Shaxoa's Gift (38 page)

The purest feeling of joy washed through me,
cleansing me of the agony and torture of the last few days. Daniel
was still a part of me, but rather than the terror and panic I held
against him, there was also excitement for him to find someone new.
I was free enough to walk away from him and find Uriah. My heart
and soul were irreparably damaged. They bore the scars of a
devastating battle just as my body did, but they would both heal.
All I needed now was to find Uriah.

Putting my hand on the counter to pull myself
back up in case my trembling body refused to support me, I looked
over at Quaile. I wanted to dance around the room in celebration. I
wanted to relish in the conditional freedom I had been granted, but
there wasn’t time for that.

“Thank you, Quaile, for convincing me to do
that,” I said. I walked over to her with tears streaming down my
face.

“The bond isn’t broken,” she reminded me. “If
you falter even a little, if you let an angry word or hurt feelings
make you doubt Uriah’s love for you, or yours for him, the bond
will take hold of you again. It will bring you to your knees,
Claire. Don’t forget. Never forget that.”

“I won’t, Quaile.” Gripping her hands, I
pushed away my elation and focused on what I still needed. I was
sure I could hold out against the return of the bond for eternity,
but Uriah was about to fall into the same trap. “Tell me where
Uriah is,” I begged. “I know you know how to find him. He is going
to need my help. I won’t let him face this alone.”

Quaile watched me carefully. Her clear,
bright eyes pierced me, searching for something. Whether she found
it or not, she nodded and answered me. “I may know how to find
him,” Quaile said. She took a small slip of paper out of her
pocket. Hobbling over to her phone, she dialed the number
slowly.

Quaile turned her back to me, protecting
whatever information she might gain, as usual. It should have been
aggravating. I should have been wringing my hands in worry for
Uriah, even for his Twin Soul, but suppressing the Twin Soul bond
was too intoxicating to allow room for much else at the moment. I
reveled in the freedom from constant agony while Quaile carried on
with her hushed conversation in the kitchen.

The soft click of the phone hanging up
brought me to her side. “Did you find him?” I asked. Quaile shook
her head.

“Not exactly. The shaman he went to thought
he was heading northeast, maybe to Colorado. They haven’t heard
from him since he left, but he has a cell phone with him.” Quaile
handed me a slip of paper with carefully scrawled numbers on it. “I
am not sure whether he will answer it, but you can try.”

I held the paper and smiled in relief. “Thank
you, Quaile.”

Stuffing the paper in my pocket, I wanted to
run after him that second, but I had one more request. Quaile
seemed to sense there was more and faced me with a cautious
air.

“What is it, Claire?” Quaile asked.

“I need the book.”

“What book?”

“The one you already know isn’t meant for
you,” I said.

Her head shook slowly. Her hands trembled,
but she tried to deny any knowledge of what I was referring to. “I
have no idea what you’re talking about, Claire.”

“Yes you do. You already know you aren’t the
one meant to help Uriah. If you were, you would have taught him
what he needed to know a long time ago, you would have gone with
him. You know the book doesn’t belong to you.”

“How can you know that,” she whispered.

“Bhawana wasn’t the only one to have a vision
about Uriah, but you already know that. It’s time to pass the book
on to someone else. It’s time to pass it on to the person who was
meant to use it,” I said.

“Who?” she asked. “Are you going to take it
to the shaman in Hano?”

The answer should have been plain to her. I
shook my head. “No, I won’t take it to Hano.”

“Then who?” she asked, her voice trailing off
at the end as her eyes widened. Her lips moved soundlessly,
whatever words she wanted to speak not making it past her lips
until a hand came up to cover her mouth entirely. Finally, her body
sagged in defeat. “I thought you were just saying what you said
about a girl waiting for Daniel to persuade him to leave you. You
meant it, didn’t you? You knew he would find someone else.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“The same way I hurt Uriah every time I touch
him. Did you even know I did that to him?” I asked. All the
wondering, the searching, and Quaile had the answer the whole
time.

