Shadow Kissed: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Witch's Rebels Book 1)

by Sarah Piper

  Fifty feet. Twenty-five.

  “It will not bring you peace.” Death crept out of the black wood, blocking my entry through the arch.

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  God, I really need to ward this place. Maybe get a dog, too. A mean one.

  “I need to speak with you,” he said.

  “Ever hear of a phone?”

  “I’ve not much use for them in my line of work.”

  “Cute.” I didn't bother meeting his glowing blue eyes, just kept my attention on the archway. The runes, once faint, now burned with fiery intensity, the shadows beyond the gate calling to that primal part of me.

  Home…

  As if sensing its impending demise, Travis’s soul writhed in my hands.

  I wouldn’t let it escape.

  “Well. If you’re here to kill me,” I said to Death, “take a number.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been greatly maligned in popular culture,” Death said. “I do not kill—merely collect. And it’s not your time.” His attention shifted to the soul in my hands. “Not his either, I’m afraid.”

  I thought of the things Travis had said and done. The things he’d probably done in his past. The things he’d do again, if given the chance. “He deserves to die.”

  “Maybe. But do you want the responsibility that goes along with that decision?”

  “Isn’t that what you do? Decide who lives and dies, who gets a second chance?”

  “Gray.” He placed a hand on my shoulder and I flinched instinctively, but instead of the icy grip I’d expected, his touch was warm and comforting, his energy pulsing through me like hot soup on a sick day. “Search your heart. Look past all the anger at what this man did to you. All the confusion and hurt over the death of your friend. All the frustration that the killer has not been apprehended.”

  Travis’s soul slithered. I gripped it tighter.

  “Look past your fear, Gray,” Death said.

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “Look into my eyes and tell me that.”

  I lifted my chin, but the moment my gaze locked onto his, I wavered. His eyes were infinite, full of a thousand secrets times a thousand years times a thousand worlds.

  I felt instantly tiny, instantly insignificant. A speck. A mote. A fucking atom.

  He was right. I didn’t want to do this. Maybe I could convince myself that the vampire’s death was justified—she would’ve killed me. But Travis? For all his faults, for all that he was a human stain, this wasn’t right.

  Black magic pulsed in my veins, whispering encouragements to hold on. To see it through. My hands turned black with that oily smoke again, tendrils of it coiling up my arms.

  Do it. Do it, Gray. This is who you were born to be.

  It wasn’t though. I had to believe that. To know it.

  Tears rolling down my cheeks, I closed my eyes and released my grip, envisioning the tattered soul traveling back into Travis’s body. Willing it back. It slipped through my fingers like a gush of water, and then it was gone.

  I felt hollowed out inside, no more strength to hold me up. I dropped to my knees in the dirt, staring at my blackened, blood-stained hands, watching the smoke dissipate. “What’s… what’s happening to me?”

  Death knelt before me in the dirt, meeting me at eye level.

  A dude with glowing blue eyes and tattered black robes lurking around your magical realm wasn’t exactly comfort food for the soul, but his appearance wasn’t quite as startling as it’d been on that first visit, and for once, I was glad for his presence. Here in this strange magical place, there was something almost human about him, and when he spoke again, I found myself listening, turning to him for answers.

  He ran a gloved finger along my palm, tickling the skin.

  “The man’s blood is literally on your hands, Gray,” he said softly. The strange, otherworldly echo had vanished, leaving only a man’s voice in its place. “And you had control of his soul. The two are intimately connected.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The combination of blood and soul is like a magical key to a very ancient, complicated lock. In possession of both, you have the ability to banish that soul to the Shadowrealm.”

  I nodded. “I thought… I thought it’s what I wanted.”

  “Be glad you reconsidered.” Death rose, and I mirrored him. The black forest beyond the gate seemed to take a step back, giving us room.

