Soul Magic

by Jennifer Lyon

  She opened her eyes and saw that her mom had tears running down her face.

  “I felt her.” Chandra’s hand shook in Carla’s. “I felt Keri.”

  “I’m glad.” Carla’s body was unbearably weary. The agony in her head made her queasy. But she was happy her mom had been able to touch Keri, however briefly.

  “You’re saving her, Carla. Keeping her soul alive. Once we free her and she goes on … it’ll be all right.”

  Her throat hurt from the emotion choking her and from her failure. “I have to get those prongs out. If I don’t have enough power to do even that, how am I going to find Keri?”

  Chandra’s green eyes darkened. “You got two out and I’m proud of you for that. We’ll try again. Maybe you can only do two at a time. You’re doing everything you can.”

  “It’s not enough.” She wasn’t strong enough, powerful enough, or brave enough.

  Her dad hunkered down between them. “Carla, you need to rest, then you can try again. You don’t need Darcy.”

  She frowned. “Darcy wouldn’t have left unless she had to. Something’s wrong.” A chill began at the top of her neck and traveled down her spine. Getting to her feet, she said, “The interruption in Darcy’s power was odd, too. Something must have been happening while we were trying to remove the prongs.”

  Her mom touched her shoulder. “Maybe she just couldn’t hold the magic.”

  Carla shook her head as fear spread through her stomach. Whatever happened, it was bad. Feeling a warning sensation at her back, she turned and saw Axel Locke striding across the yard, his feet not making a sound. He wore jeans and was shirtless, a sign that he’d most likely used his wings as transportation. His muscles bulged with tension, his square jaw was tight, and his green eyes were grim. Something was wrong, seriously wrong.

  “Sutton?”

  He reached her. “He’s been blooded, Carla.”

  “Ancestors, no!” She remembered the vision she’d had where both she and Sutton had seen Brigg blooded. The horror of it choked her. “He’s rogue?” Her Sutton? The man who had held her, kissed her, brought her father to her, fought by her side to save her sister’s soul … not him. He couldn’t be rogue.

  Axel’s words corralled her scattered thoughts. “Not yet. But he will be if we let him loose. He won’t be able to stop himself.”

  She couldn’t let that happen! “What do we do? There has to be something!”

  Axel looked at her, then at her parents standing behind her before answering, “Either I kill him now while he still has his soul—”

  “No!” Her knees gave out.

  Axel caught her elbows, holding her up, supporting her, while he looked in her eyes. “Or you can try to save him. You are his soul mirror.”

  Her mom’s hand on her shoulder tightened. “Too dangerous! Carla, he’ll kill you! And it’ll destroy Keri’s soul.”

  It was like being back in Styx’s metal box with the sides pressing in on her. What did she do? How did she choose? Sutton? Or Keri? She loved them both!

  “Carla, I’m sorry, but you have to decide. We can’t risk Sutton getting free.” His face shifted suddenly, the mask of the leader slipping away to reveal a man in pain. His cheekbones jutted out sharply, he closed his eyes, and his hands on her elbows tightened. “I have to try to save him.”

  Her heart wrenched. She thought of Darcy, of what it would be like to be forced to kill her best friend, but her mind couldn’t comprehend it. “Take me to him.”

  “Carla!” her mom cried.

  She turned to Chandra and hugged her, tears clogging her nose and throat. “I have to see him.”

  Her mom squeezed her. “What if he kills you? Like Keri was killed.”

  She thought of Sutton, all the times he’d been in pain around her from the curse, all the times he took care of her. What had he told her on the astral plane? Yes, you’ll let me go with a free heart. You don’t have to ever choose, just let me go. Sutton had known he was so close to going rogue, and he’d given her permission to let him go. She pulled out of Chandra’s embrace and said, “I don’t think so, Mom.”

  Axel broke in with, “I won’t let him hurt her.”

  Jerome said, “What about Keri? If you do this thing, if you bond with Sutton, you’ll lose Keri. I thought we were fighting to save her! I thought you loved your sister.”

  What was she supposed to do? Let Axel kill Sutton? “How am I supposed to choose?” Her heart wrenched and twisted, and in her pain, she did what she’d always done: reached for Keri.

