Soul Bound (13 page)

“Till his dying day, he was convinced the strangers were demons and that they’d fed on every last one of his friends.”

Lia searched Katie’s expression for a sign that she was kidding, but the granite-hard dread on the young nurse’s face convinced her she was dead serious. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

Embarrassment darkened Katie’s cheeks. “I’m not sure what to believe. It sounds totally nuts, I know. But the way I’ve been feeling lately…it creeps me out. I keep thinking, what if the story is true? What if there really are creatures out there that bring out the worst in people?”

“We don’t need demons for that. People bring out the worst in people.” Lia took Katie’s hands in hers. “Look, I know this job is hard. Every day we see illness, injury. We try to fight it, to save people, but too often we fail. Like it or not, that takes a toll. What you’re feeling is perfectly normal. There’s only one demon to blame, and that demon is death. Once you accept that, you’ll be far more able to cope. Just keep in mind all the good you’re doing, all the people whose pain you lessen, all the lives you help save.”

Katie gave a weak nod. “You’re right. I know you’re right. I’m just being silly.”

“We all have our moments.” A self-deprecating smile curled Lia’s lips. “I thought I saw a man come back to life. How silly is that?”

“Pretty silly.”

“Downright insane.”

“Looney-bin nuts.”

“I think we’ve established that.” Laughter rippled between them, easing the tension. “I really should get back to my rounds.” Lia turned to leave, then remembered the reason she’d dropped by to speak to Katie in the first place. “I almost forgot, is Diane in today?”

“She’s on the schedule, but she never showed. Not sure what’s up with her. She didn’t even call to tell us she was taking a personal day.”

Great. The woman was really starting to piss her off. First she lied and made her look like a fool to Dr. Adams, then she took unwanted liberties with her, and now she’d foiled Jace’s test results and not even bothered to come in to answer for it. “Can you do me a favor? Page me if she decides to make an appearance.”

“Sure thing, Doc.”

Lia walked away from the nurse’s station, her face set in a scowl, her exasperation scratching its way past the composed façade she always struggled to maintain. Despite the sound advice she’d given Katie, she, too, was starting to crack under the pressure. There was only so much a person could take, and she’d just about reached her limit.

Or so she thought, until she turned the corner and plowed straight into the dark-haired man she’d met in Jace’s hospital room yesterday. Grim, determined eyes flashed to hers just as rock-hard arms rose to ensnare her. Before she could scream, she felt a sharp pressure at the base of her neck and darkness descended, a black shroud that fell in folds to smother the light.

Chapter Twelve

Light. Bright, blinding light. A room with steel, quicksilver walls. A low ceiling. A rhythmical, tapping sound, like rain pounding on a rooftop. Lia squeezed through the white haze in her mind, clawed her way toward awareness and slowly forced her eyes open.

Fear instantly poured over her, made her wish for unconsciousness again. She was strapped to a metal chair, in an eight-by-eight cell with no windows. The white sheets of light came from two tall lamps, positioned on either side of her. If she were the type of person who spun conspiracy theories, she’d think she was in some kind of interrogation room, where inhuman forms of torture were used to extract information from an unwilling subject.

In front of her, mere feet from the door, stood a pale apparition with hair more golden than the sun and eyes as silver as the walls in this godforsaken place. He watched her intently, his expression drenched with wonder, as if she were a rare bug on a slide under the magnifying lens of a microscope.

“I still can’t believe what I’m seeing.” He made no sound as he approached, despite the fact that he was a big man, over six-feet-five-inches in height, with a square, muscular build. His hand cupped her cheek, and Lia jerked away, fighting the urge to bite his fingers like a cornered animal.

The man didn’t seem to notice or care. “Magnificent,” he said. “Truly magnificent. Do you have any idea what you are?”

“At the moment, a prisoner. Mind telling me why you brought me here and why you have me tied to this chair?”

The man’s face remained smooth, as serene as an angel’s. “If I release you, you’ll attempt to escape before you hear me out. I can’t allow that. Not yet.”

“Who are you?” Desperation crept into her bloodstream, slow and sapping. “What do you want from me?”