  “Tearing a soul from a living being and trapping it in the Shadowrealm is the worst kind of crime,” he went on. “The punishment is instantaneous and irreversible.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your soul would also be trapped eternally, along with everything that makes you you—personality, memories, passions, love. Yet your physical body would retain its most primal awareness, even as it began to decay. And though your vitals would go undetected by even the most advanced medical technology, and your friends and family would presume you dead, you would not be. You’d be buried and mourned, yet forever trapped.”

  A shiver rolled through my body, starting at my toes and vibrating all the way up to my scalp. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You have choices before you. Always. It is not my place to interfere, then or now or later.”

  “But you did interfere. You stopped me.”

  “I merely asked you to search yourself.”

  “But this… this sick magic, this thing inside me… it’s part of me, isn’t it? Corrupting me.” Another shiver rolled through my body, and I hugged myself tight to stop the trembling. “I want it out of me.”

  “If only it were that simple,” he said. “It’s not evil, Gray. Just another facet of you. Some people are born with green eyes, some with heart defects, some with a predisposition to like chocolate. You don’t get to chose those things, but once you accept them, you can make other choices from that place of truth.”

  He gestured toward the path, and together we walked back the way I’d come, the arch fading behind us.

  “What am I?” I whispered.

  “Among other things, you’re a necromancer. A very powerful one at that.”

  Among other things…

  Something deep in my gut stirred at his words, my vision flickering. Black vines crept over my feet, and I gripped his arm with both hands, sucking in air, desperate not to let it take me…

  “Don’t fight it!” he said. “That’s your magic calling to you. It’s who you are—”

  “No.” I didn’t care what he thought about choices and truths. If my magic was responsible for my actions, for that black desire twisting around my heart, I wanted no part of that. I yanked my feet free, breaking through the vines and weeds, stomping them down.

  When they finally retreated, I looked at him and said, “It’s not me. You said it yourself—that’s not what’s in my heart.”

  “The desire to banish the soul of a living man is not in your heart. But this magic, this power? This is you, Rayanne.”

  Rayanne…

  I hadn’t heard my given name since I left home, and after all these years it felt like a firebrand against my chest.

  I hadn’t planned on changing my name. My first two years living on the streets, relying on odd jobs and the kindness of strangers, I’d gone by Rayanne to anyone who’d bothered to ask.

  When I’d finally come to at Ronan’s place after weeks of unconsciousness, he’d asked me my name. My mouth was so cracked and dry, he’d thought I’d said Grayanne instead of Rayanne.

  He’d shortened it to Gray right then, and though I eventually told him my real name, by then I’d already gotten attached to the new one. So had Ronan.

  “Rayanne died a long time ago,” I said. “My name is Gray.”

  “Your name is ultimately unimportant. Your destiny, however, is quite another matter.”

  “Destiny? What happened to choices?”

  “The two are not mutually exclusive. But there are things about your path you
must learn, must accept, no matter how difficult.”

  His ominous tone did nothing to inspire confidence. I didn’t want to learn how to bring people back from the dead, and I certainly didn’t want to encourage whatever dark terror was going on inside me.

  “But I’m not evil,” I said. It felt necessary to point that out, but Death was unfazed.

  “Evil has nothing to do with it. You have a gift, and you weren’t taught how to use it. You’ve abandoned this place, let it become overrun. And if you don’t reclaim it, someone else might do it for you.”

  A cold finger of dread slithered up my spine, but I ignored it. So what if someone else reclaimed this place? I’d loved it as a child, as a teenager, but just like me, my magic place had changed.

  “It doesn’t even feel like mine anymore.”

  “You can’t fight this, Gray.” Death sighed. We’d reached the clearing near the stone pedestal, and I sensed it was time to go. For both of us. Turning to me, he said, “When you’re ready to accept yourself, call me.”

  He vanished in a puff of thick, oily smoke, and a single black feather swirled before me.

  “Hey! I don’t even have your number!”

  But of course he didn’t come back. Didn’t respond. Just left me alone at the pedestal, the eyes of the forest looking on.

  I reached up and snatched his stupid feather out of the air, crushing it with my fingers.

  Everything went black.

