Page 20 of Tortured Soul (Soulless #1)

Lola

I had to find him.

I turned myself invisible the second I left Arc’s house and ran toward the entrance of the camp.

Strange how I could feel the power coursing through my veins. It’s been a while since I’ve recharged on something other than a human, and I forgot how powerful the energy felt. How potent it was.

I couldn’t even feel the strain of the barrier anymore, so much that I almost didn’t realize when I crossed it and reached the unprotected zone outside the camp.

I stopped and closed my eyes, letting the millenia old connection that tethered me to him flutter back to life.

Time passed. Seconds. Minutes. Nothing happened. Was I wrong? Could it be another fully cursed Nephilim who somehow ended up here and was interested in my bike? His bike?

My heart missed a couple of beats when I felt that old and familiar, barely noticeable tug and my legs started to move of their own accord.

He was here. How long has it been? Maybe five years since I last felt him close. Almost a century since we last spoke.

I followed the hooking feeling. Each of my steps made our weak connection thrum, the air vibrating around me.

Between us. He stopped moving but I could still hear the engine of the bike as I walked into the dead, arid forest. Its towering trees long turned to stone, their color and shape forever changed by the unbearable heat and occasional acid rain.

And there he was, a giant leaning on the side of my bike, his arms crossed in front of him, feet kicking at the sand and dirt. We were surrounded by the menacing stone formations and yet, seeing him made my heart settle in my chest .

My breath hitched and steps faltered. It shouldn’t shock me anymore, the color of his hair, the paleness of his skin accentuated by his dark clothes.

Sunglasses were covering his eyes. Eyes I knew were entirely red. Like they’ve been for a very long time.

Here he was, a Nephilim fallen to madness. To his curse .

“I know you’re here,” he teased, lifting his head toward me, his voice a familiar purr in my ear.

I loosened my hold on my invisibility, slowly appearing in front of him. He didn’t move, looking at me through his sunglasses. The forest was silent as we took each other in, ten feet apart.

His lips curled in a crooked smile.

“I like the blonde hair,” he said.

A little scoff escaped me. “You do?”

He shrugged. “You’re always beautiful. Never saw you blonde before. I like it.”

My eyes drifted to his silver locks and he froze, his shoulders tensing. Saying I was used to it would be a lie. I kept seeing his raven black hair, the one he had back when we met.

“You grew yours,” I simply pointed out. “Last time I saw you, it was shorter.”

“It was longer when we met, though.”

True. It nearly reached his shoulders back then. Now it was parted to the side and slightly falling over his eye. Just long enough to rake your hands through the silky strands, which I used to do. A lot .

I took one step forward. Careful, slow, as his head tilted to the side in question.

“Having a beard not itching anymore?” I asked, noticing the stubble on his face.

He turned his head away, clenching his jaw. “I’ve been moving a lot. Haven’t seen a mirror in the last couple of days. I sometimes feel like ripping my face off, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

I fought to keep the smile from my face, but he noticed. He always did.

“Why are you here?” I asked before he could say anything.

His tongue slid over his teeth, fingers tightening on his own arms over his chest. I took another step.

“I was in the neighborhood. ”

I gave him something between a scoff and a chuckle and the corner of his lips tilted up. “Right. Lots of neighbors around in this deserted state.”

“So crowded ,” he crooned, fighting his smile from growing on his lips. “I have an aunt just a few miles away, she invited me over for taco night.”

I snorted and he straightened up as I took another step. “Right, your aunt. Was it the one you said died about sixteen hundred years ago? Or the one you killed yourself even before that, because she attacked your mother when you were a teenager?”

He chuckled, the grin spreading. “Definitely the first one. Rimma would never have invited me.”

I shook my head softly as he uncrossed his arms, letting them fall by his side. My hand couldn’t help from reaching out to grab one of his.

“Why are you really here, Dimitri?” I finally asked, turning serious. Curious.

The silence stretched for a few seconds, just enough for me to pinch the arm of his sunglasses, sliding them off softly.

Red. Gone was any trace of the blue irises that were there when we met 1,574 years ago. But despite the unnatural color, there was no trace of the madness that sometimes took over him.

“I didn’t lie,” he said, voice low. “I was nearby and I felt you. I thought I should come and say hi.”

I arched a brow, interlacing our fingers.

