Free Imperial ((Imperial) Web of Hearts and Souls) by Jamie Magee Page A

across the floor. And within the thin line of smoke they produced, I saw my image, I saw his memories of us.
    A sharp pull of air was the only response I could fathom.
    The first time I looked into Vade’s eyes from my deathbed, I felt a rush. A young, girlish rush. When I became clearly aware of who he was, the power he had, I pushed my girlish ways deep down and forced myself not to reveal what he was to me. I thought if I did, he would find me unworthy, a lowly human girl his Creator had taken mercy upon. I wanted him to see me as fierce, respect me as much as, if not more than, his fellow kings.
    In the images around me, in my eyes I recognized that girl I tried to hide. She was there when my eyes followed every move of his godly body, when I shyly tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear, when my ivory skin would blush for an instant when he spoke the simplest words.
    The images revealed something new to me, though. They allowed me to see Vade in a new light. As I watched the smoke images in utter astonishment, the ones with the two of us did not show a king holding me; they showed a boy, a boy whose eyes could never find a reason to stray from my body, a boy who would blush when I whispered sweet nothings into his ear as he held me. A boy that was just as addicted to me as I was to him.
    “You were never forgotten. I worshiped your memory. As did my entire line.” His velvet voice caressed every word.
    His hand carefully sent the candle on its way, and it floated across the room and settled next to billions and billions that were just like it. Only this line of smoke, the memory it revealed, showed him holding me through my last storm, showed his lips framing mine. The forced control that he reigned in as my storm poured out of my soul. They showed the ache in his eyes when my energy questioned his loyalty.
    Vade’s hand was cradling my face in the next pulse of my soul. As the hum of his flesh swarmed through me, he leaned his forehead against mine. His fingertips traced my bottom lip. Painfully, slowly, he spoke the words I yearned to hear. “You are my rush.” The scent of roses reached out for me.
    My knees gave way, only for him to catch me. A fever flashed across my skin before coring itself within my soul.
    “If you have forgotten, my adored, I will wait for you to remember. I will never forsake a gift as precious as your soul,” he said as his eyes tenderly rained down on me.
    Those stubborn tears encased my eyes once more.
    I had infinite power within my soul, but at this moment it was barely enough for me to shape the words of my next confession. “Every thought, every breath, you were within. I never forgot you. I waited, from moon to moon. I waited for you to have your vengeance and bring me home.” The girl I was deep inside had been revealed. She openly told him that, though she could have found her way home, she waited. She waited for him to prove his devotion, and time had soured who that girl once was.
    Apparently, those words were just as painful to hear as they were to say. Agony echoed in that diamond stare of his.
    The girl deep inside was finding her stride, her voice. She was coming to life just in time for me to find the will to take away that pain I could see in his eyes. “Rush, fever. You are more than both.”
    He smiled. Oh, that smile; it could light the world if he would let it—if he would let anyone beyond me see it.
    An old fear, the one I had gone to war with over and over, surfaced. In my mind, moments like this are always fleeting. So fleeting that it was painful to enjoy them simply because I knew they were numbered.
    I glanced away to catch a glimpse of the masses of candles; to the images the smoke was creating. “I will have to return to the Reaper. He told me my stay was measured by my words.” My eyes found his once more. “We both know that my words and deeds will be laced with wrath. That my time here is not unlimited…it is near nonexistent. A dream we will look