Rebirth (Lost Souls #1)

Chapter 16

H is offer continues to play through my mind. It makes me pace my room, biting my nails. If what he’s saying, if what I’ve slowly been starting to realize myself, is true… then I will need whatever I can get to be able to achieve what I want. But am I willing to bind myself to him?

On the other hand, I don’t know what will happen to me if I refuse his offer. Will he even let me refuse him? Despite it not being the best option, it does come with a certain amount of freedom, literally and figuratively. Freedom that I’ll put to good use.

At the same time, I know that I need a way to confirm my suspicions. That family—they have my blood. The tracking spell confirmed it. But do they have my blood because they are descendants of my father’s brother or…

I can’t, I won’t, even put it to words in my own mind. I need to be sure; I need to know. It means that I need to create a spell that can help me. A spell that proves me either right or wrong. Oh, how I hope to be wrong.

The kind of spell that I have in mind will be able to shed light on this, I know it. The only thing is that it’s a variation of the tracking spell, which means that I need to give it something. The greater the sacrifice, the more accurate the spell will be. I know exactly what will provide me with the best results, but acquiring it won’t be pretty.

My mind is already putting the spell together while I keep pacing, up and down, up and down.

Standing in the bathroom, a sigh escapes me, and I finally take down the towels that are still draped over the mirrors. My reflection looks back at me and, after all that has happened, I’m not as disturbed by it anymore. The silver-white hair and the different colored eyes show how much I’ve changed. How much I’m still changing.

My eyes then linger on my lips. Tracing them with my finger, I almost feel his touch again. It’s another thing that I can no longer deny, the attraction that I feel toward him, at least physically. And not only because of this humming pull.

The piercing yellow eyes and the bloodred skin... they do something to me.

As I turn toward the tall standing mirror, something under one of the bathroom cabinets catches my eye. I lower myself onto my knees and slide my hand under the cabinet. Reaching, my fingertips touch something that feels like engraved wood. My body freezes over, my mind tumbling when I remember a framed picture on a bookcase.

Reaching further, I’m able to grab hold of it and pull it toward me. I take a seat on the tiles and stare at the picture in my hands. It’s a photograph of Henry, my sister, her son, and their daughter, all four of them smiling at the camera. Seeing their faces has my heart pounding and my body tensing.

My hands start to tremble when I notice the way my sister holds herself, specifically the placement of one of her hands. There is something else there, something that has me seeing red. I grind my teeth in an attempt to not let the anger take me over. Nevertheless, some magic escapes me, causing the glass to shatter and the frame to turn to dust in my hands .

I need to go back. Right now.

He’s still in the red room, surrounded by even bigger piles of books. He raises an eyebrow when he sees me approach. He hasn’t reapplied his glamor, which gives me a weird kind of satisfaction. Seeing that red skin... I make myself snap out of it as I come to a halt in front of him.

“I need you to send me back. Now.”

My demand is met with laughter, yet I stand strong, not taking back my words. The laughter stops, and his eyes turn cold. He’s in front of me in a split second, an arm locked around my waist and the other at my throat again.

“I don’t think that you understand how this works,” he hisses, staring me down with anger blazing in his eyes. “You cannot accost me with demands just because I make you an offer.”

His grip on me grows painfully strong, but I refuse to stand down. I return his glare, and he chuckles, almost as if he approves.

He bows his head toward my neck and licks a line along it. The feeling of his breath and his tongue against my skin makes my knees weak. I have to hold back a yelp as he gives the tender skin behind my ear a nip.

The idea of what he might do to me fills me with heat. Even though my mind screams at me, warns me that I shouldn’t trust him. That I shouldn’t willingly give myself to him, not after what he’s done. And yet, my body seems to crave his touch. I don’t know when that changed, why that fear gradually started to turn into something else.

He gives my throat a squeeze and, when my mouth falls open on a gasp, his lips come down on mine. He kisses me fiercely, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I have no choice but to let him in, all while his grip on my throat becomes more constricting with every passing second until darkness starts to creep in the edges of my vision. My head goes light, his mouth and tongue all that I’m aware of .

Just as I’m about to faint, he loosens his grip and allows me to gasp for air. It’s like something clicks in me then, some resistance falling away when my head clears up.

This is probably a mistake, but I don’t care anymore. I’m damned anyway. I just want to give in to something that I want because I want it, not because it’s good or right or because someone tells me to. Even if it’s just for a moment, consequences be damned. Because right now, this is what I want. H e’s what I want. How have I gone so quickly from fearing him —hating him —to whatever this is?

I can’t stop myself. One quick breath is all I take, and then I wrap my arms around his neck. I pull him back to me, my hands in his hair and my mouth on his in the next moment. His eyes widen in surprise, but he allows it as lust darkens his eyes.

