Blakeshire (Web of Hearts and Souls) Read online

  Blakeshire

  By

  Jamie Magee

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2012 by Jamie Magee

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to any real people or event is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the express consent of the publisher and author, except where permitted by law.

  Other Books by Jamie Magee

  All series mingle at some point creating a “Web of Hearts and Souls”

  Insight (Book 1)

  Embody (Book 2)

  Image (Book 3)

  Vital (Book 4)

  Vindicate (Book 5)

  Enflame (Book 6)

  See (Book 1)

  Witness (Book 2)

  Synergy (Book 3)

  Redefined (Book 4)

  Rivulet (Book 1)

  Imperial ( Book 1)

  Derive ( Novella)

  Where To Find Jamie Online:

  http://authorjamiemagee.blogspot.com

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  Twitter

  For Lucy ~ thank you for telling me in vivid detail how hard it is for a Scorpio girl to say I love you. I swear I will never forget it!

  “There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.”

  ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter One

  ~Drake~

  Agony. My constant companion. Every battle of wits or arms against the former king Donalt weakens me. Even though he is in ghostly form and withering away with each blow that Landen, Willow, and I throw at him, I still pay the price. He is within me. I can feel him in my veins. His cold claws gripping my soul.

  My first thought after this last battle was her. I had to get to her. I had to make sure she was not in any more agony than I witnessed over the past few days. It was clear that Willow’s emotions had been washed away in this last face-off with Donalt’s twisted web of spells, souls, and hearts. If the same were true for her doppelganger, the girl made for me, I had no chance in hell at redemption. Without the emotions deep in her soul whispering to her that she belonged to me, she could easily walk away. Even with the emotions, she had every reason in the world to walk away. I had betrayed her. I had forsaken my kingdom’s queen. Just as Donalt had designed me to do.

  I stumbled into my chambers, wanting to hide this weakness from anyone in my court, whether they be friend or foe. No king—or soon to be king—could ever show weakness. Or even humanity. We are meant to be flawless, unchanged by emotions or the wavering shifts of life. We are expected to be balanced at all times.

  My soul was screaming at me to just go, to let her see me in this weakened state. That maybe, just maybe if she saw the real me, she would understand that under this royal name and crown I am nothing more than a fragmented, angry, obsessive man.

  I collapsed on the floor seconds after I secured the door. I felt my heart hammering in my chest, the cold seeping through my body. I was fighting to stay conscious, fearing if I let go Donalt would finally slip his evil soul into mine.

  Right as my eyes closed, I felt someone harshly slap my face, the splash of cool water on my brow, then the harsh scent of ginger under my nose; my mouth was cupped, so I would have no choice but to breathe in. As soon as I took in that deep breath, my eyes flew open.

  Zander.

  I had very few people I trusted in my life. Zander was one of them. I had known him since I was twelve. He was barely ten when we met. I always took him as a symbol of my humanity and I trusted him implicitly.

  One of the first lessons I was taught by Donalt was to be judge and jury. To rule with an iron hand. Zander’s mother was the court’s noted clairvoyant. She had escaped the palace nearly a decade and a half before the day I met Zander. Her whereabouts were given to Donalt by a man who was set to be executed for stealing food. He assumed the information would save his life. He was wrong. Donalt killed him and ordered that his clairvoyant be brought to him.

  When she approached the throne, Zander was in tow. He was small for his age, dirty, and clearly terrified. Even though I was young, I did the math. She left to have him. Left to protect him, and that was all for naught at that juncture in time.

  Donalt demanded a reading from her. I will never forget the look in her eyes when she stared into the face of the feared king of Esterious. She was calm, balanced, and lingering on her lips was a sinister smile. “Your death is eminent. Your Creator has already replaced you and each of your brothers that have forsaken Him. You will never find all the woven souls He has placed to destroy you.”

  She had more to say but was not given the opportunity. An invisible force seized her body, and she suffocated in front of both Zander and me. Donalt ordered me to kill Zander as he left his throne.

  I was all alone with him, certain that if I didn’t obey Donalt my fate—and the fate of my parents—would be the same as the fallen clairvoyant.

  Zander never trembled as he looked up at me behind the matted hair that hid his face. In a voice that resembled what I imagine angels sound like, he said to me, “When you find her, she will bring fire to seize the ice in your veins.” At the time, I had already lived through more frigid moments than I wanted to. Donalt was already preparing my body for a hostile takeover.

  I stood in awe of this fragile boy. I knew he was not telling me this in the hopes that I would spare him. He was telling me because he knew I was just as afraid as he was.

