26. Kiaran
Kiaran
“ A melie?” The dead silence of the cottage caused immediate panic in my heart.
There was no response, not even a flicker of light from Orla.
The only sound that pulsed a sign of life was my heart beating through my ears.
I tested the waters carefully, I’d left under no specific veil.
If the High Priestess was keen to that, surely she came to finish what she’d started before with Orla.
The normally wild ribbons of color between Amelie and I were stretched so thin it was like seeing through fine crystal. I could only guess this specific tether had to do with Amelie’s Bloch side. It wasn’t something that happened between Fated Mates.
What I could feel and see in the cottage told me no one was here, no High Table member or spirit in the walls. I sprinted up the stairs, hoping to Amelie’s God that she at least left a fucking note. On my nightstand was a piece of paper that read…
Left early.
It wasn’t Amelie’s handwriting though, it was loopy with unnecessary swirls. My heart sank into my stomach at the whiplash I gave my body as I descended the stairs and rushed out the front door.
The pull between our bond was tugging me toward the Forest, into the brush and in a direction I’d never wandered before.
“Everything alright, boy?” My already panicked heart skipped another beat at the scare from Al who had seemingly, out of nowhere, appeared on the other side of the bridge.
“I can’t find Amelie, and I think…” I stumbled over my words, pressing a clammy hand to my equally clammy forehead.
“Orla. They’re both gone.” My voice cracked at the last second.
Because there it was, the secret inside the walls of our cottage.
The daughter of the beloved Evari Morgenstern.
I hadn’t realized how furiously I wanted to protect the Morgenstern women in my life.
I gauged Al, hoping this wasn’t news to him.
I got to Al who seemed unfazed by my admission, his cold palms landed on my shoulder. The touch alone seemed to calm my worries and send a numbness to the hollows of my bones.
“Are your colors still intact?”
Well, that confirmed my earlier assumption. It was, indeed, a Bloch trait.
“Yes.”
“Good. Follow them. They’ll always lead you back to her,” he answered, studying my face intently.
The air around us lightened, making it a little easier to breathe.
“What are they… the colors?” I asked, as I tried to feel for the other end of the rainbow. Al and I started to take quick steps in the direction I felt a pull to.
“It’s your fated mate bond. It’s the tether that will snap should either of you find your death.”
“I’ve never heard of anyone being able to see the tether.” I could feel it now, the tug her soul had on mine .
“You’re fated with a Bloch. Comes with different privileges,” he replied matter-of-factly.
We’d made just a little ways into the brush, now standing near the babbling waters of the river that flowed to the pond in our clearing. Al’s presence was grounding. Much like Amelie’s was, which was funny because Amelie’s head was always in the clouds.
I needed to get to her now, wherever she was made my soul ache.
“Do you have any idea where she went?” I asked in a near whisper.
“My guess is she went to find her father.”
I shot my eyes up to the leader of the Lost Souls, panic was carving up my bones again. “Her father is dead?” It was a statement but it came out in a plea.
“No.”
I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t.
“How did she know that?”
Al’s lips turned upward to a proud smile. He endeared his family with pride as he spoke.
“Told ya boy, Bloch’s have special privileges.” He pointed in the direction I now remembered led toward Amelie’s village. “She’s only just learning what it all means, but I’d go find her before she accidentally sets the world on fire.”
Funny thing about his warning was she’d had mine ablaze since the moment I met her.
The Forest being an alliance to Amelie was the second best thing about tonight’s search. The first being that I didn’t need a map to find her, I just followed where my soul led.
I knew nothing about Amelie’s world as far as its geography and as I stepped into the hole in the ground that the Forest assured me was the way back to my girl, my heart broke for the journey she’d taken to get to me.
Her chance at getting away from it, only to run back because she was scared of her fate with me .
My girl was nothing if not a runner. Every time things got hard, Amelie tucked it away into the darkest parts of her. That way she could never find it again, she could just keep moving and leave it in the past, but not this time. Not now.
I’d moved on from Fern’s indiscretion toward aiding and abetting my curse by not allowing me to leave the cottage for two hundred years.
I supposed as much as she was my only friend, I was hers.
Maybe the person I was prior to Amelie wouldn’t have returned to her, I didn’t think Fern would’ve cared. But Orla would’ve.
