Soul of Flame (Imdalind Series #4) (2 page)

“Stop, my love. I can’t bond myself to you, not yet,” he gasped as he pressed his cheek against mine, his winded words soft in my ear.

Is that what was about to happen? I was certain it was. Without a doubt, I knew.

I had felt the same wild need and desperate possessiveness when Ryland had bonded himself to me before, though nothing on this level. Before, it was something that I had thought was real. Feeling this now, however… feeling Ilyan’s magic flow through me while his arms cradled me, his lips held me, and his magic protected me—feeling his passion, his commitment, his selfless love—I knew how wrong I had been.
This
was home.
This
was love.

This was
real
.

“I want this,” I sighed into him; my voice was soft, each word formed perfectly. My fingers trailed over the small hairs on the back of his neck, causing him to tremble underneath me. I couldn’t help smiling at his reaction.

“Joclyn,” he moaned, and I could hear his deep regret as he tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing even though his desire to lose himself in me almost won over.

Ilyan kept his hold on me as he moved away just enough to look at me, his face so close I would only have to lean forward to connect with him again. My breath faltered at the thought, the energy of my magic picking up. Ilyan smiled, obviously sensing the activity for himself, his eyes dancing in joy.

“
I
want this,” he whispered, soft and intimate. His eyes dug into mine as his hand moved away from my back to caress the side of my face. The scarred skin of his palm was strangely soft and comforting. “I want to bond myself to you and be with you for as long as we walk the earth, but this is your choice to make, and I will never take that away. I want to know you are making this choice for you. Not in fear or anger. Not when things may change and other emotions may return. I want you to make this choice in love, and I will wait for that. It is so soon after my father severed your bond with Ryland. I don’t want…”

I jumped at the mention of his name, causing Ilyan to stop mid-sentence. Hearing his name spoken aloud brought back the horrors, and my body quaked as my vision faded, creating red walls and destroyed floors in my imagination.

“Shh, my love,” Ilyan soothed as his thumb ran over my cheekbone, his gentle touch and the warmth of his magic spreading through me in an attempt to take away the fearful edge of the hallucinations that lacerated me.

I tried to focus on him, but it was no use. I had heard the implication behind what he’d said, and my shoulders knit together as I tried to find the pressure that my battered subconscious craved.

“I d-do n-not l-l-love Ryland-d,” I hissed, my voice shaking as I stuttered.

“Jos, we cannot be sure of that…” Ilyan began, but my fear and anger overpowered him. My voice erupted in his head much louder than I intended, and he flinched.

I do not love him, not like I once did.
My face burned with painful tears, Ilyan’s warm hands against my cheeks catching them as they fell.
I close my eyes and I see blood. I think his name and I feel pain. I can’t make that go away. I can’t make my fear, my need to attack him, leave. I cannot love someone, I cannot be with someone I only feel hatred for. Who I am scared of.

“Those are not your true emotions, Joclyn. They are what my father has infected you with. They will fade with time,” Ilyan whispered, his pain at seeing me so scared, so sad, tumbling through me. I ignored it, clinging to the last bits of sanity I had left as I tried to get the words out, to help him understand.

They are my emotions now, Ilyan. Cail made sure of that.
I stared into him, my jaw clenched as I fought the tirade that bubbled to the surface. I stared at him, pleading with him to understand me while my nerves jumped. I could feel his thoughts as they swirled through him: his regret, anger, love… and finally, understanding.

He pulled me into him, his nose rubbing against my jawbone as he moved to whisper in my ear. The soft touch sent a jolt up my spine. “I’m sorry, Joclyn. I am sorry I didn’t get there in time.” I could only nod my head in acceptance. He ran his hands over my arms as he kept me enclosed on his lap, his palms trailing over my skin. “You will become bigger than it, my love. I know you will, and then anything you desire will be yours.”

I listened to Ilyan’s words, the truth of what he said sinking in. His choice to wait wasn’t about the relationship I had with Ryland or any feelings I may still have for him. This was about me and helping me move past what had been done to me before I made the choice to move forward. Ilyan would never take away my choice, not in the way that Ryland had. I fought the tremor as his name came to mind, my arms twitching whether or not I wanted them to.

