Bound to His Redemption

by Lisa Kumar

  “A set of unfortunate circumstances,” he said off-handedly, but she didn’t miss the way his lips tightened.

  “Well, who’s to say bad circumstances won’t find you here? After all, I think you’re a trouble magnet.”

  He remained silent for several moments, not lifting his head but looking at her through his lashes. “I’m certainly a magnet of some sort.” As if his mood had flip-flopped to the other end of the continuum, he brought his head up and waggled his brows.

  On almost anybody else, the gesture would’ve appeared supremely silly. As it was, she still had to fight back the unwilling giggle that worked its way up her throat. She saw where this was going, though. He was flirting to distract her.

  Though she’d much prefer a flirtatious Eamon to a furious one, she had to persist in her questioning. Otherwise, she’d never learn anything, at least not in a timely fashion where it could do her a bit of good. “We need to talk about what has happened ... in your past. How else can I help you? Don’t you want to get back home?” she said, holding out a placating hand.

  The smile slid from his face, and anger usurped the pleasantness that had been there. Pushing himself off the doorjamb, he stalked the short distance to her. “So you wish to know all about my dark, sordid past?”

  Shock froze her feet solidly to the ground. She gulped, her voice deserting her.

  A sinister grin stretched Eamon’s lips. His hands shot out and grabbed her by the elbows. “Well, then, come along. I would so hate to disappoint you.”

  Oh, damn. Maybe her insistence on talking hadn’t been so wise.

  He let go of one elbow so he could clamp his arm about her waist. Before she could even squeak out a protest, he propelled them through the doorway and into the hallway. Though she dragged her feet, his strong grip pulled her right along. It was like trying to stop a surging river. All she could do was go along with the flow and hope she survived.

  EAMON’S RAGE GAVE SPEED to his feet. If Caralyn really wanted to know about things better left buried, he’d tell her. Oh, he’d tell her. Let her see if she’ll be able to sleep after seeing the monster. Because underneath it all, that was what he was. He knew it — all of Eria knew it. Only had his mother ever believed the best of him. But she was dead, and any goodness in Eamon’s life had perished the day the human’s sword took her life.

  He was a cold-hearted bastard. It was time he acted like it.

  After all but shoving Caralyn down onto the sofa, he loomed above her. His vantage point over her should only serve to increase her fear. Even when he was in a good mood, people often found him frightening, so he could only guess how he appeared at the moment.

  Judging by her white face, she wasn’t feeling so confident now. A sick gratification twisted in his chest. But it didn’t bring him any happiness, only satisfaction that he was right. He wasn’t a person to befriend, to look at in concern.

  He was a monster. And it was time to show just how much he was one.

  He bent down until his face was level with hers. She shrank away until she was plastered against the back of the sofa and could go no farther. And still he gave her no leeway. “You want to know about my past, the things I’ve done? You truly want to know how I corrupted my own people? How once turned, they’d not hesitate to corrupt their brother, their mother, or cousin?” Rage made his voice quiver.

  Caralyn stared at him with wide, astonished eyes. Her mouth worked wordlessly for several moments. Then her pink tongue swiped at her lips, and she seemed to gather herself. “That sounds terrible, but surely there was more to it? What was your reasoning for doing all that?”

  Sending her a nasty smile, he straightened. “Who said I had a reason? Maybe I craved death and destruction.” He strode to the nearest chair and draped himself across it, crossing one leg over the other.

  Caralyn kept regarding him with those troubled, soulful hazel eyes of hers that seemed to change color based on her mood. Soulful? When had her eyes — or for that matter, any female’s eyes — become soulful? And that garbage about them changing color to reflect her mood? He didn’t spout off such romantic nonsense, not even to himself. Except with her, Caralyn, he did. God, he sounded like that dimwit Kenhel waxing poetic about something asinine. That sent his hackles soaring in a way little else could.

  “I don’t think that was the original intent.”