  “Keri’s your sister!” Jerome yelled. “She’s begging for your help!”

  He was right. Oh, God, she thought in despair when she caught the scent of incense. Her scar warmed and itched.

  Save the Eagle!

  Chills broke out on her arms as she felt a deep tug on her chakras. “Keri?”

  The four candles flamed up, then settled back to a steady flicker. She looked at the bowl of water in the center. Floating on the surface was her sister’s panicked face. “Keri,” she whispered and rushed to the bowl, dropping to her knees. “I can’t let you go, Keri, but I can’t let him lose his soul.”

  Save the Eagle. Then find me.

  “Where are you?” She reached out to touch the edge of the crockery bowl, wishing she could touch Keri.

  Don’t know. Eagle can find me. I know he can.

  Her throat ached with the pain. “Keri, is Sutton your soul mirror?”

  Keri’s image began to break up. Save him.

  The scent of incense disappeared. “She’s gone.”

  Chandra wrapped her arm around Carla’s shoulders. “I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her.”

  She turned to her mom. “I have to go to him.”

  Her dad said, “You swore you wouldn’t do this! You’re going to get killed! And lose Keri!”

  Carla got to her feet and turned to try to make her father understand.

  He whirled around and stormed into the house.

  Carla shuddered.

  Axel put his huge hand on her shoulder and looked into her face. “I’m forcing you to make an impossible choice. I’m in the wrong here. I’m the leader of the Wing Slayer Hunters. It’s my job to make the decisions. I was trying to push that off on you. Go inside. Darcy will call you when—”

  You don’t have to ever choose, just let me go. She felt his whisper in her mind and the comforting brush of his eagle’s feathers. Sutton was right, she didn’t have to choose. But she would because she loved him. She snapped her head up. “Hell no. Not a chance. I’m going and I’ll do whatever I can to save him.”

  Axel looked momentarily startled, then he lifted her in his arms and his wings snapped out of his back. He looked down at her. “Whatever happens, I will never forget your courage. If I have to do the unthinkable, Carla, I will do it with an easier heart knowing we tried everything.” Then he took two steps and leaped into the air.

  Sutton woke up in a rage. His veins felt like they were filled with Drano, his head pounded, and the light seared his eyes. He tried to move.

  Cold metal bit into his wrists and ankles. Chains? His eyes were too heavy to open but he heard voices …

  “We killed the rogues who were outside the bed-and-breakfast, but the two inside ran out the back before we could get them. They had sliced the witch’s throat and thrown her down on Sutton to bleed out all over him.”

  “Sutton was out of it, all jacked up from the blood-lust. Key and I dragged him into the shower and got as much of the blood as we could off him. He started fighting us, bellowing that he wanted more blood, so we tranquilized the hell out of him and got him back here.”

  The blood memory surged through him. His heart started to race, his skin tightened until he felt like it was being ripped off, one inch at a time. Spasms tore through the muscles of his arms and legs. His stomach burned.

  Withdrawal.

  He’d been blooded. The curse had won.

  That was why they’d chained him up.
Peeling his lids off his dry, oversensitive eyes, he looked around. He was in his room in his cabin. The voices were coming from the front room.

  “He still has his soul,” Ram said. “He has his lifelines.”

  Sutton twisted his head, the movement causing pain to knife through his skull. He could see his right wrist chained to the bedpost. Opening his hand, he struggled to focus.

  Lines. He saw lines.

  But he wanted witch blood. The craving burned through every vein. His skin got tighter and he thought he could see his veins popping out, growing bigger, demanding witch blood.

  Carla.

  If he could get out of these chains, he would hunt her down, he had her scent. Oh, yeah, he knew her scent. Knew just where the little witch was … where she hid from him. His. Carla was his, he’d cut her and …

  Something clawed his back.

  No! A sane voice in his brain screamed trying to beat back the curse taking over his mind. The clawing was the eagle tat trying to save Carla from him. Sutton started to struggle, fighting the bonds and the ugly realization that if he got near Carla, he’d kill her. He had to get away, as far away from her as he could, and do what he had to—just like his father had done.

  “There’s one hope. One way to save him,” Ram’s voice said in the other room. “Axel went to get Carla.”

