Bound by Legend: A Bound Novel (20 page)

“WHAT?” LUCIAN LOOKED
up, confusion on his face for a moment before it cleared. “Morgan, we don’t have to leave this instant. It will take a little bit to make arrangements and you will need a suitcase.”

“Arrangements? Suitcase?” It was her turn to be confused. “What is there to arrange? And if you think I’m dragging a suitcase all over the streets you’re insane. I would get robbed my first night out. My backpack will do fine, thank you.”

“We aren’t going to live on the streets.” He stood as well.

“We?” Wait, did he mean he planned to go with her? Morgan shook her head and started for the door. “Lucian I can’t ask you to be constantly displaced.”

His large hand on her arm stopped her. “Yes, we. You aren’t asking me to do anything. You’re my channel. As long as I’m with you, I’m not displaced.”

Her skin tingled where his fingers wrapped around her forearm and warmth spread through her traitorous body and heart. Morgan looked up at his face, struck by the sincerity in his eyes and voice.

“You would give up all of this to become a nomad with me?” she asked, gesturing toward the house.

“This is why I exist. I have no care for this house. It doesn’t matter where we are as long as I can protect you.”

For some reason, his answer left an odd emptiness in her heart. Of course he would follow her. He was bound by divine order to protect her with everything in his power up to and including giving his own life. It was his duty. He may be physically attracted to her, but it didn’t go any deeper than that. And that was fine. It was exactly how she wanted it…wasn’t it?

Pulling away from him, she walked into the house, the interior dim and dark compared to the bright sunlight outside. “You better start making whatever arrangements you have planned.”

The smell of hamburgers and french-fries wafted from a paper bag lying on its side on the table. Morgan motioned toward it as he followed her inside. “You didn’t tell me you went and got food.”

“I smelled the sulfur the moment I stepped in the house. I tossed it there on my way through. I was more concerned with finding you dead or gone. I guess it slipped my mind after I found you.” He pulled his cell from his pocket and started tapping the screen with his thumb. “I’m going to grab my laptop.”

Morgan opened the fridge and pulled out a couple of sodas as he walked toward the stairs. After settling at the table, she opened the bag and pulled out the contents. Two cheeseburgers and two large fries. She set his near his soda can then unwrapped her own. He was back quickly, open laptop in one hand, phone pressed to his ear with the other.

While he made various hotel reservations, Morgan wolfed down her food.

Lucian finally set his phone down and pulled his cheeseburger and fries closer. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

He shook his head and grabbed a fry. “You’re so calm about all of this. Most channels would be terrified after having a hound that close.”

Morgan snorted and emptied the rest of her fries onto her cheeseburger wrapper. “I was scared to death while they were here. After I saw the paw prints, the fear just went away.”

“It just went away?” He watched her with a careful expression as if he thought she was insane, or maybe he was waiting for her to go ahead and fall apart.

She shrugged. “It occurred to me that if the hounds want me dead, they will kill me and there’s practically nothing anyone can do about it. Why worry about it?”

“Most would.” He popped two fries in his mouth.

“Yeah, well didn’t I tell you I was freak?” She took a drink of her soda.

Lucian scowled and swallowed. “You aren’t a freak. Just made of sturdier stuff than most.”

“I’ve already been in a place where I really thought I was going to die. Once you’ve been there, it’s hard to get excited about it when it confronts you again,” Morgan said as she sorted her fries into like sized piles for no reason other than it gave her something to do besides look at him. That had just kind of slipped out; it wasn’t something she’d meant to say.

“You should never have had to face demons alone for so many months,” he growled, his voice rough with some unidentifiable emotion. Anger, sorrow, a mix?

Relief seeped through her that he had misunderstood. “It was what it was. I survived.”

“You did. I still wish you would have sought out Damien and Isobel.”

Morgan swiped a fry absently through the ketchup making little red designs on the wrapped with it.

“It was better for everyone that I didn’t,” she mumbled.

“Why?”

She looked up, his eyes held hers and the deep ache inside that wanted her to tell him everything rose up. The other part of her, the more rational part, that understood just how thin a thread her emotions walked, pushed back. She dropped her eyes, abandoned her ketchup sodded fry and shoved away from the table.

“Don’t worry about it.” Morgan turned away from him and headed to the patio door.

Lucian caught her arm before she made it across the threshold. “It’s my job to worry about it.”

Heat spread through her again at his touch. The desire to lean into him flushed through her body even as the weight of his words crushed her. It was his job to worry, no other reason. And that was what she wanted, right? It was better that way. Wasn’t it?

Morgan gave him a half-smile that covered up all of her confusing emotions and pulled her arm from his grasp. “You don’t have to worry about this. You worry about real-life demons and I’ll take care of personal demons on my own.”

“You shouldn’t have to take care of them on your own. We’re partners for the remainder of this life. Let me help you,” he said as he followed her out the door.

She pulled out a cigarette and lit it before turning to face him, making sure a comfortable distance remained between them. “Look, like you said, you’re only stuck with a screwed up channel for the remainder of this life. Which in the grand scheme of things is only a blip on the time radar. So just leave it alone okay.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” anger edged his voice. “I didn’t say you were screwed up and I didn’t mean I was stuck with you.”

Morgan’s hands trembled as she took a deep drag off the cigarette, trying to hide the thread of irrational fear his anger sent crawling through her.

