by Hall, Linsey
It was a meeting space, but one that had been constructed and decorated hundreds of years ago. A fireplace with no flue that would have been lit with magical smokeless fire, plush chairs, and small tables. Bookshelves and paintings covered all of the walls. And a fine layer of dust covered everything in sight.
With the Chairman following at her heels, Esha explored the room for clues. This was the only place she could think of that would tie her to another soulceress. There had to be something, but she needed to look quickly. She hadn’t mentioned to Warren that she couldn’t stay separated from her body for long without making it permanent. Only as long as her power lasted, and she barely had enough to say so.
She skimmed the titles of the books, but nothing stood out. They were primarily histories of her kind, along with histories of other types of Mytheans. Knowledge was power. The soulceresses agreed with the university on that one.
Noticeably absent were spell books, which Esha hadn’t expected to find. Those were used by the hacks who worked in covens. Soulceresses manifested their desires with a thought and power.
“Well, Chairman, I’ve got nothing,” she said soundlessly as she continued to look around. A few books were left open on the tables, along with scattered papers and a few wine glasses, as if the place had been in use and then suddenly deserted.
The air of abandonment and death that permeated the howf was probably left over from the Burnings. The few who had survived had lain low until the hysteria was over. Now, there were so few left and the threat so distant that they could move about without too much fear, as Esha did.
If they’d visited, they hadn’t moved anything. Wise, considering the fact that Esha could feel an imprisonment charm on the place. Anything removed would result in consequences. Was that one of the reasons it was supposed to be difficult to leave here?
With the bookshelves and paintings all inspected, Esha wound her way around the tables and chairs, inspecting the things laid out upon the tables. She reached out to touch a piece of paper, but when she did so, she swore she saw her hand disappear. So quickly she couldn’t be sure, but her time was drawing to a close.
Nothing on this table, so she moved on. A square of white on another table caught her eye. She gasped soundlessly. On the largest table in the middle of the room sat an envelope.
With her name on it.
With a trembling hand, she picked it up. Though she had no body, the items in the room had obviously been enchanted to be manipulated by souls.
Who could have written to her? Stupid question.
Before her eyes, the hand that held the letter flickered in and out of existence. Damn it.
She was running out of time. Esha glanced nervously at the Chairman. He flickered too, and she swore she saw annoyance in his eyes. Biting her lip, she began to tear the letter open. She just had to glance at it long enough to get an idea of the message. But her flickering hand wouldn’t work properly. One second, she felt the letter’s seal beneath her fingertips—the next, nothing.
Swallowing hard, she debated the pros and cons of trying to remove the letter from the room. Determining that it was worth chancing the unknown penalty and unwilling to risk losing her body, Esha dashed for the entrance with the Chairman at her heels. Her arms flickered as she skirted a chair. So close—the entrance was just ahead.
She would make it in time. She had to.
With a deep breath, she plunged through. As soon as she landed on the other side, a harsh wail echoed through the cavern. It tore at her eardrums and howled through her mind. To preserve her sanity, she focused on finding Warren.
Near where she’d left him, he surged to his feet, her limp body cradled in his arms. Esha hurtled toward her body. She gasped as she opened her eyes and met Warren’s. Strong arms held her tight to a broad chest, heat radiating through every inch of her.
“We need to go,” she said, struggling to escape his arms.
The shrieking turned to howling, a sound so harsh it threatened to make her black out. She gestured to the boat that was their only hope of safety.
As soon as Warren put her down, she grabbed his arm and turned toward the boat. A glance behind her showed that the stone entrance to the howf was bulging outward, some areas more than others. Stone should not be able to move like that.
“Come on.” With the letter gripped tightly in her hand, she sprinted for the boat.
After only a few steps, an agonizing pain tore across her back. She stumbled, a scream caught in her throat, and lost her grip on Warren’s hand. The pain began to paralyze her and she fell to her knees.
Before she could fall any farther, Warren swept her up and charged forward. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a great stone claw reaching out from the entrance, growing longer as they ran. She could no longer feel her legs.
“Hurry.” Her fist clenched around the letter that had caused so much trouble.
Warren leapt into the boat, the Chairman behind him, and she cried out at the pain that streaked across her back as he jostled her. Darkness crept into the corners of her vision, but she fought it, desperate to not lose consciousness with certain death chasing them.
“Hold on for me, damn it. I’m going to get you to safety, I promise.” He wiped wetness from her cheeks, and only then did she realize that she was crying. “But first, can you get us out of this damn cave?”
“Can summon a wave… but can’t… aetherwalk.”
She had to get them out of here. She was the only one who could.
He nodded at her, then wrapped his jacket around her before returning to the wheel. Cold crept along her skin as he started up the engine. It was going to be close. Closing her eyes, she focused her remaining energy on calling forth a wave big enough to carry them out of the cave.
“We’re nearing the wall,” Warren shouted over the otherworldly shrieking that still bounced off the stone walls.
She reached for the Chairman, pathetically grateful to feel his fur against her palm. The effort to dredge up enough power to create the wave had her head spinning, but soon she felt the surge of water beneath the boat. It roared in her ears. Or was that the pain?