“You…” Her eyes widened even further. “No, I
didn’t know that. I had no idea. I waited and waited for some sign
of who was going to help him if it wasn’t me.”

“The answer was right under your nose the
whole time, Quaile. You were just too busy ruining people’s lives
to see it,” I said.

She sank back into her chair, a withered
woman. Quaile shook her head in defeat. “It’s too late, now.
There’s no hope for him.”

“Yes, there is, Quaile. There’s still time,”
I said with certainty. “Give me the book. It belongs to me. I’m the
only one who can use it. I’m the only one who can help Uriah defeat
the Matwau.”

“It was you all along,” Quaile whispered. “I
was wrong, Claire. I was wrong about the bond.”

I stared at her, having no idea what she
meant. For once, Quaile didn’t hold back. Her weathered face turned
up to look at me, letting me see the tears spilling down her
cheeks. Her trembling lips turned up in an expression completely
foreign to her. Quaile smiled.

“I know how to break the bond.”

32: Hope

Quaile’s fingers trembled as she took the
battered, leather bound book from her bookshelf. She held it out
for me. I had gotten sidetracked by the potion and by Daniel, but
along with finding out where Uriah was, the book was the real
reason I had come to confront her. My own hand shook as I took it
from her. My dad told me everything. By taking the book, I was
choosing my path. I was choosing the path my dad had worked so hard
to make sure I would never take. There was no doubt in mind that it
was the right one, though. Cradling the book in my arms, I said
goodbye to Quaile and began my journey, knowing full well that its
most likely outcome would be my death.

The End of Book Two

Also by DelSheree Gladden

Escaping Fate

Twin Souls: Book One of the Twin Souls Saga

Qaletaqa: Book Three of the Twin Souls Saga

Inquest: Book One of the Destroyer Trilogy

(Coming 2012)

Check out this Sneak Peek of

Qaletaqa

Book Three of the Twin Souls Saga

I knew I was screaming. I could hear everyone
else screaming, but my body kept moving, hurtling me to the
Matwau’s side. My legs felt nothing. They pumped underneath me.
Independent of any thought, they carried me toward her. I felt her
heart beating in time with mine. Our eyes locked as she tried to
run, but a great clawed hand swept in between us. Pain exploded
across my chest and arm, but it was not mine. My legs wobbled as I
saw her fall.

“Uriah, she’s dying! You have to help
her.”

My breathing became labored as I tried to
crawl over to her. I was shaking so hard I could barely form the
word. “How?”

“You have to form the bond,” Claire said.
“You have to touch her. The bond can heal anything. You know it
can. You saw it happen with Daniel.”

“No, not that. Please. I can’t,” I cried. I
had come so far. I had saved Claire’s life by finding her Twin
Soul. I had given my own blood in an attempt to save her again, and
save myself from a life of despair. I had given so much already. It
was just too much to ask me to do this too. I wanted to go home.
With Claire. Go home to my mom and my ranch and live my life. I
didn’t want to touch her and seal my fate. There had to be another
way.

As she watched her mother’s purple sedan
drive away from her home she waved, completely unaware of the
monster lurking in the woods. He could have kept it that way,
attacked her without ever giving her a hint of his intentions, but
that wouldn’t have been any fun for him. The Matwau purposely
planted his foot on a fallen twig. His weight snapped it easily. As
he hoped, the noise caught the girl’s attention and she turned to
look in his direction.

The smile that spread across his mouth was in
direct contradiction to the growl that rose in his throat. It was a
deep sound, the kind that slipped under the skin and burrowed into
the bone in a disquieting invasion. He girl felt it, flinching and
taking a step back toward her house. The Matwau took another step,
and another, the noises widening her eyes and harrying her retreat.
He couldn’t let her get too far away, though. Just as her hand
touched the door, he stepped out of the trees and into plain
view.

