Page 46 of These Eternal Bones

A New Old Voice

Elric

My mate’s tiny warm hand is wrapped around mine, a small indulgent smile on her lips as she guides me across the canvas, a streak of vivid yellow that exists nowhere here.

Like her smell and her soul, in every life, Molly has loved flowers.

After nearly seven hundred years, I have yet to get them to grow on this land.

Hardier fruits, some vegetables, but no flowers.

She dots with my hand, getting excess paint from her cart on my cuff.

I have half a mind to peel the skin off the selkie if she dares to wash it clean.

Something is coming, you’ll lose her.

The voice warns, showing its nasty self after so long, but I ignore it.

She’s wrapped safe in my arms, her heartbeat sounding in the hollow cavern of my chest. Strong and alive, her love and amusement thrum through the bond as I push too hard on the brush.

I can’t bring myself to feel ashamed for messing it up or tell her it was me who taught her to paint, many…

many lives ago. If I mess it up, she feigns annoyance and uses my hands to fix it, dragging my cuff through more paint.

It’s been a month since the bond slipped into place.

A month of rightness…wholeness I had nearly forgotten the feel of.

A month of fear.

A month of waiting.

A month with little sleep.

She’s going to die soon. You can feel it too.

A growl rumbles in my chest, making her stiffen before she shrugs it off.

My sweet little Molly isn’t troubled by my weaning mind.

At least not outwardly. I can feel the tinge of worry, but it doesn’t last long.

I stop paying attention to the canvas, to the brilliant colors and fields of flowers she’s painted outside of our home, ones she’ll never see again in this life.

My cheek nuzzles hers, making her laugh.

Such a heavenly sound.

My head snaps to the side, my tendrils snapping out aggressively to the space Tien will soon occupy. He blips by taking a small step back, eyeing them with no little suspicion. They’ve all learned well over the years that my tendrils have a mind of their own. An oftentimes…aggressive mind.

I wait for Tien to speak, but my eyes fall behind him, the uneasy looking golden man crossing the threshold, his eyes lingering on the woman still blissfully painting in my lap. His eyes linger too long.

My tendrils snap toward him as he falls out of sight, one gouging the molding around the door.

I nearly cringe, making sure Molly doesn’t notice.

She dislikes when I damage our home. Flashing a pointed glare at the damned things, they calm, now content to warily regard Tien and aggregate Molly with their constant tugging and pulling at her limbs and skirts .

“Sorry to–”

Molly startles in my lap, her eyes slamming to Tien. “Oh, good morning, Tien.”

“Good morning, Molly. I did not mean to frighten you.” The older Chimera lowers his head in apology, shifting on his feet. Why is he uncomfortable?

He’s a threat. He wants to hurt her. Kill her, take her away from you. The voice whispers.

“Sir, there is a woman at the door…from town,” he adds carefully.

I don’t need to be told who or why. My entire body hums with rage, a bright burst of fear slapping the bond before I can hide it, making Molly gasp.

“Elric?”

“All is well, my love. I will resume my lessons in a moment, yes?” I capture her soft lips in a kiss before she can argue, something she does often these days.

I adore it, watching the timid, quiet girl yield under the strong, confident woman.

She is devastatingly stunning as either.

Everything in me screams as I step away from her, fighting my tendrils to dismiss them as they cling desperately, accidentally dragging her stool an inch. The morning haze lights her green eyes.

“Nephilim!” I call. I can hear his gasps and curse as he steps out from whatever alcove he’d tucked himself into. Always listening and watching, lurking. It annoys me.

“Master?”

“Stay with her,” I order, glaring at him before adding. “ Outside of the room, with your eyes to yourself.”

Tien speaks next, stepping partly into my field of vision. “Perhaps the selkie–”

“She is tending things elsewhere, yes?”

He simply nods in submission .

I blur, and in seconds, I’m standing in front of the entryway door, the huddled form of the older woman on the other side, somewhat of an elder in the small town.

The people listen to her and follow her lead.

Go to her for advice. The sticky woman has her fingers in everything.

Tien blips beside me as I open the doors, glaring at her. “He is coming.”

She huffs, glaring back at me. Now and then, over the years, I’ve seen it deep in her eyes…

a spark of pure hatred. It’s fleeting, but it’s there.

I see it now before she blinks, slapping her hands on her hips.

“Why else would I show up? You ordered me to rush immediately should I get confirmation of an incoming ship from your human’s territory.

” Her mood is sour as it has been lately with our interactions, not that they were ever pleasant.

Her wit and jokes have all but subsided, her resentment growing.