  Thirty-Two

  Gray

  The barista had served me a sand cookie and a venti sand mocha, topped with extra sand. Right?

  It was the only explanation for the crunchy grit coating my tongue. My head wasn’t doing much better; a sharp pain lanced my skull with every beat of my heart.

  Where am I?

  I cracked an eyelid. The room spun so fast I couldn’t even tell what color the walls were.

  Squeezing my eyes shut again, I focused instead on the voices coming from another room—tense, masculine voices quickly escalating into an argument. Darius and… sounded like Emilio?

  “—should’ve brought me in on this earlier,” Darius snapped. “I don’t give a damn about protocol.”

  “I noticed,” Emilio said. It had to be him, though I’d never heard him so angry. His accent was stronger than usual. “Hence all the evidence you and Gray contaminated tonight.”

  I cringed inside. So he knew about that, then. So much for Darius’s associates cleaning up without a trace.

  I did a quick mental check on my body, scanning myself for any injuries. Other than a bad case of beach-mouth and a throbbing head, all systems checked out.

  “…rogue vamp operating in my territory,” Darius was saying. “You don’t think it’s relevant? For fuck’s sake, Alvarez. It could’ve been her.”

  “It wasn’t,” Emilio said.

  “If you can’t see the urgency here, your head is even farther up your arse than I thought.”

  Emilio said something in Spanish—probably a string of curses.

  What are they talking about?

  “D?” I sat up too quickly. The floor rushed up to meet me.

  “Easy, Gray.” Another voice enveloped me a second before his arms did.

  Ronan.

  Relieved by his presence, I leaned into his touch, letting him guide me into a sitting position. He knelt on the floor in front of me, hands on my thighs, and I kept my eyes open, determined to ride out the spins until I could figure out where we were.

  My… living room? Okay, so I was at home. With Ronan, Darius, and Emilio. But how had we gotten here?

  “You blacked out,” Ronan said softly, squeezing my legs. Concern laced his tone, and as his face came slowly into focus, I noticed tight lines around his mouth, hiding behind his thin beard. “Outside Luna’s.”

  Luna’s. Right. Darius had taken me there for coffee. For normalcy.

  “Where’s Darius?” My voice cracked, and I coughed, sand still coating my mouth.

  “Kitchen,” Ronan said. “With—”

  “Fuck your rules and procedures!” Darius shouted.

  “Alvarez,” Ronan said, just as Darius stomped into view.

  “El Lobo needs to learn a few lessons about communication,” Darius said. “He can’t just—Gray! You’re awake!”

  Rushing to my side in an uncharacteristic display of relief, he dropped to his knees next to Ronan and pressed a cool hand to my forehead.

  The fact that they were sitting shoulder to shoulder and neither was trying to kill the other should’ve been a clear sign that something was seriously jacked.

  “What… what happened?” I searched their faces for a clue, but all I could find was worry.

  “We were hoping you could tell us,” Darius said. “What do you remember?”

  “We had coffee and I… I went to the bathroom, right?”

  Darius nodded, brushing a lock of hair off my forehead. “Somehow you ended up on the beach. You attacked someone.”

  “Physically and magically,” Ronan said.

  “Attacked?” I looked down at my hands. Sure enough, they were swollen and red, with cracked, bloody knuckles that looked even worse than they had after our vamp fight.

  Nothing hurt, though. Was I in shock?

  “I think I… I just went outside for some air, and…” Oh, God. The man from the alley.

  Memories slammed into me. The man pissing into the bay. Me, tackling him to the sand, pummeling his face with my fists.

  The rage. The desperate darkness surging up inside me, consuming everything in its path.

  The magic crackling across my skin.

  The silver-blue mist of his soul…

  My stomach lurched, and I clamped my mouth shut to keep my latte and cookie from bailing.

  “Breathe, Gray.” Ronan got up to sit on the couch next to me, his hand curling around my neck and squeezing gently. “Just breathe.”

  I closed my eyes and did as he said, waiting for the rest of tonight’s shitty movie to play out in my memories.

