. Simply another dark head in the mass of chattering people. She pulled in a slow breath and willed her body to relax, but tears burned and one ran cold against her cheek.

  “Time for us to go too.”

  Ash have a slow nod and walked beside Marek on leaden feet. This was wrong and dangerous and her stomach roiled against it. They shouldn’t split up. Their strength came from being together, everything in her screamed that…as every step took her away from Lucas.

  Chapter Nine

  Screams burst over the clunk and clatter of amphorae being rolling into the front of a tavern. Her body tensed and Marek pulled her around the sweating slaves. It had been a woman’s scream, sharp and cut-off. Ash hated that she took comfort in the fact that it was a woman and not a man, not Lucas. She blew out a slow breath and Marek’s hand tightened around hers.

  “Don’t turn around.”

  Ash bit at the inside of her cheek and denied the sharp retort. Did he think she was going to gawk like an idiot and let their pursuers see her face? “Are they following us or Lucas?”

  Marek pushed her ahead of him, through a loose knot of ambling Khazret sailors, his body close, shielding her. The street darkened, the overhanging balconies from the cramped shop fronts blocking what was left of the afternoon sun. Already people hung lanterns, driving back the heavy shadows with a soft golden glow. The thin scent of smoke mixed with stale beer, wine and other, thicker odors that Ash blocked from her thoughts.

  “From the feel of it, they’ve split up. I can’t tell how many.” Marek followed her across the broad stones that raised the road from the filth washed into the street from a charnel house. He pulled her onto the brick pavement stretching between the arches of a colonnade. But the stink of blood and meat thickened the air and Ash pressed her hand to her mouth and nose.

  “Would this put them off?”

  “They have magic in their flesh. The stink of blood isn’t going to distract them.”

  They crossed the broad stones of
another, smaller street, Marek’s stride even. He wove with skill around merchants and knots of slaves and women clustered around drinking fountains. Everyone was simply going about their day, unaware that the air had changed. Now Ash, her mind opened by Lucas, could feel the sour weight of it pressing against her thoughts, tasting bitter on her tongue.

  Another scream punctured the late afternoon air and more than one Bukharan stopped, staring back down the narrow curve of the crowded street. Ash’s heart turned over. The screams were getting closer, which meant the handlers with dark soul hunting dogs were getting closer too…but Marek didn’t increase his pace.

  “They’re going to find us.”

  His mouth thinned. “There are a lot of people between us and them. Most Bukharans have an interesting heritage. The dogs find them a distraction.” He broke from the shadowed twist of the narrow street into a broader road, properly paved. A small shrine to Fausta marked its beginning. The arching marble looked worn, too many fingers and mouths wearing down the statue beneath the curve of gray stone. She was more a shadow of the goddess, but Ash took it as a good sign and silently said a short prayer, asking for luck to stay with them, and especially with Lucas.

  The town houses lining the wide street were grander, slaves bustling in the lush market gardens, the white civil robes of bureaucrats caught in the greenery of fig trees and twisting vines. Warm light filtered to the road, washing over her face, and for a short moment with the scent of jasmine weaving through the air, Ash was almost, almost back in the temple courtyard…

  Until the cut-off shriek of a man jerked her forward and she let out a yelp of her own.

  “Nothing to worry about,” Marek murmured, his mouth close to her ear. She shivered at the contact of his lips against her skin. “It’s not him.”

  “I know.” And she did. There would have been an emptiness, a hollow place in her soul. Lucas was still alive. Alive and hers. She could feel him striding down a cobbled dock, the taste of salt air in his mouth, his skin hot. His heart raced, but he felt…powerful. A smile curved her mouth. He’d been encased in gold for four hundred years. Even being hunted by dogs was better than that. “He’s by the docks.”

  Marek straightened and glanced into the sky. Already a touch of orange softened the clouds. The day had slipped into the eighth hour. By the tenth it would be getting dark. And the streets of Bukhara were at their most dangerous then. Ash had watched the forum from her bell tower, seen bodyguards with torches protecting their masters as they crossed the vast square. Caught the glint of daggers in the shadows of the basilica. The oppressive magic of the temple had blocked the sounds of the city. Looking back, Ash was grateful.

  His stride quickened and it revealed the strain in his muscles, the injury from the fight that still gripped his body. “We should make the palace before it gets too dark.”

  “Or the dogs find us.”

  Marek lifted a dark eyebrow and the intensity of his gaze broke her rhythm and made her stumble. “You doubt me?”

  Her mouth dried and the need to find the nearest wall and shove him against it fired through her. She pursed her lips and ripped her attention away. She focused on the pavement, on the cobbles smoothed by time. The pattern of rounded stones curved away in front of her and she followed them, tracing out shapes and sinuous lines. Anything that would break the need she had to strip Marek bare. “You have to stop that.” She wanted to say more. That it wasn’t fair to play with her, with the need she had for him if he didn’t want her. But the pain of simply thinking it twisted around her heart. So she stayed silent.

  Marek let out a slow breath. “I know.”

  The clatter of a work cart on the wide street made her jump. She bit down on a curse and matched Marek’s pace. Every sound rawed her nerves. Oxen plodded past, their heavy heads hung low and dragging a cart stacked with cut timber.

  Marek matched his speed with the cart. “We’ve been hearing screams.”

