Page 34 of Shattered Heir
“Mine? It sounds familiar, so does yours,” he added again, squinting his eyes as if it hurt to think.
I wondered, then, more than ever, what it was really like for a soulless, for him. He seemed to have some memories, but only ones from when he was on Terra, early ones.
“When we were in the cave, he was supposed to take your melody and leave Earth. I have no idea why he is still here.” I looked into Shad’s soulless eyes, and they were confused and enraged as he folded his arms across his chest. I saw the calm, soulless Shad, changing right before my eyes.
“He stole–my melody?” he asked, taken aback and frustrated.
“Yes.” I tried not to cry.
“He is here for you now, for your melody, isn't he?” he asked, looking up at me with more anger in his soulless, black eyes.
How can he still give me these looks yet still look so much like the Shad I love? I wondered. Because he is still Shad, just without a melody, I reminded myself.
“What do you—I mean—” I began.
“Keil told me—” There it was, the anger reaching from the tone in his voice, and sharpening his eyes.
“Told you what?” I asked as Shad came closer to me. I walked back against the wall as he moved toward me, closer and closer. I couldn’t deny the feelings that buzzed around me as he approached. The feelings were as strong and as powerful as ever before. How could I not have noticed the difference in Cade’sarms? The complete lack of this? This electricity that seemed to pull us together like magnets?
“—About you.”
I gulped, and his eyes didn't hold that glow, that happiness, that softness which they used to hold.
Well, of course not, Emma,Cade spoke into my soul.
Soulless Shad was angry–but at me? Why?
“What about me?” I gulped as he rested his hand over my shoulder, getting dangerously close. If he tried to kiss me right then, I didn’t know if I could stop him. I didn't know whether or not knowing that my soul could become more corrupt if I got close to him would have ever been enough to stop me from being close to him.
“That I loved you, Emma; that we were together,” he said softly, and his anger changed to pain—no, tohurt. “Why didn't you tell me?” He could feel so many things, still, as a soulless, and that baffled me. ‘Zombie’ was the wrong word choice to describe a soulless, I decided.
“You don't remember half of your life, Shad. What was I supposed to say? Hey, you kissed me, and I love you?”
His eyes locked onto mine.
“I kissed you? I kissed you before my melody was taken?” He looked shocked and surprised. “Why are you—why are we not marked if I kissed you?”
“I don’t really know why we didn’t mark when you kissed me. Mary said that a first kiss is a marked kiss, but I really know very little about Terran things. I mean, I just found out that this other world existed. I know there are still things that Ryker has not told me—” I trailed off, trying to stop myself from my nervous chatter. “But, yes, you kissed me.”
“Markings are not something you can really control. Have you kissed someone else? That is the only thing that could stop a marking on someone.”
“Of course not,” I answered.
“Maybe you forgot?” He looked so angry, and I wanted to wrap my arms around him.
“How in the world would I forget about my first kiss?” I questioned.
“I don't know. How could you think that he was me?” he asked, not hurt, but confused, trying to figure something out.
“I am a little helpless to your melody, and he looked enough like you—to be fair, I did think that it was a dream, but I should have known; he didn't feel the same—didn't sound or talk the same.”
“I see,” he backed further away from me, anger back in his eyes.
I swear, I was getting dizzy from how quickly his moods seemed to change. He was so unpredictable. I watched as he stood there in front of me, pulling at a button near his neck, unbuttoning it.
“Shad, I love you—I will always love you—it will always be you—always.”
“Yeah, but I don't love you, Emma.”