He moves his hand from my neck down to my leg, sliding it under my skirt and caressing my thigh. And then I bite his lip, and he pushes me off him. He drops himself back on the sofa and I feel… oddly rejected.

He licks his lips as he watches me struggle to regain my composure. “Fine,” he says as if it’s nothing. “I’ll allow you to go back once more.”

I’m eager to thank him, but he cuts me off before I can do more than open my mouth. “It will only be half the time from before, and I expect your answer before the end of the second half. Is that clear?”

I nod in understanding.

“Going by how you stormed in here, I take it that you have a specific location in mind?” he asks.

I nod again, the lingering burn in my throat making me unable to speak.

“Think about it, and I’ll get you there.” Without getting up, he casually flicks a spell in my direction.

I’m in a graveyard, in the middle of the night. A cold breeze sends chills down my spine, and I clasp my arms around me, sending magic through my skin to take off the edge. Looking around, I wonder how many years have gone by again.

With a few words, I conjure a small flame in the palm of my hand. Mindful of where I’m going, I walk deeper into the graveyard, trying to remember the way. As I go, I notice how much bigger this place has become. The farther back I go, the more names that I start to recognize, as if everyone that was ever a part of my life ended up here. It hurts me to know that, even if I died that day, I would not have been put to rest amongst them; an unmarked grave would have been my final resting place.

At last, I find what I’m looking for. A different kind of cold engulfs me as I read the names on the stone slab of Henry’s family’s grave—the Harred family grave. His family has been buried here for generations. I was supposed to end up here with them—with him. But my sister took my place, her name and their children’s names have been neatly added to the plaque. Even her firstborn, despite not being his blood, has a place here while I was carelessly tossed aside. Given, there was never a body to bury, but they could still have buried an empty casket and included my name on the gleaming stone.

Gently, I put the blue flame on the next grave over, and it flickers softly in the night. A perfect representation of my frozen yet furious heart. I take a deep breath and lock my emotions away to focus on the task at hand. Seeing them can’t shake my conviction. I won’t let it.

“Lring mir pizin babalond drix fafen qall gmicalzoma oroch lel coasgon.”

Ruptures appear all over the surface of the stone, then it splits open with a loud crack . With a single flick of my finger, the stone shatters and shards fly all around. Some cut my hand, but I don’t even flinch at the sharp pain. Using my other hand, I add an extra layer to the spell that makes the ground part like water, revealing the coffins. I step into the grave, my eyes going from his coffin to hers, and I hate to admit that I’m uncertain if I need both or only one of them.

After some careful consideration, I decide to take both of them with me.

Summoning the blue flame to me, I set it on the lids of the coffins. The magical fire quickly spreads, eating away at the wood—and only the wood, upon my command—to slowly reveal what’s left of their corpses. Seeing the state that they are in, they would have only needed a few more years before they would be completely gone.

It brings a cruel smile to my lips to see that Henry’s parents skimped on my sister's coffin. I know they liked me better than her, especially his mother. She had difficulties conceiving as well, so she understood what I went through. Though both her and her husband never knew the full extent of our situation, which I assume Henry deliberately kept that way. Who would want their parents to know that they’re abusing the wife they so adore? I do wonder how they reacted to my disappearance and Henry remarrying my sister.

Henry’s body has been naturally mummified, but my sister’s is literally wasting away. The expensive-looking coffin that keeps him nice and dry makes all the difference, not that it matters in the end.

The flame shrinks and hovers above the grave, not casting a single shadow. I look down at them, biting my lip. The spell I have in mind doesn’t require much, but it might be better to play it safe and procure some extra materials.

Bending forward, I take Henry’s head in my hands, pull, and rip it clean off his body. Then I do the same to my sister, the cracking of her bones like music to my ears. I step out of the open grave, carrying both heads in my arms. A final look back is all that I give it. Then, I put out the blue flame and engulf myself in darkness while I walk away.

Unaware of how much time remains, I leisurely walk toward the gate that marks the entrance and exit to the graveyard. Stepping through it, a tingling feeling creeps up my spine, making me shudder. My head snaps back, but there is nothing out of the ordinary, even to my left eye, though I can’t shake the feeling of familiarity. The kind that has me clenching my jaw and has anxiety settling deep in my stomach.

The next moment, I find myself back in the red room.

He looks at me as I hold the two heads and doesn’t even bother with questions. Thankfully.

“Looks like you had fun,” he says, with an amused glance at the heads in my arms.

I’m too distracted to do more than give him a nod, that feeling of being watched lingering on my skin, my magic buzzing in my ears.