  At that moment, like an angel from above, my father, Livingston, arrived. He stoically stood at my side, making no effort to stop me. He and I had never been close. I knew he cared about me, but I didn’t think he cared about me as much as I wanted him to; if he did, he surely would not have let Donalt control me the way he had.

  I couldn’t do anything about the actions of my father, but I could control my own. In the kingly voice I was trained to use, I told him to hide Zander and find a body to show Donalt. I walked out of the room without another word.

  My father did exactly as I told him to. Hours later, when Donalt returned to his throne he found the body of a boy that had died of sickness dressed in Zander’s clothes. Another lesson Donalt taught me was that every harsh action is to be followed by an act of mercy; therefore, the body of the child was given a royal burial at the clairvoyant’s side. His family was notified as to where he lay. Their beliefs told them that their child was free and now set to be royalty in the next life.

  Zander was placed in the care of a servant in Perodine’s wing, a place Donalt would never dare go. I saw him every day that I could get away. I taught him to read, write, and fight. The world of Esterious taught him to be a warrior. He spent most of his time outside of the palace walls with the people I was meant to rule. He was their voice. Through him, I knew exactly wh
ere I stood. He was barely seventeen, but his eyes, which were more gray than dark, held a far greater length of time within them.

  “You rang,” Zander said coolly as he nodded for me to breathe in the ginger once more.

  Zander had all of his mother’s gifts, if not more. I’d goaded him more than once about being out of sorts. He could see the past and the future, but rarely could he tell the difference, and more often than not he chose not to speak of what he saw, stating that we each had to walk through hell to reach bliss. Most times, he was near silent. I would wager that I was the only one in this palace that had ever heard his voice, which had turned from angelic to a deep, balanced tone a few years back.

  He brushed his long, unkempt hair out of his eyes as he sat next to me on the floor, and I stared at the voltaic ceiling. The cold was fading. I was gaining control once more.

  “Why will the bastard not die?” I bit out.

  “Clearly, he has,” Zander said as his gaze moved over my weakened state.

  “Is it time to run now?” I asked while taking in another deep breath.

  Zander had told me years ago that my blood would rule this world, but I would not. He didn’t understand why he said that any more than I did hearing his words. I took the lingering prophecy of his to mean that Donalt would rule within my body; he took it as an heir of mine would. Either way I was dead, so it didn’t really matter to me until a few months ago when my life somehow managed to get worse.

  He perked his brow. “Run, before your heir is in place?”

  “To have an heir, I would have to have a woman—and if you haven’t been paying attention, I’ve yet to figure out how to get one to stick around.”

  “Really?” he said with a sinister grin. “Clara seemed to have a satisfied grin on her face when she passed your threshold this morning.”

  I threw a wicked glare at him.

  Another lesson Donalt wanted me to learn, at a rather young age, was how to hold a woman. Something most teen boys would have found as a perk of royalty. The mere idea was torture for me. Every time I even considered the idea, I would get sick to my stomach simply because I would see tantalizing green eyes flash through my mind. I would feel a deep-rooted betrayal rip through me. Fear of karma, of finding my queen and discovering she had given her virtue to another man, forced me to find less conventional ways to trick Donalt into thinking that I had fruitfully used the ladies in waiting as I was told to do.

  I did that with the help of Zander. One of his gifts was influence. He could send a dream to someone, a very real, believable dream. It was a flawed power. It only worked on the minds of those whom you would swear were designed by the Creator Himself to be submissive. Through trial and error, we discovered one of the girls Donalt put before me had a weak mind. Clara.

  Each night, she would come to my chambers and fall asleep in my bed, and at that moment she would dream. An entire night…among other things with me. All created in her mind. Zander never constructed the dreams; he only gave her the idea and let her build it. If I did manage to sleep, it was in a chamber below this one, a hidden, modest room.

  When Landen and Willow attacked the palace weeks back, I assumed that Clara was one of the many that had fled or lost their lives that day, but Zander had saved her, telling me later that it took too long to find someone like her in the first place. I almost sent her away, knowing that having her walking the palace halls would not win me any arguments with Willow. But in the end I knew that Donalt was not really dead, that he had eyes on me at all times—if not his, the traitors in the court that lived here. So I kept her.

  I was never meant to fall in love, but to be a king, and kings in my world were not faithful. Clara was a sweet girl. Even though what went on in my chambers was all a mental fabrication of hers, the royal balls and public appearances were not. She was the one the court saw me with. She was forevermore marked as ‘one of those girls,’ even though she had never been touched. I had taken any hope of her finding a true, noble life away. I had vowed to myself that once this was all over I would find her someone who was worthy enough to take care of her, worthy enough not to take advantage of her mind the way Zander and I had.

