Page 36 of Soul of Shadow #1

At first, all Charlie knew was darkness. Darkness and a dull, throbbing pain across her back, as if a fire had burned in zigzags along her skin, leaving the flesh scarred, purple.

As consciousness crept slowly over her, memories seeping back into her head, the first thing she realized was that she was lying on her stomach in a soft, warm environment.

And although she was in pain, it wasn’t nearly enough for what the situation warranted.

She had been attacked by a twelve-foot-tall skeleton monster with pickaxes for fingers; she shouldn’t even be alive.

Her eyelids fluttered open. She turned her head on the pillow where it rested and saw a face made of shadow bent over her body, eyes shut, lips muttering. She nearly cried out before her brain understood that it was only Elias, still in his mare form.

Traveling down from Elias’s face, her eyes found that she was in a surprisingly comfortable bed in a warmly lit room with a high ceiling and wooden floor.

Elias was seated beside the bed on a footstool.

She was lying with her head pointed toward the right side of the pillow.

The quilt draped over her body was clearly handmade, the type stitched together by a loving mother or grandma. Its weight was snug and reassuring.

On top of the quilt, Elias’s midnight hands rested.

They were spread wide, palms centered right over her back.

Cool air pulsed from his hands, seeping through the quilt and oozing all across her back, as if she were standing before a lightly blowing fan.

She didn’t know what he was doing, but it felt wonderful.

Her lips cracked open, her voice raw as she whispered, “Elias.”

Elias jerked backward, dark eyes opening. He blinked several times, the cool breeze disappearing as his hands lifted from the blanket. Finally seeming to remember where he was, he looked down at Charlie.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“I am,” she rasped. “What happened?”

“The draugar caught you.” His fingertips skimmed along the quilt. “Right here. Tore up your back and side pretty badly. I fought it off and ran you home. To my home, I mean.”

“You fought it off ?” She started to push herself off the bed, but Elias laid a gentle hand on her shoulders, easing her back to the mattress. “How? That thing was twice your size.”

He gave her a half smile. “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“Is it dead?”

His smile dropped. “No. I only managed to injure it. Took off both its hands, but they’ll regrow. They always do.”

Charlie groaned at the thought of those sharp fingers, her hand coming up beneath the quilt to touch her back.

She expected to find fresh wounds, clotted blood, torn-up skin dampening the sheets and blanket…

but touched only the cool, raised surface of what felt like scars.

The T-shirt she wore to the game was completely shredded, the back hanging so loosely and limply that —

“Wait.” Heat crept onto Charlie’s cheeks. “Was my shirt like this while you were carrying me?”

Elias’s face lit up with amusement. “Oh, please.” He rolled his eyes. “You’re really worried about me seeing the Victorian-era undergarments you have on?”

Horrified, she turned onto her uninjured side, drawing the blanket tighter around herself. “My bra is not Victorian,” she said. “It’s sensible and supportive.”

“Whatever you say, Charlotte.” He reached out and patted the foot of the bed.

Holding in a groan, Charlie lifted her head to look at what he was indicating.

His palm rested on a folded sweatshirt. “Don’t worry—I fished something nonshredded for you out of my drawers.

Might be a bit big, but at least you won’t arrive home looking like you had a run-in with Michael Myers. ”

She groaned slightly, letting her head fall back onto the pillow. “Of course horror is your favorite movie genre.”

“Who said anything about favorite? I enjoy a wide variety of films, though admittedly there’s nothing better than sitting in a theater full of people nearly crapping their pants with fear. Really gets my juices flowing.”

Charlie rolled her eyes. “Naturally.”

There was a lull in the conversation, and Elias became uncharacteristically awkward, patting his knees and looking around the room. “Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Looks like there’s nothing more for me to do here, so I’ll just be…”

“Wait,” she said, panic twisting her stomach at the thought of being left alone. Elias paused in the middle of rising from the footstool, eyebrows lifted. Charlie searched for something, anything, to keep him from exiting the room. “Where’s the v?tte? Is he all right? ”

“Oh, he’s fine.” Elias stood all the way up, waving a hand. “You’d be surprised at how powerful those little guys are. I’ve set him up down in the kitchen. He seems to have a liking for chocolate chip cookies.”

