Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy) Read online

  I took a deep breath, and turned my head to look up at him. He was looking straight ahead, smiling, so damn pleased with himself. I squirmed, trying to remove myself from under his arm. “I’m not giving you shit. I’m not playing your game.”

  “No?” He stopped abruptly, turning to me as if he were shocked. “Not in the mood to play? Fine then.”

  I wriggled free of his arm — a lot of good it did. His hand whipped out and gripped my face, squeezing my cheeks as he pulled me close and bent down to look me straight in the eyes. “No more games then. We’re going to your house, you’re getting the grimoire, and you’re going to hand it over before this escalates any further.” His eyes were changing. They weren’t so pale green anymore, there was a glow of golden light to them. I was unable to look away, frozen in his gaze. His touch dug into my skin.

  “More threats,” I said. We were right at the edge of campus, if I could just get away… “You don’t scare me, Leon. You’re not going to trick me into giving you the grimoire.”

  He chuckled, bringing his face close to mine. He examined me, his eyes stroking over me. It was as if his gaze was peeling back my skin, laying bare my bones and all my wicked thoughts. “You don’t even know what tricks I have in store for you yet, Rae,” he said. His free hand tucked my hair back behind my ear, his fingers tracing down over the piercings in my cartilage and making me shiver despite myself. When his fingers reached that tender spot right below my ear, my eyelids fluttered as the overstimulating sensation prickled all the way down my spine.

  “Mm, Raelynn...it’s going to be fun breaking that stubborn mask of yours. You have no idea…” Another shudder went over me at the caress of his breath on my ear. “...what absolutely filthy things I’m going to do to you.”

  My body was betraying me, but I still had some self-preservation left. I jerked from his grasp, pulling away so hard that I stumbled over my own feet and landed hard on my ass. He looked down at me curiously, a sardonic smile making him bare his teeth.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want to play?” he said.

  Panting, I scrambled to my feet and ran.

  Raelynn ran. She ran and every muscle in me went tense as a coiled spring. The intoxicating draught of adrenaline flooding her only made it worse. I had to pause for a moment just to calm myself down, otherwise I’d catch her too quickly and the fun would end.

  Humans were, and always had been, our prey. It had been far too long since I’d had the opportunity to hunt.

  I strolled after her, following her scent after she disappeared from my sight. She’d walked to campus that day: I swear the woman had no sense of survival at all. The Eld had been swarming for days and yet she insisted on making an easy target of herself. The sooner the grimoire and I were away from her, the better.

  She was my summoner, but she’d already, technically, dismissed me. The moment the grimoire was in my hands, I’d be gone from this awful little town and her life would go on as usual. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was no guarantee the monsters would lose interest in her. And the Hadleighs weren’t just going to leave her alone either.

  I frowned as I walked, irritation making me quicken my pace. With or without me, the Hadleighs would have Raelynn as their sacrifice, just another victim lost to Abelaum’s notorious bad luck. She’d disappear, her body never to be found. Her friends and family would search, they’d create campaigns and give interviews and weep on live television. But Raelynn would be gone, her soul consumed by a God.

  That bothered me.

  Whatever. I’d never met a human who wouldn’t leave me for dead and kick me while I was down for good measure. It wasn’t my business what went on in the human world once I was gone. Rae was amusing, but not worth the trouble of risking my life to stay. I’d already wasted time keeping the Eld away from her.

  She’d have to fend for herself, and so far, she was doing a terrible job of it.

  She was still running, but not towards home, and I was confused until I turned onto a side street and saw a flash of her disappearing — inside the thick oak doors of the Westchurch Cemetery chapel.

  Of course she’d run to a church. Typical.

  The sun had set, and the moon was a mere sliver. I breathed deeply from the cold wind that rushed around me as I reached the chapel steps.

  Death was in the air. I had to be quick. In the night, the Eld were hunting.

  The hinges creaked as I stepped inside. The chapel smelt of dried flowers and embalming fluid, the kind of place that felt sterile and cold. I let the door slam ominously behind me and meandered between the pews.