  Carla. He could almost smell the Arabian-coffee aroma of her blood, that darkly erotic scent. Where was his knife? He thrashed against the chains. He needed a knife to cut her, to get all that powerful blood. He only wore a pair of boxers, no holster for his knife. His leather wristbands were gone, too.

  The eagle clawed his back again.

  Fight it! The sane voice vibrated in his head. His mouth was dry and his tongue thick, but he croaked out, “No. Not Carla. Don’t make her choose!” He didn’t want her to have to choose, and he didn’t want her to lose her sister. More than anything, he didn’t want her to see him like this. What if he killed her? Rolling and jerking on the bed, he tried to rip apart the thick wood frame. He had to get away. He could feel the curse spreading in his brain.

  “Shit, his arms are bleeding, he’s tearing open his skin trying to get free.” Phoenix stalked up to the side of the bed.

  Sutton bared his teeth at the hunter and croaked out, “Kill me.”

  “Give me the tranq.” Phoenix’s voice was raw and furious.

  Sutton saw Ram come into the room, saw Phoenix reach for the syringe, and his vision narrowed in blinding rage. Then all he could see was the arm coming closer, with the needle aiming for his hip.

  He tracked that hand and needle, pulling his feet up to use the few inches of slack in the chains, and coiled his muscles. Just as the hand got close enough, he snapped his hip up under Phoenix’s wrist.

  A loud crack echoed in the room, followed by, “Shit, he broke my wrist!”

  The needle flew out of his grip.

  “Get back!” someone yelled. Voices shouted.

  Sutton ignored them, wrenching his body against the chains, determined to get free and kill them all. He heard the crack up by where his right hand was chained. The post of the headboard was breaking.

  Oh, yeah. He slitted his eyes and looked around. Ram was bent over Phoenix’s wrist. Key was on the left side of the bed filling another syringe.

  Now! Just as Key started moving toward him with the filled syringe, he focused all his strength on his right arm and yanked with everything he had.

  The post snapped off.

  Sutton used the momentum to swing the post at the end of the chain at Key’s head.

  The hunter ducked and yelled, “He’s getting loose!”

  Phoenix and Ram both turned and took a step.

  Sutton swung the chain and post threateningly. “Give me the key to the locks!” They couldn’t get near him or he’d bash their brains in.

  No! That annoying voice said in his head. He hated that voice.

  “Stay back.” Ram snapped the order out, then pulled out a gun and pointed it at Sutton. “Don’t make me kill you, Sutton.”

  Vicious pain in his back burned out the rage enough to think. He heard a voice in his head say, Tell him to kill you. He looked down at the hand he’d wrapped around the chain that he’d been swinging as a club. He forced his fingers open and looked at the lifeline on his palm.

  His soul-line.

  His sanity came rushing back and grunted out the words, “Kill me.” He knew the sanity wouldn’t last long, that his brain would become soaked in the bloodlust of the curse until all that mattered was witch blood. Once he killed a witch, his soul, and lifeline, would vanish.

  Ram stared at him, rock steady, not a hair or crease out of place.

  “Do it,” he demanded.

  “Ram,” Darcy’s voice cut through it. “Axel said to wait.”

  Sutton knew why and it made him furious. “Cowards!” He yelled at them, his mind darkening with suspicion. “Or do you want it? Bring the little witch here and see her butchered, and maybe some of the blood will splash on you?” Bastards, they wanted to steal his witch. They were luring her with Sutton, telling her she could save him—

  “Sutton, oh, God, what have you done to him?”

  Carla. Her voice blasted through him. Sutton turned to see her in the doorway of his room with Axel looming behind her. Her hazel eyes went wide with horror, her delicate face paled and her witch-shimmer seemed to pull from her skin toward him.

  His guts twisted with humiliation, and shame made him hot. “What the hell is she doing here?” He glared at Axel. “Get her away from me!” He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t let her see what he was … becoming. He could smell her blood, her Arabian-coffee-spiced blood that made his heart pound and his head cloud in a red haze of pure bloodlust.

  “Sutton, you’re hurt!”

