The Soul Stealer (17 page)

His dream held the promise of love—a love free from deception. Hunter turned onto his back in a semi-conscious state, restless, and somehow knowing it wasn’t real. His reality had never been without deception or duplicity, so the image of such a romance was fleeting in its fantasy.

He fully awoke and sat up in the darkness. Shaking his head, he rubbed his eyes to get the images of Malia and him to return. But they had already faded, and he couldn’t quite grasp them again into a full vision. Hunter fell back onto the pillow, wanting sleep to return so he could finish the dream. It had been so sweet.

He touched the open wound that was a jagged line over his heart and thought he should feel different, more powerful, but he didn’t. Maybe it was too soon, he hoped as sleep took over again.

Malia let the handle roll around in her palm for a bit, until her confidence in holding it grew, and then she went back into the bedroom with determination. Without hesitation, she sat down next to Hunter and put the tip of the dagger to his throat, pushing just enough to wake him. Hunter’s eyes flew open. Before she realized what was happening, his hand freed the dagger from her grasp with a painful squeeze to her wrist. He had it in his hand poised for attack, but then he stopped.

“Malia! What are you doing?” Hunter asked in a raspy voice as he sat up and pulled the covers up to the top of his chest. “I could have killed you.”

She stared back at him, amazed at his movements. They had been inhumanly fast. She held her limp wrist where he had squeezed it, but it didn’t feel broken and her fingers still moved, so it would be all right. Her eyes narrowed as she wondered what other tricks he had in his arsenal. It was time to find out.

Understanding came into Hunter’s eyes, so he handed her back the dagger. “Go ahead,” he said in a serious tone. “Try to kill me if you want. I deserve it.” He took the tip of the dagger and positioned it back at his throat as if it couldn’t hurt him. “But be careful. It’s a lot more powerful than any knife you’ve seen before. You could easily hurt yourself.”

She grasped the handle. “Is this what you did to those people you robbed at the ATMs? Did you press this to their throats?” she asked and pushed the dagger a little into Hunter’s neck. The metal tip turned to neon-green liquid and looked like it was going to somehow seep into the skin over his throat. The heat from the liquid scorched her fingertips. She gasped and threw the dagger on the bed. The green tip turned back to solid metal.

“I did what I had to do to survive here, and I didn’t hurt anyone.” Hunter’s voice was even and unemotional, and his eyes never left her face, as if what had just happened with the knife wasn’t unusual.

“You took their money!”

Hunter continued to return her glare without emotion.

“And what is it that you’ve done to me?” she demanded. “Have you tricked me into wanting you? Is that your game? You deceive me into believing you’re the one?”

“I can play tricks,” Hunter said with a nod and a sad smile. “But I can’t make you feel anything you don’t. If I could do that, I’d have you hate me. But it’s too late to back out now.”

“Why?”

Turmoil played across Hunter’s face as he reached over and turned on the lamp on the nightstand and let the quilt fall away from his chest. Malia put her hands to her mouth in surprise, as she noticed his wound for the first time, an exact match to the jagged line over her heart.

Hunter hesitated for a moment, but then ran his fingers over her bloody wound. “It won’t be like that again with us. It’s just the first time that’s painful. Or so I’ve been told.” He leveled his luminous eyes at her and sighed. “I’m sorry. I wanted you to choose this, to choose being with me forever. But we’re running out of time. They’ll soon be upon us if we don’t make our escape, so I took your choice away. I hope you will find a way to forgive me.”

“I don’t understand. What happened? Why are we both injured in the same spot?”

Hunter took a deep breath. “We share two halves of the same soul, and now we are one again, forever linked in this lifetime. The two halves have fused back together, and our two spirits are now bound together.”

This went way beyond any romantic notion she had ever heard about soul mates. Forever linked? What was Hunter talking about? Malia closed her eyes for a moment, thinking he must be joking, but when she opened them again the seriousness in his violet eyes was still there. “What?” She couldn’t think of anything more to say.

“I came here to find you and capture the rest of my soul so I could live as a complete being. But what I didn’t anticipate was how much I would love you and want you just as you are.” Hunter stopped and kissed her hand, but she pulled it away. “Or, that I’d do anything to protect you.”

