The Heartless One (The Gravesinger #2)

Chapter 1

Dappled sunlight was just as Elric remembered.

The crystalline patterns of golden rays broke through emerald leaves and scattered across his features. Sparks seared his vision when he stared at them for too long, but that was just part of the beauty. A little pain was worth every sacrifice to be alive.

Lying in the grass, he felt every blade that brushed his skin.

He could smell the greenery that grew around him and hear the wind blowing through the leaves.

Oak stars rustled in harmony with the rhythmic twitters of birdsong.

The brush of the wind over his bare chest cooled the sweat from his skin.

And the sapphire sky above him was dotted with fluffy clouds that drifted over his head.

Boats on the sea of the sky, they gently rocked forward as he watched.

Fingers carded through his hair, sliding between the thick strands that were longer than the last time he’d taken this form.

There were changes in this body, but not as many as the last time.

He’d been different in every reincarnation.

But this time, he wanted to look like he had in his last form.

It was the one humans were more likely to recognize, after all.

And maybe it was because this form was the one she had seen. This body was the one she had looked upon as a statue, and it had made her blush. Some part of him wanted to make her feel that same way. Or perhaps to see that blush for himself and not just an inanimate object.

His head rested in Jessamine’s lap. She’d been leaning back on one hand, staring up at the clouds with him as they just enjoyed each other’s silent company.

They’d beaten Callum only a few days ago, and everything had been a tangled mess of preparing for their next step, trying to get him used to this new body, and finding Sybil.

He had less time with her to himself than he’d wished.

The trail had led them to Fortuna Beaumont, a noblewoman of the Pleasure District and close confidante of both Callum’s and Leon’s. Unfortunately, that had taken up far too much of their time. He wanted more of everything with her.

Jessamine’s fingers worked through a tangle that had started at the end of the strands before sighing. “Is it everything you remembered?”

He knew what she was asking. Life. Living. Was breathing in the crisp air everything he had dreamt it to be?

Of course it was. It was everything that he had missed, and far more than that. This life surged through him in pulses of magic and power. He wanted to consume it. To devour every part of living for the moment when he wouldn’t be here anymore.

And yet, there was another part of him that feared losing all this. If he was too close to this life, if he enjoyed it too much, then he would only suffer more when he returned to that realm of darkness.

Her fingers slipped down from his hair to his temples and gently lifted his face. Elric was forced to look up into those dark eyes that saw too much. But gods, what a view.

Jessamine truly was a nightmarish witch.

After their fight with Callum, she’d embraced everything it was to be a gravesinger.

Not only was she deeply connected to him, but she’d resurrected him.

She’d done all that a gravesinger needed to do, and now she shared in his glutted power.

Her wild, dark hair billowed around her face like smoke.

His mark around her neck fairly glowed, as though he’d locked a silver collar around her throat.

It was a sure sign that she was as bound to him as he was to her. His gravesinger.

A tiny spark of unbidden magic trailed through her fingers, zinging along his skin as she traced the outline of his jaw. “I can tell what you’re thinking,” she murmured. “This is not a fleeting moment. This is yours. I have gifted it to you, and I will not take it back.”

“I know,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her inner wrist and lingering there for a few moments. He filled his lungs with her grave scent before adding, “But it will take a while to believe, gravesinger.”

“How you break my heart, dear one.” As though compelled, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

They lingered there together, connected only by a soft, plush touch. But it was everything he needed to fill all the stores of magic in him again. He breathed her in. All that power, just simmering under her skin, built there by a connection that was only growing stronger by the day.

She was more than just a witch, and she had to know that. She was his witch.

When she drew back for a breath, he drank in the dazed expression on her face. He’d seen so many women in the throes of passion or witches who tried to pretend they were. He knew what a liar looked like, and he’d learned to read humans in his many centuries of life.

Jessamine was as truthful as they came. Her blown-out pupils and that drunken smile as she stared down at him were genuine.

