This was what he lived for—that pumping of the blood, the thrill, having gotten away with something that was entirely forbidden.
He braced to slam the ground.
And remained suspended in midair.
What the—?
Zephaniah crouched in the shrubbery, watching wide-eyed, his wings fully extended.
White clouded the corners of Kiren’s vision. It wrapped around him, tightening like a vise.
“No, no-no-no-no-no!” he shouted, but he couldn’t stop what was happening.
Seven
Familiar Faces
“Who are you?” Kiren’s voice hit Alexia like an iceberg.
She opened her mouth to reply, but words escaped her. Winter filled his countenance. He lacked more than just a scar. His skin didn’t possess the glow of their bond.
Alexia sucked in a shaky breath and turned her gaze away so he couldn’t read thoughts in her eyes. This was not her Kiren, not the man whom she knew and loved. This was a Kiren from somewhere in the past, one who had never loved her. It was so clear—the hardness in the set of his jaw, the wariness of his stare, the way the air prickled about him.
She placed a hand over her mouth, tears building. The sunrise had been torn away from her, only to be plunged into an eternal pitch.
Given the strength of a full night’s rest—absent the irrational emotions of being with child—she would have stood her ground, told him exactly who she was, demanded that he be gentle with his future wife. But the burning at the back of her eyes and tightening of her throat witnessed that she wouldn’t get the words out. After five months, all she wanted was for him to hold her. To promise they would never again be parted. To speak excitedly about their child. About the life they would have together.
This man was a stranger. A phantom of her happily-ever-after.
Alexia turned and fled for the far end of camp.
The scuffling of feet brought her head up. Regin and Amos barred Kiren’s attempt to follow her, Regin’s bare hand outstretched as he watched her for a nod. A single nod and the shadow of the man she loved would be a slumbering heap. She shook her head.
Alexia loved them, all of them—her people. She had protected them, and they would protect her.
Mae appeared at her side, the scrolls Alexia had dropped piled in her arms. Neither said a word as they moved toward the outskirts of camp. Finally her friend spoke. “When a woman greets a man that way—”
“I was mistaken.” Alexia’s nails cut into her palm. “He is not who I believed he was.”
Silence.
“The father of your child?”
Alexia turned to Mae. “My child has no father.” Not in this time. Not in this existence. It was possible he would cease to exist if her actions here worked to his detriment.
“Alexia.” Mae’s tone was that of her mentor, a rebuke. She stepped forward and placed a hand on Alexia’s cheek. Her memories flooded through Alexia:
A cave, isolated from the world. Mae left only when she needed nourishment—which meant siphoning strength off something because food turned to ash in her mouth. An encampment of soldiers took up residence in the valley beneath her home. They erected a fort and she watched, fascinated as it came together. One soldier looked up and squinted her direction. Mae froze. He turned back to his work. A day later, she woke to the scrape of boots over dirt. The soldier stood at the cave’s entrance, his head tilted. He was broad from hard labor and sun-bleached, a look fitting of the desert. A scabbard hung from his belt, fingers resting at his weapon’s hilt.
She grabbed the iron charm dangling from her leather necklace and leapt to the back of the cave. She lifted her hand in warning. “Do not come closer!”
He leaned on the entry stones and scratched his nose, completely at ease. “Who are you?”
She wanted to tell him exactly what she was, but it was the first time anyone had spoken to her since she’d drained her hometown. Iron singed her palm, keeping her gift in check. “I am dangerous.”
“To me? Surely not.” He was golden, so full of life, so strong. He would fill her need easily…but she didn’t want him, even as her inner demon screamed for his essence.
And what would happen when he never returned to camp and others came searching?
The inner beast licked its lips.
She bowed her head, searching the radius of her hunger. He stood just outside the circle, but if he came closer…
“Why are you watching us?” The man placed a hand on his hip. “Are you a spy?”
Mae gripped the iron tighter, trembling. “I beg you to leave.”