  My magic place. Death. The Shadowrealm…

  But, no… I’d put the soul back. Let the man walk away with little more than a broken nose.

  “Where is he now?” I asked, opening my eyes. “Is he…?”

  I wasn’t sure how to finish that question. Hurt? Dead? Permanently damaged from the psychological torment of what I’d done?

  “I’m sorry, love,” Darius said. “I know how you feel about manipulation, but I couldn’t let him walk away with those memories.”

  I nodded, grateful. As much as I’d wanted to Travis to suffer… No, not like that.

  “Gray. How are you feeling, querida?” Emilio finally emerged from the kitchen, carrying a cup of hot tea. “Merry Mint,” he said, handing it over. “I found it in the pantry. I hope you don’t mind.”

  I smiled and took the mug, his kind face calming the war inside me.

  “What’s querida?” I asked, hoping it didn’t mean something like, you ridiculous, evidence-contaminating idiot.

  Emilio lowered his head, the tips of his ears turning red. “It’s just a term of endearment. If it bothers you I—”

  “No. I like it. Thank you.”

  “Did you know him, love?” Darius asked. “The man on the beach?”

  “It’s… complicated.” I closed my eyes, inhaling the clean mint scent of the tea. Darius knew part of the story. Ronan even less. Emilio nothing at all. But other than Death, no one knew the full extent, and once I told them—once I opened that door and let the beast out, there’d be no putting it back in.

  But the three of them, along with Asher, had come together to watch my back—all because Ronan had asked. Since then, they’d become my friends. They had a right to know who—or what—they were dealing with.

  “He’s the guy from the alley,” I finally said, taking a shuddering breath. “The one who attacked me outside Black Ruby, before the witch murders. He killed a young girl, and I… I brought her back. Sort of.”

&nb
sp; I paused to take a fortifying sip of tea. My hands shook, but somehow I managed not to spill it.

  “We’re right here, Gray,” Emilio said, as if he could sense my reluctance, my fear that they’d all think I was some crazy, evil psychopath gearing up to take over the world. He sat down on the other side of me, opposite Ronan. “Nothing you say could change that.”

  Shifters didn’t have influence like vampires did, but the effect of his kindness was the same.

  My body relaxed. I trusted them, these men who just over a week ago had been near strangers.

  None of it made sense. But when had my life ever been logical and uncomplicated?

  I looked from Emilio’s warm brown eyes, to Darius’s golden honey ones, to the lush hazel in Ronan’s, and knew that they weren’t judging me. They were offering me compassion. Openness. The kind of security that comes from knowing someone else has your back, and you have theirs.

  “Something is seriously wrong with me,” I whispered. It felt like a confession, but I pressed on, telling them the rest of the story. The magic place, how it’d changed since my last visit into something I’d barely recognized. The black trees, the souls, the Shadowrealm. How I’d brought Bean back, and almost Sophie. The way I’d killed that vampire at the morgue. The awful thing I’d done to Travis.

  I even told them about Death, and though they exchanged an ominous glance at that bit, they didn’t freak out, or leave me, or threaten to call the Council.

  By the time I finished, my tea had gone cold, but my hands had finally stopped shaking.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.” Ronan said, his warm touch on my knee an anchor in this wild storm. “Whatever’s going on—whether it’s connected to the killings or not—we’ll deal with it.”

  “All of us,” Emilio said. “You have to know that, querida.”

  I nodded, blowing out a breath. Crazy as it sounded, I did know that. I’d never doubted Ronan, but Darius and Emilio had only been part of my life for a week or so.

  The funny thing was—it hadn’t felt like such a short time. Not even that night in Darius’s club, or when Emilio had first shown up in my living room to investigate Sophie’s death. Looking back on my interactions with them, I felt a strange sense of familiarity, like finding a favorite childhood toy tucked away in a box somewhere after years without it. You didn’t always remember playing with it, but somehow you knew it was yours because of how it made you feel when you looked at it. When you touched it.