Soul Taken (Mercy Thompson #13)(104)

I wasn’t the only one fascinated. I caught the moment when Bonarata leaned forward and watched the fight, moving subtly as if in participation. When he’d been human, he’d been one of the condottiere, a captain of mercenaries who’d gained power and wealth by waging war.

I might have enjoyed watching it, too, if I didn’t know what the Soul Taker was. If so much didn’t ride on Adam being just that little bit better than Wulfe.

Just that little bit. Or maybe if Wulfe managed to figure out why I brought his silk girdle with me. I wanted to touch it again, to see if it was still sparking magic. But Bonarata hadn’t noticed it yet, so I kept my hands still.

Gradually, Adam forced Wulfe to fight defensively. And the fighting had slowed down a little. Not because anyone was tired, but because they’d taken each other’s measure and quit wasting effort.

At that slower pace it was easier to understand what they were doing. The sickle was knife-sized, and so was best used just outside of grappling range. The bō allowed Adam to stay farther away than that, in the outer circle of the fight. He could hit Wulfe—as long as he was fast enough that Wulfe couldn’t grab the bō. But Wulfe was forced to stay too far away for the Soul Taker to touch Adam, who used the ends of the bō to keep Wulfe away from him.

I judged the duration of the fight more on the way they were fighting than a clock. Adam’s shirt was wet with sweat and Wulfe was making irritable movements when his Hollywood-inspired costume got in his way. He pulled off one of the flowy sleeves and flung it on the ground with a snarl that would have done credit to Adam.

I unwrapped the girdle from around my waist—and it was once again warmer than it should have been. I coiled it up so I could hold it in one hand, but when I got to the end, I wrapped it around my wrist. I didn’t want to lose it too easily.

“What do you have?” Bonarata asked.

I looked up, almost caught his gaze, and managed to focus on his mouth instead.

“Bait,” I told him. “And anchor.” Then I let out a single yip and bolted for the fight.

Adam hit Wulfe hard in the chest, making the vampire take a step back and a little to the side. Then Adam took two quick steps out of the pattern of the fight—away from Wulfe. Leaving Wulfe facing me while focused on Adam.

I stopped about ten feet from him, and using the power that flowed from Adam, I said, “Wulfe.” It was more than his name, it was a reminder of who he was. I held up the girdle stretched between my two arms as I caught his gaze.

I heard the crack of a gunshot, but it didn’t hit me or Wulfe, so I ignored it. I was aware, peripherally, that another fight had broken out between Adam and Bonarata, but I could not afford to look. Adam had told me that he’d keep Bonarata from interfering with what I was going to try to do.

Using the knowledge the Soul Taker had given me, I found the soul bond it had initiated between me and it and hit that with a blaze of the pack’s cleansing power—just as I’d watched Adam do to keep Warren from being enthralled by Wulfe’s bite. I didn’t try to break the bond between the Soul Taker and me. Instead, I sent the spiritual fire through the artifact and into the slave bond between the Soul Taker and Wulfe. Then I twisted the cleansing power and let it burn.

I couldn’t quite burn through the bond, no matter how much power I threw at it. Wulfe wasn’t ours in the same way that Warren was, so the pack magic couldn’t completely destroy the Soul Taker’s hold.

Wulfe’s eyes, one clear and one cloudy, met mine as he walked up to me and held out his hand. Despite the war I knew was raging inside him, there was no tension on his face. I gave him the girdle and he closed his fingers upon it. The serene expression on his face reminded me forcibly of the memory Stefan had shared with me of his first meeting with Wulfe.

As soon as he touched it, the Latin words and the phoenixes embroidered along the belt began to glow. It wasn’t flamboyant, more like the embers of a fire. He closed his eyes, brought the fabric to his face—and dropped the sickle.

I quit pouring power into him and collapsed on the ground in the same instant. I don’t think I could have managed even a second longer—but it had been enough to give Wulfe a chance, and he’d taken it.

I had called him to himself, then given him the belt—a reminder of a time before Bonarata had broken him, something for him to cling to. And with that anchor, he’d been able to destroy the hold the Soul Taker had on him all by himself.

“Because a kite needs to be tethered in order to fly,” Wulfe said, as if pulling the thoughts from my head, which he very well could have been. He opened his eyes and met mine. “And Marsilia”—his hand tightened on the old silk—“is my anchor.”

They had been lovers once. More than that. Marsilia, Stefan, Andre, and Bonarata had been his family. The reason for his existence. But when Bonarata had broken him, Marsilia had given him a touchstone of safety. I didn’t have to close my eyes to remember the skeletal creature that had clung to Marsilia’s skirts in that long-ago dungeon.

I could see that Wulfe was thinking the same thing. And I knew why he’d never killed Bonarata. The simplest reason of all. Wulfe loved him.

Wulfe looked away, breaking that intense communication—and I realized for the first time that the reason I hadn’t looked away first was because I couldn’t have. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head, and then vanished.