Edyn (The Essence Project Book 1) Read online

  "I’m feeling a little better than I did. Maybe having your soul inside me is healing me?"

  My gaze fell to his gunshot wound, and I could already see the red spider web around it receding. It didn’t look quite as bad as it had a moment ago.

  "Holy crap, look," I said.

  He looked down at his wound, and his eyes went wide.

  "Shit, I think it really is." A smile spread slowly across his face.

  My heart leapt, and I threw myself on him with a laugh. He grunted, but I silenced it by furiously pressing my lips against his. Ryker’s strong hands found their way into my hair, and I moaned in ecstasy.

  He wasn’t going to die.

  I wasn’t going to lose him.

  I wasn’t going to lose him, but I was losing myself in him. My head was spinning, and I couldn’t think. All I wanted was more of him, all of him. I could feel that he wanted the same thing, but I hesitated. He was just starting to heal. I didn’t want to mess anything up.

  Ryker, however, clearly didn’t care. He was moving with a renewed energy, breathing heavily against my mouth.

  "Edyn," he panted, kissing my neck.

  His voice and his lips sent a surge of electricity through me.

  What had we been talking about?

  He slid one hand underneath my shirt and up my back, while the other was still tangled in my hair. God, he felt so good against me.

  This.

  We can’t.

  Something about…what again?

  The rumbling of his stomach broke us apart. When I looked at him, I sucked in a breath.

  His eyes were glowing.

  "I told you I was hungry," he said.

  I shook my head quickly. "No, your eyes."

  He blinked rapidly a few times. "Glowing?"

  Not able to speak, I just nodded.

  "This is what you look like sometimes," he said with a smile.

  I laughed. "It’s so weird."

  "Tell me about it. I’m the one that always has to see it."

  "You are so mean!" I said with a sarcastic huff.

  "Never," he whispered and pulled me back down to meet his lips.

  He sounded hungry alright, but not for food. His stomach, though, protested again.

  We both laughed as we pulled apart. "Well since you don’t appear to be dying anymore, I’ll run and get us something to eat." I looked at the clock on the night stand and frowned. 4:02am. "What the Hell would be open at this time?"

  He looked over the clock. "Oh, good point. Hey, isn’t that diner we went to open twenty-four hours? They have burgers."

  "And pie," I said.

  "The diner it is." He started to get up, but I pushed him back down with one hand.

  "Uh uh. You’re staying here." When he started to protest, I cut him off, "You need to take it easy, and I won’t be going far. I’ll be fine."

  He looked about to argue, but saw the look of blatant stubbornness written across my face and thought better of it. Then he took my hand, and gave it the whisper of a kiss.

  "I’ll be back soon. Do I need to get any medicine or anything, you think?" I asked.

  Shaking his head, he said, "No, I should be okay thanks to you."

  I pulled on my clothes and slipped my feet into my boots. Then I snagged some of the cash and tucked the rest of it safely into our bag. When I opened the door, I turned back for just a moment to look at him. He was perfect in every way, and I was so thankful that God had given him to me, and for giving me yet another chance at life with him.

  "I love you," I said.

  "I love you too," he replied.

  I shut the door behind me and made my way down the metal stairs. The diner wasn’t far, and the streets were mostly deserted. A random car or two passed by as I walked down the sidewalk, but it was quiet out.

  The light from the diner spilled out on the street. I pulled the door handle open, and walked into the nearly empty restaurant. The waitress behind the counter was wiping it down with a dishrag. She looked up with a curt smile when I approached.

  "Hi," I said. "I need to get some food to go."

  She pulled a notepad out from her apron pocket and loudly clicked her pen. "Sure, whatcha want?"

  "Give me two burgers with fries and a slice of pie."

  "Apple or cherry?"

  I thought for a moment, not knowing what kind of pie he would like. "I’ll go ahead and do one of each."

