Page 5

Nika

I didn’t acknowledge Silas or his very visible erection as he took a seat next to me. The asshole spread his legs wide enough to make his point. Silas never hid how much he wanted me, and from the way Lev visibly cringed after one look at the brute, he definitely wished he would.

The mercenary’s arm was laid across the top of the couch, and like he wasn’t embarrassingly erect or been thoroughly chastised only minutes ago, his fingers toyed with the loose hair dangling at the back of my neck.

“So what now? Your Soul Collector voodoo, is it?” he sassed, tickling my nape in an effort to get my attention.

I ignored him. “Lev, you ready?”

My friend opened his mouth, but Silas spoke first. “Come now, love. Everything went to plan, didn’t it? Doesn’t your handsome boyfriend deserve a reward…or three?”

“For what, agitating Black? Or maybe you mean for watching her and I do all the work?” Lev teased. “If anyone deserves a reward, it’s me. Everything went perfectly to plan because I showered that bastard with my drink.”

“Steady on, lad. I knew where to find that seedy wanker. It was my information that put her in that seat. I’m the reason everything could happen in the first place.”

“And you get rewarded for it every night, if my interrupted sleep has anything to say about it,” Lev clapped back.

I glared at my blue-haired friend, not amused. He simply smiled in that roguishly handsome way of his, as if to say I had it coming. My punishment for not keeping the beast at bay. To be fair, no one really could. Not even Silas could rein himself in when it mattered. That was half our issue.

“Oh aye, lad. You do make a very fine point there,” Silas acquiesced too quickly, chuckling to himself.

“Just kiss already,” I said to them, smirking in triumph when both men responded in a ridiculously cartoonish way.

Equal parts disgusted and insulted. “Now shut up. I need to focus. Lev, be ready to draw whatever I can get transferred to the mirror. Not sure if I’ll be able to hold the images in it for very long. ”

Lev had already put the enchanted mirror on the coffee table. It’d capture any images I sent to it, and he’d draw them. After, we’d wipe anything it kept. But first I needed to lure Tobas into giving his master away.

I sighed and reached into my mind, searching for the feeling before his voice echoed from ear to ear. It wasn’t as disembodied as before. It was clear and rich like I imagined it would’ve been when he was alive.

“How odd to be living inside the head of the woman Rilas can’t seem to forget or defeat,” he murmured in contemplation, his genuine interest tickling across my mind.

Silas and Lev watched me as I leaned forward, centering my effort on the man in my head. “You don’t seem surprised I’d come to find you,” I said out loud so the other two would hear it.

“I wasn’t. Rilas knew you would.”

I blocked the surprise and confusion threatening to filter into my thoughts. I’d know if he was lying or being intentionally misleading, but he wasn’t. At least to Tobas, he was telling the truth. Had we walked straight into a trap?

The look I shot over to Silas had the mercenary suddenly on alert.

I quickly signed my concern with well-practiced hands, a silent communication my father taught me when I was younger, and the other two were quick to move into action.

I needed Tobas to think that I hadn’t suspected anything, so I continued to pry.

“He knew?” I asked with a burst of intrigue, and the strong sensation of pride answered back.

He thought he’d gotten one over on me, and I needed him to continue to think he had.

Whatever tie he had with Rilas, it was set into motion the second I collected his soul.

In my gut, I knew it. We didn’t know what Rilas could do, and if he was pretending to hide so he could strike when we least expected it, then planting Tobas would definitely be a good way to go about it.

Silas’s magic flickered across the room, securing doors and windows. Lev joined him, his dark green magic darting from one place to the other. Neither one of them saw the glimmer in the mirror, or the face that had plagued my nightmares appearing in it for a glimpse. Tobas’s voice grew distant.

Then it was Rilas I heard.

“Hello, Fated One. Miss me?”

The mirror on the coffee table cracked and broke into pieces, and the face disappeared.

Silas and Lev hadn’t been given time to react.

Time crawled to a stop, the other two slowing until they were frozen in place.

Magic had filled the room, but it no longer moved or sparkled.

Life seemed to come to a shuddering halt. Everything stilled. Only I hadn’t.

Fear was in my throat as I checked for ice growing over Silas and Lev’s bodies. Relief was instant. I didn’t see ice anywhere. Other than immobile, they didn’t seem harmed in any way.

Smoke gathered and grew up from the floor, forming a figure in all the black. My grandmother’s voice carried over the deafening sound of Rilas’s arrival, his black shadows flowing out of one spot in front of me.

“Whatever happens, stay with Silas and Lev. Only you can stop him, so never give into him, Nika. Never stop fighting, no matter what you have to sacrifice.” Her voice softened but stayed strong and confident as she whispered the next words across my mind, “Not even if it’s me.”

Her essence filled my limbs like we’d done several times before.

My arms were her arms, my voice her voice.