“You are frightened of me.” He smirked. “Many are frightened of Bjorn the Mighty.”
She lifted her eyes and met his, hers menacing. “I am frightened for you.”
That was how it started. He came every day near sunset, sat at the cave’s entrance and spoke with her. Bjorn had come from a family across the sea, consigned to the king’s army at the age of ten to fill his father’s place. The metal shield he owned had been his father’s and would be his son’s when and if he married and had a family. For the last twelve years he’d excelled in his service, and he hardly remembered the place of his birth.
Over the ensuing weeks, Mae came to love him, and he, her.
Upon her request, he gifted her with an iron fetter. It made the hunger lessen. He was able to sit by her side rather than lingering at the cave’s opening. Then came the day he braved the distance and placed a hand against her cheek.
Nothing happened. Overjoyed, they both laughed. He leaned in, his gaze intent on her lips…and she felt it. Exhilaration. She opened her mouth to warn him as his lips touched hers. Mae pushed him away, but it was too late. His eyes were black as coal, his skin shriveling from the inside. She cried. She begged God not to take him, but strength flowed into her anyway as he collapsed, body writhing into dust.
Mae took up the shield and fled for the desert—where no one would ever suffer the same fate. She would join Bjorn in the afterlife and beg his forgiveness.
Mae released her. “That is why you found me in the state you did.”
Alexia recalled the shifting sands beneath her feet as she lifted the shield and found Mae, curled on the desert floor. Her lovely brown hair had been chopped unevenly and stood in frazzled clumps. She’d worn a dirty linen tunic, holes at her shoulder and knees, a shackle locked firmly about one wrist. Mae’s skin had been ashen, the gray of someone near death. Alexia’s heart had broken. Cornflower blue eyes had turned upward, so thinned by weariness they were like water in palm-deep pools. When Mae had rasped, “Stay back!” Alexia had rested a hand on Mae’s arm. Tingling had crept up Alexia’s fingers, hungry, invisible spiders crawling through her skin. Strength bled from Alexia into Mae, a trickle of power that instantly burst to a gushing river. The medallion had warmed beneath her dress, energy coursing through her chest and down the siphon into Mae.
“You saved me when I did not wish to be saved,” Mae whispered, “because I would have given anything to have him back.” She placed the scrolls in Alexia’s custody. “Whatever this is, do not surrender to the pain.”
Alexia gave Mae a weak smile and slipped into the trees.
***
Kiren watched her skirt swirl behind her, his mouth tingling. He touched his lips, bewildered by the tenderness that remained and the strange yearning to chase after her and kiss her again.
Hello, insanity.
Twice in one day. What were the chances? Was he wearing a sign that said, Kiss me, I beg you. I am free to be bonded? Still, he liked her shape, the curve of her back and swell of her hips…
He jerked himself out of that thought. Where had that come from, and more importantly, why was he dwelling on her? He wasn’t going to be tied down. Especially to these people.
…Even if the glow of her skin resonated with his very frame. It had tickled the edges of his consciousness with a familiarity he’d only experienced in the family he’d lost. But she couldn�
�t be of his blood, could she? He had only one living relative as far as he knew, and from the color of her hair to the contours of her cheeks, she presented no physical similarities. Plus, she’d kissed him. That would be wrong for a blood relative in so many ways. Too wrong. Especially since that was the most amazing kiss he’d ever experienced.
He shook the thought free.
No woman would bind him. Ever. And she was with child, so clearly the property of another man. Kissing him while belonging elsewhere? A lewd one at that.
He breathed deep, slowing his hummingbird heart. His hands still trembled from touching her.
She knew his name. She seemed to know him, but that was impossible. They’d never met. Perhaps she stole the information through their kiss, the physical contact. That must be her special talent, and Amos must have ordered her to ensnare him the instant he joined the company. They needed a healer.
Speak of the devil.
Two men barred his pathway. Amos and a black-haired man who reached toward him.
