by LJ Swallow
“Did you see the other guy’s face?”
“No.” Damp hair soaks the back of my top, and I shiver.
Daniel’s manner scares me more than anything so far—including the demon. I’ve never noticed before, but his presence takes up extra space around him. He’s not large, or bulky like Tom, but he fills the world around him with a “don’t-fuck-with-me” aura.
As if aware of his effect, Daniel steps to one side, giving me breathing room.
I need to know. “Was it me you were talking about?”
“Forget you saw or heard anything.” His low voice carries a hint of a threat.
“But I did. And if it involves me, I have a right to know!” I retort, fighting down fear in my demand for answers.
“Ava, you don’t understand the dangers of your new reality.”
“Umm. I think I do. Demons? I met one earlier today?” Sarcasm. My one defence I can be sure of.
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about! That attitude is as dangerous as it is helpful. You won’t learn unless you listen to people who can help you, instead of being a smart-ass.”
I stumble backwards as he moves closer, unable to hide the apprehension in my eyes. Daniel’s face softens. “It’s fear, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“Fear makes you like this. It closes you down so you only hear what you want.”
His words pierce through to hidden Ava. “I’m like this because it works. Because people can’t touch me if they think I don’t care. They leave me alone.”
“Then use this attitude to your advantage. I can see you have skill in combat, but you need to listen and learn how to stay alive.” He pauses. “It’s not just demons you need to be afraid of.”
I sigh at his broken record, but his veiled threat prickles. What else would I want to do apart from stay alive? “What is this? Darius has you choose the brightest and the best for special treatment?”
Daniel steps back, face clouding. “Something like that.”
“What for?”
He pushes his hand from his hair, ignoring my question. “How are you feeling?”
“What?”
“After your encounter.”
My head twinges in response. Tell him the truth or not? “I hurt.”
“Hurt? Physically? Or deeper?”
“I don’t hurt inside, if that’s what you mean. I never hurt inside.”
“Of course you don’t.” Daniel laughs.
The anger in his eyes has passed, and he studies me with a look I recognise, the one from the training room. The one from my dream. I shiver and not because my hair is wet, but because his expression delves into the other hidden Ava. The one who craves affection.
“I wish you’d listened to me,” he says softly.
As Daniel lifts a hand and touches my face, I freeze. The space between us contracts, and something forbidden hovers between us. His fingertips spark sensation in my face, which buzzes through my aching limbs.
I step away. “Why do you do this? Two minutes ago you were threatening me!”
He rubs a thumb down my cheek, and my chest tightens to match my stomach. “Because I’m intrigued by you. I drag you into a dark room when you think you’ve seen and heard something you shouldn’t, and instead of trying to talk your way out of the situation, you admit it even though you’re frightened.”
“I am not frightened of you!” I snap.
“No?”
“No.”
“Then why are you breathing rapidly? Standing stiffly, coiled for attack? Or is it something else?”
Daniel moves his mouth closer, warm breath on my cheek. Nice try, he’s not defeating me that way again. As his lips move towards mine, anger overtakes any desire I have for his kiss.
“I’m not that fucking stupid!” I growl, as I push him hard in the chest.
Confusion flickers across his face, and he stumbles.
“You don’t do this to me!” I shout, slamming my hands into his hard muscle again.
Daniel staggers backwards, then regains control of the situation and grabs my wrists. Holding them in front of me, he squeezes my arms, his brow pulled together. “That was very well done. I certainly didn’t expect this reaction.”
“Well, it’s what you did last time!” I retort, attempting to loosen his grip on my wrists.
Daniel drops my hands and strokes my face with the back of his hand. “I meant it this time. I wanted to kiss you.”
“What the hell? Stop screwing with me!” I push his hand away and edge towards the door.
“Wait!”
“Leave me alone!” My head is fucked. Earlier today, I almost died at the hands of a demon. Then I overhear a conversation about someone who needs controlling or they’ll die. I can’t cope with anymore, especially not the actions of a man who fluctuates between helping me and taunting me.
