Her head leaned to the side and he looked into the hollowness of her eyes as she slowly weakened. Sadness filled his heart as he stared back at her.
He stepped into the pool of water and blood. It spilled out, splashing across the floor beside the tub. Reaching down he pulled her limp body to his chest. She was so frail that he was afraid he’d hurt her more than the pain she was already feeling. He felt her heart, still beating, but weak and slow.
“Are you an angel?”
“No, but I can help you.”
“Just let me die. I can’t go on. I can’t…” She swallowed, her heart slowing as she spoke in a whisper.
He held her and thoughts streamed through his mind as emotions rushed to his immortal heart.
“I too have lost someone, someone who meant more to me than life itself.”
The memories of Kelly overwhelmed him. He couldn’t find his voice so he closed his eyes and spoke to her without moving his lips. “If you want to let go, I will take you away from this pain. You’ll feel no more hurt, no regret, no loss. But you can help someone who was stripped of life too early.”
He stroked the wet strands of her hair and continued.
“She is a lost soul. She wants to come back and live again. You can help her, Iris, you can save her and in a way, save yourself.”
Iris’s eyes filled with thin tears that streamed along her cheeks. “Please, I miss Marcus so much…” Her voice grew silent as she weakened.
Seeing a woman surrender and seek death made him ache inside. It released the sadness he’d buried inside him and the agony coursed through his veins. He trembled with anger—not at Iris for wanting to let go—but at the cruelty of Fate for robbing him of Kelly.
He’d had to go on. Iris’s life had crushed her and left her a shattered shell, a soul with no more to give, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice and end the pain. She thought it was justified. But it wasn’t. The room began to shake as his powers swelled within him. He was a being who seldom released his emotions or betrayed his agony. However, in this moment, holding this fading life—he was losing control.
Light spilled into the bathroom and a figure appeared. Illuminated and radiant, it floated above the reddened water spreading across the tile floor. She was like an angel—it was the lost soul.
Iris looked to the figure, and for a moment Pilan saw her smile before she closed her eyes, drifting away. A mixture of sadness and compassion filled his heart. He was helping one soul yet dismayed at another surrendering to death.
Lowering his head, he began to chant the words that he’d been taught eons before, and the light in the room became almost blinding.
He reached his hand out to the lost soul as he held his other arm around Iris’s limp body. “You have a chance to begin again. Most people don’t get a second chance. Iris is willingly giving this to you.”
In this state of strange perception, he could finally see the lost soul.
He looked into her eyes—and trembled with the recognition that swept over him like a raging wave. “Kelly?”
All the anguish from his sorrow burst free within him. Once again, as he did before, he had to sacrifice the one thing he loved. He knew without question that after the soul transferred to Iris’s body, all its memories of a previous life would be gone. He wouldn’t be able to find “his” Kelly again.
But Kelly’s soul would live again in the physical form of Iris, with no memory of what they had shared or the pain Iris had carried. He had been forced to watch Kelly die once, and now, for the second time, he would have to let her go. She would forever be lost to him; her soul reborn in Iris’s body. The woman he’d known and loved as Kelly would cease to exist anymore. The lost soul would find a new life.
He wanted to scream in agony, to rant against the universe for tearing him apart. He wanted to claim Kelly’s soul, to take it into his own body, to feel once again the overwhelming love they’d shared.
But he didn’t, because he had to finish what he’d begun.
He began chanting again until the light was a brilliant star capturing the three beings. Iris’s soul rose from its lifeless shell and wrapped around the Dark Lord, holding on to him. Her nude form was glowing and transparent. He let go of the lost soul’s hand and stood in the tub with Iris’s soul clinging to him.
Pilan became dizzy and weak as agony shot through him. Struggling to stay upright, he began to weep. He wrapped his arms around Iris’s soul and slowly vanished.
The lost soul floated above the tub, looking down at the water and the soulless body of Iris. Spreading her arms wide, she let out a deafening scream and dropped into the tub.
Gasping and coughing, Iris rose naked from the water. She looked around, confused and shaking as if in a state of shock. The water was clean and warm. She looked at her hands as she brought them to her face, touching it carefully as if it were a new experience.
She found herself trembling and her thoughts were scattered and disoriented. It was bewildering and she couldn’t remember what had happened or why she was in such a state.
Chapter Six
Tasha jumped when she went into the storeroom. “Dammit, I hate when you do that!” She hit him on the chest. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you in about two weeks.”