Rising Ashes

by Annie Anderson

  I think this as I play with her graceful fingers. I’ve seen those tiny little digits play the piano like it was an extension of her body. I’ve seen her whip a violin into submission. I’ve seen those pale hands all over my body, always moving, playing, waving – never stopping even in sleep.

  I miss their movement.

  Just as I think this, the index finger of her left hand twitches. Then, she sits up in her hospital bed like she’s rising from a nightmare.

  Thankful, I reach for her, but when she sees me, she flinches back. It’s then that I notice some serious problems. One, the Nicola I know is blind. She was born that way. Two, the Nicola I know has cornflower blue eyes. This woman can most assuredly see me, and her eyes are an odd honey brown – the same color Iva’s were when she took Nic over.

  “Nicola, sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re in the hospital, baby,” I try and soothe her, holding her hand even as she tries to back away, but she looks confused.

  “Th-that’s not my name,” she says, and with a feeling of dread, I ask the question I’m not sure I want the answer to.

  “What is your name then?” I ask calmly as I push the nurse call button.

  “It’s… Well… I-I don’t know,” she answers frowning at the white hospital blankets.

  Wonderful.

  THE END

  Don’t miss the next book in the series!

  SMOLDERING ASHES

  SMOLDERING ASHES

  ASHES TO ASHES - BOOK 4

  Kyle Brennan can't catch a break.

  After centuries without a mate, he finally found his only to have her ripped away from him. But the woman who came back doesn't remember the first thing about him. Kyle doesn't know this woman, and he's not so sure he wants to.

  Nicola Miller has a big problem.

  She can't remember a single second of her life before she woke up in a hospital bed in Knoxville, Tennessee. Not just that, but she has a huge, hulking man in her hospital room claiming to be her husband - a man she obviously doesn't know. She's not sure how things could get any worse.

  But the last shards of Nicola's life are about to be burned to the ground. Because someone has to pay for the sins of the past, and she's wearing the face of the woman who committed them.

  It looks like the last of their luck has just run out.

  PROLOGUE - NICOLA – BEFORE

  I never saw him coming.

  Just my luck, I suppose, I would find my love when I knew I wasn’t long for this world.

  Getting a mate before my inevitable end seemed like a horrible thing at first, but I couldn’t help the slight niggles of happiness which broke through the wall around my heart.

  I’d built that wall myself out of the broken promises and lies told to me in my youth. It kept me safe – staved off the loneliness and heartbreak – but it didn’t keep him out.

  My visions all but dried up nearly a month ago, but I knew from all the ones before Iva worked the forbidden magic which damned my sight I wasn’t going to make it. Three centuries seemed so long and so short all at the same time. How could I have had so much time on this earth and wasted it? Is this what humans feel like when approached with a terminal illness? Do they lament the time they spent on trivial matters and wish they’d done more?

  Do they have so much regret?

  Everything I’d done, every single atrocity and willful neglect – all of the things I could have prevented, the lives I could have saved – made me the worst sort of person. But I did them all knowing I was saving my race. Sure, I had dirt under my nails, but all my toils wouldn’t be for nothing.

  I hoped.

  Time was speeding by, and I wanted to experience everything I’d been denied. I wasn’t going to feel the perfection of an evil put to death or the purity of wrongs being righted. I wasn’t going to see my greatest sin washed from my soul. But I could have a little bit of happiness before I went, and with my plan in place and the first domino about to fall… Time was a luxury I no longer had.

  Then, he came along with his hulking presence and soft, rumbling voice and death seemed like a blessing and a curse. A blessing because I hadn’t had much happiness in my life and he seemed like a gift given to me at the very last second. But a curse as well because I wasn’t going to get to keep him. I didn’t deserve him and I never would, and the burn of losing him – even if it was in my own death – seemed hotter than any flame I could produce.

  But he didn’t need to know, and since my time was coming to a close, he didn’t have to. I could flit in and out of his long life and be no more than a blip. Yes. I could do that. I could love him to distraction, lose myself in the beautiful newness of a fleeting love, and no one would be the wiser. Especially him. It would be the one gift I could give myself – a single bit of happiness in a rather difficult and awful life.

  I wasn’t as limited as I’d let everyone believe. Sure, I’m blind in the most basic of senses, but the beauty of being an Oracle is it didn’t matter. I saw so much more with my mind; I didn’t need my eyes. But he came after my visions dried up, and of all the things I saw, of all the events I foretold…

  I didn’t see him. And I should have.

  Maybe if I’d have seen him, I would have done things differently.

  NICOLA – AFTER

  The darkness blanketing me didn’t seem safe. There were things lurking here, evil things, horrible things. Things who whispered in my ear about murder and blood and death. They told me horrific tales of slain children and bloodied sacrifices and ripping the very fabric of the afterlife to shreds.

  I wanted out of this darkness – out of the blackness and thick, oily dank of the hell imprisoning me. I was scared – lost and detached from reality and my body, and all I wanted was to make it to the light.

  I clawed and scratched and screamed, but I couldn’t find a way out of the darkness. In the back of my mind, I knew I belonged here. I knew I deserved this prison. I couldn’t remember what I’d done, but I knew… I knew it was a price I had to pay.

