Page 26 of Deceiver (Soul Chasers #2)

Keagan

“ T hen I just started running.”

Wilder sits next to me, listening to my story with a serious expression. He exhales slowly.

“Has this happened to anyone before?” I ask. “Has anyone… killed someone because they were made to?”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “It’s rare though. I think the good news here is that if the Horror had actually possessed you, you wouldn’t have had the free will to resist and run. It would still be with you now.”

I nod, and my eyes sting with tears of relief. “That’s good, but he was in my head. I could hear his voice as clearly as I hear yours now.”

“It seems the Horror has learned well. I imagine tapping into the knowledge and power of the other spirits has helped aid the process.”

“What do we do? My dad’s gonna come for me. I know it.”

“Keagan.” He moves his hand to my cheek, cupping it gently. “Please understand, that thing is not your dad. It’s using that to manipulate you.”

“Right. I keep forgetting.”

“It’s important to remember so I can do what I need to and it won’t upset you.”

“You’re going to destroy it?”

“None of us have that power. Only the old gods can decide if a soul should be destroyed.”

“The old gods? You mean like…” I shrug. “Zeus and shit?”

He smiles slightly. “Hades, specifically.”

“The Greek gods are real?”

“They go by many names and have many origin stories, but they are all the same. I use the Greek nomenclature, but I have several peers who use Roman, Hindi, Egyptian, Indigenous.”

“Have you seen any of them?”

“Once. While her name was never given, it was clear to me that it was the Queen of the Underworld.”

My thoughts stutter while I absorb that. “Persephone?”

Wilder smiles. “The very same. In fact, it’s rumored that it was her who put the Soul Chasers together.”

“Wow. Okay.”

“Anyway, back to the Horror.” Wilder pats my hand. “It will be contained for eternity. It will lose any autonomy and exist in a cage, aware of its plight but unable to alter it. There is no worse punishment.”

I nod, picking at the cuticle on my thumb. “I think it’s true, Wilder. I think my dad really killed people. He said it was a demon, but…” I shake my head. “If the thing talking to me tonight was ever a part of him, then he did everything the cops said he did.”

Wilder searches my eyes. “How do you feel knowing that?”

I scoff. “How do I feel being the son of a serial killer? Pretty fucking bad.”

“Apologies. I didn’t mean to sound callous.”

“You didn’t. I guess I thought knowing would heal something or settle it.

I think I hoped so much that it wasn’t true so I could remember him differently, but those were the hopes of the little abandoned boy still inside me.

I wanted him to be better than he ever was.

He was a bad father and a terrible human. ”

Tears stream down my cheeks, but I’m too wounded to be embarrassed.

“He… it tried to make me kill someone tonight.”

Wilder’s expression softens as he reaches out to rub my arm in comfort. I kind of want to crawl in his arms and cry my eyes out, but his touch is a good reminder for me to breathe.

“I’m sorry but I have to tell you something else.”

I lift my gaze. “What?”

“Before you came to, do you think it’s possible there were events you can’t recall?”

“Like what?”

Wilder’s brow creases. “Like hurting Talon and Mercy.”

“How would I know? Why are you asking me that?”

“They were attacked earlier today.”

My jaw drops. “Fuck,” I whisper.

“No one has been arrested yet, and I doubt that will happen. I feared when you disappeared that the Horror would hurt you or…” He pauses, as his jaw twitches.

“Make me hurt someone else,” I finish. “It tried. What if it had control over me before I remember?”

“There isn’t much we can do. I asked in case it triggered a memory for you.”

Shaking my head, I laugh darkly. “I haven’t missed the irony of any of this. I wanted a father so badly I brought this nightmare to life.”

“No.” Wilder takes my hand. “It’s not your fault it exploited you. That’s what they do. It’s their whole angle. They can’t get back to this realm without assistance.”

“I should’ve let it lie. I should’ve just accepted what the reports said. I should’ve loved my life the way it was.”

“These kinds of thoughts aren’t productive. It won’t change anything. There are a thousand things in my life I should’ve done differently, but I did what I did. All of them brought me here. With you.”

“The highlight of your year, I’m sure.”

Wilder tilts his head, searching my eyes in a way that makes me feel naked and vulnerable.

“What if I told you that meeting you is exactly what I needed?”

“I wouldn’t believe you. I don’t have anything to offer you. Besides, you’ve already said your life doesn’t work with a second person in it.”

“Keagan—”

“No, please. Don’t say things just to make me feel better in the moment. When you leave, it’ll hurt more. Another abandonment to add to the pile.”

Wilder’s face goes blank for a second, then a new emotion ripples across his features, like he just discovered buried treasure.

“Gods,” he whispers. “That’s what she meant. I see it now.”

“Care to clue me in?”

A smile tugs at his lips, but he just hops up, pacing the space in front of me and dragging his hand through his auburn hair.

“Wilder? What’s going on?”

When he turns to me, the look on his face makes my breath catch. “Talon had a message for me. It was powerful, and while I believe that was the message she heard, I was still working it out in my head.”

“Talon? What did she say?”

He walks over and sits next to me again on the couch, taking both my hands in his. “You believe in Talon’s abilities, right?”

“Of course. She’s the reason I was able to contact my dad’s spirit. I’ve seen what she can do.”

“So have I. Do you remember when I told you about Samuel?”

“The man you loved a long time ago.”

