Shield (The Bonded Hearts #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

HAVEN

Ikept my voice soft as I wrapped my arm around the crying girl’s shoulders. “No one will hurt you. Not here.”

She flinched, her entire body tensing, as if my touch was a threat, not a comfort. Her fear was raw. Tangible. Terrible.

“You’re safe,” I promised.

The girl cried harder, her anguish clear in each gut-wrenching sob. Why did men do this? What drove them to hurt children?

Gritting my teeth, I rubbed a soothing circle on her back, the gentle movement at odds with the need to track down her attacker and exact justice. This rage was nothing new; it was fueled by each teary-eyed girl who appeared at our door, a far-too-regular occurrence.

The girl, Khouri, huddled beside me on a threadbare couch in the front room of the aged building Grandmother and I called home.

The light seeping through the windows was weak, barely enough to brighten our tired, worn parlor.

The room might have seen better days, but the scent of Grandmother’s herbal tea, the hand-crocheted blanket that draped over the couch’s arm, the dog-eared books that crammed the bookshelves, and Grandmother’s knickknacks were comforting. At least to me.

“You’re safe here.” I was all too aware of the irony.

Grimswood was the most dangerous area in all Legacia.

With its narrow streets, buildings that sat nearly on top of each other, and the choking smoke from its factories, the neighborhood was dark, grimy, and beset by poverty and crime. “You’re safe with us,” I amended.

“I’m not. I’m never safe. He’ll find me.” Khouri’s voice trembled with panic, her shoulders shaking under the pressure of her sobs. She pressed her tightly furled fists against her trembling mouth. “He always finds me.”

The muscles in my back and neck tightened.

Did Khouri carry a tracking spell? Such spells were ruinously expensive.

So much so that only a handful of men in the entire realm could afford them.

I studied the girl more closely. Her dark hair was glossy.

A gold chain circled her slender neck. And her clothes?

Silk. Expensive. Khouri reeked of fear, but I also smelled a hint of jasmine perfume. She came from money.

Dread settled heavily in my stomach. If Khouri did carry a tracking spell, she’d bring immense trouble to our home. This haven Grandmother and I had built wasn’t much—quite the opposite—but it meant hope and safety to the girls who lived here. Now it might be at risk.

Not that we’d ever turn Khouri away. We’d never turn away any girl. Especially not one with bruises blooming across her jaw, a torn skirt, and blood staining her upper thighs.

“How old are you, Khouri?”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Fourteen.”

“You’ve run away before?”

Her red-rimmed eyes overflowed with misery, and she brushed her swollen cheek with the back of her hand before holding up two fingers.

“Twice before?” Twice she’d run from her abuser. That she’d tried a third time told me she hadn’t given up hope for a better life. Khouri was strong. Courageous. And in need of our help.

I tamped down the worry gnawing a hole through my stomach. “Who did this to you?”

Her breath caught, and she leaned forward, causing her shiny brown hair to fall across her face, but not before I saw jagged terror flash in her eyes.

“It’s okay.” I kept my voice low and soothing. She wasn’t ready to talk about him. Some experiences—some men—were too traumatizing. I tried a different question. “How did you hear about this place?”

“Girls talk.” A shudder traveled from her shoulders to her hands. She smoothed the tattered remains of her skirt and whispered, “At least the desperate ones do.”

Rich girls. Poor girls. Too many girls needed us.

Grandmother had built a life on sheltering girls who needed an escape from men who treated them as punching bags or sex toys.

Toys to be discarded when the man was done, tossed on a refuse heap like garbage.

For the past twelve years—since I’d turned thirteen and Grandmother deemed me old enough to truly understand the darkness we fought—I’d helped her dry rivers of tears, clutched countless hands, spent more nights than I could tally holding girls haunted by nightmares.

With each tear wiped dry, with each nightmare soothed, my rage grew.

The nails of my free hand cut into my palm. Useless. My rage was useless. There was no way to fight. Treating girls badly was the norm in Legacia. And the more power a man had, the worse he treated those around him. Men and power were a lethal combination.

Grandmother was a rare woman with powerful magic. She might have used her gifts to gain prestige or riches. Instead, she lived in Grimswood, a neighborhood so poor that the rats paid rent in crumbs. Grandmother stayed to ease the burdens of those who had no power. She’d created a sanctuary.

Unlike Grandmother’s, my magic wasn’t terribly useful—I couldn’t stop men who abused girls, and I couldn’t heal the broken portions of the girls’ battered souls, or make them whole.

