Doors To The Dead by Rae Else (great books for teens txt) 📕

astride a horse. Its hooves deafened him. The warrior’s hair was spiked and his body painted blue. He loomed over Theo, blending with the blue and white of the sky.

Theo leapt into the woods, diving behind one of the trunks. He cried out as more blue-painted warriors sprang through the undergrowth. He knew from his Enodian History lessons that the Caledonii had been routed by the Romans and pushed back into the woods. But just as Theo had felt as a boy, experiencing the fierce warriors careering through the trees, reason abandoned him. He hurtled through the forest, fleeing the ancient sluagh.

He stumbled over roots, besieged by the strange blue-painted warriors. They sought hiding places in the woods. That's when he saw him. Despite his fear, he’d halted that night in the middle of the woods. In his dream now too, Theo stilled.

The Caledonian looked like his fellow warriors but his soul emanated with a purple vibrancy. Theo felt the immensity of his power. Great waves undulated from him. The warrior’s thoughts had strayed through him that night. He'd heard that the blue paint of his body was like that of the sky and lakes, and would help him to disappear through them.

War cries bellowed within the forest, and the next moment Theo bolted like a startled rabbit. He hurtled away from the strange warrior. Later he’d wonder whether the ancient sluagh had truly been capable of travelling through the sky and lake, into the Between like a para soul. Had the Caledonian been a druid or shaman in life? Is that what explained his para abilities and the startling aura of power surrounding his soul? It was Theo’s greatest regret that he hadn’t been capable of taming his fear that night when he’d stumbled across him. Theo had gone back to seek this very soul years later, searching the Cairngorms for that vibration of power, but he never found him.

As Theo stumbled through his fear-drenched dreams, the din of war cries surrounded him. He burrowed into the hollow he’d found in the woods, craving safety, trying to drown out the sounds and thoughts of the war-torn souls. He curled himself onto the bed and shouted out.

The shout brought Von, already wandering down the hall, to his door. Seeing Theo tossing and turning, she drew over to him. Even glistening in sweat and with his strained expression, he was gorgeous.

She swept back his hair.

Theo lurched awake. He felt as if he’d travelled through the Between, scaling vast areas of land, sky, and sea in the blink of an eye.

Von stroked his hair from his forehead. ‘It’s okay. You were dreaming.’

Theo felt as if he could taste his fear. It had run rife.

Donna.

Disoriented, he felt as he had on that long-ago morning when one of the elder Enodians had found him in the woods. They’d chastised him for his audacity in thinking he could master his fear without exposure to human souls in more secure environments first. At eleven years of age, Enodians began supervised field trips into care homes and hospitals, where they tethered the recently departed. That phase lasted until they were thirteen. Only then did they move onto battlefields and war zones.

The hot shame of then echoed through him now.

Yet as his gaze fastened onto Von’s, it wasn’t scorn or even concern that she was looking at him with. She tucked his hair behind his ear as if she held something precious. She had that same look on her face that his fellow Enodians had given him when he showed off his tethered eagles. The smoky wings dazzling them in the same way that he knew tethering a sluagh like Donna would.

He watched Von’s covetous expression, her heavy-lidded eyes desirous. The night suddenly felt charged. Heavy with promise. Warmth prickled through him like soulfire, but it was his body alone that awoke at her look. He felt like the dead scenting fruit and blossom. When he found her juicy lips it was as if he were feasting on an offering. The heat of her mouth sparked a flurry of desire in his core and groin.

Their lips grazed one another’s. He pulled off the high-necked lace that barred his way before bruising the column of her neck with kisses. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her porcelain skin was as beautiful as Lady Night unveiled. He ran his hands down her spine. Her breasts were barely enough to fill his hand but he nuzzled them. He lost himself in the citrusy flavour of her skin.

He lay her down, fighting the ridiculous abundance of tulle and pulled the skirt off. She wasn’t wearing knickers. Weaving kisses over her navel, he parted her legs and tasted her. She moaned. He wanted to luxuriate in the physical, wanted to draw out their foreplay, but Von made short work of pulling his clothes off too. The voluptuousness of her mouth was soon around his length before she guided him into her.

As they rocked back and forth, the world of soulfire, with all its intricacies, vanished.

There was only flesh.

Flesh and Von.

When Theo awoke, it was from one of the best nights of sleep he'd had in forever. After he and Von had fucked, Donna had made little attempts to ambush him. Whenever his eyes grew heavy and he closed them, the nightmarish forest was right there. So too was the purply Caledonian, his blue body melding with the sky and the day’s brightness, threatening to banish the night.

Yet as Theo nestled into the crook of Von’s neck and breathed in her lemon peel scent the memories vanished. He knew he could get up and hunt Donna down. Instead, he'd given in to his exhaustion, his body sated and been rewarded with deep sleep, feeling as if he were sleeping beneath a lemon grove.

When Von woke, her fingers crept in a spider-like way up his chest.

He drew her chin up, kissing her juicy lips. ‘Morning Von Otherworld.’ As he smirked about his initial meaning