“Right. I believed he was my soulmate, the love of my life, and the wound created when he passed from this world to the next was vast. I didn’t know if I would ever recover, but to be fair, I didn’t really try. No one after him, even those I truly loved, ever healed the wound.”

I gaze into his eyes as he speaks, astounded by his openness.

“I’ve spent the last two hundred plus years ignoring the wound, choosing brief, fleeting moments of pleasure but refusing to open my heart again just to watch another lover wither away and die.”

“I can’t imagine.”

“There is a way, Keagan. A way for someone to stay.”

I crinkle my brow. “What do you mean?”

“It’s called a love bond.”

“A love bond?”

Wilder nods. “It’s a process where a Soul Chaser can choose a human soulmate. When that happens, their souls unite, in the literal sense. Whatever happens to one happens to the other.”

I blink rapidly as I process the explanation. “So, the human wouldn’t die?”

He shakes his head. “Not unless the Soul Chaser died, which is rare and unlikely, but not impossible.”

“That’s cool, I guess. Why are you telling me?” Then it dawns on me, and I gasp. “Samuel. You could’ve done the love bond with him?”

Wilder nods. “Yes. I couldn’t do it, though. I thought it was selfish to ask someone to give up life as they knew it to be with me.”

“But he loved you too, right?”

“I believe so. I never told him about the option, nor anyone after him. It never felt right. As much as I adored Samuel, I couldn’t see an eternal life with him.”

“Oh.”

“I thought perhaps I was incapable of loving that deeply. I convinced myself that I was better suited to life alone. It was less dangerous, less of a risk for my loved ones, but I’m starting to believe I created those stories as a defense. I couldn’t be left if I was the one leaving.”

“I can relate to that.”

His brow crinkles as he gently squeezes my hands. “What I’m about to tell you might sound absolutely wild to you, but it came from Talon, so I think it’s worth considering.”

“I’m listening.”

“She said… She told me that we’re connected. You and me. You are the person I’ve longed to find my entire life.”

I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes out.

Wilder chuckles. “I know. I told you it would sound crazy. I wanted to dismiss it when she said it, but she knew Samuel’s name.”

My eyes go wide. “What?”

“She knew his name. She said the love building between us, you and me, exceeds what I had with Samuel.”

My heart beats wildly in my chest. “She said that? About me? Are you sure it was me?”

“I’m sure. To be honest, you do affect me. A part of me I rarely display comes out around you. You make me talk more. It’s almost as if my soul knew it would be safe with you long before my mind realized it.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I would never joke about matters of the heart and Fate. To stay with me requires a sacrifice. Your life as you know it would never be the same. I’m not a normal man, nor do I have a normal life.”

“What’s different about it? I get that your profession is pretty damn unique, but you’re still a man.

You sleep in a bed, live in a house, eat food.

Sure, you talk like a posh professor sometimes, but that’s just an upbringing or personality thing.

What is so different about your day-to-day from mine? ”

“My entire existence revolves around the supernatural world beyond the veil. It can be dangerous. If I were to die, you would die too.”

That’s a sobering thought, but he’s been alive for more than two hundred years. Wait… am I actually considering this? Could I fall in love with him?

“How can you die?”

“A wound to the heart, or if I make the mistake of trading my soul with a Horror.”

“That’s it?”

“Essentially.”

“If you were hit by a bus?”

“Bruised and worse for wear, but I would heal quickly. I can take a bullet as long as it doesn’t hit my heart.” He leans a little closer. “The heart is the seat of the soul.”

“You can’t get cancer?”

He shakes his head. “No. I can’t get sick at all.”

“Which means… I couldn’t either.”

“Correct.”

“And it means you wouldn’t leave. Ever.”

“Never. That should be part of the consideration. Eternity is an impossible thing to define and comprehend. We throw the word forever around a lot, but without immortality, you don’t truly understand how long forever really is.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”

“If we were to bond, Keagan, we would be together with no end. If we parted, it would destroy us physically and mentally. If I chose to die, it would take you too, and the afterlife would be torturous. Since I would never do that, you have to understand that it would be longer than you can even imagine.”

“Are you… asking me to do it?”

“No, not yet. It’s too big a decision to make lightly. I’m telling you because ordinarily, once the Horror is banished, I leave.”

My chest tightens as I nod.

“But I don’t want to leave this time, Keagan. I want to stay, and I want to believe what Talon said. I want to see if you and I can fall in love.”

My eyes well with tears. “You do?”

“I do. It’s been decades since I’ve opened myself up to the idea of love. I never wanted to lose it again, but Talon’s message was too strong to ignore.”

His words swirl around my mind. “How will we know?”

“I think we just have to be brave enough to try.”

“And you think you’re brave enough?”

“Yes. I’m well out of practice and I may need nudging, but I’m open to it. Obviously there’s attraction between us. There’s comfort, even intimacy. There could be so much more if we try.”

Even as I dig my teeth into my bottom lip, a sense of hope and possibility blooms in my chest.

“I’m not known for my bravery,” I say, “but I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I’m capable of in the last few weeks.” I smile as my courage grows. “Love is always about bravery, isn’t it?”

“I think so.”

“I know you still have a lot to do because of this thing I let in, but it’s the middle of the night. Surely, it can wait until morning?”

Wilder nods. “It can.”

“Then take me to bed, Wilder. We can start trying to love each other tonight.”