“To understand you.” The man crouched before her until their eyes were almost level. “To understand your connection to
him.
” He ran his palms over her body without touching her. “I haven’t felt an aura this powerful since the beginning of humanity. A soul this strong can no longer be contained by a single human body, and yet it lives in you.”

Crazy had just gotten a whole lot crazier. She was having another weird dream. There was no other explanation.

Wake up, Lia. For God’s sake, snap out of it!

“This isn’t a dream,” the golden mirage told her. “You’re not hallucinating. There are things your kind is not meant to see, but that doesn’t make them any less real.”

She’d gone and done it. She’d finally cracked, probably a result of all those double and triple shifts she’d been pulling. Her eyes burned, but she was too freaked out to cry. She squeezed her lids together for a second, blocked out the compelling sight of that strange, angelic face. “Go away. Leave me alone.”

Genuine regret twisted his features. “I can’t.”

Just then the door swung open on creaking hinges, and the dark stranger who’d abducted her entered. These two men couldn’t have looked more different, yet they somehow complemented each other, like day complements night.

“Was I right, Cal?” he asked the blond man. “Is she a twin soul?”

“I had my doubts, but yes. Every sign points to that.” He unfolded his body and went to stand beside the brute who’d kidnapped her. “What’s most interesting is that she wasn’t born this way. One half of her soul once belonged to a Hybrid. Now it has somehow found its way back home.”

The dark-haired man frowned. “How? A human cannot attract another soul.”

“I honestly don’t know,” the other replied, shaking his flaxen head.

“Could she be a Hybrid?”

“I don’t sense any darkness in her.”

They seemed to have forgotten she was there. “Excuse me, but I’m sitting right here. Painfully bound, by the way. Would either one of you overgrown bullies care to tell me what all this is about? I’ll ask again, who are you, and what do you want from me?”

The dark one met and held her gaze. “The name’s Marcus. I apologize for the surprise attack,” he said without bothering to look the slightest bit repentant. “Abducting you was the only way we could think of to get him to listen to reason.”

“You guys keep talking about
him.
Who is this elusive person I’m allegedly connected to?”

“Jace Cutler.” Marcus’s words delivered an electric bolt to her system. This nightmare was real. Every last sordid second of it. These guys, Cal and Marcus, weren’t lying when they said she was connected to Jace. Hadn’t she suspected the very same thing for days?

“Oh, God. I’m not dreaming, am I?”

Both men shook their heads, as if they shared one mind. Cal’s expression shone with empathy, an emotion his friend obviously lacked. She’d never seen a face as cool and blank as Marcus’s. She wondered if he was capable of feeling anything at all.

“What are you going to do to me?”

Cal ate up the distance between them and laid a gentle hand on her head, as if she were a distressed child he meant to pacify. “We won’t hurt you. You can trust us.”

“We’re not the bad guys,” Marcus tossed in. “Those soulless sons of bitches would’ve stripped you bare in minutes.”

“Something tells me this one is not as easy to strip bare,” Cal countered.

“She can’t be taken?”

“Not by force. One half of her soul once belonged to a Hybrid. That provides her with a certain protection.” Cal’s voice dipped, a painful whisper scraping the air. “An immunity, if you will.”

“But the prophecy—”

Cal raised a silencing hand. Marcus had obviously been about to reveal something he didn’t want her to hear.

Lia grew more confused by the second. “What prophecy?”

A lethal glint slid across Cal’s fluid, mercury eyes. “All you need to know is that you’re different—important—and that there are creatures out there, unconscionable beings that would stop at nothing to possess your light.”

Bile lumped in Lia’s throat. So there were others like these two, and apparently they weren’t nearly as amiable. The thought did little to comfort her.

“Do you think Athanatos suspects anything?” Marcus asked.

Cal’s features hardened to stone. “No. If he did, she wouldn’t be here right now. She’d be with them.”

They were doing it again, talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room. “Anyone care to enlighten me as to what’s going on here?”

“Things will become clear in time,” Cal reassured her. “I will explain everything once Jace Cutler decides to grace us with his presence.”