“In the last centuries, there were many times I could feel you close-by, but you never came to say hi. Why now?”

His gaze drifted to the side again before falling on our hands. His thumb started to rub soft circles on my knuckles.

“Tomorrow is the anniversary of the day I left you behind,” he said in a pained murmur. “Exactly fifteen hundred years ago.”

I frowned. “We’ve seen each other since. It’s not like—”

“I know ,” he rasped. “It’s just—I miss you. And I know we both had our issues in that whole mess, but sometimes it’s hard to just stay away.”

My face fell, my heart sinking. The guilt I kept buried for all those years and longer coming back to the surface.

“ I was the one who screwed up,” I said, leaning toward him, grabbing his chin with my free hand. “Not you. It’s my fault your curse—”

“I just want to spend a little time with you. I think I need it for my sanity.”

My throat bobbed but I nodded, lifting my hand from his chin to his cheek, sliding my fingers in his stubble.

Something flickered in his eyes and his hand tightened around mine. It was bothering him.

“Do you have something to shave with in that backpack of yours?” I asked, nodding to the large bag on the ground next to the bike’s back wheel.

He let go of my hand, took his sunglasses, and turned to rummage through it, straightening back with a small dagger and a tin box, the glasses dropped somewhere inside the messy bag.

“A little much for a shave, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “It’s sharp and it does the trick.”

I took the blade and the cream from his hand. “Climb on the bike.”

He arched his brow, but did as I asked. “Why?”

I climbed on too and sat half on the fuel tank, half on his lap, facing him. “Because you’re a giant and I don’t want to cut you. We’re more leveled like this.”

His hands automatically found their place on my thighs. We’ve done this before, a long time ago. We couldn’t always find mirrors when we were moving around, and the more his curse progressed and madness settled, the more little things like itchiness made him lose his mind.

“Admit it,” I whispered with a smile, spreading a little cream on his face with the tip of my finger. “You knew I couldn’t resist doing this and that’s why you came here.”

He pinched my thighs with a dry chuckle, but his eyes were closed in appreciation, his head tipped back. “When it’s you, I don’t have to stare at my madness in a mirror. My reflection looks different in your eyes.”

My throat tightened, but I didn’t stop spreading the mixture on his face.

“Is it weird that this is one of the things I miss the most?” he asked, almost purring under my touch. “You, taking care of me. Helping me fight the madness you couldn’t cure.”

My hand stilled and I blinked, tears pressing behind my eyes. I pulled my hand away and wiped my finger on my jacket before grabbing the dagger and bringing it to his face. He didn’t open his eyes, relaxed under my touch.

It was my fault he fell to his curse. I was the one who could have stopped it if I hadn’t been so careless. So stubborn. If I’d trusted him.

Delicately, I grazed his skin with the blade, going with the grain. He hummed under his breath, his thumbs rubbing my thighs softly, like it was muscle memory.

“You took care of me too,” I whispered back. “You stayed even though I gave my soul away. Ripped it from you when you needed it most.”

He groaned when I pressed a little harder, reaching a difficult place. His hands tightened on my thighs.

“I didn’t, though,” he mused. “I ended up abandoning you, time and time again. And you forgave me for it.”

My heart constricted in my chest, but I kept moving the blade slowly. Carefully.

“Did you?” I asked in a breath.

“Did I what?”

“Forgive me.”

He opened his eyes then, his face so close I could see the red swirling in his irises. The madness a living thing inside his mind and soul. The dagger was at his throat and he sat still, unbothered.

“Most of the days. Sometimes the madness is too loud.”

His hands moved up my thighs to my hips and pulled me abruptly closer. I gasped as I landed fully on his lap, feeling his bulge under my heating core.

“Keep going please,” he asked softly, his hands moving to nestle on my waist.

No matter our history, Dimitri was one of the only two Immortals I trusted with my life. One of the two who never purposefully hurt me. One of the two whose touch I welcomed and craved. Whose touch didn’t make me recoil in fear but melt in want and need.

One of his hands pulled the ring hanging between my breasts and recognition flared in his eyes.

“You’re still wearing it.”

It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. He turned it around his finger a couple of times, the metal warm from its constant contact with my skin, before he slid it back under my T-shirt where it belonged .

“We can’t keep doing this, you know?” I said, resuming my shaving. His breath hitched when the blade reached his throat.

“And what would this be?”