  Her quiet words only fanned his ire. How dare she presume so much, as if she knew him? Worse, she wasn’t entirely incorrect in her assumptions. “How did you deduce that? Are you now a mind reader?”

  She shrugged one shoulder in a clueless gesture. “I don’t know why I think that. I just do. You’re not a warm and fuzzy person.” A slightly hysterical-sounding snort left her lips. “Boy, are you ever not that. But I also don’t see you doing anything on a mass scale without some kind of deep thought and a whole slew of burning motivations. Though your reasoning might’ve not made sense to most people, I think it did to you. That’s what drove you, and not mere death and chaos.”

  He clapped slowly, putting as much derision into the action as he could. “You should be a mind healer. The things you spout are worthy of one.”

  “Mock me all you like, but if I wasn’t so close to the truth, you wouldn’t be so defensive,” she said, shaking her head.

  “You know nothing about me. Nothing.”

  “I think I know far more than you’d like. It doesn’t take a genius to work out some of the details surrounding you.”

  “Since you claim to know everything, why persist in questioning me?” he asked, his tone snide.

  Caralyn just looked at him for a few infinitely long seconds before gazing at the ceiling as if some kind of guidance could be sought there. “I didn’t say I know everything. You’re twisting my words. What I can sense about you is very general. I can’t guess at your motivations. I barely know a thing about all the events that have colored your life, for the better or worse. But, apparently, it leans toward the worse, or you wouldn’t have admitted to corrupting some of your people. And you surely wouldn’t be sitting on a chair in my living room.”

  Her low, soothing voice held a tremor that couldn’t be hidden. This time around, however, her words diffused some of his anger. Instead of boiling under his skin, it merely smoldered. “My past isn’t one I share with anyone.” He leaned his head back against the chair and stared at a nearby painting on the wall.

  “Maybe you should.”

  He turned his head to regard her. “Why? It won’t change a thing. It won’t cleanse the blood on my hands, it won’t return my childhood to me, and it most certainly won’t bring back people who should’ve never died.” Like my mother.

  “No, but sometimes it can help give a sense of closure, which can be freeing.”

  He grunted. Maybe she was right, or maybe it would only rip wide-open the chasm of nightmares that he fought to keep at bay. Still, he’d wanted to prove something to her — that he wasn’t a person who needed acceptance and understanding. He needed nothing and no one, least of all a human woman who seemed misguided enough to think he needed saving.

  But in the spilling of his past, would he shred what was left of his soul? Not that it truly mattered because something would take the rest of it sooner or later. Anyway, he could selectively edit what he did tell. Right now, he’d rather rip off all his fingernails than tell her of his secret shame, even if she could guess it. Before her, the only one who’d suspected was Andrian, the very public figurehead of the soon-to-be corrupted darkindred. At the time, Eamon had believed that had been one too many people. Now those times suddenly didn’t seem so bad.

  Still, he thought it only fair to warn her about what he would tell her. “It’s not a tale of happiness or light.”

  She nodded readily, lines of unhappiness on her face. “I never thought it would be.”

  A grim smile tugged at his lips. Naturally, that would be her belief. By the sounds of it, she’d drawn pictures of some of Serrina’s more inventive sessio
ns with him. Which reminded him — he needed to find those drawings and destroy them. His shame should remain his own. The idea of anyone viewing those scenes, especially Caralyn, twisted him into a knot of mortification and rage. But the drawings were a concern for another time.

  With a ragged breath, he shoved his feelings to the side. “Then let us begin.”

  Chapter 16

  Fear and expectation fizzed through Caralyn’s veins as she stared at Eamon’s indolent figure sprawled across one of her chairs. Whatever he would relay was sure to be unpleasant, maybe even downright scary. She didn’t even know why she cared so much. Sure, what he said might help her to understand the danger he brought, but the tension coiling around her felt far more personal than she would’ve preferred. Or possibly the reason why she cared was because she hated seeing anyone hurt or mistreated. From what Eamon had already said, someone had sure mistreated him.

