Soulbound
Page 9“Enough questions. I’ll no’ answer another. Just go before you’re caught.”
They glared at each other for a long moment.
“I’ll go,” she said finally.
“Saints preserve us, she does know how to obey.”
“But I’m returning,” she said, ignoring his quip and giving him a hard stare. “I want answers.”
Adam gritted his teeth against the urge to shake some sense into her. “You want answers? Open your eyes and see, lass. Pay attention not only to what Mab says but what lies beneath her pretty words. Look for the signs. Promises she’ll talk you into, pacts she’ll suggest you enter, yet somehow make it seem as though it was your idea all along. Knowing the bitch as I do, Mab will have already found ways to use you for her own ends.”
Something flickered in Eliza’s deep, brown eyes. Fear? A realization? He didn’t know. But he drove his point in. “If you have any care for your own skin, do not let Mab know you’ve seen me.”
Chapter Two
London was ugly and foul and vibrant and beautiful all at once.
“What has you smiling, child?”
Mab’s curious question had Eliza turning from the window and pushed her thoughts away from bearded ladies. Mab, her aunt and savior, sat opposite her. Mab who tortured men in her basement.
“London, I suppose.” Stiff with doubt, Eliza gestured toward the grimy streets. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” As if to punctuate that fact, a man in lime green plaid velvet stomped down the street. On stilts.
Mab’s pretty face wrinkled. “It’s horrid. Too congested. One cannot properly breathe in this infernal place.”
“Then why do you remain?” Eliza knew Mab had a home in the countryside. Several homes, apparently.
Her aunt’s gaze slid away. “I’ve business here at the moment.”
He’d been tortured. Eliza hadn’t the ability to justify that and live with herself. And she found herself studying Mab again. There was a soft, green glow about her that grew brighter when she was content. After Eliza had died, she had begun to see the glow surrounding persons.
“You glow,” she found herself saying.
Mab’s red brows lifted with amusement. “Pardon, dearest?”
Eliza flushed. “I see a greenish glow about you at times.”
Her aunt watched her in silence before answering. “And out there” – she waved a slim hand towards the streets – “do you see anyone else glow?”
“Yes.” Eliza did not need to look. “All the time. Greys, blues, reds, and yellows.” Every color of the rainbow, actually. Everyone she encountered appeared to have a colorful glow about them. The hues changed, though some were similar. And it was enough to give Eliza a headache if she focused too hard on them. She’d learned, by sheer will, to let her gaze go soft or to focus on objects instead. It made it easier to bear.
Mab leaned in, resting her elbow upon her crossed leg. “You are seeing the light of a person’s soul.”
“I see spirits as well.”
It was Mab’s turn to shiver. Her gloved hands clenched. “Do you now?” Mab glanced about as if fearful there was one nearby.
“All the time. All over London.” Truth be told, they were in greater numbers now. And always watching Eliza, as if pleading for her to hear them. Oddly, they did not frighten her. But they filled her with sorrow. Why did they linger when others did not? Where, for example, were the souls of her family? Did she even want to see them? No, she did not. It would be too painful when she could not truly have them in life.
“A word of caution, dear child,” Mab said tightly, her creamy skin pale. “Do not engage the spirits. Fae are not meant to interact with the dead.” Fear crept into Mab’s eyes. All the more shocking because Mab never quailed.
“Do I see these things because I died before?” she asked Mab.