Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(109)

I looked up, into the face of God, through the watery haze of tears. “Am I going to die?”

“Never,” It said. “Your flesh will rot, consumed by my servants. But you will go on, with me, forever. There will be no end. There will be no rest. There will be no respite nor comfort. Only perfect, holy suffering.”

In the shadows beyond God, I could see the Eld waiting, I could smell the deathly stench of them. They watched me hungrily, thick saliva dripping from their jagged teeth. I wouldn’t even be dead yet when they tore into me. I’d die slowly, ripped apart until my soul abandoned this body.

God grasped my jaw, forcing my gaze back to Its beautiful, awful face. “You are mine. Forever awaits you. The time has come.”

The sensation of my head being split again made me scream. It was as if cruel, cold fingers were pressing into the cracks of my skull, pulling it apart. But it wasn’t memories that I was forced into this time. The swirling colors that made up the God’s being had surrounded me. I didn’t know if I was falling or floating, if I was being pulled into pieces or compressed so tightly that I would soon cease to exist. It hurt to look, it hurt but I couldn’t close my eyes. Within the myriad of colors, I could see shapes, structures made of iridescent light. It was so blindingly bright and so cold.

Then came the screaming.

Not mine, but the screams of dozens, if not hundreds, thousands of voices. Screams of true agony, the kind of sound that made me sick just to hear it. My screams melted among them, and I realized that it would never end. This raw feeling in my throat would go on, this pain would go on, this ripping feeling wouldn’t stop. This was the endless, holy suffering God spoke of. This was the fate of my soul.

But no matter how much It ripped at me, no matter how shattered my mind became in Its grip, I was tethered and my soul wouldn’t let go. God couldn’t take me, because I’d bound myself to another.

To Leon.

And when I realized that, the colors around me suddenly vanished and I was struggling, thrashing, then tearing away from God’s hold, screaming, “No! No, no, no! I’m not yours!”

I scrambled back against the stone wall of the cavern, gasping, my vision sliding in and out of focus. God’s perfect face was twitching, morphing rapidly between beautiful and vile. The illusion was breaking, and it was as if I could see both at once: the horrifying reality of Its massive tentacled form, and the too-perfect mask of a beautiful being.

“You can’t take me!” The louder I shouted, the more I could breathe, the more I could move. The control it had over me could be fought back, and I fought it viciously. “You will never be free from this place because you’ll never have your last sacrifice!” I laughed hysterically as I laid my hand over Leon’s mark on my thigh, the cuts still tender but no longer bleeding. Somewhere, Leon was still alive. He’d survived. When God had tried to take me, tried to separate my body and soul, I’d felt my tether to him pull taut and hold me back, refusing to let go.

Every path I’d taken, every seemingly inconsequential decision, had led to this moment. The choice between two eternities, a choice that was mine alone. I’d chosen. I knew to whom my soul belonged, and it wasn’t to a merciless God.

It belonged to another monster, a monster who had found me and protected me despite his darkness. It belonged to a demon who, even now, I knew was trying to reach me. To protect me, to save me. I stood up a little taller against the wall, even though I had never been so afraid.

Maybe this would be the day I died. Maybe this really was my fate. But in the end, the choice had still been mine. I’d found the deepest depths of this darkness and looked upon true horror. I’d fought every step of the way.

If I was going to die, then I would die still fighting.





God’s fury made the very stones in the cavern walls crack. Everything shook, the ground rolling as if with an earthquake. I tried to run, but the strength had gone out of my muscles and my knees buckled. A massive tentacle wrapped around me as I tried to crawl away, right as my fingers closed around the handle of my dagger, and jerked me up into the air.

“What have you done?” God’s voice slithered inside my ears like cold, sharp wire prodding my eardrums. “What have you done? You offered your soul to another! You betrayed your God!” It roared, and the cracks in the cavern walls spread, chunks of stone beginning to fall. The Eld howled, panicking as the cavern began to collapse around them.

God was beautiful no longer. It looked like a beast that had crawled up from the deepest, darkest ocean depths. Its gray flesh was so pale it was nearly translucent, run through with a spiderweb of blue veins. Numerous tentacles, dozens of them, coiled around the cavern, up the walls and into the water, and tightened mercilessly around me. They were covered with white eyes, blinking among the suckers, looking around with wild anger. God’s face was no longer mist and swirling colors, but gaunt with wide bulbous eyes, and gills fluttering along Its too-long neck.

Its tentacles wrapped tighter and tighter. The cavern had completely collapsed in, and we were sinking down among mud, rock, and water. We were falling into nothingness, the dirt and stones vanishing into the abyss as darkness stretched out around us in every direction. Lightning flashed in the distance, and the air filled with thick white fog. The silhouettes of massive beings, briefly illuminated by the lightning, sent adrenaline coursing through my veins.