  The carter looked up and straightened, arching his spine against the rough wooden back of his seat. “Somewhere down by the warehouses,” he said. He shrugged and scratched at his jaw. “One man said wolves were loose from the Emperor’s menagerie. With an emperor’s taste. They took down a garum merchant. Smashed amphorae. The air is thick enough to cut, they say.” He laughed. “Another that foreign sorcerers were hunting for sport.” His pale gaze drifted over Ash. “But you’d best get your lady home.” His brown, wrinkled cheek pulled into a wince. “I’ve heard rumors of deaths.”

  Marek dug into his pocket and pulled out a small silver coin. He flipped it to the carter who caught the coin in a quick hand. “Thanks for the warning.”

  The old man gave him a slow nod and settled back into a comfortable hunch. Marek broke into a faster stride. “Everyone talks to a carter,” he murmured. A smile cut his mouth. “Best source of information around.”

  Ash wasn’t listening. She wrinkled her nose. “Can you smell that?”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. The scent was gone, the breeze lifting the light aroma of jasmine and orange before the heavier odors of the city obscured them. But she had smelled something else, the salt and earth and the rush of the river, combined with the ripe stink of wet fur. “Nothing.”

  “Ash…?”

  “Wet fur.” She bit out the words and increased her pace, feeling stupid. “Like those oxen.” She jabbed her thumb back to the two shaggy beasts dragging the cart over the wide cobbles. “Probably those oxen.”

  Marek tightened his grip on her hand and wove through the gaggle of merchants strolling along the wide clean pavement, skirting around the slaves sweeping leaves and excrement into the drains. “You’re scenting the dogs.”

  A fist tightened around her heart and she pushed down the wave of panic. “They’re here?” She fought her need to stare around her and the other need to run, fast and far. “But the carter said—”

  “Not here—”

  “Lucas?” His name came out on a squeak and Ash pressed her hand to her mouth. “They’ve found him?”

  “What else did you sense?”

  She stared ahead of her, her eyes unfocused, and chewed at the inside of her cheek. There. The brief touch of Lucas’ strong heartbeat and the churn and rush of river water. Wet wood and the musty scent of canvas soon followed. “He’s on a boat. I can’t smell the dogs. No. Wait.” Her pulse jumped. Just on the edge of her senses there lingered a hint of wet fur. Lucas was on the boat, but the hunters weren’t far behind. “They’re trailing. Close enough that he can smell them.”

  Marek bit out a soft curse. “Too quick.”

  He crossed the street and pulled her into a narrower street lined with tenements. People bustled in and out of colonnaded arches, a tavern spilled patrons out into the street, the heavy aroma of cooked meats pushing the smells of the river and dogs from her thoughts. She winced as her stomach growled.

  “Eat something.”

  Marek looked at the bag slung across her chest and she belatedly pulled out a long loaf and broke it in half. She handed it to Marek. “What will happen to him if they catch him?”

  Marek released her hand to pull free a chunk of bread. He was silent as he chewed and his flour-covered fingers found hers again. The security of his touch eased some of her nerves, but only some as his silence stretched. His murmured “I don’t know” forced her to grip his hand tighter.

  “But they’re bred to hunt and to kill?”

  Marek gave a slow nod. “Remember, he’s a full-blooded dark soul. He’ll outrun them.”

  Ash swallowed the dry bread, wincing against the slide of it down her throat. She expelled a heavy breath. “And there’s nothing you can do for him?”

  “He’s the bait.” He stopped as the pavement dropped away to a low, cobbled road and a work cart loaded with bricks rumbled past. “He’s the reason we’re walking free.” He stepped across the wide stones, avoiding the oxen dung. “The reason why dogs aren’t tearing after us.”

  �
��And you’re happy with that?” Had she meant the words to come out with such a cut of bitterness to them? Marek’s mouth thinned and a hint of anger tightened the corners of his eyes. “You’re his primary.”

  Marek snorted. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His angry strides ate up the stretch of thin-bricked pavement. Startled people scrambled from his path, faces blanched. He wasn’t wearing his custodian tunic, but something else, some other power pulsed from him. With her ward status broken, the throb of it was almost tangible. “You fuck him and you think you know what a deomos is?”

  “I know that he did this for me…and for you.”

  “He did this for Lucas Taysia.”

  Heat burst across her face, reflecting the sudden flare of her anger. “You don’t believe that!”

  “Ash…” The low, warning growl of her name deepened her rush of emotion. His dark gaze gripped her before he deliberately stared around the open street, the push and pull of strangers flowing around them. The tenements loomed on either side of the road, balconies hung with washing, with people leaning over wooden railings to share gossip. Eyes, ears and mouths belonging to Bukharans who could be bought for a brass para. “This is not the place to discuss this.”

  “Then when?” She bit out the question in a raw whisper. “When he can sense the dogs again? When they catch him? When they tear him apart?” She pulled in a quick breath but it wasn’t enough and her chest heaved. Panic had her and it wasn’t letting go.

  Marek pulled her down a narrow street between the tenements. A single oil lamp hung from a balcony, but it didn’t lift the brown gloom, and Ash still couldn’t breathe. The oppressive weight of panic on her chest made it impossible. He pushed her against the cracked plaster wall and took her face in his hands. “Look at me.” It was an order she had to obey. “Take a deep breath.”