“And if he doesn’t?” She moved her fingers, tried to improve the circulation in her wrists. She could feel her skin beginning to bruise beneath the tight ropes.

Cal placed his palm on her chest, right above her breasts in a gesture that wasn’t the least bit lascivious. “He’s part of you now. Without you, he’s an empty vessel, lost, adrift. Trust me, he’ll come. He has no choice.”

Something was wrong. Jace sensed it, felt it in the hollow of his bones. Lia’s fear burned through his system worse than the angel’s blood had. It ate away at him, called to him.

I’m going insane.

Lia was at the hospital, safe and sound. Why then was he convinced trouble had found her?

Because he’d nearly drowned there. Because that was where his would-be murderer worked. He never should’ve let Lia leave that morning, but since he had no power over her mind, he couldn’t have stopped her, short of handcuffing her to the bed. An idea that held definite appeal.

Jace ran rough fingers through his hair, blew out a slow string of air. He was going stir-crazy in here, but he wasn’t sure it was wise for him to go roaming around the streets again. He’d unwittingly caused the death of one innocent woman, had nearly beheaded that murderous bastard, Viper, then gotten cut himself. Violence seemed to dog his every step.

A dull ache radiated from his wrists. He hadn’t thought he was capable of pain. Not the regular, run-of-the-mill kind. He rolled his hands, noticed the faint blue ring coloring his flesh. He hadn’t as much as gotten a hangnail today. There was no reason for him to be bruising this way. Maybe it had something to do with the wrestling match he’d engaged in last night with that creature Marcus, or whatever his damn name was.

That strange tingle in his abdomen deepened. He needed to see Lia, to touch and hold and smell her, to reassure himself that she was all right. Needed it with an urgency that shook him. He grabbed the phone and dialed the number for the hospital, which Lia had hastily scribbled on a pad before leaving for work that morning. Each ring only served to widen the ragged emptiness inside him. He had to go through several receptionists before he was finally transferred to her department. The voice that greeted him at the end of the line was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Must have been one of the nurses he’d met while he’d been holed up there.

“I haven’t seen her in hours. If you don’t mind waiting, I’ll page her.”

“I would appreciate it.”

Grating elevator music followed as he was placed on hold. Hours seemed to elapse instead of minutes. Finally, the perky voice trickled through the line again. “I’m sorry, she’s not answering her pager. I don’t get it. The doc is really good about that.”

Strange sensations still swam through his bloodstream, a result of the odd experience he’d had at the train station yesterday, and anxiety drummed a vicious beat against his temples. “How about Diane? She there?”

There was a slight hesitation. “She’s not in today.”

The urgency spiked, razor-sharp and insistent. He hung up the phone without wasting time on a goodbye or a thank you. His hands curled into fists. Something was up, and it wasn’t good. If that creature as much as laid a finger on Lia, he’d choke the life out of her. He’d bring her to her knees, make her beg for mercy.

But first he had to find her. The question was how?

A plan took shape in his mind. Diane wanted him dead. She hadn’t exactly made a secret of that. If he set himself up as bait, she’d come for him. It was obvious what he had to do—he had to go home and wait for hell to come knocking at his door again.

Heaven rarely smiled upon the wicked, but today it did. Diane had been staking out Jace Cutler’s apartment all night, unsure if he’d be dumb enough to go home. It just went to show there was no accounting for stupidity, because here he was, strutting up the walkway.

The previous evening she’d caught sight of that Watcher Marcus checking the place out, too, and had quickly ducked for cover behind the shrubs. Thankfully, the traitorous dog had been too focused on Cutler’s scent to catch a whiff of hers. He’d obviously been a few hours too early.

All the better for her.

Athanatos had given her an assignment, and she had every intention of completing it. But she’d have to be careful this time, take him off guard. His ability to control her mind was a real spoke in her wheels. One she’d never anticipated. Kleptopsychs and Hybrids had the capacity to manipulate human thoughts and memories, to bring out a person’s darkest fears, to help humanity reconnect with its true nature before morality had crept in to spoil everything. But any influence they had was limited to creatures with souls. That Jace Cutler could exert that kind of power over a soulless entity like her defied logic.