  “No!” He didn’t want to kill her! Yet, the animal in him wanted to cut her pale skin and feel the sizzle of her power pouring over him. He surged his weight against the chains. “Axel, you made a goddamn vow!” He hated them, hated that they had done this to him. He could have borne anything but letting Carla see the animal that he really was.

  “Help me hold him,” Axel said to his men.

  Sutton swung the bedpost club, aiming for Axel.

  The club vanished by magic. Darcy, he thought. It threw him off-balance long enough for Axel and Key to grab his shoulders and shove him to the mattress while Ram held down his legs.

  He looked up into Axel’s green eyes. “Fuck you.” He’d trusted Axel with his life and soul and the bastard had betrayed him.

  Axel’s face darkened but his gaze was steady. “I swear I won’t let you hurt her.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Gonna watch, Axel? Watch me fuck her? Is that your plan? Or are you going to give me your knife and watch me bleed her until her screams die off?” He bucked against the hands on him and the remaining chains, fighting against the red haze of bloodlust. He shuddered and struggled, the blood memory sluicing through his veins in a ferocious burn. Chills broke out on his skin.

  Axel lowered his face. “Carla can hear you, asshole.”

  Sutton’s eagle cut through the skin on his back in reaction to the words. The sharp pain broke through the bloodlust. More shame and humiliation poured over him. “You brought her here. You let her see this. Would you want Darcy to see you?”

  Axel’s green eyes shadowed with doubt. “I—”

  Darcy’s voice cut him off. “Ready, Axel.”

  “Out,” Axel said to Key, Ram, and Phoenix. “Back to the warehouse.”

  Sutton felt Key, Ram, and Phoenix’s relief as they hurried from the room. Then Axel let go, and he moved with Darcy to the door, where they stopped to stand guard. Would Axel’s immense strength and speed, or Darcy’s magic, really be enough to stop him from hurting Carla? Sutton remained frozen, trying to decide what to do.

  Then Carla’s magic slammed into him, and the chains broke away from his arms and legs. Her scent, the sweet lavender scent of her
skin mixed with the darker spicy aroma of her witchcraft washed over him. The dual needs in him exploded, bloodlust and sexual lust. He reared up and off the bed and hit the floor, ready to spring.

  His legs refused to move. Magic. He felt it, smelled it, and it didn’t belong to Carla. He raised his head and looked at the doorway where Axel and Darcy stood.

  Darcy’s witch-shimmer sparkled as she clasped her hands tightly together, using her magic to keep his feet anchored to the ground. Her power didn’t incite the bloodlust, something to do with her soul being bonded to Axel. But he could feel Carla …

  Unwillingly, he tracked his gaze to her and his breath locked in his chest. Standing in front of the opened sliding glass door, the moonlight bathed her in pure whiteness, making her hair shine ethereally. She wore a white top with a tidy little row of buttons up the center and jeans. She’d taken off her shoes. While he watched, she lifted her arms, tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and absorbed the light of the moon.

  Her magic unfurled, rolling out and saturating the room.

  Cut her. Take it. Take the power. The whispers circled in his head. He didn’t have a knife, but he could break the sliding glass door and use the glass. He fought Darcy’s hold on him, but couldn’t break it.

  No. This is Carla, my Carla. He pounded her name into his sick brain, reminding himself how she had healed him on the astral plane, how much the sane part of him cared about her.

  “We were joined, then parted,” she said. “Forced to walk alone. With singular courage, the mirror of my soul came to me and I turned away. It’s my shame to bear …”

  Her voice choked and Sutton saw tears running down her face. She was so incredibly beautiful in that stream of moonlight, so pure in her craft, so goddamned honest in her words …

  “I beg the Ancestors, bring my soul mirror to me that I can make him whole. I give myself to him, skin to skin, heart to heart, soul to soul.”

  Her words hung suspended as Carla arched into the light of the moon.

  Then her powers ruptured the very air. The light by the bed went out. A wind rose and howled, blowing so strong that it pushed Axel and Darcy out the bedroom door and slammed it. Freed from Darcy’s hold on him, Sutton stayed rooted in the whirlwind of raw energy. The eagle on his back lifted its wings, trying to catch the currents of her witchcraft. Her powers swirled and danced on the wind, caressing him, touching him, filling him with the same pure light that bathed Carla.