Page 14 of Hunted By Darkness (The Dark Soul Collector #2)

Nika

O nce we cleared the outside border, I finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Grabbing the book after Silas’s little revenge show was easier than it should’ve been.

I hadn’t risked looking at it. We left quickly after and decided to wait for the renegade mercenary within a safe distance of the Dark Fae Society lands.

It'd been nearly an hour, but Silas hadn’t returned. The night had grown impossibly cold over the last hour, and my gut was twisted up in knots. The longer I waited, the less I was confident he was coming.

I’d seen what he could do. I didn’t doubt his skills. But what if he was injured? What if they locked him up and he was in the middle of planning his escape? What if he needed me and I didn’t come?

I panned our surroundings, hoping to catch a sensation I knew to be my mercenary, but it was only us out here. My chest was unbearably tight with the thought that he might be somewhere hurt.

He might be an infamous assassin, but even he couldn’t take on an entire society of Dark Fae. He wasn’t invincible. If anything, his unwavering confidence could be his inevitable downfall.

Would I feel it in my heart if something happened? Would our connection break to pieces and my heart with it? It had to, and that was what I held onto as I searched the trees for any sign of the man I loved, convinced I’d know if anything happened to him.

“We should go,” Lev finally murmured. “He knows where to return. We’re sitting ducks out here, Niks. I don’t want to risk losing that book, so we’ll head back and wait for him there.”

Sensation slithered down my spine. Voices broke out of the quiet, their inaudible whispers carrying on the wind and growing louder. I tried to listen, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Something was calling to me.

Silas?

“We’re going back,” I announced, securing my cloak and starting back on the path toward the Dark Fae Society.

Lev snatched my arm before I got far. “You can’t, Niks. You know you can’t.”

His cloak caught a stray breeze, and the icy wind hit my face hard enough that I was forced to blink several times.

The whispers continued, but they weren’t calling me over to the Dark Fae Society.

They were calling me somewhere else. I turned my head, and when their voices grew louder, I knew I needed to go that direction.

I started to walk again, but Lev didn’t let go.

“Nika, what are you doing?”

“The voices,” I said slowly, staring at the direction they coaxed. “They want me to follow.”

“The voices want you to follow?” he asked slowly, his hold loosening. We both stared where I heard them calling, the soft chatter almost songlike in the wind. “But why?”

The strong pull was the same one I’d felt the night my father called me back to that decrepit house. Strong enough to leave me with only one option.

To walk wherever the voices led.

Moving again, I beckoned him. The hood of my cloak was blown off, and more of my purple hair was set loose.

Our cloaks fluttered out behind us, and each step was an effort to take with the force of an oncoming storm hitting us.

The wind howled loudly in my ears, but the whispers were louder now that I was going the right direction.

“I’m not sure, but I need to go wherever they lead. It’s important, I know it. I can’t explain it, so you’ll just have to trust me.”

Lev offered me a dashing smile, his blue hair whipping around his gentle face. “You’re the person I trust most in this world, Niks. Of course I’ll go with you anywhere.”

“Such a smooth talker.”

“Learned from the best,” he clapped back.

“Silas?” I taunted.

He cackled loudly with a shake of his head. “You think that oversized kid is smooth? I’m so disappointed in you, Niks.”

Scoffing unattractively, I acted like he hadn’t made a very good point. “You’re extra sassy tonight.”

“Yeah, well, we’re friends for a reason, right? But our questionable decisions aside, if you say we have to go, then we have to go. And that’s that. Who else is going to keep you out of trouble?”

I might be worried about Silas and whatever waited for us at the other side of these voices, but Lev’s smile had a way of calming my anxiety. Maybe because I’d spent years coming back from torture to that smile. Maybe because I knew he’d always be there even when shit got hard.

Lev was my oasis, and I was grateful I had him to lean on.

My handsome friend reached a hand out to me, and I took it with a smile of my own. “But what if I walk us right into a trap? Hard to keep me out of trouble when you’re in it with me.”

Shrugging, he matched my pace as the wind tried to blow us back. “Then bring on the trouble. There’s no one else I’d want to be walking in a trap with,” he teased, showing a little of his sharp incisors in his amusement.

We trekked through mulch and grass for nearly a mile before the whispers were so loud I couldn’t smother them anymore.

My arms prickled with the sensation of someone nearby.

At first, I was worried it was Rilas and prepared myself for a fight, but the figure that loomed in a wall of fog was the farthest thing from my enemy.

It was the same man from my dream.

This time, though, the person didn’t freeze or stay hidden. He walked straight out of the blanket of misty haze and into a bright patch of moonlight. His striking eyes met mine before he stalked forward, never hesitating.

“How?”

Standing in front of me was the same man I’d killed.

The man whose voice I’d heard inside my head for months.

Salvator was in a pair of pants but nothing else.

He stood barefoot on wet grass and earth like it was his natural state of being.

His brown skin caught stray beams of light, illuminating parts of him and leaving others masked in shadow.

His once-red irises were now a fathomless abyss of darkness.

Lev’s magic danced around him in alarm, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Who is that?” he demanded, ready for anything with a dagger grasped in one hand.

A ghost of a smile lifted Salvator’s mouth briefly before it was gone. “Why am I not surprised you’d be the one to find me, woman?”

“How are you here?”

Salvator brushed a hand through his long dark hair, no longer a mess of curls like I’d seen him the first time.

It was only the slightest bit wavy, and longer than I thought.

White and red tribal paint decorated a large part of his brown chest and face, tattoos other parts.

The scars were still there, but the brand of the Brotherhood the two men shared was gone.