She managed to crack her eyes open long enough to see them rise closer to the ceiling of the cave and fall on the other side.
The boat crashed down and blackness took her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The bitter taste of fear flooded Warren’s mouth as he piloted the barely functional boat out of the cavern. Gods, this thing had better make it to shore. He could barely keep his eyes off Esha’s collapsed form, though every time he looked at her, something inside him twisted painfully. Dragging his gaze from her, he forced himself to focus on the water. Getting her back to Mull was the only way to ensure her safety.
When he cranked the engine up to full speed, the bow rose in the water. A growl escaped his chest when he saw seawater tinged red trickle from beneath Esha’s prone form.
Faster. He pushed the boat to its limits, flinching every time a large wave smacked the bow, and with it, Esha.
A mile from shore, with the boat failing due to the damage to the hull, he checked his phone. Finally, cell service.
“Cadan,” he said when his second-in-command picked up. “I need you to send a healer to the village of Dunessan. Esha is wounded. We’ll land in ten minutes.”
“Aye. No’ a problem.”
“The best, Cadan.”
“Aye, I know.”
Despite the cold air, sweat trickled down his back as he piloted the boat toward shore. Blood still seeped from beneath Esha. Her face was stark, whiter than he’d ever seen it, and even her red lips were chalky.
As he beached the boat, he squinted through the starless night, looking for the healer sent by the university. There was no one. No one there to save Esha. She was immortal, but that only meant stronger. Age and disease wouldn’t kill her, but grievous injury could, especially if it was magical.
He couldn’t lose her. He wouldn’t. He rush
ed to the front of the boat and swept Esha up into his arms. A crumpled envelope was still clutched in her fist. He pried it out of her hand and stuffed it into his pocket.
There had to be a mortal hospital somewhere on this island. Though it went against the laws of their kind to alert mortals to their presence—and taking an immortal with freakish healing abilities to a mortal hospital would definitely do so—he didn’t care.
She was cold in his arms as he cradled her, shielding her against the whipping sea wind. Though he tried not to jostle her as he stepped upon the shore, a weak moan filtered through her lips. When he looked up from her face, he caught sight of a shimmering patch of air that marked a portal about to open. Thank gods.
Within seconds, a healer stepped through. Gods damn it, she was young—didn’t look to be any older than a teenager. This was the being to whom he was supposed to entrust Esha’s life?
“Are you Warren?” she yelled in a lilting voice.
“Aye,” he said as he strode toward the Range Rover with Esha in his arms. The girl met him at the back door. “Open it.”
She did. With her help, he carefully laid Esha upon the back seat, shifting her so her wounded back didn’t press against it. The sight of the angry red gashes made his stomach lurch. He’d seen far worse, but it was the fact that they marred her flesh that bothered him.
“What happened to her?” asked the healer as she laid her palm gently on Esha’s side.
“Attacked by an enchanted stone wall. It formed a great claw and swiped at her. Are you old enough to be doing this?”
The healer slanted him a glance and said, “I’d bet I’m older than you are. Appearances are deceiving.”
The healer climbed into the back with Esha, wedging her small form in the gap between the backseat and the front. “We need to get her somewhere warm and dry.”
“Aye,” Warren said, and within moments, he had the Range Rover back on the main road.
“What about the boat? Isn’t it Cadan’s?”
“I’ll buy him a new one. How’s she doing?”
“Poorly. How far to shelter?”
“About thirty minutes to Cadan’s house. There’s no decent shelter between here and there.”
He tried his damnedest to avoid potholes and bumps in the road, but every time Esha moaned, it cut through him like a blade of fire. A deer jumped into the road. When he swerved to avoid it, Esha’s damned feline yowled as if it could feel her pain.
“Do something for her, damn it,” he said.
“I am. Just get us there.”
The miles to Cadan’s house were the longest he’d ever traveled. He was a bastard for dragging Esha into this. Though it had seemed necessary at the time, every sound of pain stabbed him with regret.
Finally, after half an hour of cold fear, they arrived. Warren carefully carried Esha’s limp body into the house, desperate not to hurt her any more.
“What’d you do to her?” he asked the healer as he climbed the stairs to one of the bedrooms. A faint blue glow surrounded Esha, and though she was pale, her face was no longer twisted with pain.
“The blue glow is a halting spell. There’s poison in the wound. Now it won’t travel any farther. But she’s in less pain because of her familiar.”
“The cat?”
“Yeah, he can lend some of his strength to her. All familiars can.”
Warren looked down at the cat, who ignored him. Maybe the beast wasn’t so bad after all. In fact, he’d be thawing a tuna filet for him at the first opportunity.
“But you’ve stopped the poison. You’ll be able to heal her.” It was more a statement than a question as he laid her upon the bed. Esha would get better. She had to.
“I don’t know.”
Somebody was torturing her, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Esha tried to lift an arm to push away the person who was dragging sandpaper across her cheek, but the arm weighed a million pounds.
Or had someone tied her down? A chill crept along her skin, and her breath grew short. She couldn’t move. Someone had tied her up. No. Her muscles burned as she tried to struggle, but she could barely move her limbs. Though it hurt like a bitch, she dragged her eyes open.