“Gee, thanks Hunter. You love me, but what you’re really after is my soul? Now that’s romantic.” Malia wanted to laugh, but Hunter didn’t seem to be joking.

He looked away.

“Are you telling me we’re like one person now, or something?”

“Not exactly. Think of it as our souls finding their other half. It’s the same thing as two people getting married, only on a bit deeper level, a more lasting, spiritual level.”

“I thought you said we were the same soul, and it has fused back together. It sounds incestuous to me.”

“There’s nothing I feel for you that resembles brotherly love in the slightest.” Hunter tried to touch her, but again she pulled away. He looked at her with eyes begging for forgiveness. “In past lives we were one person, but in this lifetime, for whatever reason, you got half and I got half. And now, our soul has fused back together, or gotten married to the other half. However you’d like to think of it. In future lifetimes, we’ll probably be one person again, and if not, then definitely lovers. We’re destined to be forever joined, one way or another, during many lifetimes.”

“And if we break up in this lifetime, go our separate ways? Then what happens?”

“That’s probably not a good idea now that our spirits have fused. We’d both be more than broken-hearted and probably physically ill. I’m not even sure it could happen. Our marriage is a little more binding than most.”

“So divorce isn’t an option?” This had better be some sort of stupid joke, she thought as she crossed her arms over her chest, which made her cotton dress scrape over the raw wound on her chest.

Hunter shook his head but then steadied his gaze, studying the emotions on her face. He put his hand out to her again. “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry?” Malia nodded and stood up. “You’re telling me I’m in an arranged marriage, forever linked to you, and all you can say is I’m sorry!” Malia put her hands on her hips. Even though the whole idea was absurd, it still made her angry. “And does that mean I have to put up with your family traipsing through my house whenever they feel like it?”

Hunter became alert. “Archer was here?”

“He said to tell you he’s willing to talk.”

Hunter furrowed his brows and looked away for a moment. “I won’t let him intrude again,” he said, turning his attention back to her.

“He also said you have me on a short leash,” Malia said and pointed to the crystal at her neck.

“That’s so I’ll know where you are and can protect you. Don’t believe what Archer tells you.”

Warm energy surged through her. Malia wondered how her body might react if she got too far away. Darkness and cold might take over. She sat back down on the bed but kept some distance between them. “Since we’re now married, I should know something about my soul mate that isn’t a lie. Don’t you think you should tell me where you’re from?”

“A place I hope you never see.” Hunter took a strand of her hair and stroked it between his thumb and forefinger, making shivers run down her spine. “It would be deadly for you.”

She looked at him and waited for an explanation.

“Very well, so here’s the truth I’ve been avoiding,” he said and squared his eyes at her. “I’m from an alternate reality, a different world, even though it’s on this planet.”

Malia let out a snort and shook her head. “That’s a good one. Almost better than the soul mate thing.”

“Don’t you know your physics? There are many realities going on at the same time, and we choose which one to observe. Before we were born, you chose to live in this reality in this lifetime, and I chose to live in another reality. But in my world, technology and science have evolved to the point that we know how to travel from reality to reality, so I came here to find you, my beautiful girl, my other half.” He smiled and looked at her with hopeful eyes. “And I don’t regret it.”

“And how do you do that? Travel from reality to reality?”

“Each reality has a different speed of time, and we’ve learned how to speed up and slow down our biological rhythms to match the time of each reality, so we can travel back and forth.”

“So, there are different realities going on around us, but people are moving either faster or slower than we are, so we can’t see them?” She couldn’t keep the disbelief out of her voice.

“Yes, that’s it in simplest terms.”

“And you just jump around from reality to reality whenever you want?” She laughed and rolled her eyes.

“Well, it’s not that easy,” Hunter said with a frown. “We have to go through the abyss where there is no time at all, and that gets painful and can make you sick. That’s what I had when I first arrived—travel sickness. And the more you travel, the worse it gets. Our bodies absorb the void of timelessness and don’t want to take on the burden of biological cycles again. Some have died out there, in the abyss. But I knew the risk would be worth it to meet you.”

