Collide and Seek
Bitter Ashes ~ Book Two
Sara C Roethle
Copyright © 2016 by Sara C Roethle
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
1
The sensation of the plane bouncing on the tarmac woke me. It had been a trying few days, and the extra sleep on the plane was a welcome reprieve. I didn't mind lying on Alaric's shoulder either.
I still wasn't quite sure how to feel about him. Okay, I knew exactly how I felt. I just wasn't sure what to do about it. As much as I wanted to ignore the fact that he'd misled me about many things, and had allowed my torture, those two facts still ate at me.
Forgiveness is one thing. I'm great at forgiveness. Being an empath means I'm a seasoned pro at putting myself in the shoes of others. At some point I had relented to mostly forgive Alaric, but I couldn't forget what had happened, and I sure as hell couldn't trust him.
Betrayal is a funny thing. The sting of it often sticks with us longer than the thrill of love, the fire of hatred, or the emptiness of loss. Betrayal eats at us when we know we should be happy, and it overwhelms us when we're already sad.
I raised my head up from Alaric's shoulder as the plane came to a slow stop. He smiled down at me, unaware of my thoughts, and I couldn't help but smile in return. Despite everything, it felt good having him by my side. It would have felt even better if we were on a plane to some romantic destination, but we weren't.
Although, I suppose Norway could be romantic, given the right circumstances. The pictures I'd seen were gorgeous and fairytale-esque, and I was traveling there with a handsome man, but I'm pretty sure romantic vacations aren't supposed to include being hunted by supernatural beings while looking for a charm that's guarded by the dead. Running for your life is a major mood killer.
We waited while the rows of people ahead of us stood and un-stowed their luggage. I shifted uncomfortably, feeling trapped. Once there was enough room, I stood and glanced back toward James and Diana, wondering why each of them really wanted the charm, and to what lengths they would go to get it.
James pulled Diana's luggage down from the storage compartment. He had none of his own. In fact, he was still wearing the white tee-shirt he'd worn while he tortured me, just as I was still wearing a black dress with holes in it where he'd stabbed me. Luckily James had stolen me a long, black winter coat with faux fur trim around the hood. It hid my dress, but looked slightly out of place with my too-large hiking boots and thick winter socks.
Sophie waited in her seat across the aisle for James and Diana to get out of the way, pushing them closer toward me. Her original seat had been next to the unwelcome pair, but she'd managed to flirt her way into a seat trade, leaving James to sit next to a man who could have easily taken up two seats on his own. The man in question was still asleep in his seat by the window.
Squeezing past me, Alaric woke the man with a gentle shake of his shoulder, then signaled for him to move, much to the chagrin of the people behind us who would now have to wait even longer.
The line ahead of me moved and I scurried forward, eventually exiting the plane. It was a surreal feeling leaving the West Coast a few hours after dark to arrive in another country where evening had already come again. I'd never traveled such a long distance. Heck, I'd never traveled much at all. Living as a recluse with meager monetary means had prevented me from seeing much of the world.
My next shock came after we went through security and emerged into the cold night air. My coat was warm by West Coast standards, but it could not contend with the icy temperature of Oslo in late October. I clutched the meager protection closer to my body, but my bare legs still erupted in almost painful goosebumps.
James and Sophie stepped ahead of the rest of us, scanning the busy street like a pair of vengeful angels, dark and light, illuminated by the halo of a streetlamp. I could sense their nerves. We all knew Estus wouldn’t let us escape so easily.
Alaric, seeming unaffected, smiled and put an arm around me.
Diana tsked at us like we were all being silly children and went to the curb to hail a cab. She clutched a modern black cape around her small form, the fabric swirling around her legs in the cold breeze like it had a life of its own. Though she was small and elderly, with perfect gray, granny-styled hair, I would never mistake her for anything less dangerous than she was.
She was the sister of Aislin, ruler of several clans, which made her old, and we're talking centuries, not decades. Though I was yet to see her do anything out-rightly scary, the threat was always there. She was twenty times scarier than James, and he'd stabbed me and tormented me for fun.
A cab pulled up, and it became readily apparent there were five of us, and only four available seats.
“We'll wait for the next one,” Alaric announced, clearly referring to him, myself, and Sophie.
James smirked. “I don't think so. Madeline will come with us.”
My heart sped at the idea of being left alone in a cab with James and Diana, but Alaric stepped forward before I could move. “I'll go with you, and Maddy and Sophie will catch the next cab. You can kill me if they don't show up.”
My eyes widened, but I wasn’t about to argue.
With a curt nod, Diana climbed into the front seat of the cab while James put her suitcase in the trunk. Alaric gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then slid into the backseat after James. I touched my cheek where he'd kissed me, feeling a mixture of annoyance and apprehension.
