Soulless (Maiden of Time Book 2) (21 page)

Forty-One

Moonlight

“...two weeks of travel is not enough? Someone else’s rump can take a horse-beating for now.”

Alexia sat up in bed. She threw the covers off and raced to the door, halting as she remembered her dressing gown. Her fingers shook as she wrapped herself and threw the door open, halting at the balcony rail.

Kiren stood in the great room below, gaze snapping to her. She gasped at the strain of material across his broad shoulders, the added color in his countenance, the wisps of hair that had fallen free from its tie and framed his pointed chin, the crushing wave of need sweeping over her from his oceanic eyes.

He was the day she’d been stumbling toward while wandering through midnight lands.

They moved the same instant—he to the stairs, she along the balcony rail. He mounted the steps two at a time and reached the top as she arrived. He threw his arms about her waist and lifted her off her feet. Sweetened oak overwhelmed her senses and she looped her hands about his neck, burying her nose against his honeyed skin. He lowered her, one arm gliding free, his fingers trailing warm tingles down her cheek.

“How I have missed you!” he whispered, cupping her cheek.

“Not nearly so bad as I have missed you. Did you recover it?”

His smile faded. “I will.” His lips silenced her, carrying the fervor of a smoldering bonfire. She opened to them, adding her own dried logs to the flame. His mouth traveled down her neck and back up, pausing at her ear. “How have I survived your absence?”

Sparks shot through her limbs, feeding the primal desire at her core like a parched desert begging for its first drop of rain. “No more surviving. It is time to feast.”

His nose grazing her ear as he turned, glancing down where Mae busied herself sweeping, very obviously ignoring them.

Alexia kissed him briefly, and tugged him forward.

Mae cleared her throat from below. “No unlawful business up there, you two.”

Heat flared in Alexia’s cheeks. Kiren laughed and followed her into her room.

Alexia said, “She is not insinuating—”

“Mae loves me and could never believe ill of us.” He winked. His scar, she loved how it caught the light with every word. His lips, she admired their cheery color and extreme kissability. His soul, she ached to possess it as her own.

She wrapped her arms around his waist beneath the suit coat, seizing control of his mouth before he could protest. He groaned deep in his throat, a ravenous wolf. His hands pulled at the material around her shoulders, gliding down to her hips. Her own inner wolf rose up to meet him, fangs bared. Her back slammed into the wall and awareness melted into their shared space. Kiren’s need crashed into her like waves against a coral reef, penetrating the pores, seeping deeper, demanding for this battle to be over—to have her entirely.

They should be married already.

He pulled back, his hands trembling against her cheeks. She trapped his skin to hers, lifting her lips to dive back into him.

“Alexia, stop.”

She ignored the warning in his voice, grazing her mouth across his. “I do not want to.”

His lips followed hers, barely restrained as fiery breath raged across her chin. “And that is precisely why we must.”

He was right. Of course he was right, but still...

She brushed the loose hairs behind his ear and traced the dark circles below his eyes. “Have you eaten recently? Slept?”

“Enough.”

She pushed him back and placed her hands on her hips.

He chuckled, yanking her into his arms. “Your sternness may prove enough to break me. You must stop looking so adorable.” Ominous swells crashed over her from his marine tides, almost more than she could bear.

She tugged at his collar. “I warn you, I am not the helpless girl you left behind, sir.”

“Sir am I now?”

She giggled with him.

Kiren lifted her fingers to his lips. “I have so much to tell you, but there are too many ears here. Retrieve your shoes and let us away.”

“But I am not dressed.” She lifted the corner of her gown to illustrate.

His hands looped her waist. “You are dressed enough for me. And just for me.” Her cheeks burned. “Come now, love.”

She slid her feet into shoes and allowed him to drag her out the door and down the stairs. They tiptoed past Mae, into the kitchen, and out the back door.

Someone stood in the moonlight outside the protective circle, a shimmering white silhouette—long ivory hair floating loosely on a breeze, gaze averted.

Alexia turned a questioning look on Kiren. Why would he drag her out in the middle of the night to witness her mother-figure undone? Kiren smirked, winked, and drew her forward.

Placing a hand on Ethel’s shoulder, he whispered, “We are ready.”

The woman extended a hand and blindly took his. His fingers slipped between Alexia’s, and the world disappeared behind a wall of mist. A swirling breeze raced over her skin as the ground dropped away beneath her feet. She squeezed Kiren’s grip tighter and clamped her eyes shut, anxious for the wind to fade. It did. Her eyes popped open as Ethel blurred into a cloud and disappeared, leaving them alone.

The hum of crickets filled her ears. Leaves whispered in a night symphony, blocking the moon and stars above. Kiren tugged her forward, into the black.

A glimmer of light broke through the trees. The gurgle of a stream welcomed her forward, and he pulled back a veil of moss to reveal a single lamp perched on a rocky surface, water burbling below. Brilliant flowers flooded the small clearing, foreign pinks, purples and oranges she knew Kiren had taken great care to preserve. Trees her love had fashioned into the likeness of past friends circled this woodland haven, living wooden sculptures.

At the center of the grove waited a bed, an actual bed—four posters, a feather mattress, several luxurious looking blankets, pillows—all safely tented within a mesh canopy.

