Page 34 of Eternal Light (Fated in the Stars #5)

“You’re saying someone could convince a child to sell their soul?” Leo growls.

“Yes. A child’s soul is far more powerful than an adult’s, as they’ve lived a life without any true evil to taint it. In my experience, this kind of soul magic would take someone’s power to the next level. But it won’t come without a great cost.”

“That Withers guy was covered in open sores. He was losing chunks of skin and hair all over his head,” Luca adds. “He smelled like I imagine a dead body smells after it’s been in a swamp and left out in the sun for a few days—after it had the Plague.”

“Enough, baby,” Jay says, looking a bit green.

Growling, Nix’s eyes flash blue for a moment. “He was super gross and really cocky. Put a spell on Luca—I should have ripped his di…” He glances at the non-pack members and cuts himself off.

A spell?!

That sets off the entire room in a cacophony of growls and shouts until Leo finally whistles sharply to bring it down to a dull roar.

Nimue throws up a shield of air across the open door behind Jay and Grayson, ensuring they don’t impact the other children in the ward or have security called down on their heads.

Thankfully, no one comes running in, as this small room could not hold one more person.

“Perhaps Sasha could have a look? Once he’s feeling better?” Jay asks, his calm appearance belied by his red eyes and descended fangs.

Grayson will not wait for the stranger to check on his mates—he loathes the mere idea that Sasha would be rummaging around inside Luca’s head.

It takes seconds to determine that the spell is not on Nix. He’s not surprised; it would be hard to touch Nix magically without alerting Grayson.

Although he doubts Withers would know why that is.

He holds his hand out to Luca. “Where?”

Luca points to the base of his skull.

Opening The Plain’s flow to a trickle again, Grayson easily sees the gray cloud of magic stuck like a leech to the base of Luca’s brainstem.

He pokes it with a magical, metaphysical finger, making it jiggle like jelly before bouncing back.

“You have a Healing strand?” Sasha says in his ear. The sound manifests as a mirage of the Healer beside him.

They’re standing beside a flowing blue ribbon tied to the man’s waist like a sash, but it billows out behind and in front of him—like a cool healing stream.

Grayson hasn’t thought about it like that at all. He’s not even sure he could use it for anyone other than his mates.

When he’d bolstered Jay, he’d used The Plain’s deep red to build up his alpha instinctively.

Maybe the same would apply to Luca. Nix had said the beta’s soul bond looked purple to him. So, Grayson calls a long lavender stream toward him.

It spins and swirls, coming when called but dancing to its own inner song.

When he finally wrangles it, he directs it like a conductor’s baton toward the gray, gelatinous mass. He pushes as much energy as he dares into it until it bursts into a million tiny fragments.

The purple light follows each tiny seed of evil, drowning it out and gobbling it up until none remains.

Opening his eyes as Luca hugs him tightly, weaving his arms in and around Nix’s tight grip so that their mate is pressed between them, but he can still give—and get—the hug he desires.

Sasha looks a bit awed, but maybe that’s the consequence of the excess magic use. “Brilliantly done. No training, you say? Pffft . You will come see me at The Guild.”

“Thank you for helping Ansel. Will he wake up? Is he better now?” Winnie asks from her spot near the bed.

Sasha shrugs. “He is better, but not perfect…he’s been sick for a while. Maybe more than half his life. It will take time for him to find himself and feed his soul. It will be difficult. He’ll need…watching.”

“Watching?” Leo asks. “Why?”

For the first time, Sasha looks uncomfortable, as if he knows his news will be difficult to hear.

“Someone has eaten away at his soul for a long time. Being soulless—or even mostly soulless—means he won’t feel…

good things. Not for quite some time. Until he can regrow it, he might be tempted to go down a dark path, and twelve is the gateway to adolescence. ”

There’s a tense beat of silence before Gideon speaks, his voice low and tight. “What does that mean?”

Sasha’s gaze shifts to him slowly, as if weighing the answer. “He’ll need structure. Safety. Patience. A constant presence to remind him what’s real and what isn’t. He’ll need someone to believe in him when he forgets how.”

Winnie’s face crumples, and she turns away slightly, blinking hard.

“But I can see that what remains is inherently bright,” Sasha finishes, more gently now. “It will come back. Given the right care.”

“Care? Like…all the time?” Winnie whispers, deflating like a balloon.

Grayson has only known her for a few hours, but he can already see how the recently-unemployed young woman is trying to figure out how she’s going to give this soul-sick child the twenty-four/seven care he needs to recover.

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll work it out. I’ll make sure he gets better.”

Grayson meets Jay’s eyes. His alpha’s jaw is clenched tight, but his mental wheels are turning. There’s no way Jay will let these two fall through the cracks.

Rowan whines, too, and Grayson isn’t surprised to see him bump up under Winnie’s elbow and lick Ansel’s hand.

Maybe they’d consider a little stay in Nashville?

“Alright, I must go. What an adventure. Not since I was in the Gulag have I…” Sasha mutters as he unceremoniously takes his leave.

He pops his bald head back through the door to wave at Nimue and point at Grayson.

“You will see me at The Guild, before you return home, da?”

Grayson doesn’t commit, but Leo nods. “He’ll be there. Before we leave.”

And with that, the Healer disappears down the hall.

Smiling, Nimue rushes after her friend, who is zipping in and out of rooms, checking on the other children.

Grayson doesn’t tell Finn about the tiny bursts of blue light each time. It would be an impossible task to heal everyone, but Grayson likes Sasha more, knowing he’d expend his soul to give them all a boost.

Winnie sucks in a deep, hitching breath and rests her head on Ansel’s bed. Her lemony scent is sour with fear, making Grayson’s nose burn and his heart hurt for the young woman and her brother.

Nix approaches the bed, hauling Luca with him.

Grayson stays close enough that he can still run his hands up under the borrowed t-shirt that smells like winter, aiming to get at the silky skin underneath.

“Hey, I’m Nix, and this is Luca. Are you going to be okay?”

Lifting her head, she gets a good look at Nix—the ethereal beauty that he is—and her teary eyes go wide.

She shakes her head, compelled in the face of their angel to tell the whole truth.

“I don’t know. I lost my job today, and I needed it to keep our little place, and now I have to help Ansel get better, and I don’t know how we’re going to…What if they take him from me?”

She’s breathing heavily now, and it must have just hit her that she had been living in limbo—where Ansel might die—and hadn’t worried about much else. Now that he’s on the other side of that danger, she’s faced with living life.

“Will you let us help you?”

“What? No. Come on. You guys already did all this. That means everything.”

Nix touches her hand and Winnie’s face crumples.

She must see what Grayson knows is compassion and empathy on his soulmate’s face.

“Please. Everyone needs a helping hand sometimes. We would love to help you. I already have a few ideas about how maybe you can help us, too.”

“Really?” She sniffs and gives him a small smile. “Like…I could help you, and you help us?”

“I have this house that needs watching—it’s been empty for a while, but it needs a family to fill it up. There’s a good school nearby, and the neighbors are really nice.”

“A house?” Winnie’s face is baffled.

“Mmhmm. You’re going to love Mrs. Stavros—she makes the best loukoum . But…how do you feel about marigolds?”