On my way to the library, I feel calmer, more at ease than I expected. The anxiety drips off me with every step that I take. Stepping through the tall wooden doors, I shake off the last traces of apprehensiveness and redirect my attention once more to the task at hand—literally—as I put both heads on one of the desks. The fire throws dancing shadows over them, making them look even more grotesque. Both are quite unrecognizable, Henry with his mouth gaping in a distorted grimace and my sister not much more than a brittle piece of bone.

I have to hold back the urge to smash the heads to pieces. Even in death, I can’t stand their faces. Disgust fills me and makes my flesh crawl. Ripping my eyes away from them, I decide that I need a moment before proceeding.

He finds me in the garden, in the grass in my usual spot, my knees pulled up against my chest. I’ve found that I’m doing this often without realizing it, sitting like this, and I know that it’s a coping mechanism that I can’t seem to get rid of. It’s something that I developed during the last years of my life. Back when I would curl up in a corner and cry after someone had visited me. Even now it still brings me a strange kind of comfort.

“I thought it would be easier.” I close my eyes and lower my head, refusing to look at him while he stands there. “But the betrayal still hurts, despite my hate toward them. Seeing how they put my sister in the family grave—” I swallow a sob, my throat constricting painfully.

He remains quiet for a few moments, then sits down in front of me. He gently touches my chin, lifting my head up to make me look at him.

“Hate is a good motivator to get started, but you’ll need more than that in the long run.” There’s something in his voice that gives me the impression that he knows what he’s talking about.

“Then,” I propose, catching his gaze, “what about revenge?”

He gives me a cruel yet understanding smile. “Revenge will do just fine.”

He leans in and places a soft kiss on my forehead. The touch of his warm lips fills me up, melting some of the ice around my heart. I want more, but know there are things I need to get sorted out first. The way he looks at me gives me the idea that perhaps he knows as he gets up and holds his hand out to help me to my feet. His touch lingers, and I enjoy it. Despite the warnings and what he did, the more of these touches he gives me, the more I don’t care about any of it anymore.

He still has my hand in his, and I can’t look away; I can’t stop looking at how his bloodred skin touches my paleness. Entranced, the two of us are unmoving for a moment. Then I look up at him, finally meeting his gaze, those yellow eyes looking straight into my soul.

In a split second, my whole life seems to flash before my eyes. I swallow, realizing what I need to—what I want to do.

“I’ll marry you.” The words leave me before I know what I’m saying, what I’m agreeing to. But I do know that it’s the only way to move forward.

He blinks, caught off guard by the suddenness of my statement. Then a wide smile breaks out on his face, and he pulls me against his chest. He captures my face in his hands and kisses me, fierce and passionate, holding more emotion than I expected from him. It makes my whole body catch on fire. Unable to resist any longer, I let it take me over. I accept his touch and return it in equal measure.

Until he abruptly stops again, making me gasp. He holds me close, allowing me to feel all of him against me.

“As much as I want to take you right here, right now,” he growls, his words making me tremble, “your souvenirs are about to expire, and I assume that you still have plans for them.”

He breaks away from our embrace, which forces me to quickly regain my composure. He notices that I’m flustered from his kiss, and it has him grinning. He places another, softer kiss on my cheek, whispering, “Go,” in my ear. Without further hesitation, I walk past him, returning to the library.

He was correct about the heads. It seems that they age at the speed of their original time, thus much faster than the time here. Especially my sister’s, which looks like it will turn to dust at a single touch.

I prepare a big bowl of water to use as a gateway and place it in front of the heads on the desk. Carefully, I scrape pieces of both heads into a second, smaller bowl with the blade of a knife I’ve come to keep around in the library, trying hard to keep them as intact as possible. Using the same knife, I cut my hand and let blood drip over the flakes, mixing all three together thoroughly. I apply some of my blood on the skulls’ foreheads and draw the magic circle around the bowl of water.

Taking the smaller bowl in my hand, I give it a last swirl and carefully let the mixture drip into the water. It sizzles upon making contact and remains floating on top of the water, much like oil.

“Niis im var mar coraxo bual adphant casarman laiad ilsi soba lilonon drix cnila.”

The blood markings on the skulls glow faintly, and the water in the bowl starts to swirl. The fire in front of me flickers, then all of a sudden freezes over, stopping in place for a few long seconds before restarting. My brows furrow, and I look at the bowl in front of me. The water has calmed down, the surface smooth like glass. Images float to the surface from the bottom of the bowl. The closer they are, the more distinguishable from the water they become.

The images show me exactly what I missed that day. Something that I could not have known at the time but that I have come to fear since.

There was a third child—a son who had been at Henry’s parents’ house during my visit. Because of this, the child lived and was able to keep the bloodline alive. The son conceived sons of his own, and they had sons and more sons, mocking me with every child, even after almost a hundred years. The spell shows me all of their faces, too many to count. Too many to possibly track down. Even more so with the time difference between our worlds.