As my hand touches the door handle, Daniel grabs my other arm and spins me around. “This is the last chance I’m going to have with you. This is nearly over.”
I attempt to move again, but his fingers dig into my arms as he holds me tightly. Daniel’s breath comes in short bursts to match mine.
“What is?” And why the hell is my voice hoarse?
He inhales sharply. “Your training.”
But I don’t think that’s all he means.
“My life?”
He releases my arm and places his rough fingers on my cheek. “Who are you, Ava? Who will you be? Frightened Fated girl or a fighter and survivor?”
I can’t answer, but I can show him—with a punch in his direction. Daniel anticipates and pushes me to deflect my attack. I sway, then relaunch my assault attempting to trip him, but he’s chosen a better stance than me, and I can’t knock his stability.
“Ava. Think about what you’re doing. Anticipate my next move.”
I fail. He seizes me around the neck and drags me towards him. Twisting to one side, I grab Daniel’s loosening hands and dig my nails into the skin. I jab one elbow in Daniel’s neck, and he releases me with a gasp. Holding his throat, Daniel’s eyes glint as he watches for my next action.
I attempt to mirror his stance, but he’s too quick and kicks my legs from under me. I slam to the floor, my spine hitting the hard wood and adding to the aching from the fight with the demon before. Focusing on combatting the pain squeezing tears into my eyes, I’m unaware of Daniel’s next move. He straddles me, pinning my arms above my head and his chest falls and rises as rapidly as mine.
Daniel overwhelms and confuses me. Nothing he does helps with my training; all he’s done the whole time I’ve been here is make life harder.
But I understand now.
I shift my head and gaze back into his dilated pupils. I know what he wants, and he’s pretending to help me in order to get it. I part my lips as the weight and heat of his body on mine finally clicks with the desire I share.
Daniel releases my hands and takes my face, rough hands holding my cheeks. “I spend my life training soul hunters. Boring, clueless Fated. Outside of here, I have no life. I’m as bound to this as you are.”
I stare back into his strange coloured eyes, aware of nothing but my skin heating and heart thumping.
“Occasionally, someone like you arrives.” He trails a finger along my cheek, and a soft buzz travels through at his touch.
I can’t cope with this kind of attention. I want him to let me go. But I don’t. Now my arms are free, I could fight back, but the only fighting is within myself, against touching his face in return. “Okay. You win.”
Daniel doesn’t respond. He climbs from me, and I take a deep breath as his weight leaves my body. He holds out a hand, eyes fixed on mine the whole time. Should I take his hand or push myself to my feet and run the hell out? “Ava. I’m sorry, okay?”
I take his hand, and he yanks me to my feet. “For?”
“Being too tough on you. You distract and disarm me, and that isn’t good for either of us. I have a job to do, and I hate tha
t I’m sending you to your death.”
I reel at his words. “You think I’ll fail?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t die, and you’re a little like I was. Maybe that’s why I like you.” The soft words and gentle touches pierce my barrier, and I’m no longer sure he’s doing this as a line of attack because the sadness in his eyes disarms me. “I wish I had time to really know you, but our life isn’t like that.”
Before I realise what’s happening, he holds my cheeks and touches my lips with his.
I jerk my mouth away, but when I look back to him, I know there’s no point. Not because he’ll take something I’m not willing to give, but because I want this. I want him. This man can fill the aching emptiness I carry inside, and for a fleeting time, I can allow in every thought and emotion I intend to kill the moment I leave this room. I’m pretty sure his motivation isn’t anything outside of lust, and I mean nothing to him, but I don’t care.
Everything is transient in our world.
Daniel’s lips crush mine and snatch the remaining breath from my aching lungs. He grips me to him, and I make a noise of surprise as he tangles fingers into my hair, tongue darting into my mouth, as his kiss grows fiercer. Tentatively, I slide my hands along his arms, pushing underneath his T-shirt so I can dig my nails into his biceps. In response, he slips his hands beneath my damp top. The heat of Daniel’s feather-light touch unfurls barely contained desire and wipes away the hurt. Inside and out.