Seemed to me I was nothing but a pest in her home for the last two centuries, but now I was looking for both of them. To return with the good parts of my cottage. Amelie brought the good. She was the good.
The tunnel was presumably taking me to the small palace in the distance.
A dim light came into view and when I reached it, I noticed it was covered by fabric.
Muffled cries and the sound of Amelie’s name on another man’s mouth had my skin tingling with rage.
Well, actually it was a lot worse than a tingle.
I was going to kill whoever was muttering her name.
I tried to move whatever was covering the opening and quickly realized it was a bed and laying on the ground before it was Amelie, eyes wide open but seemingly not breathing.
A blonde man sat on his knees with her head in his lap as he wept over her.
“What the fuck did you do to her?” I demanded as I grasped the back of the blubbering man’s neck.
“Nothing…” he sobbed. “I would never hurt her.”
Not allowing Amelie to crash to the floor, I held the man in my clutch searching his face for the lie. His body had no defense wounds, his bones seemed to all be intact, and he didn’t seem like the fear of Amelie’s power was forever stained on his soul so I guessed it would be safe to believe him.
I released the pressure on the man’s neck slightly and it was only then that he realized he didn’t know me .
“I won’t let you hurt her either,” he said, hiding her face from me and trying to school his features and steady his shaky voice. I laughed at the idea of this guy protecting Amelie from me. “Who are you?” He demanded from me now, bolder.
“I’m hers,” I replied honestly, because who the fuck else would have me risking my bones, trekking for hours through the Forest, walking hunchback through an underground tunnel, crawling out of the Earth and not blowing the man holding my girl to shreds. “And who the fuck are you?”
“Igor,” he replied instantly, as if finally understanding that he was not the alpha male in the room. It struck me that Amelie mentioned along with her Uncle Arthur, the heir of Holleberg, Igor, helped her escape. So for that, I guess I could give him an iota of respect.
“Well, Igor, I’m going to need you to hand over my girl.” I told him with a smile. “Now.” Adding that last part with much less of a smile.
“Something in my bones told me to come back. To check on her, and she was just…” he sobbed into her again.
From what Amelie told me about her time in Holleberg, it was less than ideal. However, Igor seemed to care for her.
She wasn’t dead though, I’d feel it in my connection between life and death.
Al said I’d see it in our tether, it would’ve snapped and my will to continue fighting would have been long gone.
I knew I’d be one of the unfortunate souls who wouldn’t survive the loss.
I’d lie down next to her cold body and cross into purgatory with her.
I pressed a hand to her heart. A mortal wouldn’t know it, but the beat was there. It’s faint, but she was alive. Her open, empty eyes were enough to tell me exactly what was happening.
“I need to take her back, Igor. She’s not dead but whatever veiled her isn’t here and the further it gets, the closer to death she will be. ”
Igor furrowed his brows in confusion, his chest heaved in and out slowly as he steadied his emotional heart.
“How did you find her?” he asked, curiosity in his voice, as if now was a good time for explanations.
“Followed my heart.” Igor didn’t wince in the slightest at my poetic words, finding her was easy aside from how long it took.
I definitely thought once or twice that the Forest would purposefully keep me from her.
It had always protected her and the insecure part of me told me that I was something it would need to protect her against. The fact that it brought me right to her reinstilled that I had to fix this. I had to get her home.
“I’m going to take her now.” I changed the grasp I’d had on his neck to something friendlier.
“Yeah,” he said, as he shook his head back to the moment. “Yeah, I need to go too.”
I took the opportunity to scoop Amelie up into my arms. Her body wasn’t that of a warm, alive person but it absolutely wasn’t cold and full of rigor yet. Cradling her in my arms, I stood and started back for the way I came.
“Is she happy?” Igor questioned, now standing in the door of this dungeon.
It stunned me a bit. Aside from her family, Amelie didn’t say much about her village.
Whenever it was brought up or something would trigger a memory, I felt her mind go dark and fearful.
It wasn’t something she liked to remember.
But I hoped she knew there was someone who clearly cared about her here.
“I hope so.”
“She deserves that. I hope the rest of us get the same luxury come tomorrow.” He shrugged. He lingered for a moment, I’m not sure for what, but his heart was bleeding right now.
I gave him a narrow smile and tried my best to wear my kindest eyes as I descended back into the tunnel.