I’m furious, enraged like I never have been before. My heart pounds in my chest, and heat flushes through my body. The humiliation, the insult—it’s like a slap to the face. Magical energy surges within me, crackling at the tips of my fingers. A raw, guttural scream escapes me and, in a fit of anger, I throw the bowl of water to the ground. The ceramic shatters upon impact, the water pooling around it.

Fuming, I turn to see their heads looking back at me, mocking me with their grinning faces. So, I pick them up and throw them in the flames. They combust, and the fire explodes out of the fireplace, rising to the ceiling. Sparks fly around me and almost set the library on fire. The hundreds—if not thousands—of books screech until the flames calm down.

Just as I’m about to flip the desk, I’m grabbed by the waist and swooped away in one smooth motion. The desk comes crashing down, the legs breaking on impact and the tabletop crashing on the floor.

He holds me in check with one arm, my body firmly pressed against his. With his free hand, he calms down the fire and puts out the sparks that are greedily spreading everywhere around us. His intervention only enrages me more, and I kick and scratch to make him let me go, yelling my anger at him.

It takes him no effort to snap both my arms behind my back and push me to the ground. He places a foot on one of my legs so that I’m unable to do anything but gnarl at him while we remain like this for a few moments.

When I finally start to calm down, he removes his foot and helps me in a seated position. He keeps hold of my arms, though, as if he fears that I’m not quite done yet.

“Even though I find this wild side of you to be quite charming,” he chastises, “I won’t stand for you burning down my library.”

Our eyes meet and, despite his tone, I don’t back down.

“What did you see?”

It’s only then that I look away, my chin dropping to my chest. The last of my rage diminishes and my breathing evens out, but I don’t answer him. With shame quickly replacing my anger, I find that I don’t want to say it out loud. My cheeks burn, and I’m unable to meet his gaze.

“What”—he pulls my arms, making me scream in pain—“did you see?”

“There was a third child,” I gasp through the sharp pain. He immediately lets go of me. “I thought that I ended his bloodline, but I was wrong,” I say, rolling my pained shoulders and wrists.

He looks down on me in silence, his face blank, making it impossible for me to get a read on him.

“What will you do about it?” he asks then, looking and sounding serious, surprising me with his question.

“I don’t know,” I grumble. “I hate that Henry died knowing that one of his children survived. I hate that I’m unable to change that.”

“So you’re just going to accept it?” His voice grows cold and laced with anger as he speaks, as if he’s personally insulted by the idea that I might just let it be.

“I don’t want to,” I shout at him. “But what can I do? There are too many of them now.”

His eyes are ice cold, making the poisonous smile that creeps upon his lips even more disturbing. “Nothing is impossible,” he says. “You better reconsider your answer.”

It’s unnerving and irritating how easy it is for him to talk me down, to make me feel completely powerless with just a few words and a look.

Despite my initial fearfulness, my anger arises once more. My lips flatten and I look away, trying desperately not to snap at him. I’m so sick and tired of all this bullshit.

“Stop being so belittling all the time,” I snarl, standing up and turning myself toward him. “You know very well that my power is much more limited than yours. I can’t just snap my fingers and make them all go away. The only possible option that I have to get them all is to get everyone individually.”

As soon as I say those words, I know. Going by the way his look changes, it’s what he wanted me to say.

“But I can’t, can I?”

“Not with the snap of your fingers, no,” he says, coming closer. “But there are ways.”

He cups my face with his hand, and I automatically lean into it. The heat from his touch spreads through me like wildfire, calming me down. Or, at least, it calms down my anger. For a brief moment, I close my eyes and let myself be swallowed by his touch. He wraps his arms around my waist, and I can’t help but enjoy the feeling. When I open my eyes again, they immediately find his looking back at me. My breath hitches, and my heart beats loudly in my chest.

Suddenly a loud bang sounds as the fire explodes a second time. But contrary to before, this time the flames do cause destruction. They spread to the books within seconds, turning the library into a burning inferno before we even begin to grasp what’s happening.

He actually goes pale at the sight of it, his red skin getting a gray undertone. “What the fuck did you throw into the fire?” he yells at me.

“Their heads,” I tell him, my voice as small as his anger makes me feel.

“Their heads? Are you insane?”

He’s furious, and I become acutely aware of the mistake that my rage caused me to make. Every bit of fire in this place is fueled by magic, and I threw a pair of magic-infused heads into it. Whatever magic it is that keeps the fires eternally burning clearly doesn’t agree with another kind interfering.

“Leave!” he roars as he turns to face the fire.

I know better than to go against him. I run for the door, only stopping when I’m in the garden once more. Even from here, I hear the flames rage as they destroy everything in their path. The screams from the books are loud, so very loud. The louder they become, the more I fear for my own life.

Burning down his library won’t go over very well.