What if that never comes?
I sent the words into Ilyan’s mind as I exhaled shakily, my fear still fighting its way past the calming current that Ilyan had wound through me.

“It will come. It may take time, but it will come. I will be here to help you find yourself again.” He whispered the words into the crisp night air around us, the promise sounding more like a guarantee.

I knew it was.

“Ilyan,” I breathed out, my voice pleading as I whispered into the night. I clenched my fingers around his shirt as I pressed myself against him.

“It is not my time, my love,” he whispered as he caught my meaning, the pain at the words that I wasn’t sure he agreed with taking his voice away.

It is your time, Ilyan,
I spoke into his mind as I pressed my lips against his neck, keeping my skin against his as his breathing caught.
It always was. It always will be. I was just too dumb to see it.

His arms tightened around me as he fought against his resolve. Our hearts beat in unison as the chilled night breeze pulled at my hair. The strong wave of his affection flowed into me so quickly that it caught me off guard and I gasped shakily as his emotion grew, triggering my own.

“I have waited eight hundred years to hear you say such things. I thought I had understood the love I felt for you before, but until now, I didn’t fully know how amazing it was. I didn’t know how unworthy I would feel of it. I am lost to you,” Ilyan whispered, his voice breaking as tears threatened.

My breath caught in my chest. My soul was overcome by the strength of the love that my body absorbed from him. I just wished it was enough, enough for him to bond himself to me, to know that I felt it was right. It wasn’t though; not yet.

I wanted to tell Ilyan how being near him made me feel. I wanted him to know how clear my mind was. I just couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t form the thought to push it into his mind. My soul teetered on the edge of nothing as I waited for the words to come, as I tried to put voice to them.

“Say something,” he pleaded, his thumb gently caressing my cheek.

I love you, Ilyan,
I whispered into his mind as I leaned against him, his arms coming up to wrap around me and keep me close.

“Say it aloud,” he whispered, his breath moving through my hair, the warmth sending a shiver down my spine.

“I love you, Ilyan,” I said, my voice strong and steady.

I had never felt so much certainty behind my words, so much honesty. I did more than just speak the words. I
felt
them.

I felt them down to the very tips of my toes. I felt them course through me. In many ways, the truth of them scared me, yet in others, they made me comfortable because they made me aware of who I was and what I was meant to do. They made me feel normal and loved.

They
were
love.

“I have waited my entire life to hold you in my arms in this way, to feel your lips against mine.” The whisper of his voice faltered as he moved away to look into me. “And now that you are here… I will hold you every night,” he vowed as he placed his lips against my forehead, his touch soft and hesitant, “and I will protect you every day,” his mouth ran over my skin, down the bridge of my nose, “in hopes that the day will come that I can bond myself to you and call you mine.”

His voice was so soft, it almost wasn’t there. I wasn’t even certain I had heard it before he kissed me again.

Two

“He’s fanning out.”

“At least the north side is still clear. We could make it to this cave in only hours if we went that way.”

The voices were loud in my ears as they pulled me out of the deep sleep I had been in seconds before. Anxiety tensed my shoulders together as I listened to the voices that were so close, alerting me to the danger I was in. My mind begged me to run from them, sure I was back in Cail’s tortured nightmares. But I lay still, trying to make sense of the voices enough to understand why they were here.

My hands wound around the soft warmth of the blankets that lay against my skin, the fabric pulling my mind away from the horrors. I had never had blankets in the Tȍuha that Cail had trapped me in. If only for that reason, I knew I was safe inside my own reality. I begged myself to believe it. Even with that knowledge, however, I couldn’t stop the panic from continuing to seep through me, rocking through my muscles until I shook.

I hated the way the terrors ran through me, the way they controlled me, became bigger than me. They hadn’t been this big last night when Ilyan had kissed me. They hadn’t ruled over me then. When
I
had kissed
him.