  She jotted down my order and turned to give it to the cook. I took a seat at the counter a few spots away from a man sipping coffee. It was something so small, so inconsequential.

  I didn’t know what kind of pie Ryker liked.

  I didn’t know what his favorite color was.

  I didn’t know whether or not he cared about sports at all like a normal guy.

  I hadn’t had the chance to find out yet.

  But I was glad that was going to change.

  I gazed up at the TV that was silently broadcasting a news station above the counter. It showed a scene of a bunch of politicians smiling and shaking hands for the camera. Another bunch of bullshit. They would do anything for appearances, but nothing to help the people. Of course, I could never say that out loud or I would likely lose my tongue, if not worse. They put on a wonderful facade of trying to do what was best for us, but they did what they needed to in order to control us and tax the Hell out of us. It always blew my mind how much of our money they could spend on stuff that didn’t benefit us at all.

  A couple of years ago they spent several hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money on research to combat balding. Clearly that was a critical issue to focus on for them.

  I was looking down at my hands, picking at my nails, when I suddenly felt eyes on me. Turning my head just slightly, I saw the man sitting a few feet away looking at me. I flashed him a tight smile, then glanced back at the TV.

  That’s when I saw why he was staring at me. My picture was taking up the whole screen. It was different though than how I looked now. My face still had faint traces of makeup, and my hair still had its crimson tips. Now, my hair was solid brown, and I had been makeup free for a while. The picture must’ve been taken shortly after I arrived at the labs, but I didn’t remember it. The caption below read, "Person of Interest for the Essence Project. Call 1-800-Essence1 with information." Ryker’s picture was swapped out for mine with the same caption.

  The man was still staring at me, clearly trying to figure out if the girl he’d just seen on TV was the same one that was sitting next to him. He seemed to have enough uncertainty though from my different hair color, that he hesitated.

  The waitress came back just then with a brown paper bag. She set it down on the counter. "Eighteen forty-two," she said.

  I slid her a twenty and said, "Keep the change." Then I grabbed the bag and made a beeline for the door, ducking my head.

  I could feel their eyes on my back as I retreated, and heard the man quietly whispering to her. It was a good thing we were leaving in a few hours. Hopefully Ryker would be okay to make the trip, so I made a mental note to remind him to call his friends when I returned to let them know that our location had changed. We had completely forgotten about it in the chaos of getting him to the motel.

  Reaching the parking lot of the motel, I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding onto. The whole walk back, I had searched the darkness for any sign of someone coming after me. I could just picture soldiers getting their hands on me again and taking me back to Jophiel.

  Bang.

  The sound of the gunshot stopped me in my tracks. My head whipped around towards the sound just in time to see the lady at the front desk of the office slump to the ground behind the glass. There were two black-clad soldiers in there.

  Oh my God, Ryker.

  If they busted down the door to our room, they’d shoot him on sight, and there was nothing he could do to defend himself in his weakened state. Even if he was perfectly healthy, being caught off guard like a mouse in a corner woul
d be a nearly impossible feat considering their guns.

  Distract them!

  I was fast at least. Maybe I could get them to chase me and draw them away from the motel. Surely I could lose them somewhere in the dark, and I doubted they would shoot me. Jophiel wanted me back too badly, so I was certain he had ordered his men not to harm me.

  The two soldiers walked out of the office, and I no longer had the luxury of time to make up my mind. They spotted me, and the second they did, I dropped the bag and took off. I could hear their shouts and heavy footsteps behind me. They threatened to shoot, but I pushed my legs harder, calling their bluff. I could hear one of them cursing as they tried to keep up.

  Just as I turned the corner of the motel, I smacked into Dirk and another soldier that were headed my way. Dirk threw his arms around me and slammed me to the ground.

  "Get off me!" I screamed.

  "Cuffs!" he barked at his comrade.