  Eamon expelled a long-suffering sigh. “The people I led, the people I corrupted, are called the darkindred.” He paused, a funny expression crossing his face. “Or at least they were named that, though I wasn’t the one to give them that moniker. Who knows if they’ve decided to change their name now that they’ve been freed.”

  Startled, she cocked her head to the side. “They’ve been freed?” Though it stood to reason, she hadn’t considered that possibility before.

  “In a fashion. They’re still tied to the orb, the power source that made them corruptible, but no longer are they under my power.”

  His words raised more questions than they answered. “How does that all work? If they’re free, why aren’t they totally free? And how did you corrupt them?”

  “Supposedly, since I was the wielder of the orb, it was my hate and anger that tainted the orb’s power. The original people in the group had been outlaws, but after they were ... changed, they could turn others into what they were.”

  He spoke so indifferently, as if he was discussing the weather, but she wasn’t fooled. Tension lay underneath his carefully crafted façade.

  “How did you get this orb?” she asked, her voice faint.

  “I took it.”

  Oh Lord, this just kept getting better and better. Not. “You stole it from someone?”

  He smiled, showing his white, even teeth. Funny how his smile reminded her of a wolf getting ready to raid the henhouse.

  “If that’s what you want to call it,” he said.

  The tension in the room ramped higher. She swallowed. “You don’t sound very sorry.”

  “At the time I wasn’t.”

  She was afraid of his answer but asked anyway. “But you are now?”

  He waved a hand around the room. “Well, look how it turned out.”

  “I hope you mean the whole situation, and not that you’re complaining about your bad fortune at staying with me.”

  “Of course not. Though your apartment is certainly no palace, I have my very own human to soften the blow.”

  She stiffened. “Excuse me? I’m not a pet or a servant.”

  Propping his chin on his fist, he raised a brow. “Are you not? Do you not see to my needs?”

  Her hands fisted. “I’m about to kick your sorry behind right out the door.”

  Instead of faltering, his smugness grew. “You’re so delightfully easy to tease.”

  “And you’re such a jerk.”

  “I’ve become acquainted with that word during my stay in your lovely town. I don’t necessarily see it as an insult.”

  His arrogance truly had no boundaries. “You wouldn’t, would you?” Turning her focus back to more pressing matters, she asked, “Why did you steal the orb?”

  Eamon shrugged one shoulder. “Who knows? Maybe for greed, for power? For revenge?” he mused. “Probably for all those reasons and myriad other ones.”

  “Revenge against whom?”

  “My family was a powerful one, second only to the royal family.” A sneer flashed across his face as he spoke his next sentence. “In fact, my dear aunt married the king.”

  So much venom came leaking through his words that Caralyn gaped at him. But he didn’t appear to notice just how much he’d involuntarily given away. “You don’t appear to be a fan of either the king or your aunt.”

  “My aunt is dead,” he said flatly. His eyes flashed with anger, but it quickly vanished. “And Talion ... Well, our hate is mutual.”

  “So you did it to get back at the king? And your father? From what little you’ve said of him, I take it you don’t like him.”

  With alarming speed, he propelled himself out of the chair and started to pace around the room. “How very observant. Your astuteness astounds me.”

  Though it would be wiser to proceed carefully, the words slipped out. “You don’t have to be a jerk, you know.”

  He continued his prowl around the room. “Am I being one by stating the obvious?”

  She didn’t reply, not wanting to hear more of his biting tongue. Though he mostly remained in her line of sight, the times he disappeared behind her caused discomfort to bubble up.

  By now, she was sure he wouldn’t physically hurt her without good cause. Then the ridiculousness of that thought hit her. What was “good cause” to him? He seemed to judge everything by a slippery set of morals she couldn’t even begin to sort out. An ice-cold shiver wound up her spine. No matter what, the feeling of having a walking volcano stalking around her was unsettling.

