Chapter 11

In the morning, she was alone, curled up in a small ball on her bed, the duvet neatly and gently tucked around her, tear tracks down her cheeks. Feeling heavy-hearted, she dressed in jeans, T-shirt and sneakers. She almost crept down the stairs once she'd scrubbed her face.

"All the cold water in the world won't wash that blush off your cheeks," Susie informed her stiffly, looking up from her breakfast.

Great. Susie seemed angry at her too.

"Blade left last night," Rita said, stirring scrambled eggs in a saucepan as she stood by the stove.

"He did what?" Sarah asked numbly.

"He left," Susie said shortly. "Two-timing does that to a person."

"She wasn't two-timing him," Kierlan said from the doorway. Susie looked frostily at him. "That remains to be seen."

Kierlan fell silent and left the kitchen.

"We'll get a new bodyguard sent within the day," Rita said busily, reserving judgment. "For now we have Angelo and Damoran."

"I thought he went," Susie frowned.

"He stayed in town," Rita said briskly. "He'll check in on us. Angelo's keeping an eye on things. But you lot had best stay in the house today."

Susie looked perfectly unhappy with that, almost angry. Getting up, she put the knife and fork together neatly on her plate then stalked from the room like an angry cat.

"It isn't your fault," Rita said quietly, not looking at Sarah.

"It is," Sarah said just as quietly. "I really hurt Blade's feelings."

"Soulmates do that," Rita said with a slight shrug. "There's often someone hurt. We have two people coming to stay with us. One as a bodyguard and one as…company. Would you mind sharing your room with one of them? Since Susie's clearly not in a co-operating mood. Not to mention you'd have more in common with this girl."

"Who?" Sarah asked half-heartedly.

"You'll see," Rita said, turning and beginning to dish out the scrambled egg into a bowl. "Help yourself. I have a feeling breakfast is going to be sparsely populated today."

Half-heartedly, Sarah picked at the heap of scrambled eggs that Rita forked onto her plate. "What do I do about Susie?"

"Susie'll be fine," Rita said calmly. "She'll cool off as long as she has some time to herself."

"Do you know where Blade went?" Sarah asked, pushing her plate aside finally, her breakfast barely touched.

Rita shook her head. "And if I did know, I wouldn't tell you," she said firmly. "He needs time to himself too. Maybe you need time to yourself too. So go upstairs, and think through things. I'm going to try and teach Kierlan a few ways to protect himself from physical and magical blows."

"Good luck," Sarah murmured, and obeyed, going upstairs, passing Kierlan on the stairs. He gave her a careful, wary look as though affirming something in his own mind, then looked away, hurrying as Rita called him more insistently.

Music boomed from Susie's room. "She'll go deaf," Sarah mumbled worriedly: it was one of Rita's complaints too. Today it was Eminem: clearly, Susie was in something of a homicidal mood.

Evanescence was more her style. Skipping it to track 4, she lay back on her bed, her arms crossed behind her head, vaguely watching the swirls of paint on the ceiling.

Blade is gone, she thought, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. I hurt him, and I'm not even sure I want to be with Kierlan. Just because we're Soulmates…so far, it hasn't really meant anything, just that we're…connected. But that doesn't mean we feel anything for each other.

And he was right. He could die. He was a Wild Power: hunted by so many of the Night World. Could she really cope with that…?

Involuntarily, she thought of her father. He'd been away every day, from early in the morning, to late in the evening, would only be able to say goodnight, give her a quick kiss on the forehead then turn off the light and leave the room, clicking the door shut quietly behind him.

"He loved mother," she murmured, frowning. "And she loved him, no matter what. Were they human Soulmates? Is that why she put up with it?"

But she wasn't sure that she could cope with knowing that Kierlan might be killed any day. Blade had been tough, a fighter. Kierlan was a streetkid like her, and stupid enough to try and run into the forest…and he makes me forget everything when he kisses me, she thought suddenly, giddily, involuntarily touching her lips with her fingertips as though she could capture the feeling.

Reaching up, she unclasped the beautiful necklace that Blade had given her. She'd hurt him so much: it wasn't right to wear it. It was like mockery. Its delicate chain pooled like cold metallic silk in her hand, she opened her jewellery box, for it would be safe there…then she couldn't. She couldn't put it there. Trying to fight against that feeling for a few minutes, she gave up and put it in her pocket instead.