Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(111)

“Shh, you’re alright.” Leon’s fingers stroked over my arm, easing the fear out of me. We were walking through the trees, and I was cradled in his arms. I felt so heavy and achy, and my head was pounding.

Muffled, as if from a great distance, I could still hear a voice in my mind, screaming in fury. “Raelynn! Raelynn, you’re mine!”

I shuddered, pressing my face closer against his chest. I knew there were more scars across his skin now, scars still pink from having only just healed. I wanted to kiss them, to thank him somehow, but I was so scared that my head felt like a balloon that was about to pop.

“God is calling me,” I said. “Still calling me. Leon, it won’t stop.”

“It will stop,” he said. “It can’t take you, Rae. It can’t take a soul that’s been willingly given to another.”

I looked up at him, even though his face was blurred without my glasses. “I thought you were dead, Leon. I thought the Reaper killed you.” The thought made me choke up, the memory of him lying broken and bloody.

“I’m not going to leave you that easily, baby girl.” He smiled, and his fingers tightened around my arm. “There’s no getting rid of me now. You’re stuck with me.”

The God’s voice grew muffled as we walked, until it was only a faint murmur. Then it was gone completely, and thunder rumbled again as lightning lit up the skies.

Leon chuckled. “God is furious. Such a storm.”

“Will It give up?” The thunder was so loud it hurt my ears. “When will It stop?”

“You injured It,” Leon said. “It’s weakened. The witch, Everly, told me she intended to kill the God. With It injured, perhaps now is her chance.”

“Everly…is a witch?” I thought back to that soft-spoken girl, who’d looked at me as if she could see my very soul, who’d drawn cards to warn me of my fate. I remembered that she’d felt wild, even though she was so quiet. A feral being, forced to pretend she was domesticated.

I closed my eyes again. I was completely soaked, but Leon’s body heat kept me from shivering. “Do you think she can do it? Can she kill a God?”

“Her mother was one of the most powerful witches I’d ever met,” he said. “Her daughter carries that legacy. If anyone can kill a God, she can.”

I couldn’t imagine how a being so great, so incomprehensibly powerful, could be destroyed. Thinking about it made my head hurt, and I groaned softly into his chest. “I want to go home.”

“I know, baby girl. We will. But I’m going to make sure no one ever takes you from me again.”

I wanted to ask more questions, but tiredness won out. Exhaustion wouldn’t allow me to stay awake another second. I drifted off to sleep in the arms of a Killer, my Killer, as he carried me away to spill more blood in my name.





Nothing had ever felt so right, so complete, as holding Rae in my arms. Limp with exhaustion, twitching in her sleep, but back with me. Back where she belonged. Battered and scarred but alive.

I knew that nightmares would torment her for weeks, and that the memories of this would never fade. It would stay with her, always, like the cuts on her body that would become scars. I couldn’t forgive myself for it, for not fighting hard enough for her, for having just laid there, broken, when Jeremiah and his minions took her.

But I was going to set it right.

With Callum by her side, I believed that Everly would destroy the Deep One, even if it killed her too. I’ve felt it in her, that wild magic that once unleashed, could destroy empires, worlds, and even gods.

That was her story, her fate. Perhaps I’d never know if she made it out alive.

It didn’t truly matter to me. Only Raelynn mattered. Keeping her safe, making sure nothing ever took my baby girl from me again, mattered more than anything else.

I looked down at the cuts Jeremiah had carved across her chest and was filled with so much rage I couldn’t see straight. He’d marked my girl, and for that I was going to break his hands, crush his fingers one by one until every bone shattered. As I walked, I fantasized on every gruesome thing I’d do to him. His God was dying, and he was merely mortal. The strength God had rewarded him with was only temporary.

He was going to die, slowly and agonizingly, and I would enjoy every goddamn second.

I stayed deep in the trees as I walked, to ensure no one driving by on the road would get a glimpse of me. It would surely be a sight to behold: my jeans were torn, my chest was bare from having given my shirt to Raelynn to cover her, and the injuries the Reaper had left me with were only barely healed, still pink and angry. I was too furious to disguise myself, so my claws were out, my eyes were bright, my teeth sharp and ready to rip apart any member of the Libiri I managed to find.

I smelled the fire long before I saw it. The ashen scent of burning was strong in the air, the smoke carrying even through the rain. As I reached the tree line at the edge of the Hadleigh property, I could see the flames.

I hated to leave her for even a second, but I laid Rae down at the base of a tall pine, where she could lie hidden among the gnarled roots. She sighed softly as I laid her down, curling her arm around to cushion her head. The ache of looking at her was almost too much, the sweetest pain in my chest as I brushed her hair back from her face before turning to leave her.

Love. What an odd thing.