Free The Outcast by Calle J. Brookes Page B

that froze her soul.
    She didn’t know how many hours she sat in her bed, unable to see even if she had flicked on a lamp, but she sensed when true morning came. She could feel the heat of the sun filtering through the window. Bronwen contemplated just staying in her bed, remaining there at least for the day—if not the rest of her life.
    Why not? It wasn’t as if she had much use now, stumbling around pitifully, using the walls to guide her through this place that was more her prison than her home. She missed her home so much.
    But returning to Colorado was not an option now. Not with the wars of these realms inching ever so closer to Gaia, to Colorado, to Relaklonos where she now sat. War was coming, one that was predicted to be the worst one in any realm’s history, and she was a healer.
    A useless one. A burden to those who loved her.
    Those who loved her were probably waiting on her for breakfast. A forceful knock sounded and Bron knew who it most likely was. He came by her room every morning to plague her; she never answered. What was she to say to Koios?
    Thank you for making me into something to be pitied, dependent on those around me for care?  He was supposed to protect her, to love and cherish her from the moment they met.
    Instead he’d nearly killed her.
    Had she not possessed the soul of a healer she would have died already. Dardaptoan healers were unique. There were a limited number of them, and each had a tiny piece of the original healer’s soul lodged within their hearts. That healer—now immortalized, though unnamed—would never truly die. Which meant that it took far longer for healers to die when injured.
    Whatever the slave keeper had done to her, she had yet to die from it. And she probably wouldn’t. No matter how much she wished it.
    She wasn’t like her foster mother Aureliana. The older woman had cared for her frequently as an infant and child when her brothers Thadd and Theo hadn’t been able to. Aureliana had chosen to deny herself her  Rajni  for nearly ten months after meeting him. She’d thought she was protecting the big warrior from her inevitable death at the hands of a Beansidhe. But they’d figured things out between them almost three months ago, and now they were happy together. The way  Rajnis  were supposed to be.
    Auri had chosen not to mate her male. Bronwen had had that choice made for her through his actions. His disdain.
    But now he wanted something from her, and was proving relentless.
     
    **
     
    Koios waited. He knew the girl healer would have to come out of her chamber eventually. And he was prepared. He could wait no longer to make things right between them. His time had run out, and he had to return to his own kingdom. Lothicano could ill afford his absence  and  his brother’s. And Sinrik had a mate and child to think of. Until his twin convinced that mate to return with him, Sinrik’s need to remain in this damned place was far more pressing.
    Sinrik had a family, Koios wasn’t sure what the healer girl was to him. He’d abandoned the idea of making her a slave, a   servilla.  But he owed her his protection and some sort of restitution for what had happened to her while technically in his keeping. That he had not been present for most of those two weeks mattered little. He had taken her from the ones who protected her and she had been damaged. That made him responsible.
    But the girl was proving extremely stubborn in allowing him to care for her, in allowing him to regain his honor. He had plans to set her up in his castle, provide her with attendants and anything else that she needed. He had a vague plan of allowing her to remain as companion to his twin’s mate, with whom he knew she was particularly close. He would allow her to live a life of completely luxury, doing anything that she pleased. Her new blindness prevented her from doing much else, didn’t it?
    Her door opened and he kept himself as still as his warrior training would allow. She