Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy)

by Harley Laroux

  The gun was lowered, the hammer relaxed, and without another word, Leon snatched me up and rushed me out the door.

  We found a back way out, a glass door that led to a deck. Leon carefully lowered me over the side of before jumping down himself. Then into the trees that nestled close around the house, he dragged me breathless through the dark, my chest aching with panic and the cold air, until finally I had to beg him to stop.

  “We have to move quickly,” he insisted, pacing as I doubled over, kneeling on the ground, unsure if I was about to vomit or pass out or both. “You need to get out of Abelaum, Raelynn. Somewhere he won’t look, somewhere they can’t find you.” Still pacing, fists clenching and unclenching, teeth clipping together furiously, he muttered, “He thinks he can take you from me. I’ll rip off his hands before I ever let him —”

  “Leon…” I swayed to my feet, panic still clenched so tightly around my heart that it hurt. “Don’t leave me again...please...please don’t...I...I can’t…”

  “I’m not fucking leaving.” He grabbed me, half gentle, half vicious — as if he could force what he was saying to be believed, the tighter he gripped my arms. The whites of his eyes were darkening, the gold in them like fire in the night sky, and even the veins on his forearms were running black now. “Nothing is going to take you from me. Nothing.”

  “But-but my soul, you said…you said —”

  He pressed his hand over my mouth. “Shh, shh, stop. Stop.” His hand was shaking. His claws were pressing into my cheek, little pinpricks of pain. “Don’t you fucking doubt that I’ll have your soul. I’m not letting you get away. I’m not letting anything” — he grasped me so hard, so tight, that I could hardly breathe, his heat rushing over me in waves — “anything take you from me. I’ll rip Heaven and Hell and this goddamn Earth apart before I let them steal you from me.”

  He’d claimed I was his before but always with the caveat that my soul was a requirement. Now? It was as if the very idea that I might be taken was repulsive, insulting. Maybe that should have scared me too, but the ache in my chest calmed, even with my heart still pounding. For a few seconds, the only sound between us was our breathing: hard, heavy.

  No oxygen in the world was enough when this fear, this longing, this inevitable desire wanted to steal every breath from my lungs.

  Slowly, Leon uncovered my mouth, but he still gripped my cheeks between his fingers. He held his head high, his jaw locked. “Not a goddamn thing is taking you from me, baby girl. No man, and no God. I’ll kill them all.”

  Snap.

  I nearly got whiplash from how quickly he wrenched me back, his body between me and whatever had just taken a step in the darkness. For the first time, I noticed how silent the woods were. How oppressively empty they seemed. No crickets, no rustling of the little creatures moving through the underbrush. Even the wind was still.

  But there was a smell. Like a damp cellar. Like mold.

  A figure — tall, lean, pale as bone, stood about a hundred yards away among the trees. I might have thought it was the trunk of a broken aspen at first glance. But another second meant seeing the white antlers on its head, tendrils of seaweed clinging to their prongs — the long, knobby limbs — the hooves on its too-long bent-backward legs.

  The eyes.

  Large milky white eyes, staring.

  “Leon.” My voice shook. My hands were knotted into fists against his shirt. Slowly, careful not to make any sudden moves, he pulled the mask from his face and dropped it to the ground.

  When the mask dropped, the creature jolted; it moved — rapidly like still frames of a photo, jerking, unnatural — every motion accompanied by a click as if its bones were popping.

  In the blink of an eye, it was fifty yards closer.

  “What the fuck is it?” I whispered, panic tightening my throat.

  “A Gollum,” he said. His hand was frozen, outstretched where he’d dropped the mask, as if he didn’t dare move it again. “A creature of rotten earth. They serve the God. Its will is their will, they’re an extension of Its influence. Listen to me. Carefully.” His head twitched in my direction and the Gollum twitched, too. Then it was utterly still, save for a slight twitching in its long, boney fingers. “When I move, pull out the knife. Keep it ready.”

  My hands felt too cold, too numb, to do anything with that goddamn knife. “Can you kill it?”

  He tweaked his eyebrow up, glancing back at me, a smirk on his mouth. “For you, baby girl, I can kill anything.”