“So you could steal my soul away.” It was all too unbelievable.

“Yes,” he agreed, wincing. “Just so we could be together, and I wouldn’t have to worry about you getting hurt. Besides, we’re much more powerful as a team.”

“Because our souls have joined,” she said in a deadpan voice.

Hunter nodded.

Malia could see he believed what he was saying, so she felt compelled to hear more. “Tell me more about where you’re from.” The evidence of their two matching wounds and the memory of how that happened did warrant some sort of explanation.

“Well, let’s see,” Hunter said, moving closer to her. “Although we are a technology-based society, democracy never happened, so we’re still in a feudal system in terms of government. Lords rule their land, and the peasants till the soil for their master’s gain. Something archaic in comparison to your world. We never experienced witch hunts, or the Spanish Inquisition, so magic and magical creatures are still prevalent and a major part of our religion and culture, although faeries really are the only ones left in any numbers.”

“Magic,” Malia said in surprise. “There’s that word again. Something I never really thought about until I met you.”

Hunter took her hand and placed it in his own. This time she didn’t pull away. “I hope to show you all about my heritage of magic when we have the time, but there are other things we should discuss now.” Hunter hesitated, gauging her reaction, and then continued. “I’m from an empire that is located in the same geographic spot as Great Britain, called Mohrland, and there are two ruling families there. Half of the land is ruled by my father, Rand Blackthorne, and the other half is ruled by our enemy.” Hunter cleared his throat. “Your grandfather.”

Malia’s heart skipped a beat.

“Your grandfather, Titus Trenton, rules the other half of the empire, and the Trentons and the Blackthornes have been at war for centuries.”

“I don’t understand. How can I have a grandfather in an alternate reality?”

“Your mother was from my world. Titus is her father, and the sworn enemy of any Blackthorne, or anyone in my father’s clan, for that matter. Titus ordered her execution because she did not return to our world when she was supposed to. Andrea came here to observe your world, sort of a holiday of sorts before she was to marry. But she defied her father, and stayed here with your father and had you. It was a huge scandal, and brought shame to the Trentons. Andrea knew what would happen, but she did it anyway. She risked it all to be happy, even if for a short time.” Hunter took a ragged breath. “Just as I am.”

“She was on vacation in Hawaii from another reality? Now that’s sort of Twilight Zone,” Malia said. She almost laughed.

Hunter frowned, obviously not understanding the reference. “Hawaii is the portal for this reality,” Hunter said after a moment. “So, there are many visitors here from other worlds. The live volcano is the center of everything, a sort of atmospheric funnel. That’s part of the power you feel when you’re there.”

Malia nodded without expression, unable to speak.

“Which is why we need to leave,” he continued. “The farther away we are from Hawaii, the more they’ll have to search for us, and the better our chances are of escape.”

Malia still nodded, trying to process all of this, but coming up short. She wondered if Hunter was insane. She searched his eyes for the answer.

“Didn’t she ever talk about any of this with you? About her family or where she was from?” Hunter asked.

“I was twelve when she died. What was she going to tell me at that age?”

“I can tell by the tone of your voice you don’t really believe me.”

“It’s a big pill to swallow,” Malia said. But she could see that he truly believed what he was saying. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“I can transport myself from one place to another with my thoughts.” He hesitated again but then forged ahead. “To an observer, it might seem as if I’m disappearing into thin air, or flying.”

“You can fly?” she said with an hysterical chuckle. “So people can fly where you’re from.”

“Well, no, not everyone. Mostly just me,” Hunter said with a casual shrug. “And a few others.”

“And why you?”

“I don’t really know,” he said, without looking at her.

Now, he was lying. He was so transparent. “Well, there’s only one thing to do,” she said as she stood up and walked out of the room.

Behind her, Malia heard Hunter jump out of bed and scramble to find his clothes as she walked to the kitchen door with a flashlight. The rainwater on the stairs made them slippery, so she held the handrail as she descended. Max sat at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for her with a wagging tail.