I worked to regulate my breathing and brought the vivid memories of last night to mind, letting them swirl and flow through me as I fought against the agitation in order to become bigger than the fear Cail had instilled in me. I focused on the memories of Ilyan’s hands against my arms, the heat of his breath against my skin. The residual fears rippled through my muscles as the pleasant imagery chased them away, the sensation comfortable in my heavy, over-tired body.

I couldn’t have been asleep that long. My mind was still fuzzy; my lips still tinged with the sweet taste of Ilyan’s kiss. I could still feel the warmth of the bed where Ilyan had lain behind me, the heat fading from the fabric of the sheets as it evaporated into the cool, fall air.

“Yes, but if we have missed this one, then how many others are out there?” The rough edges of a vaguely familiar voice snapped me out of my revelry, threatening to pull my fears back into my already shredded nerve endings.

“Did you see any more? Were there any sights of what is to come?” Ilyan asked, his voice a powerful force as he commanded over the others in the room.

My body calmed at the sound of his voice. I wanted so much to open my eyes and see him standing just across from me—to let his presence take away the last of my agitation—but I was afraid. Afraid of who else was there; of seeing blood-soaked walls instead of smooth stone ones. So I kept my eyes closed, focusing on the pressure of the blanket as I tried to understand what was going on.

“No, My Lord.” Another voice, this one different from the first, cut through the night. My mind tried to place it while fighting the fear its unfamiliarity caused me.

“We have to be missing something!” Ilyan’s voice was hard, as a loud bang echoed in my ears, triggering a million memories of clanging pipes and haunting footsteps.

The nightmare jumped through my nerves and my body crinkled together like balled paper. My hands moved to claw into my shoulders as my knees came into my chest. I fought the panic, pushing away the gasps that tried to snake from my lips as I forced away the anxiety.

I tried to keep my breathing level as I kept the fears at bay, pleading with myself that I could open my eyes, that I was brave enough to face my fears. I exhaled a stuttered breath and opened my eyes, waiting to see the blood-stained walls, only to be met by darkness.

My eyes adjusted to the dimly lit room, the heavy darkness of night seeping through the open windows and covering the room in shadows that my mind distorted all on its own. The only light came from a small lantern and several small, colorful orbs that had nestled into the ceiling. The colorful rays cut through the long, dark shadows of night. Everything was as it had been for the last few days—the wall of open archways that led to the balcony, the large ornate furnishings. It was just our room, no nightmares.

Ilyan stood in the dome of dim light, his hands stretched over a table that had been pushed against the wall. He looked intently on the wooden top below him with his hands balled into fists against the wood, making it clear where the loud sound had come from.

The two other men stood across from him; one with long, dirty blond dreads that hung over a leather jacket in stripes of monochrome. Their backs were to me as they, too, hovered over the large table. The other man hunched next to the first, as if he were about to fall asleep. Everything about this man, from his clothes to his posture, was worn and disheveled, as if he had just been caught shoplifting. Hair the color of pitch tangled around his ears and stuck to the back of his neck, making it look like he hadn’t combed it recently, if ever.

Thom and Sain.

Their magic flowed through the air around me, alerting me to the security that the height of my anxiety had hidden.

It was foolish to have gotten so worked up; it scared me that it took so little to trigger the demons Cail had infected me with. However, it had only been hours since Ilyan had rescued me from that prison. There would be no quick recovery from my insanity.

I wanted to be patient; I just didn’t know if I could be.

“One group would not move so far away. Trpaslíks are too cowardly for that.” The lines in Ilyan’s face deepened as he took a few steps around the table, his fingers trailing over the surface as he focused on it.

I watched him move as I tried to figure out what the three of them were doing in the first place, the strength of Ilyan’s determination almost answering the question for me. The odd connection we now shared sparked. Flashes of his memory, flickers of their arrival, flitted over to me as he focused on the table.

The two men had arrived at our room minutes before, where Ilyan, in his frustration, had ushered them in. He hadn’t even considered that I had been sleeping in the bed. No surprises there. His mind had been solely focused on what Sain and Thom had come to tell him, his need to solve the problem, and on protecting his people.