  I was screaming my head off like a banshee. Only vaguely did a small voice inside my head say that was a bad idea, that I shouldn’t alert Ryker because if he came outside…

  But I kept screaming as they clicked the cold metal tightly on my wrists and dragged me to my feet. They walked me back to the front of the motel where the others had pulled a black van around. I was so sick of seeing those. Dirk and his fellow soldier cursed as I fought against them. I tried kicking and throwing myself on the ground, anything to get away, but it was fruitless.

  They lifted me off the ground and carried my struggling form the last few feet to the van. Unceremoniously they threw me in the open door. I sat up just as they were sliding the door closed, and before it did, I could see Ryker running along the landing to the stairs. He was yelling frantically as he tried to get to me, but it was too little too late.

  The tires of the van screeched as we launched over a curb and sped down the street. I let a scream rip through me, and all it got me was a sore throat and a throbbing temple from where Dirk pistol whipped me to shut me up.

  "You," he growled. "Are so much more trouble than you’re worth!"

  I rolled up onto my knees and spit in his face. He knocked me right back down with the butt of his gun again.

  "Knock your shit off!" he yelled. "Joph said he needed you in one piece, relatively unharmed. Key word, relatively," he emphasized.

  I bit my bottom lip and willed my Essence to flare up and blast him on his sorry ass.

  Then a rock landed in the pit of my stomach, sending ripples of acid through my body.

  I didn’t have my Essence anymore.

  What the Hell will Jophiel do with me without my Essence? I’m useless to him now.

  Terror filled me from head to toe and shut me up tight like a bear trap.

  Dirk laughed. "That’s better."

  "You know," one of the other men said. "That Evans guy won’t waste much time getting another soul. Hell, look how many we took from him. He’ll get a stash going again in no time. I still think we ought to go back for him and finish the job."

  Dirk just shook his head. "We have orders. Joph’s not worried about him. Look how many he had, and he wasn’t able to do anything when we had him before."

  I let out a sigh of relief at the thought that he was out of their line of fire for the moment. At least until Jophiel changed his mind about it. I wasn’t sure what else Jophiel wanted with me. He’d gotten the eggs that he wanted.

  Maybe he couldn’t get them fertilized in the damn petri dish.

  But that would mean we’d have to go through the whole process all over again, and that wasn't something I wanted to do either.

  I let myself get lost in my own head for the duration of the ride back to the lab. Despite the fact that I knew I should be paying attention to where exactly it was, I couldn’t focus. I so desperately wanted Ryker to just go with his friends in a few hours and get as far away from here as possible, but I knew better than to hope for that. He would come for me, as he always would, and I couldn’t say I would do anything differently if our roles were reversed. Part of me wanted to be angry that he would risk his life for me, but I knew it was a stupid thought.

  I would risk mine for him any day of the week.

  A little while later, we pulled into a parking garage beneath part of the lab. I glanced out of the back window to see a large metal door sliding back to the ground, sealing us in. When the soldier driving parked the van, Dirk slid the side door open and hopped out. He turned back to me and gestured with his pistol for me to get out. The other soldier followed behind me. The parking garage was dimly lit in orange light, and there were a number of vehicles parked to one side. The side we were on had several of the black vans like the ones that had chased me so much and had brought me back to this prison.

  Dirk led us to the elevator, and the other soldiers surrounded me so I wouldn’t bolt. I had no plans to at the moment since we were trapped down here. Maybe I could get to the stairs, but with my hands cuffed behind me, how far would I really get?

  The elevator arrived with a ding, and the doors slid open. I noticed this time that we were at level U1. Dirk hit the button for U4, and the car started descending deeper into the ground, only to arrive at the familiar white floor. White walls, white floors, white ceilings, white lights. I was so sick of this place.

  The thought of just finding a way to let myself die crept into my head before I remembered that I no longer had my soul. I would have to hold on and find a way out of here again. Waiting for Ryker was a feasible option, but it was a risk I didn’t want him to have to take if I could somehow manage to escape on my own.