  “Oh, Raaaelyn,” I called. “Come out, come out...I told you I wouldn’t let you get away — oh, fuck —”

  My skull rang, courtesy of something heavy and wooden slamming against it. I turned, rubbing the back of my head, to find Rae standing there with a large wooden crucifix.

  “Be gone, demon!” she yelled, thrusting the cross forward. She’d really put her strength into that strike. She would have laid out a human unconscious. Impressive.

  I snorted. “Oh, stop. Your obsession with trying to bludgeon me to death is getting old.”

  She wavered, but I was firmly blocking her exit, and her resolve hardened. “Do you deny it?” she demanded. “You’re a demon, aren’t you?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, doll. Congratulations, you’ve done it!” I clapped my hands, making her jump. “You’ve caught the big, bad demon. What a marvelous investigator you are.” I snatched the crucifix from her hands, snapped it in two, and tossed it aside. “What now, hm? You look like you’re in a bit of danger, Rae. You’re looking a bit helpless.” I advanced, and she dodged around the next pew. I vaulted over it easily, startling her so badly she yelped and tripped back onto the seat.

  I planted my hands on either side of her, leaning over her. She gulped, her legs squeezed together, her eyes wide, her lips parted as she stared at me — fury, defiance, and barely-suppressed desire on her face.

  I’d always found it strange how desperately humans tried to hide their own lust, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

  “You’re...you’re really…” Her voice cracked and she gulped. It was honestly cute how frazzled she was.

  “A demon? In the flesh, darling. Now, I think I won fair and square. You have nowhere else to run. So, are you ready to go fetch the grimoire, or do you need a little more convincing?” I paused, enjoying how small she looked there on the pew: just an innocent little church girl accosted by evil. “You’re so cute when you’re irritated. Even your freckles are red.”

  She growled. She was fighting with herself, squirming between my arms. The scent of her arousal made me want to rip off her clothes, bite her flesh, take her —

  “Convincing?” she scoffed, but her voice shook and the laugh she forced out was nervous. “What convincing? You’re just trying to play nice, as if that will...make me…”

  I was toying with the top button on her sweater. Her heart was pounding beneath my fingertips. It had been a long time since I’d looked at a mortal and felt that much desire — and it was only made worse by her unshakeable defiance. She was determined to challenge me at every turn, where any other human would have had the good sense to keep retreating.

  “Demons don’t play nice, doll,” I said. “We play tricks.”

  A spark lit up in her eyes. I’d given her an opportunity; I was allowing her the chance to give in without surrendering too much of her pride. It was awfully generous of me, but hell, I wasn’t entirely evil.

  “Tricks?” Her voice had shrunk to a whisper. “What tricks?”

  I’d shown her my eyes, so I decided to give one more taste of what I was. I brought my lips close to hers, so close our breath mingled. I licked my tongue over my lips, its forked sides spreading to start from opposite sides of my mouth until they slid down to meet in the middle.

  Her eyes were the size of saucers. She seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. The possibilities of a split ton
gue tended to have that effect, but I’ll admit it was particularly pleasing to see her shaken. She was squirming again, but this time, it wasn’t in hopes of escape.

  “Oh, shit,” she whispered. Thoughts of what this tongue could do would be running rampant through her head. Her defiance was wavering, her desire overpowering her.

  I grinned, and brought my face down to whisper against her neck, “So, shall I show you my tricks?”

  Bang!

  Raelynn leapt up from her seat, crushing herself against me at the sound. The chapel doors had swung open so hard they slammed against the columns behind them. The wind howled inside, carrying with it yellow leaves and a pungent, sour smell.

  “What is that?” Rae’s voice choked up as she peered around me. “What...oh my God…”

  I sighed heavily. The click and scrape of nails across the chapel stones sounded its arrival, as did the low, rumbling growl in the Eld’s throat.

  “The game is on pause, doll,” I said, pushing her further behind me. “Don’t think I’m done with you yet.”