Charlie laughed, though the motion hurt. “That he does.”

Elias smiled, then started to turn around.

“ Wait ,” she said again. God, she sounded desperate. “What… Um, what were you doing to my back?”

“Ah.” He turned back to her and lowered himself onto the stool. “You mean with my hands?”

“Yes.” Charlie exhaled in relief. “I don’t understand. My skin should be bloody and ragged, but all I feel are scars.”

Elias placed a shadowy hand on the hem of the blanket, a silent ask if he could lift it from her body.

Charlie felt a twinge of shyness but nodded anyway, rolling onto her stomach.

Elias lifted the covers, then she bunched the torn-up T-shirt along her sides to expose her back.

She twisted, trying to get a view of her back, but the movement hurt too much. She hissed and settled onto her cheek.

“It will be tender for some time,” Elias said, hovering one of his hands over her bare back. “But I was able to heal it enough that you won’t bleed out or get sick from infection.”

“You healed it?” she asked. “How?”

“One of the lesser-known perks of being a mare.” His eyes took on a distant quality. “We can dole out pain and fear, but we can take it away, too.”

“Really?”

He nodded, slowly lowering his hand. Charlie watched it drop, her muscles tightening with every millimeter it traveled toward her naked skin.

At last, he made contact, the cool softness of his shadow resting atop her spine.

A shiver ran the length of her body. A part of her wanted to tell him to take it back, not to touch her after all, but his palm felt so wonderful on her aching body.

The same soft air as before began to twirl along her skin, seeping into her muscles, relaxing everything.

Yet with every second that his hand remained, there was also a tightening—a clench low and deep in her belly.

A hyperawareness that she was almost bare before him, his eyes running slowly down her skin.

Elias inhaled, pulling his hand away as if emerging from a daze.

“Well.” He cleared his throat. “If that’s all—”

“Wait.”

It was the fourth time she had used the word since waking but the first time it had escaped her lips in such a soft and breathy fashion. Hearing her tone, Elias’s eyes snapped up to meet hers.

Charlie didn’t know what was happening. What Asgardian demon inhabited her body, causing her to speak the words that came out next.

“Can you lie with me?”

Elias froze. He was half-stooped, stuck in the position he’d assumed in preparation for standing up.

Charlie had never seen someone so still before.

It was as if even the shadowy flames that danced along his skin drew to a sudden halt, suspending them in this moment, Elias’s eyes locked on hers, her back rising and falling with every breath.

“I—”

“It feels nice,” she said, then quickly amended, “On my injuries, I mean. Your… mare powers. ”

“Oh.” Some of the smoke in Elias’s eyes seemed to clear. “Yes. Of course.”

She scooted over in bed. He slid onto the mattress, pulling the quilt up and over their bodies.

She turned onto her side, back facing toward him.

Sensing what she wanted, he shuffled forward until his chest and torso were flush to her body, touching every part of exposed skin, spooning her.

His arm draped over her chest, resting atop her belly.

Every touch was like a fresh gust of wind, a healing salve sinking deep into her muscles.

Every touch made her stomach clench even tighter.

“Better?” he whispered in her ear. His breath sent shivers down her neck.

“Yes,” she managed to say. “Much.”

“Good.”

They fell silent. The house creaked around them. Drapes fluttered over a half-open window. The light inside the room was warm but dim. Altogether, it was enough to lull a person to sleep.

Charlie, however, had never felt less drowsy in her life.

“Is this your room?” she whispered.

Elias exhaled. “It is.”

“It’s nice.” She took in the woven rug, the worn dresser, a small chest in the corner that reminded her of the one where she and Sophie used to keep their dolls. “Surprisingly nice.”

“It’s a tad cleaner than the rest of the house,” he admitted ruefully.

“No kidding.”

They laughed softly.

“Elias?”

“Yes? ”

“Tell me about your family.”

Elias had clearly not expected this question. He had no ready response, no pithy comeback to divert her attention from the subject at hand. He could only shift on the sheet behind her, probably weighing whether or not he wanted to tell the truth.