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Nika

" A gain, I was right. This was a bad idea. Tobas is an ass and a half. He deserves a good kick to the nuts, not a fucking love touch,” Salvator grumbled in my head, his voice rippling across with the usual asserted dominance. “ Does she listen to me? No.”

“Someone’s extra salty today.” That one was Ryker, a wolf spirit with a lot of spunk and very little filter. He’d really embraced his snark over the last half year.

The never-ending joys of having several men—well, two animals and one man—in my head made it difficult to think half the time, but I’d gotten used to it.

“I don’t even know what that means. More made-up nonsense you probably stole from one of those ridiculous shows that asshole insists on watching, like we don’t have shit to do and a fucking demon to destroy.”

Couldn’t argue with Salvator there. Lev and Silas had bonded over their shared love of Normie shows. Without fail, they forced me to watch with them every chance they got.

Silas affectionately called it Netflix and Chill, a phrase certain to be perverse for how excited his eyebrows got and how grossed out Lev was anytime the mercenary referred to it that way.

“Let’s go Netflix and Chill, princess.” “Been a long day—Netflix and Chill?” “You seem tense. Netflix and Chill can help.” “What I wouldn’t do to Netflix and Chill with you right now.

” I might not know what it meant, but I got the general sense quickly enough.

Silas wasn’t what one would call…subtle.

An irony made wholly hilarious by the fact that he was called the Shimmering Assassin, a notorious mask-wearing, for-hire killer no one could catch.

He was swift, deadly, and gone in a cloud of shimmering blue magic.

That was the man who confidently claimed the title boyfriend despite my distaste for labels.

The wolf in my head scoffed, sounding oddly human and animal at the same time.

“Says the guy who told us we were all simping over a female. Sheesh, losing your corporeal body has definitely made you insufferable, old friend. And that’s saying something considering how absolutely shit your personality was before our pretty girl did us all a favor and cut your reign of terror short. ”

Indignant rage floated across my mind, but it was mixed with guilt and shame.

Salvator hadn’t gotten any less himself over the months the two of us were stuck together—the would-be-assassin and the target who stole his soul.

He complained all day, every day, but the socially-stilted grump was incredibly perceptive and insanely knowledgeable.

Salvator might seem all dark and bad and annoyed, but underneath it all was a man who cared.

“I heard that, woman, and I resent the implication that I’m anything less than an evil bastard,” he grumbled.

Hiding a smile, I finished my drink.

Salvator might not have a body anymore, but I could almost see him standing in my head, his arms crossed over his chest and his jaw locked in disapproval. He’d been against us coming here since Silas discovered it was Tobas who’d helped Rilas infiltrate the Dark Fae Society.

Tobas had been an old friend of Rilas’s and part of the Brotherhood.

He was our best chance at finding where Rilas was hiding while he collected enough powerful souls to fight me again.

But Tobas had been killed by a mercenary a little over a month ago.

It took weeks to figure out who, and that was what led us to tonight.

“Sally is so in love with you, it’s adorable,” Ryker rumbled with a wolfish laugh. “ But I have to agree, keep the touching to a minimum, sweet girl. Moon goddess knows where that man’s been. What if you get a disease or rabies? He definitely has rabies.”

“She’s safe with Silas and Lev,” came Tometi’s sound-minded interjection. But then he added, “ Silas would tear that guy’s cock off and shove it down his throat if he tries anything with her.”

I shook my head, sighing.

Sometimes Tometi was as vicious as his bear form. It was hard to tell if the bear was being sarcastic whenever he said something decidedly out of the box. But right now, his unwavering tone suggested he wasn’t joking.

“Oh, that’s a blowjob no one wants.” Ryker’s laughter echoed from ear to ear. Even after months with these voices in my head, it was still an odd sensation.

I didn’t waste my breath—thoughts?—on the fact that I was plenty capable of keeping myself safe. The men in my head were worried, and it’d fall on deaf ears. You know, if they had ears.

I crossed one leg over and flagged down the bartender for another drink.

So far, no joy. But he’d be here. Silas was sure of it.