The two of us meshed as one. The flicker of red eyes before Rilas materialized in front of me didn’t slow my hands or the words leaving my mouth.

The darkness around him swayed and reacted to the barrage of magical symbols.

Narrowing a glare on me, his arm stretched out.

Grandmother’s voice boomed inside my head, “Don’t come for me, darling. It’s the only way to—” She was abruptly cut off.

Pink magic floated and formed all around me, symbols exploding in front of Rilas in a strobe of light. And before I understood what was happening, her soul was ripped out of me.

The pain was excruciating. Visceral and body-shattering in a way nothing had ever been. It was like the edge of a blade slicing from the top of my chest to the bottom, exposing my raw insides, and it left emptiness where she’d once been.

As I collapsed, several pink symbols branded Rilas’s forehead and disappeared. I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it right because he didn’t react to them. He only smiled as if he’d won already.

Offering his hand to me, Rilas spoke in a voice summoned from the very recesses of the After. “Come with me, and I will release her. Deny me, and the torment she’s suffered thus far won’t hold a candle to the agony I will inflict on her.”

I swallowed nothing but anguish and glared at him from the floor. “No.”

He took another step closer and tossed a look over his shoulder at the frozen forms of Silas and Lev. “Then shall I take them with me, too?”

My pink magic flew out to protect them. The barrier wasn’t likely to hold against his power for long, but it’d buy me a few seconds.

I’d left all my weapons upstairs, so I searched the room.

Then the glint of glass caught my eye. That’d have to do.

I eyed several pieces of the broken mirror to snatch the second he made a move.

I staggered to my feet, the blade’s edge of his assault still an agonizing echo inside my chest. “Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled in warning.

Rilas’s mouth was hitched up into a devilish grin, then his hand stretched out their direction. “Or what? Do you think you’re stronger than me without calling on the darkness living inside you, Nika? Do you think you can overcome the night with a mere flashlight?”

“You talk too much.” I dashed for the most lethal mirror shard on the coffee table and stood between him and my two.

“That won’t save them, and you know it.”

Ever since I was younger, I could move faster than most. I called on that speed and was already sinking the shard into his throat, the other hand wrapped around his naked forearm, forcing it away from Silas and Lev.

An electric current raced the length of my arm where I grabbed him.

I hadn’t felt anything like it, not since Silas.

The sensation of fate. Something inside me twisted and unfurled, coming to life with the touch.

“Feel that, Soul Collector? It’s our bond. We’re fated to be together, you and I,” he murmured, unbothered by the shard of glass impaling his neck.

No. I’d never believe it.

Blood trailed down from the wound, but still, he smirked. Coming closer, he made the shard sink deeper into his throat as our bodies fused.

Rilas grabbed me around the back of my neck and whispered next to my ear, “You know what, love? I’ve changed my mind.

I think I’ll use these powers I’ve collected and finally kill them whether or not you come.

Maybe then you’ll remember which one of us has the real power here.

” I was spun, his hand around my throat and my back against his chest. “Maybe then you’ll realize it was me you were always meant to be with. ”

I sucked in a sharp breath, power simmering and ready to attack.

But when he stretched his arm out, nothing happened.

The grip on my throat fell away with a hiss.

His other hand was on his forehead. He tried again to do something, but still nothing happened.

I stole a couple steps away from him, assessing the sudden change in his demeanor.

Whatever this was, it wasn’t meant to happen. The great demon resurrected from the After had hit another snag, but I wasn’t sure what that was.

Snarling with his red eyes pinned to Silas, he tried to hide the pink symbols inscribed on his forehead. It was the same ones I saw when he stole Grandmother’s soul. Did she do something? Did she know he’d take her and use our power in that event?

I retreated a few more steps, summoning magic and snatching a dagger from Silas’s belt. But Rilas didn’t come closer. If anything, he was retreating. Touching a hand to the glowing mark, he staggered back several steps.

He was vulnerable, and I needed to act before I lost my chance to do something. I didn’t wait. I responded on impulse and rage. Power thundered out of me like it had a mind of its own.

I’d get her back. I wouldn’t leave her with him. I’d save her.

But as if knowing exactly what I meant to do, Rilas disappeared and the world snapped back in motion. The radiating agony in my chest remained, the loss of my grandmother a brutal burn inside my body.

Silas was already holding me as my knees buckled. Lev blinked and looked around in confusion, but I didn’t have to tell them what happened. They both knew.

“What did he do to you, love?” Silas demanded on a growl.

I swallowed and rubbed a fist over my chest. Tears slipped down my face. The arms around me tightened, and I felt Lev’s hand take mine.

“Take your time, Niks.”

A void existed where she had been, but to my horror, it wasn’t the only void inside me. All the souls were gone. I couldn’t sense Ryker, Tometi, or Salvator anymore. The loss of them hit like another blow to the chest, and if not for Silas, I would’ve collapsed again.

“They’re all gone. He took them.”