Diana rolled down her window and relayed the address of the hotel, then suddenly we were left to wait for another cab by ourselves. It was the first time Sophie and I had been alone since she'd rejoined our party after leaving me to be tortured in her place. I crossed my arms and turned away from her, half-wishing I would have just gone with the others, leaving her to catch a cab on her own. It wouldn't compare to her leaving me in the Salr to face punishment for her crimes, but it was a start.
She sighed dramatically at my back. “How long are you going to ignore me? Maya left me. I think I've paid for my actions.”
I looked over my shoulder at her. “So because someone betrayed your trust, it makes it okay that you betrayed mine?”
“I said I'm sorry,” she snapped, quickly losing patience.
I turned away from her again and mumbled, “Barely.”
Another cab pulled up to the curb. I turned and followed Sophie as she opened the back door and climbed in. The heat inside was almost stifling, but felt good after standing on the chilly curb.
I would have been tempted to take my own cab, but one, I had already forgotten the address, and two, I had no money to pay the cab driver, so I was stuck with Sophie.
<
br /> The driver barely even looked at us as Sophie told him where to go. I crossed my arms again and stayed silent as he drove the cab through a few roundabouts leading out of the airport, then onto the highway. I had no idea how far away the hotel was, but I hoped it was close. Sophie was staring at me intently, her face a pale oval in the darkness of the cab, and I wasn't sure how long I'd be able to maintain the silent treatment.
“You would have done the same,” she said eventually.
I looked into her dark eyes, so similar to her brother's, and could see she really believed what she'd said.
I shook my head. “Not everyone is like you.”
“Look,” she sighed. “I said I was sorry. It's not something I say often, and I wouldn't have said it if I didn't mean it. What else do you want from me?”
Her emotions were intense enough at that moment that I could sense her frustration, and underneath it, guilt. She really did feel remorse over leaving me. It might not make up for the original act, but it was a start.
“Okay,” I replied.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Just . . . okay? Why don't you seem angry suddenly?”
I shrugged. “I know you regret leaving me. I’ll get over it . . . eventually.”
Sophie's eyes widened. “You empathed me! That's not fair.”
I rolled my eyes. “You know I can't help it. Strong emotions leak through whether I want them to or not.”
She harrumphed, then glanced at the driver as he swerved to the right and cut several people off so he could exit.
She turned back to me. “So you've forgiven my brother?”
I shook my head. “Not quite. Maybe with time.”
She shook her head in return. “I don't know how you do that.”
“Do what?”
“Forgive so easily,” she explained. “If I were you, I'd have already tried to kill me, and Alaric would have been dead the moment I saw his face. Not that I'm not grateful that you're not attacking me . . . ”
I shrugged again. “It's the empath thing. Trust me, I did want to kill Alaric, but guilt is a very strong emotion. So is fear. It's hard to blindly judge someone’s actions when you can literally feel what they are feeling.”
It was Sophie's turn to cross her arms. “I am not afraid.”
I laughed. “Oh please, you're terrified, and you're sad.”
She glared at me as the cab pulled into the parking lot of a large, well-lit, resort-style hotel. “I don't think I like you very much.”
I grinned. “And here you were just begging for my forgiveness.”
The cab halted, and I quickly opened the door and climbed out, leaving Sophie to pick up the tab.
“I was not begging!” she shouted after me.
I laughed as I walked across the asphalt toward the hotel. Torturing calm, cool, and collected Sophie with my empathic abilities was far more rewarding than snubbing her.
Alaric and James, who had been waiting outside the hotel lobby for us, came striding forward to meet me. The warmth I'd collected in the cab was quickly fading, and the expanses of surrounding near-darkness made me nervous. Anyone could be out there watching us, and we wouldn't even know. I gazed at the hotel longingly as the men reached me.
“Ms. Moneybags has us staying at the most expensive hotel in the country,” Alaric explained. He was still just dressed in his navy flannel and black jeans, unfazed by the cold.
“I wouldn't let Diana hear you calling her that,” James chided.
Sophie reached us, then breezed on by without a word, like a tall, dark, angry cloud.
Alaric watched his sister's back, then whispered, “You must tell me what you did to make her so angry.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, fighting shivers. “You wouldn't be able to pull it off. Now can we please go inside before I freeze to death?”
Alaric placed a hand at the small of my back and guided me forward. The building rose up in front of us as we neared. I counted ten stories, the exterior done in a crisp white that matched the surrounding patches of snow on the ground.
James strode past us toward Sophie.
Alaric smiled down at me. “We have our own room,” he said with a waggle of his eyebrows.