  And I paid – minute after minute, day after day, month after month – until time lost its meaning and I fell asleep in the cold darkness of my own hell.

  CHAPTER ONE - NICOLA – AFTER

  I come back to myself slowly – painfully – in fits and starts of consciousness. Feeling my heart first, the slow plodding of a body in rest, then the cool stagnant air of a closed room on my skin. The rough but soft bedding surrounding my legs and then the thing that makes my eyes flash open in fear – the warm heat of a hand on mine. I sit up as if I was shot from a cannon, my eyes flashing open for the first time in what feels like a long time.

  I can’t remember what I’m so afraid of...

  My mind trills with the alarm of danger, but I can’t place where it’s coming from or why. As my eyes scan the dim room, they instantly snag on the form of a man standing next to me. His body is enormous, standing several inches over six feet, his legs encased in dark denim and feet shod in dangerous black boots. His hair, which is trapped beneath the raised hood of his sweater, is not quite black but close enough to be confused for it, matching the thick but groomed beard decorating his jaw. His eyes, which are locked on me, are the color of a decadent milk chocolate. His hands reach for me, and my first feeling is fear – dark and clawing – and I rear back, pressing myself into the pillows of the narrow bed I’m sitting on.

  Vaguely, my mind latches onto the fact that this is a hospital, but I’m not sure if I’m right or if this is a dream or if I really am in the danger my heart and mind are screaming at me I’m in.

  “Nicola, sweetheart, it’s okay. You’re in the hospital, baby,” his rough voice says soothingly, but I am not soothed. I am nowhere near the realm of soothed. It doesn’t matter that this forbidding man has a voice that calls to me. The name he called me doesn’t sound right, for one, and as handsome as this man is, I have no idea who he is supposed to be to me. He has to be in the wrong room, right?

  Right?

  He grabs my hand, g
ently closing his large fingers over mine, and although the heat of him is nice – almost calming – I don’t want this stranger touching me. I don’t want him looking at me like this – the wary hesitance on his bearded face is twisting my stomach in knots and the name he called me…

  That’s not me. That’s not my name.

  “Th-that’s not my name,” I tell him as I shake my head. He has it wrong. The wrong room or wrong woman or something. His face is wrong, his expression is hurt mixed with longing and something worse – fear.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  “What is your name then?” he asks, his voice calm and controlled as he presses the square orange button on the bedrail. I follow the motion of his hand as he stabs the button, trying to think…

  “It’s… Well…” I pause, concentrating on a fact which should be so easy to remember, but all I come up with is… nothing.

  “I-I don’t know,” I stutter frowning at the white coverlet warming my legs.

  I want to say I was holding it together. I want to say my brain went right to denial – which would have helped the situation vastly – that I didn’t feel a burning ache in my chest from fear and uncertainty, and Fates knew what else.

  But I do – I do feel the ache of loss, of confusion, of unbridled fear.

  I don’t know my name. How can I not know my name? And who is he? Why is he looking at me like this? What happened to me?

  I feel the burn of my breaths coming too fast and my heart pounding too hard. The room begins to spin.

  I can’t get air… No air… I don’t want to go back to the darkness. Nonononononononononono…

  The man starts yelling – first at me to breathe and then at the closed door, roaring for help. But his voice is fading, and the room’s lights dim further, my sight tunneling to pinpoints. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why the fact I’m seeing the light sticks in my mind just before I pass out.

  I come to with much less fanfare than the last time. The man isn’t there, but a tall, auburn-haired woman is folded in the bedside chair, her eyes closed and her breaths coming in the deep pulls of sleep. Her head is at such an odd angle, resting on her bent, scrub-covered knees as she sleeps curled into an awkward ball in the seat.

  I don’t want to wake her, but there are a few issues I need to worry about. First, I seem to be attached to this bed by a thick padded cuff on each wrist. This is concerning on so many levels, I’m not sure my brain is taking the time to process it. Second, the original problem of not knowing who I am or where I am or why I’m here is still an issue. A major one. I hate not knowing myself, I hate not knowing how I got here. I clear my throat, realizing too late that at some point I must have been screaming because my throat is on fire.

  What the hell happened to me?

  The woman comes awake with a start, jumping from her curled ball to her feet with a preternatural grace, her eyes flashing a phosphorescent green. It should worry me. It really should, but for some reason, it doesn’t.

  “You’re not human,” I hoarsely croak, stating the obvious. Her lips stretch into a sardonic smile, and it takes her beauty up about ten notches. Her large, almost feline eyes have faded to an odd shade of amber, framed by thick, dark lashes, and she doesn’t have a stitch of makeup on her face.

  “Neither are you,” she returns, her voice a husky alto. This information is not shocking – just like her fantastical jump to her feet, I am not moved. I must have known this before.

  Before, I internally scoff. I already hate the word, but I think I need to know a bit more about this ‘before’ because my brain is not supplying anything other than an extreme lack of shock.

  “Are you a healer?” I ask on a wince. What the hell happened to my voice? The woman nods as she pours water into a small blue plastic cup on a rolling bedside table. She eyes my wrists for a moment and plops the pitcher back on the surface with an indelicate thunk.