I was a shield, able to protect myself and others from magical attacks.

If I concentrated like crazy, I could teleport small objects.

And I healed quickly—so quickly that Grandmother thought it best we keep that ability a secret.

“He’ll find me.” Khouri wrapped her arms tightly around her narrow torso and rocked back and forth. “I know he will. I’ll never escape him.”

“Who do you think might find you?” I hated to press, especially when she seemed so fragile, but we needed to know what—who—we were up against.

She buried her face in her hands, and the tension radiating from her hunched shoulders was palpable, saturating the air with her distress.

Worry squeezed my chest. “Khouri, who will look for you?”

“My father.” Barely a whisper.

“Your father …” My gaze traveled briefly to the blood on her thighs.

Her cheeks flushed as if his sins were her shame. “You don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you.” I’d seen too much and cared for too many broken girls to doubt her. A father raping his daughter no longer surprised me. But it did sicken me. Bile burned the back of my throat. “What’s his name?”

She bit her lower lip and squeezed her eyes shut. “Wolgen Smit.”

My heart skipped a beat. Two beats. Ten beats. Panic prickled up the back of my neck. Wolgen Smit held a seat on the king’s council and had the power to destroy us with the snap of his meaty fingers.

The boom of the front door being thrown open shook the building, and next to me, Khouri shrieked.

The sound of her fear drew the intruder to the room’s entrance.

A man loomed in the doorway. He stood taller than six feet, with a barrel chest and salt-and-pepper hair.

The pictures I’d seen of Wolgen Smit depicted a powerful, handsome male, one who controlled everything around him—including his emotions.

Now, as he glared at his daughter, his face wasn’t remotely attractive.

Instead, his features were twisted, wild, suffused with rage. “Get up. We’re going home.”

If Khouri was brave enough to escape him, I was brave enough to stand up to him. “She’s not going anywhere.”

He barely glanced at me. Instead, he focused on Khouri as his thick lips curled into a vicious smile. “You think you can stop me?”

“You hurt her.”

He licked his lips. “She deserved it.”

No girl deserved abuse or rape.

He strode toward us. “She’s coming with me.”

Khouri cringed as if anticipating all the ways he’d punish her for running away.

Something like pleasure flashed across Smit’s heavy features. He enjoyed his daughter’s fear.

“She’s staying here.”

Smit’s revolting gaze slid from his daughter to me. He took me in, then dismissed me with a slow blink. A mere female. If I had power, it would be no match for his. “Get out of my way. I’m taking her.”

I took a deep breath—quite possibly my last breath. “No. You’re not.”

“Do you know who I am, girl?” He made the word girl sound like an insult.

“Wolgen Smit.”

His eyes crinkled with satisfaction, and he advanced a step. “People who cross me end up dead.”

I reminded myself he couldn’t hurt me, not with magic. “She stays.”

“She’s my daughter. Mine. I’ll take what’s mine.”

Khouri mewled in terror.

“She’s not going with you.” I shifted so my body blocked his view of his daughter.

“Get out of my way.”

“Get out of my house.” Not exactly a snappy comeback, but it got my point across.

He lifted his hands. Lights—lurid reds, violent purples, and inky black—played across his fingertips. “Last warning. Give me my daughter.”

I reached behind me for Khouri’s fingers, clasping them tightly. “No.”

Power erupted from his hands, and the garish lights tumbled over one another in their rush to reach me.

I braced myself. What if this time my magic failed? It hadn’t happened yet, but there was a first time for everything.

Smit held so much power. Everyone said so. But the stream of magic flowing from his hands felt lighter than a feather as it brushed against mine. If not for the extra spark of light as his magic collided with my shield, I wouldn’t have known it reached me.

Khouri whimpered, but thanks to my touch, she remained protected. Thanks to my shielding power, her father’s magic was unable to harm us. Rather than bringing me to my knees, Smit’s magic slid off my shield, dissipating as if it had never existed.

Fury played across his florid face, and he redoubled his efforts, turning the very air crimson, plum, and ebony in his struggle to destroy me.

More confident now, I allowed myself a small, triumphant smirk. We could go on like this forever, or until his power was spent.

“Bitch.”

If he thought calling me names might hurt me when his magic had failed, he was delusional. “You’re despicable. She’s your daughter. You’re supposed to love and protect her. Instead, you abused her.”

He roared. “She. Is. Mine. To do with as I please.”

To beat. To rape. To torture. To murder.