  The monster that walked through the chapel doors was straight out of my nightmares. I’d thought the bizarre, canine-skulled thing in the woods had been an art piece — but seeing it move, seeing it sway low to the ground and gurgle as its long black tongue dripped thick saliva across the floor, absolutely shattered my belief.

  It shouldn’t be real.

  It couldn’t be real.

  But it was. Snarling, white eyes shot through with reddened veins rolling about in its head, it stalked into the church and rose up on its thin, deer-like back limbs. Its teeth clipped eagerly, a sound like the chattering of a cat chasing a bug emitting from its bare bone jaws.

  “Leon,” my voice was a hiss, tense and desperate. My hands were knotted up in his shirt. “Leon...do something…”

  “Do something?” He shot me a narrow-eyed glare, and said mockingly, “Oh Leon, do something! Save me, please, oh please! What happened to Be gone, demon? What happened to trying to bash my head in with a crucifix?”

  The creature snarled at the sound of his voice. It was swaying in its stance, sizing up an attack. The smell rushed in my nose again and I nearly gagged. In the church’s dim light, I could see the beast’s body in all its wretched horror: skin that was gray and moldering, the bones pock-marked with little holes of decay, the teeth blackened, sharp, and jagged.

  “What is it?” I whimpered, too terrified to be angry at Leon’s sass. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Leon cracked his knuckles and rolled back his shoulders. “One of the Eld. They’re ancient creatures born of the blood and misery of dark places.” He glanced back at me over his shoulder. “They’re the kind of things that come skulking around when you cling to dangerous magical artifacts you have no business keeping.”

  Before I could retort, before I could be furious he chose now of all times to keep pushing about the damned grimoire, the creature threw back its head and howled. Not like a dog, but like a man. Like a man in agony, like a man unleashing years upon years of pain and fury into one gut-wrenching cry. Then it leapt and, somewhere between what my eyes could see and my brain could process, Leon collided with it.

  They slammed into the seats, sending wood splintering and screeching across the floor, and I had to leap back to avoid having a pew slam into my gut. I shrunk back against the wall, unable to tell which beast was winning in all the chaos. Their movements were too fast, too unnatural. I blinked rapidly as my vision blurred, but it was only because their speed was too much for my eyes to follow.

  I’d seen large dogs fight before — the snarling, screeching, and yelping had haunted me for days. But this was so much worse. The sound of them was ungodly. It rumbled through the chapel’s stone floors, echoed from the corners. It was the sounds of something living being torn apart, the sounds of a monster bearing down on its prey.

  Suddenly Leon rose up, the monster’s skeletal head gripped between his hands, and crushed its skull like an egg bursting open.

  “Oh my God...oh my God…” My mouth hung open. The long-limbed, rotten monster lay destroyed in the rubble of the pews. The stone floor had been deeply scratched. The smell of death hung thicker in the air than ever. And Leon…

  Leon didn’t look human anymore.

  His hoodie had been torn apart in the struggle, laying his chest bare. His myriad of colorful tattoos couldn’t cover the long, deep scars etched into his skin. The veins in his arms had gone black, like inky roots snaking their tendrils up from his clawed fingertips. He hung his head back, catching his breath, his teeth all elongated and sharp. He ran a gory hand through his hair, streaking the blond with the dull red of the monster’s blood. His eyes, when he turned them on me, were as bright and golden as the sun.

  “Now,” he said, drawing in a heavy breath. “Where were we?”

  “What the fuck,” I clutched my head in my hands, inching around the toppled pews. Blood and gore were spattered across the floor, and the creature’s body was melting. It had become a goopy, blackened consistency that squirmed with living worms. I clapped a hand over my mouth. I was going to be sick —

  “More will come for you, Rae,” Leon said, discarding the shredded remnants of his jacket. He walked over to the bénitier near the front of the chapel and dipped his hands in the holy water, scrubbing off the blood and tinting the water pink. “I told you what you started isn’t easy to undo. This beast is the least of what may come hunting you.” He splashed water on his face, droplets streaking down onto his chest.

