Authors: Jason Halstead

Voidhawk - Lost Soul (26 page)

BOOK: Voidhawk - Lost Soul

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Volera stepped off the dais, walking with an unnatural ease in the impossible boots. She stopped next to Rosh, rustling her leathery wings and extending them to their full eight foot span for effect. She grinned at him and licked her sharp teeth. Her tail slipped between her legs and rubbed its way up and around his leg suggestively.

“Got your old life back,” Rosh grunted.

Volera nodded. “Everything returned to me the moment I stepped through the portal.”

“Yet you’re here.”

She shrugged. “You gave me a final command, master.”

Rosh could hear the lower case word in her explanation.

“Gonna miss having you around,” he said. “And I better not hear that you plan on going back to doing what you done.”

Volera smiled sweetly at him. “You’ve a city of mortals hell bent on destroying every demon they find. It would not bode well for them to find me here. There would be much death.”

Rosh sighed. “Give me the ring then.”

Volera held her hand out until Rosh put his under it. She placed it in his palm, then dragged her black nails across his palm and fingers. “Put the ring on her finger and she will be restored.” She hesitated, staring with her bottomless gaze into Rosh’s eyes. “I have a gift for you, if you’ll have it.”

“This mean I owe you something?” Rosh asked.

Volera’s lip twisted up. “I like the sound of that. The most powerful mortal I’ve ever encountered owing me a favor.”

Rosh scowled, making Volera laugh. “No, Rosh, this is a gift from me to you. Not something I would think myself possible of, but perhaps you’ll understand why if you accept it.”

“All right, let’s have it then.”

Volera closed her eyes, then shuddered. “It is done,” she whispered. She opened her eyes and, for a heartbeat Rosh thought he saw a glimmer of moisture in them.

“What’s done?”

“Koda has a soul. His
own soul, in full. What Willa entrusted to me was the other half of their soul. Now it is fully his, he need not worry ever again.”

Rosh stared at her, the muscles in his jaw twitching. In a move that dropped jaws around the room the burly warrior grabbed Volera and crushed her in his arms. He squeezed so hard she gasped at the borderline abuse. When he let her go he gruffly said, “All right then, best be going before somebody shows up.”

Volera nodded and stepped back. She started to turn then stopped and looked back at him. “Will you miss me?”

“This some kind of demon seductress trick?” Rosh asked her.

Her smile seemed almost reluctant. “No, it’s a question.”

“I already told you that.”

“No, you said you’d miss having me around. There’s a difference.”

Softly Rosh heard someone to his left say, “Duh!”

Rosh glanced sharply and saw only Bekka, Haley, and Xander standing, and none of them were looking at him. They seemed to be focusing very hard on looking at everything other than him, in fact. Rosh scowled.

“Yeah,” he said, turning back to Volera. “Yeah, I’ll miss you. And not just cause the Chance was a lot easier to sail with you around.”

Volera’s smile grew. She turned away from him and walked towards the flames. Her foot was on the first step of the dais when Rosh blurted out, “Well, what about you?”

She stopped and looked back at him over her shoulder. Her face was framed between her furled wings but he could see a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “What about me?”

“You gonna miss me?”

Volera sighed. “My kind don’t feel such things,” she said. “Survival on my realm requires
ruthless determination and ambition. And power, it requires immense amounts of power. What I learned serving you combined with the power I once had and now have again has made me more powerful than ever. If I stay on my realm it won’t be long before I rise above the ranks of being a fury.”

“Oh,” Rosh grunted. He shrugged to show it didn’t matter to him. Something bugged him though. He chewed over her words and gasped when he figured it out. “If?”

She turned to face him fully, ignoring his question. “Would you, perhaps, like another gift? This one comes with a responsibility. A great responsibility, as you mortals consider it.”

“Don’t plan on taking my firstborn do you? He’s been dead and gone for thousands of years.”

Volera chuckled. She walked back to him and reached out, running a gleaming black nail across his jaw line. “You’re the most delightful bumbling oaf I’ve ever met.”

