Shattered Souls by Mary Lindsey Page B

here. I’m in the kitchen.”
    Spook gave the door at the end of the hall a parting growl before bouncing down the stairs ahead of me. Alden was stirring something in a pot on the stove.
    “Hot chocolate,” he announced. “The real kind. The powdered stuff is disgusting.”
    His hair was still wet, and he was in a black long-sleeved T-shirt and tattered blue jeans. His feet were bare. Casual. Comfortable. Gorgeous.
    I hadn’t felt this calm in ages. My body almost hummed with peace.
    “You’re better,” he said as he handed me a cup of chocolate.
    I took the cup and wrapped my fingers around it, knocking off the last bit of chill. “Yeah, I feel a lot better. Bogeybaby was hassling me when you pulled up.”
    He smiled and put the pot in the sink. “Ah, that explains it. I thought maybe you were having boyfriend troubles.”
    “No, we’re fine. Fantastic, in fact.”
    His smile faded. “Glad to hear it.”
    I took a sip of chocolate. It was rich and delicious. He was right—compared to this, the powdered stuff Mom and I made at home was disgusting. “Is that your Cinderella hairbrush in the bathroom?”
    Alden laughed. “No. That belongs to my sister, Elizabeth. She’s four.” He walked into the next room and plopped down on a sofa.
    I followed him and sat in an overstuffed chair. “Where’s she?”
    He set his cup down on the coffee table. “Early learning center.”
    I looked around the large family room. It could have been the cover shot for an interior design magazine. The back of the room was a wall of French doors accented with floral drapes that puddled into folds of fabric on the floor. No doubt his parents were loaded. “This is a great house. What do your parents do?” I asked.
    “Doctors. Mom’s an oncologist, and Dad’s a general surgeon.” He put his feet up on the coffee table. “I won the parent lottery this time.” Spook jumped in his lap. “I hope it’s okay I brought you here instead of your house. When this storm stops, I’ll take you home.”
    “No. This is fine.”
    Alden scratched the dog behind the ear, and she made an oof oof sound.
    “Spook is a funny name,” I said.
    “Yeah. She senses Hindered. Spooks drive her nuts. I got her when I was away at school.”
    I put my feet on the coffee table too. I figured since he was doing it, it was okay. “Where did you go to school?”
    “Wilkingham Military Academy. It’s actually just a cover for a Protector training facility that’s run by the Intercessor Council.” Spook climbed off his lap and padded in circles on the sofa cushion next to him and settled down with her head on his thigh. “When I was fourteen years old, I got a letter telling me I’d earned a scholarship, and my parents let me go. The brochure was slick, and they bought into it completely. I knew exactly what it was, of course. I’d already begun having memories of my past lives.”
    I finished off my chocolate and set the cup on the coffee table. “So if I were normal . . . or rather appropriately abnormal, I would have started having past life memories when I was younger?”
    He nodded.
    “I wish I could remember. This is driving me crazy.”
    “You and me both.” Spook grumbled when Alden stood and picked up our cups.
    I followed him into the kitchen. “Do Speakers go to school?”
    “No. Speakers go through an apprenticeship their first few cycles under an experienced mentor. From then on, their job pretty much stays the same generation after generation. It’s not affected by technology like my job is.” He set the cups in the sink and ran water into them.
    I leaned on the granite counter next to him. “What kind of technology?”
    “Medicine is totally different each cycle. Things were pretty rough before antibiotics and sterilization. My past life memories don’t help me with that. School gets me up to speed with the era’s advances. Laws change too. I can’t just run around with a sword strapped to my hip anymore, much as I’d