  The Gollum lurched forward, and Leon met it before it could cross even half the distance that remained between us. In the dark, the only way I could track their movements was by the sudden flashes of the Gollum’s pale white form. The sound was like thunder, like columns of wood smacking together. The Gollum was shrieking, terrible screams that echoed through the woods, but it wasn’t going down. It just kept fighting, matching Leon’s strength and speed.

  I tugged the knife from under my sweater, holding it in front of me as I backed away, until I was pressed against trunk of a pine. My heart pounded in my ears, adrenaline demanding I run while the little sense I still had in my brain anchored me to the spot. I’d seen these things before. I knew there was more than one. If this one was here…

  Then where were the others?

  There was a massive crack, and Leon hurled a long tree limb like a baseball bat, striking the Gollum so hard that its body crumpled like a spider. But it was only for a moment. The creature jolted up again, clicking as it did, and its twitchy head fixated in my direction.

  It opened its mouth, a horrid groaning gurgle spewing out of it as it jolted rapidly toward me.

  Leon seized its arm and ripped it back. The Gollum slashed at him before leaping onto his back, wrapping its long limbs around him and squeezing. Leon ripped at it with his claws, his teeth, thrashing himself backward to slam the monster against any surface he could find. He ripped into its arm and blood sprayed across my sweater, or at least, I thought it was blood at first. As it dripped down my shirt, and I touched it in horror, I realized it felt like thick mud.

  The monster wasn’t letting go. It was gripping tighter despite the gashes Leon was opening in its limbs. Leon gripped the hands around his neck, snarling ferociously, and snap — the long fingers crunched in his hands and the monster shrieked again, finally falling off of him.

  But the moment it let go of him, it came for me.

  I couldn’t get away with the tree at my back. By the time my brain processed that the twitchy creature was on top of me, its broken fingers were wrapping around my skull, and the moment it squeezed, everything went dark.

  Dark...but there was hard, damp earth beneath my hands.

  Dark, but there was a smell of dust in the air, of wet earth.

  Dark, but somewhere ahead of me, water was dripping.

  I pushed myself up slowly from the ground, reaching out blindly. I felt a dirt wall to my left...and to my right. Nothing in front of me. Nothing behind.

  What the hell had happened? Where was I? This wasn’t the forest.

  My heart drummed against my ribs, my lungs felt tight. Where was Leon?

  Where was the monster?

  Raelynn.

  I scrambled to my feet, pressing myself against the wall, trying not to hyperventilate, trying not to be too loud. It was the voice from my dreams. The voice I’d heard calling to me in my nightmares.

  The God’s voice.

  My knife was gone. No matter how many times I blinked, no matter which way I looked, there was nothing but darkness. Panic was sinking its claws in deep. The water, dripping somewhere nearby, was trickling faster now. It wasn’t just a drip. It was a stream.

  I took a step, and my foot splashed into water.

  My vision jolted, like static cutting through my eyes, and for a split-second I saw the monster again, clinging to me, white eyes staring down into mine as Leon’s hands wrapped it into a chokehold from behind —

  Back into the dark. There was water
at my ankles now. The trickling stream sounded like a rushing river.

  A flood...the tunnel was flooding.

  Raelynn. Come to me. Let me help you.

  I stumbled forward. I knew the voice was dangerous, but I couldn’t stand here and wait to drown. The water was rising rapidly. It would be up to my knees in a moment. I had to follow the voice. I had to find it. Maybe, somehow, it could help me…

  The night sky burst into my vision, and I gasped for air as if I’d been drowning. I was lying on my back, my head was burning, I was so dazed that I couldn’t move. I could only stare through the ragged limbs of the pines, their needles piercing the starry night sky as the clouds swept over the moon.

  There were footsteps behind me...closer...closer…

  Leon stood over me. Something was smeared on his face; blood or mud, I couldn’t be sure. Slowly he crouched down, scooped me up into his arms, and cradled me against his chest.

  His shirt was wet, stained. As he began to walk, it was with a stiffness that hadn’t been there before.

  I tried to talk, tried to ask what the hell had happened and if we were safe. But my tongue felt like it was made of cotton, and I realized that my hand was still clenched in a vice-like grip around the knife.

  “Just sleep, baby girl,” he muttered, even as my exhaustion swooped in as the adrenaline subsided, and I found myself barely able to keep my aching eyes open. “I told you I’d kill it. You’re okay. You’ll be okay.”