  His voice broke the silence that had engulfed them. “My father had his uses, and I had mine in his plans. However, it’s better that a dimension separates us at the moment.”

  “But does it? Separate you, I mean?”

  A sourness filled his face. “I don’t know. As long as he stays out of my path, though, I don’t care.”

  “Kaiden West seemed to believe your father’s up to no good here and that it’ll affect both our dimensions.”

  “So what if my father’s here? I have no love for Talion or the rest of his family. As for Earth, it can burn for all I care.”

  His cold-bloodedness chilled her. Did he feel nothing but hate, anger, and lust? “H ... how can you say that?”

  “Easy.” He halted in front of her, and a mocking smile curved his lips. “You don’t think I’ve suddenly grown something like a conscience, do you?”

  “No, never that,” she choked out. What a fool she’d been to think he had anything resembling a heart. That she — No, just the thought of what they’d done made her sick. “But if both worlds burn, as you so eloquently put it, where will you go?”

  He spun on his heel, turning away from her. “I survive. I always do.”

  “So you only care about yourself?”

  Eamon stopped at a decorative table near the wall and picked up a small statue of a little girl. Lifting it up and down, he appeared to be gauging its weight. “If I don’t, who will? Since my people cast me out, I owe loyalty to no one.”

  An unwitting twinge of empathy tugged at her. That was a cynical and dismal way to look at life. Had no one truly cared for him? His father sounded like a monster, but what about his mother? He mentioned her even less than he did his father.

  “What about your mother? Surely, you feel something for her?”

  His hand froze. Then he sat the porcelain figure back before slowly facing her. “Do not talk about my mother.

  She was either stupid or suicidal, but she couldn’t let it go. “Why? It’s merely a simple question.”

  He stormed over to her, menace in every step. “A simple question? Are you so sure about that?”

  On instinct, she stood. It didn’t help, though. He still towered over her like a dark mountain. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips. “It seems like one.”

  “To you, it would.” He sneered at her. “You want to know how your kind murdered her? Tortured and took sport from her until they slit her throat?”

  She gulped in the face of his anger and hurt. “I didn’t know. I’m ...” She was what? Sorry? That sounded so inadeq
uate.

  “And like a silly girl, you just had to ask and dredge up the past when you have no idea what it contains.” He hauled her to him, the line of his body rigid against hers. His arms quivered as if he had to physically restrain his fury.

  Her throat tightened as tears pricked at her eyes. “I’m just trying to understand.”

  “Understand what?” he asked with a glower.

  “What drives you to do the things you do.”

  He exhaled sharply, and his hands loosened around her arms, sliding down a few inches to above her elbows. “Who says everything has a good reason?”

  She ignored how the touch of his fingers seared through the sleeves of her pajama top. “I don’t think you’re as wicked as you pretend to be.”

  “Oh, really?”

  God, why was she even saying this? She didn’t know him. Maybe he was as evil as he portrayed himself to be. Call her crazy ... “Yes.”

  He tilted his head to the side and studied her. “I cannot tell if you’re merely unusually optimistic or truly mad.”

  “Maybe both,” she said and couldn’t stop the rueful smile she gave him.

  “Indeed.” He released her and stepped back.

  A sense of loss, of coldness, hit her. She rubbed her arms to ward it away. Though she hated to possibly rile him again, she needed to know what he was going to do about his father. He couldn’t just ignore the other elf’s presence, no matter how much he wanted to. “Please, you have to find out what your father’s doing. At the very least, don’t you want to know what trouble he might bring your way?”

  “He’s always bringing trouble my way,” he muttered. With a huff, he slouched onto the couch. “Well, are you going to sit? I don’t like having to stare up at you.”

  She snorted. He probably didn’t like having to look up at anyone. It’d hurt his huge ego. “Yes, my lord and master.”

  She sat next to him but made sure more than a few inches separated them. Any closer would be too suggestive, and anything farther would be a dead giveaway that she was nervous about his close proximity.