  We continued walking down several hallways and stopped abruptly at a door that was still quite some distance away from the room they had kept me in. Dirk knocked on the door, and we waited. It only took a few seconds for someone to open it. The room beyond was dark so at first I couldn’t make out who was in the room. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and I finally saw that it was Jophiel.

  Of course.

  This room was one I hadn’t been in before. It was all dark paneled mahogany like his office and conference room, but this one was a bedroom. Strange.

  "Edyn, so good of you to join us. You had me worried about you after your little stunt," Jophiel said, placing his hand on my back to guide me into the room. "That will be all, men."

  I merely glared at him. Dirk and the other soldiers left the room and shut the door behind them. Jophiel led me over to a bench at the foot of the bed, and sat down. I sat next to him, as far away as I possibly could on its small leather surface.

  "How do you know I won’t angel out on you again?" I asked, trying to sound as venomous as I could muster.

  He laughed, and the rattling sound unsettled me. "Because the handcuffs binding you have angelic runes carved into them to prevent that from happening."

  "Wonderful," I said under my breath.

  "Would you like me to take those off?" he asked.

  I eyed him suspiciously. "But then I could light up like a damn Christmas tree again if I wanted to."

  He rose and walked around to the table next to the bed. He picked up a small gold hoop, and walked back over to me. Sitting down, he stared at the object in his hands. It was maybe only five or six inches across, and I could see figures carved into the hammered metal.

  "This," he said, "is an inaukri. It was forged in Heaven with Heavenly fire and is made from blessed gold. See all these symbols carved in it? They’re more angelic runes. These are used to bind angels." He pulled a knife out of his pocket and sliced open his palm. Curling his bleeding hand around the inaukri, I saw it start to glow. When he let go with his bleeding hand, I saw that the inaukri had split, and he grabbed the side opposite where he first had. That side split too so that it was now in two pieces.

  Then Jophiel reached for me, and I flinched away. He exhaled and gave me an exasperated look. "If you want your hands back, you’ll let me put this on you." He fitted the two pieces together around my neck. The metal was warm, as if it h
ad been left out in the sun. He placed his bleeding palm flat against the front of the inaukri, and then the back. I could feel his blood on my skin, and it made me shiver.

  He whispered a few words in a language I was unfamiliar with, probably something ancient, and then flashed me a smile. "Now, let's get those handcuffs off you." Producing a key from his pocket, he reached behind my back and slid it into the lock.

  It felt good to have my hands free, and I rubbed at my wrists.

  "I will have to bind your hands again if you try to become violent, so do try to behave so we can avoid that. You should also know that the inaukri can only be removed by the angel that puts it on you, so don’t bother trying to get it off. And if you go on a rampage and kill me, then you’ll be permanently bound by it for the rest of your life, so I wouldn’t recommend that." He brushed the hair out of my face gently, and I tried to move away, but he grabbed me. "You’ll learn to love me one day." His voice was low and throaty. "I’m not a bad being, and now knowing that you have the soul of an angel, surely that means we’re meant to be together. You’ll see."

  I broke away from him. "This is why you brought me back here? You want to keep me locked up here so that you can force me to love you?"

  He stood and placed his hands gently on my arms. "You just need time. You’ll come around. You really don’t have a choice."

  I shook my head furiously. "You can’t make someone love you. Love without a choice isn’t love."

  Cocking his head, he thought for a moment. "Well, you’ll have a choice. Learn to love me, or die. It’s really that simple." He squeezed my arms so tightly that I cried out. "This is your new room for the time being. I thought you might like something a bit more comfortable than your former quarters. My room," he said tilting his head, "is right through that door over there." He pointed to a door about ten feet from the bed.

  I shivered thinking about sleeping so close to him.

  "The doors to these chambers require hand print recognition to access so don’t bother trying to escape. For now, you will stay in here. There’s satellite TV, and I’ll have nearly anything you want brought to you. Once you’ve adjusted and come around, you’ll be moving into my room with me."