“Huh?”

Volera shook her head. “Something Rolxoth said before I gutted him and cut the ring off his finger. A private joke.”

“Oh.” Rosh hesitated then he shrugged. “Why not, just found something else that can’t kill me.”

Volera smiled, a twinkle somehow showing in her eyes. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to make a deal with a demon?”

“Actually,” Xander interrupted.

Nearly everyone save Rosh and Volera shouted in unison, “Shut up!”

Xander fell silent.

“So let’s have it. How you going to outdo the last gift?”

Volera stroked her fingers across his cheek and then looked back at the purple flames behind her. She sighed and closed her eyes, then knelt down before Rosh. “I have no soul,” she whispered, even though everyone in the room could hear her. “
I thought that once I was rid of Willa’s soul I would be free of this realm. Free of you. Free of what I’ve learned and what you’ve instilled in me. I was wrong, it’s still there. But without a soul I can’t survive on this realm long without a Master to give me what I crave. Rosh, will you be my Master?”

Dexter coughed, choking on his own spit at hearing Volera’s gift. Jenna slapped him in the stomach to silence him, driving what little air he had left out of him.

“This like before?”

“No,” she said. “Similar, but now all my questions have been answered and I know what I want. I know what I need, if you need me as well.”

“All right.”

“All right?” She sounded incredulous.

“All right?” Bekka shouted at him. “Rosh, you’ve won the heart of one of the most desired, loathed, and ruthless beings in all creation. You don’t just say, ‘all right’!”

Rosh blushed. “Um, okay. Yeah, I’ll take you. Uh, I mean, I’ll be your Master.”

Before his eyes Volera’s wings drooped and fell off, disintegrating into smoke before they came to rest on the ground. Her horns fell away and even her tail, which Rosh still found strangely appealing, disappeared. Her armor was gone, leaving her skin, now a deeply tanned shade instead of red, on display. “You’re still a bumbling oaf,” she said, rising to her feet and embracing the embarrassed man.

“Just don’t run around calling me Master and Lord and Sire and all that nonsense,” Rosh said after he’d sealed the deal with a kiss that raised the heat level in the room a few degrees.

“Hey, the flames are gone!” Bailynn pointed out.

They all looked and even the blood red circle that had been visible from within the obsidian was gone. “I am yours,” Volera breathed, clinging to Rosh. “Master.”

“Bah!”

###

Afterward by the Author

Thank you very much for reading
Voidhawk – Lost Soul. Once I’d finished The White Lady I knew I had to get the crew back together again, but the question that plagued me was how? I’d set the stage, but what could motivate Dexter, Jenna and the others? The answer was right in front of me – literally. It was one of my children. Children have a powerful way of motivating people, especially when their safety is involved. My apologies to Jianna, I never intended to use her as a plot device but she did an excellent job of it!

In the interest of protecting the innocent, no harm was done to Jianna during her time spent out of body. I have plans for her down the road – good plans, not the kind where I torture the character in the hopes of seeing what interesting things happen.

If you made it this far and enjoyed it, let me humbly ask you to take a few moments and leave a review wherever you purchased it at. Alternatively, send out a tweet or a Facebook status update. It’s these little word of mouth announcements that can really make the difference for a guy like me who’s struggling to be able to use writing to support my family and be able to write more books for you to read.

I also encourage you to follow me on Twitter at @booksbyjason. If you’re interested in new developments coming from me, stop by my webpage (
http://www.booksbyjason.com
) and click on the newsletter link at the top. You can sign up to be including in my mailing list that way (I send out one newsletter a month at the most, though I’m always happy to get feedback).

About the Author

Jason Halstead is a science fiction and fantasy author who spends his daytime hours as a
Systems Architect. In his spare time Jason enjoys spending time with his wife and two children, writing, and powerlifting.

He enjoys reading and responding to fan mail as well, so if you liked any of his books, don't be shy! Find him on the web at
http://www.booksbyjason.com
, email him at:
mailto:[email protected]
, or follow him on Twitter:
@booksbyjason
.