Her hand paused in the middle of turning the
door knob. Confusion mingled with her fear at the sight of a
well-dressed man standing in her driveway. For a moment that was
all he did. His eyes held hers in a way that made her shiver.

“Can I…help you?” she asked. The slight
tremor of fear in her voice was delicious. The Matwau’s skin
tingled with excitement. He did not respond. Instead, he started
taking slow steps toward her. Her green eyes grew even wider as she
fumbled with the door. He let her open it a few inches before
turning his measured approach into an all-out sprint.

Her crystalline voice cried out in shock when
he was suddenly right next to her, pressing her against the
doorframe and smiling as he savored the taste of capturing his
greatest victim yet. Her lips quivered in terror, and he loved it.
He slid a hand up to her throat and squeezed. The girl’s scream
pierced the air and the Matwau laughed because he knew there was no
one around to hear her. He saw the realization dawn in her eyes,
and took great pleasure in hearing her scream turn into a
whimper.

It was a moment so sweet and satisfying that
he could barely control his desire to take her life one bit at a
time. Her luscious skin would melt like warm chocolate under his
torture. The Matwau’s eyes closed, both to calm his desires and
mentally indulge in them for a brief second.

Pain suddenly blossomed across his jaw,
stabbing deep into wounds that had yet to heal. His vision
blackened under the onslaught. He could not control the sudden
weakness in his body. His fingers lost their hold and the girl spun
away from him, into the house. The Matwau could hear her running
from him, crashing through the rooms. She was clearly panicked, but
the Matwau simply took a moment to stifle the pain, regain his
control, and then he stalked after her.

She sat on the couch a few minutes later,
pitched slightly forward with her hands tied behind her back. Her
auburn hair had slipped over her shoulders, hanging against the
sides of her pale face. The duct tape stood out sharply against her
skin. Glowering at her captor, she never took her eyes off of him.
The Matwau smirked at her defiance. The girl had surprised him with
her attack and even managed to elude him for several minutes. It
shouldn’t have surprised him, given whose Twin Soul she was, but in
the end it didn’t matter. Even her surprising strength and tenacity
was not enough to beat him.

She had shouted questions at him as he
secured her, trying to draw out useful information. He refused to
speak even a single word to her. She finally gave up, settling her
angry glare on him instead. The Matwau watched her carefully. It
was a new experience for him, holding a captive. He was not
entirely sure how to proceed. That was also new. For centuries the
Matwau had been the ultimate weapon, the ultimate hunter. Weakness,
fear, and indecision had never before been a part of his
existence.

First to reach him had been the fear, and
then he found out that he was indeed capable of experiencing
weakness. Staring at the girl, he now knew indecision. Should he
hold her in the little house, or move her? He was not worried about
Uriah showing up unannounced, he knew exactly how far away the boy
was, but any other human could walk up to the house at any moment.
The Matwau could feel the link that formed between Uriah and the
girl, but he did not understand exactly how it would work in such a
strange situation.

The exact location for his last battle with
Uriah had already been chosen. All the Matwau needed was to lead
Uriah to that spot. Slowly. Moving slowly was the key. If the
Matwau raced ahead too quickly, Uriah might follow at his usual
furious pace and reach the meeting place before everything was
prepared. The Matwau would wait. He would wait long enough to make
sure Uriah found the little house. If Uriah found the little house,
he would be drawn in by the chance to learn about the girl. That
would give the Matwau the chance to move along the path unheeded
and make his preparations.

Glancing back at the girl, he smiled
pleasantly. The shock on her face lasted only a brief second before
her anger settled back in, deeper than before.

“What do you want from me?” she asked.

His smile widened. “Nothing.”

Confusion swept over her face.

It was true, in a way. If everything went as
planned, he would require nothing more of the girl than her
presence. Killing her was a last resort.

“Why are you doing this?” the girl asked. “I
have nothing, no money, no jewelry. Please just leave me alone”