  As he stood there, stained with the blood of a monster — fanged, clawed, a monster in his own right — I thought he was simultaneously the sexiest and most terrifying thing I’d ever seen.

  Dazed, in utter disbelief, I turned and wandered out the church’s open doors. The cemetery seemed peaceful now that the shrieks and cries had been silenced, and only the chirping of the crickets remained. The night air was cool, crisp and clean; the smell of death was fading as the monster’s body dissolved.

  This couldn’t be real. This had to be a dream or...or a nightmare. I rubbed my hands over my face. Here I’d thought I only had a demon to deal with, but this was so much worse.

  “We were in the middle of something, Raelynn.”

  I whirled back around. Leon stood in the light at the bottom of the chapel steps, hair damp, dark bloody stains on his jeans. I remembered suddenly — just before that monster burst in, I had been about to allow myself to do the unthinkable.

  I had been about to give in. I had been about to beg him to shove that unholy split tongue down my throat. After what I’d just seen, I should have been entirely turned off, horrified, disgusted. I should have been running.

  But instead, I wanted him to wrap those blood-stained hands around my throat. I wanted him to manhandle me with even a fraction of the strength he’d just used to rip that thing limb from limb. I was staring down what was very likely the most dangerous man in Abelaum, and I wanted him to rip my clothes off right there in that graveyard.

  “Thank you,” I said tightly. “I...I might’ve...if you weren’t here…”

  “You would be dismembered, but alive, being dragged deep into the forest where they could consume your body slowly.” He smiled. “And I prefer thanks in actions, rather than words. Give me the grimoire.”

  I backed away until my thighs bumped against a headstone behind me. Leon advanced, impatience in every step until he stood right before me. The rise and fall of his chest, his breathing heavy, was hypnotizing. His body was slim but his muscles had swelled. I wanted to caress my hands over the tattoos — saints and angels and snarling wolves — and over the scars beneath them.

  “Why do you want the grimoire so badly?” I said, stalling.

  “It contains my mark, my sigil,” he said. “It’s the last physical record of it remaining on earth, and having my mark means being able to summon me. Once I have it, I’m destroying it.” His eyes lit up. “And I’ll never return to this god-forsaken t
own.”

  “If I give it to you,” I said slowly, “will those things go away? Will they stop coming after me?”

  He winced, and gave a little shrug. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? What the hell am I supposed to do then?”

  “Try offering me your soul.” His tone was cocky, but clipped, as if he’d allowed the words out only begrudgingly. “Offer me your soul in exchange for protection.”

  I stared at him, stunned, until I began to slowly shake my head. “No. No way. I’m not offering you my soul.”

  He shrugged again. “Good luck then. Now…” He leaned over me, those damned tempting full lips curled into a saucy smirk. “How long are you going to ignore that little problem of yours?”

  I frowned, self-consciously squeezing my legs together. “What problem?”

  His smirk widened. “You are dripping at the sight of me.”

  Blood flooded my cheeks, and heat flooded between my legs. I sputtered, looking away — but I couldn’t deny him. I couldn’t lie.

  “Fuck you,” I muttered.

  “You’re welcome to.”

  “Why don’t you just do it?” I blurted out, throwing up my hands. “You keep threatening and teasing and…and…looming over me.” I glared up at him, my fists clenching when I found him laughing.

  “Just do it?” He chuckled. “Just bend you over and ravage you here and now? Just do it, so you don’t have to give in? No, no, no.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “That would be too easy. I want to see you squirm, I want to see you beg. If you’re going to be damned, you need to go willingly.”

  The tension inside me was going to explode. My clit felt swollen, my panties were damp. The sight of him shirtless and bloodied, having just unleashed his true hellish self to save my life, was unreasonably arousing.

  “Please, just —”

  “Aw, please.” He pouted, mocking me again. “Please? Please, what? Use that pretty mouth of yours, come on. Speak.”