Lucian watched her closely. Though her face didn’t show it, he didn’t miss the tremor in her hands or the subtle way her body seemed to shrink in on itself. Jake telling him how badly beaten he’d once seen her ran through Lucian’s mind. Was she afraid of
him?
Because he was angry over what she’d said? The question doused his anger in ice.

“You didn’t have to say it. I heard about you from Arabrim you know.” Morgan glanced at him and then away. “The ancient and powerful Lucian, always a free agent, moving from one thing to the next as needed. I’m aware that Arabrim, brought into being in the late 1500’s was considered young for a dark angel, so I can only imagine the years and lifetimes you’ve seen. What I can understand completely, is what it feels like to suddenly be tied down, to feel like you’ve lost the freedom you so desperately crave and need.”

“I just want you to know,” she continued without looking at him. “I don’t hold against you. Because I can’t guarantee that, if I survive this and somehow get rid of this Kalona and the hounds don’t come for me, I won’t disappear on you.”

“Morgan, look at me.” Lucian stepped closer, though he didn’t try to completely close the distance and waited for her to finally face him. “I don’t feel trapped by being assigned a channel after so long a time. It
is
taking some getting used to, however, I don’t regret it. And if you disappear, I will always follow. So anytime you feel the need to run, really run, go for it. I won’t force my company on you, but I will always be there to have your back should you need it.”

Morgan tore her gaze away from his and watched Lucy as the dog continued to pace the yard. Another drag pulled more of the nerve steadying nicotine into her lungs. How could he know the exact words she needed to hear? He was either very good at being a dark angel, which given his number of lives he definitely was, or he really felt that way.

Her heart desperately wanted to believe the latter because deep down there was no denying she needed someone like him in her life. Someone she could lean on when she needed comfort and protection, and someone she could run away from when she needed space.

Lucian sighed and raked a hand through his golden hair. She had closed herself off from him. He had thought, for the briefest of moments there at the table, she was going to open up. And then she’d shut down and shut him out. If it took the rest of this lifetime, he would show her that she could trust him with even the darkest times of her life. Trust him not to hurt her even when he was angry.

Arabrim
was
young in comparison. Lucian had a vast number of lifetimes to draw on and he’d already made Arabrim’s mistake once. Lucian wouldn’t make it again. Never again would he die before his assigned channel and leave her to the demons that would ultimately kill her.

La Pucelle
would always be his greatest regret. Even after all of these years, he still felt the ache of her loss. He had loved her like no other though she hadn’t been his soulmate. Not loved in a traditional way, but from afar. No man had been allowed to love
La Pucelle
in any other way. It hadn’t mattered, he had died for her as a dark angel, and as a man in love. A channel as ancient as Lucian himself, she had chosen eternal rest after that life. Lucian would never see her again.

Morgan was a young channel with only two other lives under her belt. A channel that had gotten under his skin in a way not even
La Pucelle
had. Lucian would make sure she grew old in this life. His emotions wouldn’t cloud his judgment this time.

After a long silence between them, Morgan said, “You never did say if you found out anything about Riverdale Road.”

Drawn from his reverie by her comment, he thought back over what he’d learned. “Riverdale Road is cloaked in urban legends. Some are just stories, others aren’t.”

“What do the urban legends say?”

“They say that a woman in white walks the road, that if you drive it at night you can see blood smears on the signs.” Lucian raked a hand through his hair. “It’s said that if you pull over and roll your windows down you will hear a heartbeat and the sound will grow until you can’t stand it. People claim there is a gateway to hell located somewhere around there.”

“A gateway to hell?” The demons, hellhounds, Kalona all started to make sense.

“That is what the urban legend says. Apparently people have even tried to find it. Fools, even if they could find a gateway to the Underworld, they would never live tell about it. Even so, given the activity around here, I’m inclined to believe them. Now we just have to figure out how that doorway got opened.” Lucian glanced over his shoulder at the house. “Before we do that, I need to make the arrangements so we can get out of here.”

He left her standing there, finishing her cigarette in silence while he went back to his laptop and phone. Reservations still needed to be made to ensure they could stay in the area and on the move at the same time. Nothing too fancy and someplace that would accept the dog. Not an easy task.

Morgan ground out the cigarette and called the dog. After one last soft growl at the yard in general, Lucy came and followed her inside. There was plenty to do and standing around mulling over useless emotions wasn’t going to get any of it done.

She cleared their lunch trash off the table and wiped it down while Lucian continued to make calls. After a while, feeling rather useless, she went upstairs and grabbed the tattered paperback out of her backpack and carried it back to the living room.

As Lucian’s deep voice rumbled in the background, she curled up on the couch and got lost in a story of spies and undercover operations for the next few hours until Lucian ordered dinner.

Morgan put the book down and stretched. “Did you make all of the arrangements?”

“Most of them. I’ll finish up tomorrow.”

After dinner arrived, they settled in the living room with a couple of movies Morgan had never seen: The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. As opening music to the first movie played, Morgan gazed at Lucian out the corner of her eye and tried to remember the last person that had wanted to sit and watch movies with her. The time was at the Grissoms’ when they used to settle down in the large family room with all of their foster kids and watch movies. Arabrim had held no interest in movies or series and, in fact, hadn’t even had a TV in his house. Had never asked if she wanted one.

Despite her deep reservations, as they laughed at the same places and mutually picked apart others, the walls around her heart softened more. In fact, if she examined the warm feeling in her heart it might have looked a lot like something akin to love. She didn’t even know how to begin examining it or what to do with it if it really was.