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.
Chapter 11
Warin
Consciousness snapped back into Warin’s unmoving body with a pain so intense that for a moment, he thought someone had shoved a stake through his heart.
He gasped into the dark earth surrounding him on all sides, dazed and confused. He could still sense the presence of the sun in the sky. It was much too soon for him to rise, but the agony in his chest tore viciously at his body and roared through his mind.
Thea!
His soulmate’s name echoed in his head and a wave of pure, unadulterated panic set in.
Thea. Something was wrong. She was…
It felt like a physical rending of his flesh, but it was his soul that ripped apart, shredded to pieces as the half of it he’d only found the previous night was torn away.
Warin bellowed and clawed at the dirt above him, but there was nothing he could do to get to his soulmate. He was trapped underground by the sun, imprisoned by his curse. He could do nothing but lie in the grave he’d invaded and wait for the sun’s torturously slow crawl across the sky, praying to gods he no longer believed in that his soulmate was still among the living.
* * *
The second the sun set, Warin burst from his grave. Damp soil crumbled from his body as he climbed up from the ground.
The crippling agony had long since died down to a dull pain lodged deep in his chest, icy numbness spreading in its place.
“What’s going on?” Aleric asked. He was ascending from the grave next to Warin’s, a clear note of worry in his voice. “I felt… something while I slept. In our bond?”
Warin didn’t take the time to explain. He lifted his face to the dark sky and inhaled, scenting the air for any signs of his beloved. He found none.
Not caring if any human noticed his unnatural speed, he ran through the dark streets to the inn he’d left her at, hoping against hope she’d be there, waiting for him with that gentle smile on her lips.
“Ah, young sir!” the innkeeper greeted him when he burst in the door to the common room below. “Will you be needing the room another night, then?”
“Where is she?” Warin put the full force of his Compulsion behind his question. The innkeeper blinked dazedly.
“Your wife? She left with you this morning… didn’t she?” the man said, his voice thick and sloppy from the strength of Warin’s mind.
Warin didn’t bother explaining—he sniffed the air and finally caught the faintest trace of Thea’s scent. It was hours old.
He followed it outside where hundreds of people had soiled her crisp fragrance during the day, but something more than just his sense of smell guided him down the road. A pull from his chest led him through London’s narrow streets, the sense of dread mounting in his gut for every yard he ran.
In the city’s underbelly, the trail stopped without warning.
Warin faltered, looking around the cobbled path he was on. Houses rose on each side, and to his right a windy alleyway reeking of human waste opened up. The dread in his gut, rather than any remaining smell of his soulmate, made him step into the narrow opening. Even Thea’s scent couldn’t make it through the stench emanating from within.
He followed the alley along its coiling path until it opened up into a small, square space.
And in the center of the square lay his soulmate’s lifeless body, her neck broken and sea-green eyes staring blindly into nothingness.
Pain so intense it made him stumble exploded behind his ribs as he stared at the woman he had loved so shortly.
“Thea! No!” Warin fell to his knees by her side. Crushing despair closed in around him from all sides.
“Thea! My love, no, no, no!” She was cold to his touch when he cradled her in his arms, her body stiff as if frozen by the shadows surrounding her while she lay in the alley, discarded like a piece of garbage. She had been dead for hours.
Deep down, he’d known the second he felt his soul splinter apart that she’d been ripped from him. Yet he had hoped with everything he was that he would find her alive. Injured, but alive.
But she was gone.
He’d only known her for a few days before she’d been torn from his side. Had only known the sweet bliss of what she was for mere hours.
She should have been his salvation.
“What happened?” Aleric asked, his concern and surprise vibrating through the alley.
Warin didn’t pay him any mind. Tears of despair blinded him as he bit into his wrist and pressed the bloody limb to Thea’s cold lips. He had sworn never to create another of their kind, but if he didn’t… she would be lost to him forever. And he could never survive it.
Chapter 12
Aleric
“What are you—?” Aleric caught himself as he stared in disbelief at his kneeling brother and the dead woman in his arms. It was obvious what he was trying to do—even if the why was less clear.
Cautiously, he crouched by Warin’s side and put a hand on his shoulder. “Warin, she’s been dead for hours. The spark won’t catch.”
“It will! It will, it has to! Come on, Thea. Please, come on, my love, I cannot… I cannot live without you!”
Aleric had never heard his Elder so distraught—the sheer panic in his voice and the raw pain in their bond sent waves of queasiness through him. If there was one thing Warin had always been, it was strong. Ruthless. Devoid of emotion except bloodlust. And now… now, Warin was sobbing. Over a human girl who would have died soon enough regardless.
Aleric stared at his trembling brother as he tried to coax blood in between her long-dead lips, sick dread nestling deep in the pit of his stomach.
I cannot live without you.
Aleric’s nausea turned to horror as he watched Warin kiss the dead girl’s forehead, wrist still pressed to her mouth as tears slid down his pale cheeks. Finally, much too late, and with gut-wrenching clarity brought on by the sick pain echoing through their bond, Aleric realized what the loss of a soulmate did to a man.
It broke him.
* * *