Kiren met the stranger’s glare, reading his thoughts: Anger my girl, and I’ll make you sleep until solstice. Kiren delved deeper. Regin. The man’s name was Regin. He scoffed at the sleeper’s bare hand. “I do not see how I can assist you if I am slumbering.”
Both men stepped back.
My girl. Did that mean Regin was the father? If so, why had he stood by as she kissed another? This wasn’t making sense. He’d noticed the ring on her finger—gold. Metal. She could wear metal without effect, or she wore it to diminish the consequences of her gifts. Or because she was married.
“You promised to let me be,” Kiren shot at Amos, crossing his arms.
“I did, but we need you now.” He waved at a row of injured people, with from cuts to burns to broken bones. Men and boys wore drab tunics, girded by sweat-doused bands he could smell from here, and the women? Their dresses blended with the woods about them. A dull, pitiful attempt to become invisible. The inhabitants looked as if they belonged in a beggars’ colony, without a hint of the grandeur their bloodlines demanded. Where was their dignity? Their pride?
Gone. Just like everything else. They no longer knew what an incredible heritage might have been theirs, or that their ancestors had rejected it.
A glory he would never be able to give them. One he no longer wished for himself.
Kiren sighed. Just standing in their presence made him itch with guilt, but he knew most of the fallen and couldn’t leave them like this. He pulled both hands through his hair and nodded. “I do this, and then I go my own way.”
Regin shrugged and yanked a leather glove over his fingers. “Sounds borin’ reasonable.”
“And you have to get Zeph,” Kiren added.
Amos patted him on the shoulder, turning him toward the injured. “I believe we can do that.”
Kiren groaned. Just like that he was back.
***
Kiren healed one and then another, anxious to be gone. Anxious to escape the accusing stares that followed him from one victim to the next. Strength seeped free with each healing, and he wasn’t running on full power to start. That girl’s leg had taken more than he’d anticipated.
He moved on to the next injury while Regin hovered. Kiren rolled his eyes. Clearly the man believed he had to keep watch and stop Kiren from chasing after the mysterious young woman. It was for the best. He would do what they asked, then they would uphold their deal and take him far away. Back to the freedom of endlessly wandering and healing.
A flash of raven curls snatched his attention.
The kisser.
His head spun with the memory of her lips pressed to his and the overwhelming wholeness in her touch. It couldn’t be as amazing as his brain insisted. If so, he suddenly understood that stupid, glaze-eyed bewitchment so many men fell under. But he wasn’t like them. And it wasn’t real. Couldn’t be. It must have been an illusion she’d forced into his mind while stealing his secrets—part of her gift. For her sake at least, it had better be.
Everyone he cared about was doomed.
Kiren shook the senseless thoughts away, but he couldn’t force his attention from her. She stood in the distance, speaking with another woman, one who reeked of death. A thin lock of white hairs interlaced the kisser’s near-black ones, white far too stark to have been earned from age. She must have suffered a great loss, and recently. Perhaps she had lost a husband—unless Regin was her other half, but he didn’t share her luminescence. She may be the victim of rape.
The kisser smiled, a sad thing that only touched her cheeks. Pain hunched her shoulders. It filled the very air with sorrow, and part of him—most of him—wanted to go to her, to take away her heartache.
But he couldn’t do that. He could only take away physical injuries.
Kiren knelt over another of the wounded. A gaping laceration consumed his attention, but only for the matter of seconds it took for skin to knit back together. His thoughts snapped back to her, and a small part of him hoped she was watching, that she saw and appreciated what good he was doing for the camp.
Like a dog that wanted its belly scratched.
He huffed. The sooner he got away from here, the better.
Except…
She knew his name. That alone was dangerous, and he should discover how much more she knew from diving into his mind. It could be tricky getting the information out of her.
And reckless.
He found himself grinning. Zeph would call him a fool for entertaining the idea—which meant it was a good one.