I make a low noise in my throat, and he pulls his head back, smoothing the damp hair from my face. “Is this okay? Tell me to stop?”
The unmistakable look in his eyes suggests he doesn’t want to. Maybe he doesn’t do this every time a pretty girl comes along; perhaps I am different. I push the thought away. Of course I’m not. I shake my head, unable to reply.
Daniel hesitates, and by this point I’m a mess of emotions and sensations I’ve blocked out my whole life, or was never aware of. Screw it. I slide my mouth to meet his, tracing my fingers across the hard planes of his chest and abs. The heat of his skin and his heady scent fuel the slow burn inside me, illuminating parts of myself I never knew before.
Hidden in the darkness of the room, the world is Daniel and me, nothing and nobody else. All I’m aware of is his mouth on mine, his lips moving down my neck and across the wounds from the demon. I wince. Daniel looks back up at me, our breathing in short, sharp unison. In a world that owns me body and soul is a moment with a man who wants me for different reasons.
“I don’t know…” I say, cringing at how childish I sound.
“Ava, look at me.” His tone is earnest—does Daniel crave a connection he can’t have with others too?
I rub my lips together, gauging the situation, but my logic departed the moment his lips touched mine. I want to more than kiss Daniel, to feel a reality different to the one outside this room as he holds us in our world we create here.
Daniel shifts his hands and cups my head in one palm. “This isn’t okay, is it?”
“Yes, it is,” I reply, wishing I didn’t sound so stupid and breathless.
“Ava.” He pulls me against his hard chest; the warmth and comfort from Daniel’s embrace pushes tears into my eyes as the sheer connection overwhelms me. The heat, the steel of his muscle behind the softness of his skin. I don’t know what we’re doing, or how far this will go, but for the first time in my life, I’m standing in the moment and not focusing on the future. If this is almost the end of my life, I want to connect with Daniel, the man interfering with my need to remain dead inside.
And once whatever happens between us now is over, I need to kill and bury this Ava forever.
9
The remaining soul hunters wait in the tiled, bright room identical to the one we train in. Nothing is any more remarkable about this place they take us when we are sent to the human world than any other room, but perhaps the place contains something that causes the transportation. I don’t know, and I suppose I’ll never find out how. Nobody speaks. This is the last day of training. After today, we’re on our own.
The door opens, and I duck my head as Daniel enters the room, refusing to meet his eyes. I don’t know how things stand between us now. After our encounter last night, I lay in bed senses more alive than ever before, recovering from the shaking mess Daniel reduced me to. Then I cried away the remaining part of Ava, the Fated girl. I left her with Daniel. He taught me the biggest lesson I need: shut off your emotions. Now I’ve experienced them, I’ve learned exactly how much they can weaken me.
This morning I woke and pushed the memories aside to focus on the other part of last night—Daniel’s conversation with the blond man. Am I singled out for reasons I can’t comprehend? What happens to me?
The physical and mental exhaustion of the last day won’t help in tonight’s hunt, but I suppose soul hunter life will always be like this.
Daniel divides us into pairs, and I’m with Sarah.
“You’d better not piss off and leave me like you did last time when you decided to wander off on your own,” she mutters.
“No. Last time wasn’t my fault.”
She purses her lips, face pale, and I don’t miss her trembling hands. “Yeah, right.”
Tapping my teeth, I consider whether to ask but do anyway. “So what did you guys do last time?”
“Do? When you decided to go alone? We beat the crap out of a demon as a group.”
“Soul hunters work alone anyway,” I mutter in defence.
Sarah raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, but safety in numbers ‘til we know what we’re doing. As you learnt.” She eyes my neck. “Last time we were a group of four. This time we’re reduced to pairs.”
“And next time on our own.”
“Don’t give us much practice do they?” Sarah’s mouth twists downwards, and she fights to rearrange her features into a neutral look. She doesn’t fool me. She’s scared.