And stared into the furry face of the Chairman. She exhaled.
“Go away, tuna breath,” she gasped.
When the cat settled by her side, her heart rate slowed, and her breathing calmed. If the Chairman was corporeal and sleeping next to her, they were safe. Had they been in danger, he’d have turned to smoke to protect himself until he could help her. Still, being weakened like this, unable to protect herself, made a cold sweat break out on her skin.
Soft sheets were smooth against her palms, the light in the room pleasantly dim. Enough to see by, but not enough to irritate her pounding head. It was warm as well, and contrary to her previous fear, she was held down only by a light blanket. Safe.
Relatively.
She turned her head and caught sight of the door to the room just as a large figure walked through it.
“Esha.” Relief was strong in Warren’s voice. “How do you feel?”
He knelt by the bed, his eyes searching her face. He looked… tired. Handsomely rumpled. Golden hair, normally at least somewhat neat, stuck out and a frown seemed permanently etched on his face.
“Water.” Her voice scratched in her throat as though she were trying to swallow a burr.
He nodded, his lips tight. When he returned to the bed with a small glass of water, he lifted her head gently and held the glass up to her lips.
“What… happened?” she asked when she finished.
Her eyes drifted closed as he recounted the attack at the cave, memories of which came to her in hazy bits and pieces, and the healer who had fixed her up. “You should be back on your feet within a few days. Whatever poison was in those claws is out of your system, but it weakened you. The healer had never seen the like.”
“Not poison. Magic.”
It had been her penance for removing the letter from the cave. But she’d lived, hadn’t she? Had she been alone, she would have died. Warren had saved her life. It put a bitter taste in her mouth. That was her job.
“My letter?” Just saying the words sapped what little strength she had.
“Later. Rest,” he said.
She wanted to argue, but was too weak to speak. She swore she felt his hand brush her hair away from her face, but she didn’t have the strength to open her eyes to look. He’d saved her, she thought, as she drifted off to sleep. And now he was taking care of her. Though she hated relying on anyone, it was… nice… to have someone take care of her.
Unusual, but nice.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Warren stared blindly into the refrigerator. He’d come down to the kitchen for something, but he had no idea what.
Gods, he was tired. In the two days since Esha had been wounded, he’d done nothing but sit by her bed and stare at her—unusual behavior for someone who didn’t care. He dragged a hand through his hair, disgusted with himself. For getting her into this situation. For being unable to leave her side.
What if he had lost her? He stared blindly into the refrigerator as memories of her bravery flashed across his mind. She’d never let anyone take the hard job from her. Wouldn’t trust them enough to do so. He’d never met anyone as mistrusting yet fearlessly brave as Esha. And he’d nearly gotten her killed.
A demanding meow caught his attention. He looked down to see Esha’s cat at his feet. Normally, he’d think that the cat wanted to be fed. But after walking downstairs last night and seeing the cat devouring a piece of salmon he’d dragged out of the newly stocked refrigerator—courtesy of the healer, since Warren wouldn’t leave Esha’s side—it was clear that the cat could take care of food for himself.
That meant he was now doing a Lassie for Esha.
At least, he wanted to assume that the cat was here to tell him that Esha had awakened. Unless something was wrong.
Forgetting all about lunch, he
took the stairs two at a time to her room. The iron bands around his heart eased just slightly at the sight of her in bed. The glow had returned to her ivory skin, as had the red to her lips. She was on the mend.
“How are you feeling?”
“Starving.”
Thank gods, she was feeling better. He nodded. “I’ll be back.”
Down in the kitchen, he threw together some sandwiches and tea, along with a bit of broth in case she wasn’t feeling up to a heartier meal, and returned to her room.
“Here.” The awkwardness in his voice was painful to hear as he set the tray down on her lap. She’d managed to scoot herself up in bed until she was almost sitting upright. “Do you need help?”
“I’ve got it.” She dug into the sandwiches with gusto, then sighed with pleasure over the tea. When she finished eating, she looked up at him. “How long have I been out?”
“It’s been a couple of days since you woke last.”
When she stretched, his eyes followed her movements like those of a wolf. He looked away quickly, embarrassed. She was sick, damn it. He wasn’t an animal.
“Is that all?”
“Aye. Do you need to, ah…” he gestured toward the door leading to the bathroom.
She shook her head.
He nodded. Maybe she was well enough now to answer the question that had been burning in his mind. “Why did everything go wrong back at the cave?”
She looked away, reaching out for her cat. Once she’d sunk her fingers into its fur, she looked back at him, guilt etched on her face. “I broke the rules. I spent so much of my time searching for a clue that by the time I found it, I didn’t have time to read it. When I removed something from the howf, the magic activated to stop me. If you hadn’t been there, I never would have made it out with what I’d taken. I’d have… died.” She glared at him, her fine black brows drawn over gleaming eyes.
“Hey. Doona be mad at me. I was just trying to help.”
“I know. But protecting myself is my job and I failed. I did something stupid and nearly died for it.” She looked down at her cat, but the fierceness of her disappointment radiated from her. “I’ve always been smarter than that.”