His physique was just as impressive as I remembered, all strength and violence in one glance. After knowing he could change into large beasts that could tear a person apart, it didn’t seem so odd he was so fit.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I woke up like this.”

“Ryker and Tometi?” I asked, a bit breathless.

I never thought I’d see the man who’d growled at me in my head for months alive, let alone smile, but the naughty grin that spread across his face was one that would haunt my dreams for a long time.

“Still here.” He pointed to his head. “Unfortunately. Even my second chance at life couldn’t get rid of these bastards.”

Lev shifted uncomfortably from side to side, agitated by the seemingly calm conversation we were having. He was worried I’d lost it. I could tell by the way he kept peeking at me, sure I’d come to my senses eventually.

I was anything but calm. I was all twisted up at the thought that Salvator might be the person from the dream I had a few nights ago.

That the dream wasn’t a dream at all; it was another vision.

Worse, I still wasn’t sure what any of it meant.

I had theories, but nothing in the journal talked about the Souls of Life and Death.

“Who’s this guy, and what does he have to do with those animal souls?” Lev asked, casting doubtful eyes on the man in front of us. He was wary and had every right to be.

“This is Sal—Bear Claw,” I murmured, still too shocked to say much else. “You woke up like this?” I asked the tall animal shifter in front of me. He looked exactly like he had in frozen time out of his wolf form. You know, aside from not being naked.

Crossing his arms, Salvator tilted his head and studied me for several silent seconds.

His dark eyes swept down my body in open interest, as if this was his first time really seeing me.

And maybe it was. I’d only been his target before I took his soul.

After, he saw the world through my eyes.

It had to be disorienting to see me in front of him after being in my head all these months.

Our eyes met, and Salvator took another step closer. Lev stiffened, but I wasn’t worried. Because I’d felt what this man in front of me felt for so long that I knew he’d never hurt me.

Reaching out, Salvator touched some of my stray hair that had gotten swept up in the wind. “I don’t remember it being this purple…” he murmured to himself. Then his knuckles brushed my cheek, and Lev snapped.

“Don’t touch her,” he warned. It’d been a long time since I’d heard Lev so hostile. He didn’t sound like himself.

A smug smirk graced Salvator’s mouth before he withdrew his hand and answered my question.

“It wasn’t long after he took our souls that I found myself here.

But I couldn’t say how many days.” His jaw clenched.

“Something told me to wait, so I stayed here, and now I know why.” His dark eyes glinted as they roamed my body again. “What’s with the cape?”

“It’s a cloak.”

“Looks like a cape,” he grumbled. “You Dark Fae are weird.”

Yeah, this was definitely Salvator.

“So you woke up like this? Alive? Back in your body? But how does that make any sense? Were you resurrected? But who would’ve done it?”

He cradled his jaw, his fluid movements oddly animal.

“It doesn’t make sense to me either, but I do remember that old fox saying something right after Rilas took us.

Right before she took over his body and anchored his magic.

” The sudden mention of my grandmother had my full attention.

“She said balance had to be struck. That life and death always found a way to correct the imbalance. She was sure you’d know what she meant, the babbling hag. ”

Correct the imbalance…

I stared at Lev, and he returned the look, eyes dropping to where I kept the book. A flash of blue surged out in front of me, and Salvator was suddenly in wolf form with Silas attacking him. A huge explosion of blue nearly sent the two of us several feet back.

Terrifying growls quickly morphed to soft whines. When the blue cleared, Salvator took another hit after Silas spirited to a place behind him. The bear-sized wolf hit the ground hard enough for the earth to quake underfoot, and it whined again.

My heart lurched inside my chest. It wasn’t just Salvator who felt the pain of those injuries.

It was Ryker, too. My sassy little wolf was hurting, and I needed to stop it.

His belly was left exposed as he struggled on his back.

I rushed forward, moving like my life depended on it, and intervened before the mercenary could land a deadly blow with his sword.

Getting to his feet and crouched, ready to lunge, Salvator snarled behind me. He was slumping to one side, suffering an agony that I felt in my own body. I couldn’t explain it, but the pain radiated inside me. His pain was my pain.

I stretched my arms out in defense of the man I’d once considered my enemy. “It’s really him!”

Silas removed his mask, glaring at the wolf behind me. “It’s a demon, love. He couldn’t be anything else if he’s back. I don’t know how Rilas did it, but taking care of him now—”

“Balance!” I yelled, baffling everyone around me. I clicked my tongue and explained what I meant. “Balance goes both ways, right? This has to be…it’s exactly like my dream. I know it is.”

Suddenly, Silas growled. “If he’s been brought back—”

“Then him being who we think he is makes sense, doesn’t it?” I cut in, arms still out like they’d really stop a monster like the Shimmering Assassin.

The mercenary’s face was warped with fury. He couldn’t argue because he knew I was right, and after a long, silent stand-off, he finally sheathed his sword. In a blink, I was in his arms and several feet from where Salvator was crouched, still ready to fight.

Silas’s voice was next to my ear the way it had been in my dream. “You can’t trust him, love. I know what you saw in that little vision of yours, but now I’m convinced I was right to stop you.”

When it was evident that Silas didn’t intend to attack him again, Salvator shifted back to his human form.

His pants were shredded to pieces around him.

With a little growl, Silas ripped off his cloak and tossed it at the naked shifter who didn’t seem at all bothered to have all his bits out for the rest of the world to see.

“I don’t trust a sly bastard like you. A toe out of line, and I’ll personally see to it that you’re second life is ended as quick as it begun.” The silver-haired mercenary issued his warning before dropping a possessive kiss on my mouth. “Touch my bird, and I’ll take limbs.”