  More than once, I had thought that Zander would fill that role nicely, but he had told me she was not his, as if he knew exactly who was his. I envied his curse just as much as I was thankful that I didn’t have it. My dreams of past lives were already too much for me to handle.

  “As soon as I have the strength to stand, I’m leaving here. I’m going to get Madison Marie, and I’m bringing her home. Clara cannot be around. I don’t give a damn what member of the court is watching me.”

  “Home,” Zander said with a nod, glancing around my chambers.

  “What?”

  His stare found mine. “Exactly what room are you planning to have her sleep in?”

  I took in another deep breath, pushing out as much of the cold as I could when I exhaled. I could hear my father’s voice in my mind. Him telling me how important it was to build a home for your soul mate. How it connected you to them. That, by design, you knew what would give them comfort. Of course, when he told me this I had no idea that my heritage, at the least the heritage from his blood, was from Chara. A place where soul mates, family, and home were sacred.

  So, naturally, I thought he was a fool when he and I, side by side, began to build a wing in this massive palace. At one time, simply to humor him, I asked if we could not just remake an existing wing; the palace was big enough, as far as I was concerned. I doubted I had seen every nook and cranny of this place, and I had grown up here. He told me no, and somehow he found permission from Donalt to build such a wing. Without fail, my father brought every single material here. From another world. Nothing in that wing was created in Esterious. It was fortified in every physical and mystical way. It had been sealed for the past two years. Forgotten.

  I knew exactly what Zander was saying to me. He wanted me to cross a line I had never crossed with Willow. To make a commitment to Madison. To open her wing. To give her a home. Something my father’s people would consider sacred.

  Madison was from Infante. I would dare say the tradition would be lost on her, so Zander was not suggesting this to appease Madison, but to make me think, to force me to make a choice right here, right now, lying on this floor weak as hell.

  I always told myself that the reason I hadn’t opened that wing and strolled Willow through it was that she was still blindly in love with Landen, that he more than likely had presented her with such a gift. That I would wait until she was mine to unveil it.

  Right now, I was getting a harsh dose of pride shoved down my throat. Willow had told me a million times over that she was not mine, that there was another girl, that there had to be. But I was drunk on power, grief, and rage. I would not listen to her. Stubborn as ever, with fate on her side she proved me wrong. She found Madison Marie.

  Merely a week ago, I was at death’s door, ready to succumb to the defeat. The Realm had captured both Landen and me, our minds were turned against us. In that wicked place, I began to see my dreams with more clarity. I knew that with each breath, each life, all souls change, but as my past lives were brought forth I could clearly see, or rather believe, that there could be two green-eyed girls. That from life to life, at times Willow’s energy, her touch, felt different. Vastly different. It almost felt wrong. Like a sin.

  I woke from death with a warm kiss. With a kiss that was not laced in sin, but with life itself. A kiss that made me feel whole, that washed away my dark childhood, evil dreams. Lips so tender that they made the hell I’d lived through worth it.

  Madison Marie ran from me. Who could blame her?

  When I saw her again, we were in this very palace, in a room that was not protected from the eyes and ears of the ghost of Donalt. I had no choice but to play a part for both her and Willow. I could not let Donalt or anyone else know that I’d found the missing part of my soul—for if I did, she would be taken just as surely as my
heart beats in my chest.

  The only problem was that I was the only one who knew I was playing a part; to everyone else, I looked like a ruthless king pining for Willow Haywood, too prideful to admit I had been fooled.

  My mind, soul, and heart were at war. It was so hard for me to understand why my life had been plotted the way it was. Why Willow was put before me in the first place, and not only in this life, but past ones.

  I would only dare admit it to myself, but I was terrified of rejection. Willow had broken my heart a hundred times over the past few months, and it was entirely my fault. I feared walking up to Madison Marie and her taking what was left of me and shredding it to dust. And she had every right to. If I were in her place—if I had found my soul mate lusting after a man that looked just like me, using memories of me to persuade him, I would have been murderous. I would not have had the courage to stick around to hear the pleas of my true lover. Madison Marie had. I’m not a fool. I have no doubt she had done that to protect her friends; nevertheless, she had not run where so many others would have.

  Last night, I had taken her on a real date. It began in my world with a ball for my kingdom to see, a stage we were all but forced to stand on, but it ended in her world, in the life she had abandoned to come and save my ass a week before.

  I fell asleep with her in my arms, and for the first time in my life I slept without dreams of any life beyond this one. Even though we’d been awakened by a call to war, I kept finding myself smiling when no one else was looking. I let myself believe I was breaking down her walls. I was reaching her. But now, if she truly were without emotion, I had no idea where I would stand with her. Emotions feed the heart; without them black and white reasoning comes into play, and I knew without a doubt reason would not be on my side.