Waterfall(2)

The murkiness thickened in a gust of foul, stinking wind. Jordan’s eyes watered, and the tip of his black boot caught. “Ugh.” He stumbled, caught his balance and then gritted his teeth. Debris tangled the path to the woods.

All this fuss to extricate Ilmir?

Jordan rolled his eyes. Who had his brother wronged this time? The daughter of a wealthy merchant who demanded payment? Or perhaps the wife of his favorite cigar maker, who now refused to sell him a toke? Now that would truly demand all Zir be present, as they all used the same maker. What a shame that would be. He shook his head.

More likely this urgency came from his powers abating. Selfishness defined Ilmir. All their powers had lessened over the past twenty years, and without their mates, none of them had any inkling of how to stop it. A half laugh, half grunt caught in his throat. No matter if Ilmir’s powers shrank. He would never change, and the women convenient to him would all die because of his brash ways. His jaw clenched. Ilmir was far worse than any human rogue could dream of being.

Carefully stepping around scattered, fractured boards, trunks and lengths of tangled rope, Jordan and Ferrous neared the last grouping of rocks at the trees’ edge. Jordan sighed. About time.

A faint heartbeat crawled out of the obscure shadows, stalked up his spine. Something lived from this bloody mess. Though barely.

Jordan stilled.

Ferrous turned to the left. “I feel it too.”

Jordan followed.

On the opposite side of the rocks, jagged boards bumped, clattering against a boulder. A mass of tangled human remains bobbed and swayed with each lap of water against the shore.

From this mess, a heartbeat cried. Jordan closed his eyes and sighed as his stomach flipped. He would find it. He stepped into the water amid the carnage and shuddered. I must move as hastily as possible. I can do this. The sound of life grasped him as if a hand itself clasped his flesh. He flinched, then turned to the left.

An arm’s length away, half in the water, lay a woman. Her limbs were twisted and broken, as if made of nothing more than weeds. A man’s head, severed from the body it had once belonged to, floated close to her hand. Jordan’s heart pinched, and the scales on his elbows prickled anew.

No one deserved to be half alive after experiencing a tragedy such as this. He stepped up next to her, knocking the human debris away with his boot. He leaned down and wrapped one hand about her slim, bare shoulders. The other he slid beneath her knees, fisting up a handful of her full skirts. She should have drowned in such a garment. He lifted her, pulling her body up against his.

She hung like a sack of barley in his grasp. Her long, wet skirts and hair trailed cold water in a stream, trickling over the rocks and babbling down into his boots. He turned and stumbled along the slag toward the trees.

Ferrous turned after him. “She won’t live, Jordan.” He strode behind him. “Leave her.”

Her clothing, laden with seawater, soaked his coat in blood. Was it hers or the rotting blood of the pool in which she had lain? He shook his head. Don’t think about the stench. He grimaced. Think about her.

Ferrous was right. She would never live.

He fell to his knees and laid her on the high grass that bordered the trees. Her dress was that of an aristocrat, finely tailored with small pearls and embroidery now torn open down to her flesh in several places. Her hair had been swept up with the sun, golden rays that now hid beneath a cloud of red death. “I will end her suffering.” Yes, that was the correct thing to do.

“For bloody sake, Jordan. You are not to indulge unless you have an inkling she may be the one. There are no exceptions to our rules. Look what happens to Ilmir when he breaks one. Who knows what calamity awaits us in London.”

Jordan’s jaw clenched, and he narrowed his eyes, refusing to look at Ferrous, who stood behind him. “This is different, and you damn well know it. I am not Ilmir, and she is not a woman I am courting. She is dying.”

“Being chivalrous?” Ferrous threw up his hands, grumbled and walked through the trees back toward the shore. “Make haste. I wish to make this hellish scene vanish this hellish scene and be to London to deal with Ilmir.”

Did Ferrous truly think he wanted to do this? To kill another woman was the last thing he wished. Twenty years had passed… Jordan inhaled a deep breath and blew it out between tense lips. He ran his fingers down her pale cheek and around her chin, tilting her face toward his. A slender nose, full, angelic lips, and noble cheekbones. A beauty. “To a better afterlife, dear.”

He raised her chin, exposing her long, graceful neck and faintly beating pulse. Another death…

Dash it. He stared unblinking at the slight flutter of her blood beneath her skin. Relax, Jordan. He closed his eyes and exhaled. All will be well.