Page 40 of Tortured Soul (Soulless #1)

Carter

M y heart constricted in my chest as I blinked her image out of my head.

Why didn’t Arc push me out? Why did he trap me in , forcing me to see through his eyes? Forcing me to see how she would have looked like with me if I didn’t reject her?

I pulled at my hair, wincing at the whispering echoes in my mind.

“ She’ll only bring doom. You’re a Fallen, don’t sully yourself further by binding your tainted soul to one of them. ”

But the voices were scared, and I wasn’t sure why.

“Shut up,” I groaned, smashing my hands on my face.

I wished they’d have stayed away longer. Maybe I should ask her to play her little mind trick again, as it seemed to have kept them silent for a couple of peaceful hours.

“ Don’t fall for it. Cunning creatures. Stay away—Stay away—AWAY .”

I stood up hastily from my couch and went to the drawer of my nightstand, picking up the pre-rolled joint and a lighter with a shaky hand.

Walking back toward the couch, I cursed my weak mind for falling down this hole again. I promised myself yesterday that it would be the last time. That I wasn’t going to get hooked up again. That I could deal with the voices on my own now.

But as quiet as they were when she was touching me, they were even louder afterward.

I let myself fall on the spot I sat on a minute before and rolled the joint between my fingers, inspecting it.

If I had been a human, the plant Kai and Arc had given me to turn off the voices would have killed me a long time ago.

Datura. Devil’s weed .

Strangely enough, a lot of Fallen were using it to quiet their minds. Funny, when we thought about it, that we used something from Hell to chase away voices from the Heavens.

I lit it up and inhaled a long pull of the smoke before leaning my head against the backrest cushion with a long sigh.

My mind already started to feel lighter, the voices growing distant. I brought it to my lips again and turned my head to the side, toward the small leather book I picked up from the archives’ floor. The one Lola had been nearly crying on.

I’ve spent a lot of time up there, and never stumbled upon it. It wasn’t registered on the software either.

Every Divine and old Hellriser had at least once heard tales about the Astrals . Fallen stars that exterminated the Dinosaurs, believed by humans to be only some kind of big Asteroid.

There was barely any evidence of their existence, so I, like most Immortals, took their stories as some old human legends.

Those humans liked to believe in anything and create bullshit stories to make themselves feel better. Proof was, the second they stumbled upon a Divine, they made it their whole religion system. The moment their paths crossed a Hellriser, they used them to scare their population.

Truth was, there was neither Heaven nor Hell for humans. If they died? They went back to feed the Earth. Unless they sold their souls to Hell or, since the war, were found worthy of the Immortal cause and brought back to life as a turned angel. But again, Aymeric was the only one I’d ever met.

Astrals were nothing but legends and bedtime stories.

Right ?

I picked up the book, keeping the joint between my lips without pulling on it, finally enjoying a clear mind.

Closing my eyes, I turned the pages, feeling for the ones that had startled my mate into tears.

She had been frightened, and I’ve never felt her emotions so out of control, even when Arc and I found her fighting off that demon in the streets.

Worried, angry, helpless…But never terrified like she was earlier, holding this damn book.

My brows furrowed as I stopped on a page. The only page she had actually touched.

Opening my eyes, I looked at the content and my frown deepened .

“Dragons; Stars protecting humankind,” I whispered the words on the page.

Why had she been so frightened by this?

I looked at the description and the graphite sketches.

It showed a large man with shoulder-length straight hair, scales on his forearms and around his eyes, a long, thin, leathery tail and wings behind him.

Even in shades of black and white, his eyes looked strange.

He had vertical slit pupils and the irises weren’t shaded to show any color.

A little note said that they were known to have iridescent milky eyes, similar to the color of a white opal.

Next to it, the sketch of a two-legged Dragon. The note said they changed over time, going from four legs when they first were seen to two when humans evolved.

It described their animal size as ranging from only nine feet to thirty for the largest.

I pulled on the joint again before taking it out of my mouth and set it on the ashtray.

“ No one knows how they lived and reproduced, as their number grew larger over the years, but some have reported that they picked Maidens from their villages and they were never seen again ,” I read.

“Well, duh , I’m guessing giving birth to a Dragon might not be easy. Protecting humankind, my ass .”

Did Lola know about them? Was that why she was terrified looking at that single page? According to her file, she was older than Arc.

What if she was one of those Maidens before she sold her soul?

No— I shook my head. Astrals were not real, or we’d know about them. Humankind stopped talking about them over a thousand years ago, when Divines and Hellriser’s numbers increased on earth.

And yet, as my thumb brushed over the tear stain on the paper, my heart made a little loop in my chest.

I pulled the small key from my pocket and inspected it. How many of my sketches had she seen before I took the binder away from her? I could only hope she didn’t reach the ones I made of her. Or the one Arc had given me a few days before she showed up…

My eyes snapped open with a gasp.

I wasn’t in my room. I knew I shouldn’t have finished that joint .

But as my surroundings came into focus and foreign thoughts invaded my mind, I groaned.

“ Did you not get enough earlier? ” Arc’s voice echoed in my mind. I tried to escape his head but he locked me in.

Fucking asshole.

“ I felt that, moron. ”

Of course he did. Even when I didn’t talk, he could feel me there. Feel the emotions plaguing me.

“ If you swallowed your fucking pride, you could join us. I’m sure Lola would love that.”

He turned his face toward her sleeping form. Her head and one of her hands were resting on his naked chest. She looked peaceful, a far cry from the look on her face when she held that damned book.

“ I’d rather have my wings cut out ,” I answered, bile rising to my throat, but my cock hardening in my boxers. It only made me feel sicker. “ Let me out, I didn’t plan on ending up here. ”

He chuckled and Lola whined in her sleep as the movement made her head shake.

“ Even your subconscious is trying to reach out for her by any means, ” he said. “ You can’t fight it. Just give in .”

“ You’re one to talk. ” I gritted my teeth. “ So scared of your demon side that you won’t give in either. At least I ’m not playing around with her feelings .”

His mental laugh echoed in my mind.

“ You’re going to have to get over your confused emotions. When the Nephilim comes back, I’ll be the one going with him. I’ll need you to keep an eye on Lola and fill in my promise to her. ”

My stomach churned.

“ No. I’ll go with him. Don’t make me— ”

“ It has to be me. ” His amusement died down, and a cold feeling squeezed my whole body.

“ If our suspicions are correct, and there’s indeed an Immortal operating the whole thing, I’m the best chance we have to get rid of them .

And I don’t trust that Nephilim, something is off . I mean, you know how they are. ”

I didn’t. Not really. Most of the ones on earth kept to themselves, and I’d never met one before Lola showed up.

“ Swear to me that you’ll ignore your damn feelings and look after her. ”

My throat tightened and my mouth went dry. Good thing the voices were still quiet in my head.

“ There’s no need, ” I said. “ With the two of you, you’ll be back before she has the time to get weaker. It’ll take you more time to get there and come back than actually get our people back and destroy the base .”

Something flickered in his mind, piquing my interest before he locked it tight, away from my reach.

“ Right. But just in case, please, look after her if we take longer .”

I didn’t like the direction that exchange took.

“ I can’t promise anything. Now, please , let me out of your damn head before I puke from feeling her so close. ”

I felt him roll his eyes before my mind slowly drifted away from his and I was back on my couch, the leather book closed on my lap.

I hated how her scent clung to my nostrils even though I wasn’t really there. How I could feel her touch like she was laying on my own chest.

I needed to find a way to control my powers. To control my mind from invading Arc’s everytime she was with him.

Sometimes, I hated that mind link between the two of us. Now, more than ever.