Her breath caught in her throat.

She stepped closer. Thin twined tree limbs formed the bedframe, periodic leaves sprouting off in random directions. Each post supported the white gauze, illuminated by the single lamp like a cloud against a dark night.

She swallowed. 

“Are you surprised?” Kiren’s fingers slid around her hips, his mouth pressing to her neck. She lost herself in the simmering stir of slow kisses, traveling downward.

“I do not understand,” she barely voiced, too conscious of the volcano within, brimming to explode.

His lips traveled back up to her ear. She turned, seizing control of his mouth and raking her fingers down his chest. Shimmers of sunlight shot through her body, like she’d been trapped on a polar icecap and the fingers of day were tickling through her chest, filling her with so much radiance she might burst.

He pulled away, forcing some distance between them, panting, his eyes fierce with a fear she didn’t understand. He straightened up and pulled a hand through his hair. “This was to be your wedding night surprise, but as that may not happen for some time...”

Who needs a wedding?
She blushed at the thought. Of course Kiren couldn’t break one of the fundamental rules governing their society, and she felt dirty just for considering the possibility, even if he should already be hers. Averting her gaze, she asked, “And why have you brought me here?”

“Dearest,” his knuckles locked around his ginger waves, “I should have told you this some time ago, and I tried, but...”

She lifted her gaze.

His lips trembled apart. “It is possible to be prematurely bonded, even without a physical union. The instances are rare.”

She blinked up at him. What was he saying?

“I hope you understand, but I believe the night you came of age, when I kissed you in that heightened moment...”

Alexia gasped, covering her mouth.

“I have been so careful with you because...” His shoulders rolled back. “Because I am yours, entirely.” He reached for her fingers. “And I hope you are mine.”

She bit her lip.

Kiren pulled her toward the bed and she settled onto the mattress. He sat beside her.

“Is it possible,” Alexia asked, “for you to be bonded to me, and I not to you?”

His lips pursed. He shrugged. A twitch in his cheek suggested he knew, but the set of his mouth said he would never reveal it.

Both hands came together in front of him. “The point is, very soon our calm will end, and this knowledge may prove necessary for your survival.”

“Will it?”

He sighed. “Miles has apprehended intelligence from one of the Soulless that suggests Bellezza knows where they are keeping my pendant. He and Edward are searching for her.”

Alexia whirled on him, her throat tight. “You are working with Miles?” How could he have not told her? He knew how dearly she loved Miles, how tormented she’d been by his dismissal. “Where is he? When will I be able to see him?”

Tugging a hand through his hair, he hissed in a breath. “Soon.”

The hesitation shocked her. Had he been keeping Miles away from her intentionally? That was silly. “Would Miles not know the pendant’s location from seeing into the consciousness of the Soulless?”

“They were cunning.” Exhaling loudly, he continued, “They covered their movements. Even so, Miles has worked to keep his mind free of theirs each moonless night. What little information we did gather on our return to the inn was disjointed, but we now know Bellezza conspired with the Soulless to steal my pendant.”

Alexia shouldn’t be surprised, but disappointment collapsed her chest. She had hopes Bellezza could be redeemed. Perhaps that too was madness.

“Miles and Edward will find her.” He wrapped one of her curls about his finger.

She lifted her gaze to his. “What of Father? Is he safe?”

He nodded. “Would you like to see him before we return?”

“Please.” She clapped eagerly.

The warmth in his stare fizzled to gray. “Why is it I take you away from everything you love?”

Alexia caught both his hands and brought them to her lips. “Kiren, I did not know what it was to love until I met you.”

His brows lowered. “You have loved more deeply than either you or I know.”

She touched his cheek, confused.

“I will be called to my duty in the coming days, far away from you.”

She bit down. “Why do you assume you must do this on your own?”

He sighed and a cloud of sorrow dropped over them. “There are a few more things you should know.”

Alexia lifted her head and met his tired gaze, afraid to say something and interrupt. He closed his eyes.

It was there, on the surface. She could feel it, like an egg on the brink of the counter, teetering and ready to topple, terrified that it would plummet to the floor and shatter. She wanted to utter the words, “
I will catch you
,” but didn’t dare. If he was finally ready to reveal his ominous past, she would stand back and give him as much breathing space as needed.

“What is it you fear to tell me?” she whispered.

His brows scrunched together. His lips twitched, twisted, and pulled downward, voice soft. “You see me more clearly than anyone.”

Alexia placed a hand on top of his.

He stilled. “My parents are dead.” He stared up at the bed’s canopy, the pulse in his neck the only indicator of his distress. “And it is because of me.”

She counted his heartbeats, waiting for him.

“The necklace belonged to my father.” His lashes trembled against his cheeks. “My mother had one as well. They were ancient relics, tied to an inexhaustible power source: one charm to defend, the other to protect.”

She touched his knee. “Your father worked for the king, protecting him? And your mother as well?”

He scratched his head, sliding his knee from beneath her grasp. “My father was the king.”

Alexia leapt to her feet.

His mouth twisted as he met her stare. No deception hung in his gaze, more of a tremulous fear she’d despise him for the news. The king. His father. A king!