It seems like usual behavior for small-minded humans who don’t get what they want from me.

But what did she want? Why now?

“How far out are they?” The words take on their otherworldly quality. To her credit, she doesn’t flinch.

“Just left port in Mertigas, when my contact sent the bird. I’d say about a few days into the journey by now.”

He’s coming for her. Get her upstairs. Take her now, before it’s too late.

“We have no clue if it’s the man Captain Faine had been in communication with.” She continues because I’ve gone deathly still. “Ledger simply showed a shipping vessel.”

“You’re dism–”

“Where is the girl?”

My eyes snap toward her. “Excuse me?”

“Your mate, where is she?” She asks, trying to peer around me .

I snap out, snatching her by the throat, Tien erupting in a flurry of activity. But he knows better than to interfere. “You know nothing of the woman who lives in this castle.”

There it is again, hate, disgust, something else, something more, but all of it is the same flavor I’ve always seen in the eyes of humans. Warranted or not. “I know much and see even more. Not all of us have written off the old stories. Some of us can still smell the blood in the soil.”

She was in the castle twice, brought here for me to feed.

The thought repulses me as my hand bands tighter around her neck, the steady thump of her pulse making my stomach revolt.

The second I’d fed, like all those I don’t kill, I’d dismissed her.

Then found her an hour later on the upper floors snooping around.

She’s always been odd and uncomfortable.

She’s here to kill her.

I dismiss the voice, releasing the old woman abruptly, making her stumble to catch herself before she falls. “If you know so much about the old legends, then you should know better than to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong, lest your blood join the rest.”

Rage flares in the woman, a pop of something, a crackle that pricks the back of my neck before she spits on the ground at my feet. Something odd and famil–

She’s going to die; it’s any day now. It could be any day.

I watch, vibrating with rage as the woman stalks down the steps, her own anger making her back a little straighter, making her hobble a little less. She’s halfway to the trail when she turns, her eyes snapping not to me but up.

To my Molly, no doubt peering from the windows. She smiles at her, and unease burrows in my gut.

“Clean this up,” I snap .

The walls of our home blur as I rejoin my mate, my arm wrapping around her small waist as I tug her from the window, meeting the woman’s eyes in a final warning.

“That’s the woman from the shop, the one who used to feed you.” Molly’s voice is calm, level, but jealousy and anger thrum in my chest, mingling with my own, and despite the nagging in my mind, I can’t help but smile.

“Jealous, my love?”

She scoffs as if my question is silly but tries to pull away from me.

Everything in me tightens, a lacing blow of fear.

I snag her back, growling in warning, so she simply crosses her arms, glaring at me instead.

A reasonable enough compromise. “You have nothing to worry about, my love. I hunger for only you.”

I have adored and worshipped her in all of her forms and in all of her lives.

Pined for her for nearly a thousand years.

I have killed, raided, and committed atrocities beyond comprehension in her name, and yet, she’s jealous of an old woman who came to the door.

I gather her in my arms, my amusement fluttering through the riotous bond.

“It is not funny,” she grumps, arms still crossed.

“I wouldn’t dare laugh.”

She rolls her eyes at that, finally hanging her arms around her neck, allowing me a deeper inhale of lilac. It’s where she got her namesake.

Syringa.

The scientific term for the flower she smells like, her favorite in her first life.

“What did she want?”

“An issue at the port, it will be handled.” A half-truth, and it makes my stomach sour.

She simply nods, content to snuggle against me for now. Neither of us are fooled, her in my fib and me in her believing it .

I can’t tell her. Can’t bear the fear in her eyes, not now at the end, not when they’ll soon be plagued with other wrenching expressions.

She’s grown out of the shell of her past and the shadow of that disgusting man.

I cannot put her back there. I will run the sea dry before I let her fear another man.

We’re out of time.

The nagging voice always gets louder as time goes on.

After the bond, the days pass and so does its warnings, so does the atrophy of my mind, but this time I don’t ignore it.

My fingers gently caress the healed bite displayed proudly on her slender neck.

She gasps, so I do it again, my lips quirking as the smell of her need meets me, making my mouth water.

She giggles as I sit her on my desk, upsetting something on top, but I pay it no mind.

My tendrils manifest, slamming the door shut where the Nephilim had long slinked away.

I don’t bother undressing her, shifting her skirts to leave her wide, bare, and glistening.

I hunger as I kneel in front of her, tasting her sweet, tangy arousal on my tongue.

Her soft little moans are like music to my ears as I lap, and she writhes. I feed, only this time it’s not on her blood.