  “My name is Willa, I’m your physician. If I remove your restraints, do you promise not to harm yourself?” she asks with a raised eyebrow. Her eyebrow tells me my answer better be yes, and then her question finally starts to make sense in my head.

  I hurt myself? On purpose?

  I feel my eyes widen in the surprise I should have had for her jump or her non-human statement, and I quickly nod. Her swift, efficient fingers have my wrists free in mere seconds, but better, her voice prattles on with information. Any and all information is helpful at this point.

  “I removed your Foley after your first wake-up call,” she says as she moves from my wrists to wave a penlight in front of my eyes. “You’ve been here for about four months. We weren’t sure if you’d ever wake up. Normally, someone of your species should have been up and about ages ago – a week at most, but you’re not healing as fast as you should.”

  Her statement stops me. I have no idea what I am.

  “Species?” I ask.

  “You have no idea, do you?”

  “I don’t even know my own name, so no, I have absolutely no fucking idea what’s going on. Care to share with the class?” I snap. I don’t want to snap at her, but I just want to know all of the shit I don’t know already.

  “Snarky. I like it. I can work with snark, just no more screaming, mmm-kay?”

  So this explains what happened to my throat.

  “Deal,” I reply and Willa holds out the cup as I take a healthy swig. The cool water hits my throat, easing the burn.

  “Your name is Nicola. The man who was here before? His name is Kyle. He’s your husband.”

  “Don’t start off small, Willa. Jesus,” a rumbling voice sounds from the doorway.

  The man – Kyle – is in the same clothes as the last time, but his hood has been lowered, giving him a slightly less sinister quality and he now has a pair of thick-framed glasses perched on his nose. His hair is a rumpled mess, as if he has run his hands through it, slept on it, electrocuted himself and possibly took a stroll through a hurricane. He is haggard – probably hasn’t slept at all in who knows how long, and immediately I want to give him a hug, make him some food and offer the bed to him so he can get some damn rest.

  I want to be freaked at the husband comment Willa threw out there like it was no big deal, but I don’t think I can be. Why else would he be here? Why else would he come back? And why do I want to comfort him?

  “Of all the information I need to know, a husband would be at the top of the list, don’t you think?” I retort with a shrug.

  “You aren’t surprised?” Kyle asks.

  “I’m finding very few things have surprised me thus far. Can you come in and take a load off? You look like you’ve been put through the wringer twice.”

  I get a scowl, a grunted affirmative and a slow shuffle-walk to the bedside chair Willa vacated. In my bones, I know the shuffle is a ruse. He’s moving slowly on purpose so I won’t freak out. Standing, he has to be closer to seven feet than to six, but I can tell his height and the considerable bulk to his muscles do not hinder his speed in the slightest.

  “While all this is well and good, you still haven’t told me how I got here or what I am.” The question leaves my mouth without thought, and when they exchange a wary glance, I’m not sure I want to know anymore.

  NICOLA – NEW ENGLAND 1723

  I ran as fast as my little feet could carry me through the brush, stumbling to my hands and knees more times than I could count. Every single day I breathed, I cursed my visions and my sightless eyes, but on days like today, I wished for death more and more.

  If I could die – which it seemed I couldn’t – I hoped it would be painless, but I had seen death over and over again, and I knew better. Branches whipped my cheeks, stones gouged my feet, but still I ran. Those switches were nothing compared to the danger behind me. He was coming, and he would do horrible things to me when I wouldn’t tell him what was to pass.

  Didn’t he know? I only told death stories, and if death was not to pass, I couldn’t tell anyone anything. He’d tried cutti
ng the visions out of me, tried breaking my bones, starving me – but I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t know.

  At first, he called me a devil. Told me I was made of fire and I would bring him death. I’d been drawn to the woman I saw in my vision – not him. She was dying very soon, bound and shackled in a horrific prison where her breaths became more and more labored and her broken body had to fight minute by minute just to keep going. I knew if I were near, she could return to the sky – I could help this good woman start again. I remembered the rites my mother said when papa passed, they were the only good things I remembered about her since she abandoned me in this new place to survive on my own. Every time I saw a good soul die in my visions, I would try to help them move on.

  He’d caught me freeing the woman – her body already gone, but her soul was safe now that I’d saved it. He saw my wings, my fire and told me I was of the fallen. When he realized my blindness, he called me Oracle – he said I could tell him his future.

  I couldn’t. I could only tell him death.

  And then the torture started. He must not have had manacles small enough for my eight-year-old wrists – or maybe he did but once he’d starved me for a month, my already thin wrists were able to slip from the irons and I was free.

  But not if he caught me.

  I felt the air change, the rush of water met my ears just before the fresh, salty smell of the ocean hit my nose. I ran faster until the ground seemed to dip beneath my feet. I tripped again, sliding at breakneck speeds through the rocks toward the sound of crashing waves.

  But then cool, slender hands caught me. They weren’t his hands – this I knew.

  “Do not worry, child. I have come to help you,” a woman’s voice crooned as she hugged me to her chest. Her accent was Irish and as soft as a cool summer breeze.