Wicked Soul

Chapter 10

TEN

THEA

When Thea came to, the moon no longer shone through the small window, but Warin lay above her still as he lazily drew his tongue across her neck.

“Will I become like you?” she rasped. Both her cunny and voice were sore from the pleasure he’d forced from her, but much to her surprise, she didn’t feel any pain where he’d bitten her.

“No,” he said. His voice was soft now, so very different from how he’d sounded before. As if all his anger and fear had vanished when she shared her body with him. “A simple bite will not damn you, my beloved.”

Beloved.

She smiled into the darkness. “I was so scared of you.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounded so guilty, she couldn’t help but laugh.

“It seems silly now, doesn’t it? That I could ever fear the man whose soul I share.”

“I am not a man, and you were wise to fear me,” he said, pulling back to look at her. She still couldn’t make out his face in the darkness, but knew he likely didn’t have such problems. “I am—“

“A monster,” she interrupted him softly. “I know. It doesn’t matter.”

“The things I’ve done… Thea—“

She put her hand on his shoulder, silencing him with a light squeeze. “It doesn’t matter. It can’t. For whatever reason, and despite whatever we were before, we are one now. What you were before doesn’t matter. What I was doesn’t matter. I know you feel it too.”

He sighed softly, an unnecessary breath that ghosted over her face. “I… feel such… shame. For tying you to… this. To me. I am of the night, and you… you are the brightest star in the sky. I fear… I will taint you.”

“By sharing your curse with me?” she asked. A sliver of unease traveled up the length of her spine and she touched a hand to her neck where he had bitten her.

“No. Never. I will never turn you, my love. No one deserves this fate, least of all you.”

“Then I will die,” she said, remembering the frightening conversation between him and Zet. “I will grow old, and I will die. What will happen to you once I am gone?” Just the thought of being without him made her insides turn to ice. The idea that he would have to go through that once her mortal body gave in hurt equally as bad. She couldn’t imagine surviving losing him.

It had only been days since her only wish was to escape him, yet now…

Everything had changed.

“We have years until old age claims you,” he said, though he held her tighter against his chest as if he subconsciously was already trying to prevent time itself from separating them. “I will find a way for us to be together in eternity, without dooming your soul to the darkness. When I rise tomorrow night, we will begin our travels to Rome. The Night Lady there may know more.”

There were more questions she wanted to ask—things they had to discuss, plans they had to make… but Thea found she didn’t have the will to do so. Not then. Even if there was no ward against old age, she didn’t want to think about it now. He was right. They had years. Right now, she wanted nothing more than to lie in his embrace and savor the sated hum from deep inside the core of her being.

She found her soulmate. Nothing else mattered.

The darkness in the small room turned a deep gray before Warin roused her from her sleep by slipping out of the bed they’d shared.

“Where are you going?” she mumbled groggily as he bent to grasp his leather pants from the floor. Dawn was still nearly an hour away, but its pale march let her see his intricate tattoos move as his muscles flexed. They looked vaguely like the geometric figures she’d seen depicted on her village’s attackers’ shields, yet were different somehow.

“Dawn is near. I have to go underground until dusk.” Warin turned to look at her, a gentle smile on his face she hadn’t known his stark features could produce. He reached out and touched her cheek, and she pressed against his palm with an unhappy hum.

“I don’t want you to go.”

“I will return for you the second the sun sets,” he promised softly. “Tonight, and every night after that, until the end of time.”

“Where will you sleep?” she asked, frowning at the thought that he might have to leave the city during the day. She knew from the dirt caked on both his and Aleric's bodies that they dug graves to spend the day shielded from the sun. In the middle of a city, it seemed unlikely he would find somewhere hidden and undisturbed.

“The graveyard by the catacombs where Zet holds court,” he said. It was the first time he had shared his location during the daytime with her. The first time he trusted her enough to do so, she realized.

“The dead man sleeps in a graveyard,” she mused. “I suppose that is poetic, in some way.”

He didn’t answer her—only leaned down to brush a gentle kiss to her lips.

“Tonight,” she said as he walked to the door.

“Tonight,” he confirmed. “And every night, my soulmate.”

Sleep did not return to Thea after Warin left. She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling while night yielded for day. Thoughts seemed fleeting, the pleasant buzz in her body from their intimate time together drowning out any desire to think about the implications of their union.

It was not until sunlight filtered in through her small window that something caught the edges of her conscience. A niggling, as if someone was prodding her to gain her attention.

Thea frowned and sat up, unable to shake the sensation that someone needed her. It was the same sort of feeling she’d often had back in her village moments before someone would inevitably burst through her door in need of her healing herbs, the same sort of urgency.

Her eyes fell to the floor, and she frowned at the dark shadow outlined in the light from the window. When she looked up, she saw a large, black bird sitting outside the window, peering in. A raven, perhaps.

It looked like it was staring straight at her, and Thea fought a ridiculous impulse to cover her n***d breasts. It was just a bird, after all. Even if…

The urgency coiling in her gut grew the longer she looked at the bird. It was almost as if… it wanted her help?

Thea drew in a deep breath as she slipped out of bed to find her clothes. She had lain with a Nightwalker and seen a witch light candles with a wave of her hand. A raven wanting her help wasn’t the weirdest thing to have happened to her since she’d met Warin. Heck, it wasn’t even the most outlandish thing that had happened in the past twelve hours.

The raven knocked its beak against the window, as if urging her to hurry.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she muttered as she straightened her hair and brushed her hands over her dress. As quietly as she could so as not to disturb the other patrons, Thea let herself out of her room and tiptoed down the stairs.

The raven was waiting for her when she walked into the narrow street outside the inn. It gave a squawk at the sight of her and flew a couple of houses down, perching on a butcher’s sign. Waiting for her. When she followed, it flew farther, leading the way through London’s streets.

The sense of urgency in her gut grew as she stumbled along the cobbled roads, until finally, the raven dove into an alley so narrow the sun didn’t touch its filthy depths.

Thea hesitated by the entrance as she tried to peer in through the darkness, but she couldn’t see much of anything. The alley appeared to writhe like a serpent only a few yards in.

The raven squawked again from farther in. Calling her.

Thea stepped into the alley, letting the darkness swallow her up.