I stopped walking, though my bare legs were burning with cold. “Why?”
He shrugged, placing his hand against my back again to keep me walking. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say Diana is trying to play matchmaker, but I think she has much more nefarious plans in mind.”
My stomach lurched, but I kept walking. She was planning something, I knew it. But why the room? “If she’s manipulating us, shouldn’t we, I don’t know, not go along with it?”
“Why would I argue with plans that benefit me?” he said happily as the automatic glass doors slid open in front of us.
Some of the tension seeped out of my body once the doors slid shut behind us. The bellhop waiting inside gave us a strange look, probably due to our lack of luggage. The young man shrugged his narrow shoulders and sighed, then led us to a row of elevators. James and Sophie had already gone up, leaving us to ride up with the bellhop alone.
Alaric put an arm around my shoulders as the elevator lurched into motion.
I dutifully removed it, then took a step away, thinking that it was a really bad idea for us to share a room. Not only was Diana up to something, but I didn't fully trust myself. It had been impulsive to fall into bed with Alaric the first time, and I didn't want to be that stupid again. Of course, we still might die tomorrow. Normally it was wise to err on the side of caution, but was it really wise to make good life-choices when my life might not last much longer? Shouldn't I just enjoy being alive while I could?
Alaric could act like we weren't in danger all he liked, but I knew better. If Sophie was scared, it meant we were up a very smelly creek with no paddles, with plenty of holes in our boat. I'd seen first hand how Estus dealt with those who opposed him. If he found us and sent more of the Vaettir to capture us, we would all suffer very ugly ends.
The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. Without a glance in our direction, the silent bellhop led us down an extravagantly decorated hall to our room. He used a key card on the door, then handed it to Alaric as we entered. The room was bigger than my old house, with a full sitting area, king-sized bed, and a kitchenette partially obscured from view by bar-style seating, all done in delicate gold and pale blues.
My eyes scanned the room, then came back to rest on the bed. They lingered there, then went back to the couch. It looked comfortable enough.
Alaric tipped the bellhop, then urged him out of the room. Once we were alone, Alaric walked past me to flop down on the bed. He laid on his back with his arms behind his head, watching me as I took a closer look around the room.
“So what do you want to do?” he asked eventually, putting emphasis on the word do, to make it seem dirty.
I walked past one of the cushy chairs on either side of the couch to peek into the bathroom. “I think we're here to find the charm, so that's what I want to do.”
“Diana claims the location is very near, but she doesn't know exactly how near,” he explained, “she needs time to pinpoint it, which means we have some time to kill.”
I glared at him. “Stop emphasizing random words to make them seem sexy.”
He grinned. “Is it working? Are my words . . . sexy?”
I shook my head and turned away from him.
In an instant he was up off the bed and at my side, moving a lock of my dark brown hair behind my shoulder to bare the side of my neck, grazing his fingers across my skin as he went. It might have been a sexual gesture if he wasn’t watching me with such a concerned look on his face.
“I take it your attitude means I'll be sleeping on the floor again,” he said softly.
I glanced at him, but didn't pull away. I had to audibly gulp before I could answer, “I'll take the couch this time. It's only fair since I had the bed at Diana's.”
He let my h
air fall from his grasp, then took my hand into his grip instead. He kissed my knuckles one by one, then answered, “As you wish.”
I slowly pulled my hand away. “Why are you being so agreeable?”
He glanced into the large bathroom that boasted a full-size jacuzzi tub as well as a glass-walled shower. “I think I'll take a bath.”
I crossed my arms. “You didn't answer me.”
“I don't suppose you'd like to join me?” he asked, still not answering me.
“We don't have any clean clothes,” I commented. If he wasn't going to answer me, I wasn't going to answer him either.
Alaric shrugged and walked into the bathroom. “It's late. We'll buy you a whole new wardrobe in the morning.”
I stayed where I was standing and glared at his back. “Some jeans and a sweater would suffice.”
He began to unbutton his shirt with his back still to me. As the fabric fell to the floor, I blushed and turned away, marching dutifully over to the couch to turn on the TV. The screen came to life. The commercial that came on was in Norwegian, obviously, but it didn't matter because I was so distracted by the sound of Alaric filling up the bathtub that I wouldn't have been able to concentrate on it regardless.
“Maddy?” Alaric called out.
“Yes?” I asked hesitantly.
“Come keep me company.”
My mouth suddenly went dry. I cleared my throat. “I don't think so.”
“Do you really find it entertaining to watch a show in a language you don't speak?” he pressed.
I glanced at the TV screen again, then back to the open bathroom door.
“I'll be a perfect gentleman,” he added. “Scout's honor.”
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