Daniel approaches, and briefly our gazes lock. He looks away, and a heaviness sinks in my stomach. He’s returned to unfathomable, but I understand more why we connected, and why Daniel fights this. Underneath he’s as raw as I am, forcing down the vulnerability this causes. Last night I caught a glimpse of someone he once was—or maybe wants to be—and my chest hurts at the fact we can never be happy, together or alone.
I no longer believe I’ll survive.
“Why is this our last training day?” asks Sarah in a small voice.
“We don’t have time to lose. The demons are stealing souls at a faster rate than we can collect them,” he says brusquely. “The Caelestia need as many in the field as we can send.”
“So you send out larger numbers of semitrained and hope some survive?” I retort.
I’m echoing our conversation last night and wait for his reaction. “We are careful who we select to train.” He pauses and looks at me expressionlessly. “Usually.”
Sarah sniggers, and I grit my teeth as Daniel moves to the next couple, checking they have their daggers and soul crystals.
“And there’s me thinking you were his favourite. What happened?” she says quietly.
“Favourite? Haven’t you seen him using me as a bad example?” I snap. “If that’s how he treats someone who’s his favourite, I’d hate to be someone he doesn’t like.”
I take the opportunity to watch Daniel as he makes his rounds, memories of his lips on mine, and the urgency of last night tugging around the corner of my mind. Despite everything, I’m suspicious, especially as he blanked me again, looking at me as if I mean nothing. I colour. The Daniel I saw last night may be different to the tough-talking trainer, but he has an agenda, and one I’m unsure of. Maybe part of that agenda involves seducing naive recruits he’ll never need to see again.
The two soul hunters standing with Daniel disappear in a flash of light. He nods at us to approach. “Come.”
As I wait for the light to engulf and transport me, I attempt to read what Daniel’s thinking but his blank, unreadable game face remains.
>
“See you very soon, Ava.”
Ava. Not Sarah or girls—Ava. Is he expecting Sarah to die?
The ground lurches, light searing my mind, as my body is flung into chaos. I open my eyes to the same alleyway as before but with Sarah this time. The sun hangs low in the sky, not long until the day darkens into evening.
“Oh. I expected it to be dark already,” says Sarah.
Her gaunt face worries me—as does her wide-eyed confusion. I hope to hell she won’t freeze on me.
“Isn’t daylight better? We can spend time acclimatizing; hunting instead of reacting when one jumps us?”
Sarah looks at me doubtfully. “I thought we just come to somewhere a demon is, kill the thing, then take the soul and return.”
Is she insane? “We’re hunters. Not collectors. There’s a difference.”
Smoothing her hair with shaking fingers, Sarah scans the alleyway. “Okay.”
I see now what Daniel means, why so many fail. Sarah doesn’t contain the tenacity needed to fulfil this role. Mingled with the frustration I’m paired with her is a sadness at the weakness she’s showing.
I hope Sarah doesn’t die when I’m with her.
“Not a good idea,” I tell Sarah as she indicates the two, tall men walking by.
“They’re demons. There’re two of them, so we both collect a soul. Easy.”
The “two of them”’ part is what bothers me. With the darkness, Sarah shifted from fear to a kind of false bravado. Wandering the streets looking for demons proved fruitless, so we walked to a local park. This was my idea. The part of the Caelestia world I’m desperate to see is the countryside, and if it meets my desire to be surrounded by colour and tranquillity. Swapping the barren area I would hide in as a Fated girl for soft grass and birdsong is a dream, but this park is dark and the birds asleep. Instead, I settle for soaking up the woody scents and the sound of the leaves in the breeze, one eye open for demons.
After a couple of hours of waiting for demon passers-by, I become restless. Plenty of humans walk towards the nearby streets, taking a shortcut through the green area back to the urban sprawl. Only when we’re close enough can we sense whether the passers-by are demonic. My skin prickles when these guys approach and the aura reaches my senses. They’re both broad, and their faces are obscured by the peaks of baseball hats. They don’t register us. I know we’re stronger than a lot of demons, but the reality of attempting to kill two concerns me. How experienced are they? Because if they a veterans, I don’t think the fight would be fair.