Unfortunately, it’d barely been fifteen minutes and the boys were already arguing.

Not a great sign. I couldn’t tune them out tonight because their collective knowledge outweighed whatever annoyance they caused inside my head.

My grandmother’s presence was floating near the surface of my mind, but she was silent tonight. What happened here would be the final test, and I’d get no help from her. I needed to detach Tobas’s soul from the mercenary who killed him.

Doing it would differ from what happened with Rilas and the Box of Black Souls, but it was close enough.

Grandmother said that once I could do that, there’d be nothing more she could teach me.

I’d need to practice and get to know my power better.

She finally agreed that if I pulled it off, she’d cross over.

Nothing was more important to me than giving my grandmother peace.

She’d spent her life in the service of others, and in the end, she was locked away in a world of torture she didn’t deserve, all because she refused to be used for the Council’s selfish agenda.

If anyone deserved to find peace, it was her.

She knew how important it was for me to do that for her, so she didn’t fight me on it.

I’d spent a half year training my power—learning how to track and trace souls, seek them out, listen to their voices, utilize their presence without corrupting my own soul. It was vital that I practice it without her intervention.

Because I couldn’t selfishly keep her.

With Silas and Lev by my side, I wasn’t alone.

Even the weird trio in my head refused to leave, arguing I needed them to save the world.

No matter how often I told them I could do it without them and they deserved to have new lives—Grandmother taught me how to free the animal souls so they could have their own futures—the head squatters, as Silas affectionately called them, refused.

I might want them to get their happily-ever-afters, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit relieved they’d decided to stay.

They probably already knew that, and it was the entire reason they refused to go.

I’d already sent the dark souls I’d collected from the box into their awaiting afterlife. The innocent ones, too, of course. I was worried Rilas would come looking for them.

Grandmother said I had a powerful ability to change someone’s soul, but the dark ones I’d collected were far too corrupt. Darkness like that festered. It was impossible to root out. Their presence in my body would only corrupt my power over time.

It took a few weeks to send all the souls I’d collected into their appropriate afterlife—it was impossibly draining—but now only Grandmother and the guys remained.

I hadn’t used Ryker or Tometi’s animal forms in nearly a month.

Every time I did, another speck of black appeared in the clear gem hanging from my neck, a warning against corruption.

I needed to be very careful how I used their powers because, as far as Grandmother knew, there wasn’t any way to purify the corruption.

She argued I didn’t need anyone else’s power but my own, and I agreed. Before all of this, I’d spent sixty years with nothing but my defensive magic, agile combat skills, and wit. I’d lived despite all the torture and attempts on my life just fine.

I was a survivor.

Purple curls escaped my braided updo and fell into my eyes as I sipped my shot and cut a look to my left, watching the door. A burly man stepped inside. His eyes swept the space before he called out to a few patrons nearby, limping over to them. But nothing stood out about him.

Not our guy.

I let loose a sigh and took another sip of my drink.

Sometimes souls wandered. Sometimes they attached themselves to a person.

Tobas was the latter. Most often, the soul attached itself to a loved one.

But in this case, our guy spitefully clung to the mercenary who’d killed him.

My soul-sensing abilities—a mirage of images that appeared in my head—could only tell me so much.

Soul-sensing was one of the harder abilities I’d learned over the last few months with my grandmother’s guidance.

Grandmother explained it was similar to what oracles in the Fae did, but with the dead.

Soul Collectors had the ability to access the afterlife in a way no other magical being could, and in this case, access the past of someone’s soul.

Nearby souls could convolute the images without good control, so it took focus to latch onto a specific one.

It often required something personal if there wasn’t a connection between the soul and Soul Collector.

It didn’t work on the living. It didn’t work on Rilas, whose soul was something dark and changed, and it didn’t work on the souls Rilas collected because they were anchored to him and needed to be detached first. So, I couldn’t use the ability to find him.

With Grandmother’s help, Silas commissioned an enchanted item to capture my soul-sensing visions. She warned me to erase them as soon as we got what we needed. Smart, considering that while they could help us, they could also be used against us.