Kiren glanced around at the people in camp. How long could he stay with these people and not drown under their accusing stares? Sarlic—the inflictor—glared as if he were ready to teach Kiren the true meaning of pain. The boy, Willem, glanced his way with hurt eyes. Near ten years now, the lad’s pout said he hadn’t understood Kiren’s departure. The empath, Oriel, averted her stare, quite clearly feeling his discomfort. Surely she wished he would leave and put her at ease. Despite the guilt clawing at the back of his mind, there was a comfort in being here, almost like being home. A great, dysfunctional home.
Except he destroyed every home he inhabited.
The kisser moved away into the trees. Alone.
His heart leapt. She was alone. What would he do with her if he had her alone? He pushed that thought aside. Wrong direction. The opportunity to speak to her without observation had arrived, and he needed to discover how she knew his name. No one knew his name.
Kiren exhaled heavily and wiped his brow, standing.
Regin lifted an eyebrow.
“I need rest.”
The sleeper waved him forward. Kiren moved away, keeping his gaze off the accusing faces turned his direction, blood pumping with the prospect of what he was going to do.
He could almost feel the woman’s body pressed to his, their passions entwined and searing through his veins…but why was he thinking this way? Never in his twenty-two years had he desired a woman—not like this. A touch of charm, a smile to obtain information or simple favors, never a yearning to consume just for the joy of imbibing.
But oh, he wanted to imbibe.
Stop. Get yourself under control. Kiren cooled the crazed whispers at the back of his mind as the woman disappeared around the corner of a ruined wall. He slipped away to approach from another direction.
Eight
Treachery
Leofrik pulled the small wooden wolf from his pouch while waiting for his lord’s order. He didn’t much care for waiting. After all, he had witches and demons to hunt and a sword that ached to be used. He really would rather slay the necromancers, but his master preferred their imprisonment. He rubbed the rough edges of the wolf. It had been his gift to a pilgrim boy in the Holy Land, a child he found slain not a week later. He carried it now and always as a reminder that evil must be put down for the sake of the innocent. He straightened the tunic that declared him one of the most holy order of knights, the Knights Templar. Anxious to be on the move, he shifted his
weight from foot to foot.
Words echoed inside the chamber while he waited for Lord Ulric to finish whatever conference was so important that the holy pope’s servant had been commanded to wait. And who was so important that he should stand here wasting the day? He leaned against the doorframe and pressed his ear to the jamb.
“You are telling me the ships will return with nothing to show for this costly voyage?” Lord Ulric bellowed. “I acquiesced to voyaging to the far reaches of the world—just to maintain your secrecy, but no more. Where have they relocated?”
“They are beaten. Leave them be.” The voice was nothing more than the rasp of wind through the shadows, a nearly indecipherable hiss.
“You will give me their location while they are weak, or so help me…!”
Silence.
Leofrik pressed his ear closer.
Feet scuffed across floorboards. “Their location?” Lord Ulric growled.
Quiet.
“The location!”
Leofrik pulled back from the wood, rubbing his ear. He knew Ulric’s reputation for rage along with his devious business dealings. The fact that Leofrik himself had been summoned away from Jerusalem, torn from his sworn duties of protecting pilgrims, irked him to the ocean and back. It undoubtedly had to do with Lord Ulric’s silver tongue.
He leaned back into the door.
“There now. That was not difficult. Back to your place, poppet.”
A snap.
Quiet.
Leofrik wished he could see through the door. His impatience was getting the best of him. Feet thudded toward him, finally. He assumed his stance a respectable distance away.
The door creaked open. Ulric gave him a considering perusal and offered a parchment bearing his seal. “Take thirty men to the monastic ruins southwest of Bristol. And for God’s sake, approach silently.”
Leofrik bristled. He wasn’t the one thundering about and bellowing orders. He took the paper and bowed.
Timeless (Maiden Of Time Book 3) Page 4