What was he supposed to do with her? Other than wrap his hand around the back of her neck and draw her down for another kiss?

Her exhale became his inhale. They became linked through breath as he explored the depths of her mouth. He could taste the passion in her kiss. He could feel it as magic sparked between them, another electric zap that made every muscle in his body tense.

Of all the experiences in life, this was what he had missed the most. In that shadow realm, he’d never been able to taste her.

He’d never been able to clearly hear the little sighs that caught in the back of her throat as he touched her.

He hadn’t felt how soft her hair was, or seen how vivid her eyes were as he drew back.

They were more than just brown. They were dark, haunting orbs he wanted to drown in.

What a beauty he had captured. What a stunning gravesinger to draw into his life. Perhaps there was still a lingering presence of the gods in this world, because certainly he was not the one to have wished her into being.

She drew back, her fingers lingering on his jaw. “What are you thinking?”

“Merely about your beauty.”

“I am hardly the princess I once was,” she replied with a soft laugh. “You should have seen me in the castle.”

“A prim and proper princess meandering about the halls? You must have been waiting for something exciting to happen every day. No, I choose to see you as you are now.” His fingers tangled in the hair at the back of her neck, arching her head away so he could press his lips to the swanlike stretch of her throat.

“I like to see you wild and undone, princess.”

That sigh. That soft, lingering sigh she always gave when he kissed her made him feel like a god again.

He reveled in this freedom, this knowledge that he was alive and well and that nothing was going to change that. Even if he had to scrape on his hands and knees to stay this way, he would. He would beg if she needed him to.

Something scratched at the back of his mind. Fingernails trailed down the entirety of his body. He could feel them dragging down his neck, his shoulders, his back. Such a touch should be impossible. Unless…

He sat straight up, nearly cracking their heads together as he realized what it meant.

“Elric?” she asked, shoving her hair out of her face. She stared at him with those big eyes, and for a moment, he was shocked she hadn’t felt it, too.

But how could she? Jessamine was a gravesinger, but she had not tied herself to his coven beyond the simple bonds of friendship. She couldn’t sense the presence of another witch unless they were near. She couldn’t know how it felt like a ghost had ripped its talons along his entire soul.

“Elric?” she asked again, this time sounding far more concerned than the first time. “What is it?”

“Another witch,” he murmured. “Someone is worshipping me.”

Fear rippled through his body at the knowledge that another witch had tried to connect with him.

His guts twisted, his stomach rolling with nerves, but even those feelings were a marvelous experience.

He knew he should be elated at the thought of another witch, but more people in the coven meant more voices who may wish to sacrifice him.

A coven of witches was powerful, sometimes too powerful.

The wells of his magic were deep and old, but that did not mean they were endless. Witches who sacrificed in his name gave energy to him. The more people who sacrificed in his name, the stronger he would become. Already he could feel what this newcomer was doing.

This was a determined witch. He stretched out his magic, feeling his way through their world to the woman who sacrificed to him.

She had gone off into some field and taken a man’s prized cow.

The beast had been the best performer for milk, better than any other in the herd, which made it far more special.

Someone had given the animal attention and reverence, so its death meant far more in the grand scheme of magic.

“What is she doing, Elric?” Jessamine asked.

“She’s sacrificing a cow to me,” he muttered, his vision almost gone as he focused on the sensation of what the witch was doing.

“You can feel that?” She reached out to hold his hand as though to help ground him.

“She wants something. They all do.”

But what?

The old words spilled from the stranger’s tongue, and he knew in that moment it wasn’t a woman playing at witchcraft. This wasn’t someone who had stumbled upon a spell book and thought she would try it out. This woman had been taught.

The sacrificial spell had to be spoken in the ancient tongue. Anyone reading those words would have stumbled on them or pronounced them wrong. But this recitation was nearly perfect. She built a strong spell, one that flowed throughout the realms of the living and the dead to find him.