  The bedcovers were pulled up over my head, my breath creating a warm cocoon as I lay nestled on soft pillows. My groggy brain knew it wasn’t my bed, but it also knew that something bad had happened last night, and pushing down the covers to see where I was seemed pretty frightening.

  There was a shower running somewhere. The sheets smelled freshly cleaned and were crisp, like hotel sheets. I wasn’t wearing my costume from the party, but an oversized sweater that smelled distinctly of smoke and citrus-y pine. Leon’s smell.

  I pushed back the covers, blinking slowly. The curtains had been thrown back to a gray day over a sea of snow-dappled pine trees clustered around the roofs of a small town. The room was undoubtedly a master suite, and on an uppermost floor judging by the view. The bed was massive, the walls made of stained wood and the decor like the interior of a modern log cabin.

  I sat up, rubbing my eyes before I noticed my glasses, and my knife, sitting on the bedside table. Suddenly, it all came back in a rush that twisted up my stomach — the roofie in my drink, Juniper and Zane, Kent, the Gollum in the woods. My body still thought there was danger, and I could vividly remember what it felt like when the Gollum touched me.

  The mine...those cold, flooded tunnels…

  I jumped as the bathroom door opened, and Leon sauntered out naked, water dripping down the inked artwork on his chest as he rubbed a towel over his hair. He spotted me awake, smirked, and paused with the towel around his shoulders.

  “Finally awake,” he said. The mirror at his back gave a drool-worthy view of his tattooed back and his ass — men’s asses were too rarely given the appreciation they deserved. I just nodded, hoping that the blush creeping up my face wasn’t visible. Trying not to stare at the monster-dick between his legs was proving impossible, no matter how many times I’d seen it before.

  “And how do you feel?” He came up to the edge of the bed. I wanted to lick the water off his chest.

  “Like I haven’t eaten in five years,” I said, honestly. My stomach was about to ingest itself. Horrifying events probably should have killed my appetite, but I desperately wanted a big breakfast.

  If Leon was part of that breakfast, even better.

  “Good, I already ordered room service. Should be here shortly.” He tossed aside the towel and crawled up on the bed, and my heart stuttered. “You’re the first course, doll.”

  My makeup from the previous night was likely smeared all over my face and I hadn’t brushed my teeth, but he genuinely didn’t care. He pushed me back on the pillows and shoved my over-sized shirt up, sucking first one nipple and then the other as he pressed my legs apart. “Don’t forget our deal,” he murmured, in-between lapping his tongue over my now-hard nipples. “I get to pierce these sweet little buds. Soon — today, in fact.”

  I’d forgotten, but the moment he reminded me my head rushed with heat. He gripped my hips, tugging me into position so I was held up just slightly off the bed, my back arched, and began to eat me like it was his last fucking meal.

  I gasped sharply, my clit swelling between the lapping of his tongue and suction of his mouth. My fingers tangled in his hair, gripping tightly as he forced a trembling moan out of me.

  He chuckled, a brief break as my legs shook around his head. “Keep pulling my hair like that, baby girl. I like pain too.”

  I liked that new pet name he had for me; it made my belly warm, but so did his admission. I tightened my grip on his hair, even though I doubted anything I did could truly hurt him. But as I tugged, he moaned against me. He lowered my hips, but only so he could free up a hand and press two fingers inside me as he continued to lick at my clit.

  “Fuck, I’m gonna come…” Ecstasy was washing over me hard and fast, drowning me. He pumped his fingers faster, pressed my thigh down so my trembling legs couldn’t close, and swirled his tongue over me mercilessly until I gushed over his fingers, gasping as I soaked the sheets.

  And he didn’t stop.

  “Again, baby girl,” he growled, his fingers still working me, smiling sadistically as I wiggled beneath him, the stimulation almost too much, almost painful, but so damn good.

  “I can’t…can’t!”

  With one hand still fingering me, he gripped my throat with the other — not squeezing, just holding me pinned to the pillows — and said, “You can, and you will. You don’t have a choice.”

  He was right. With his tongue and his fingers working their magic, my eyes rolled back in my head when I orgasmed again. I couldn’t even get my breath, let alone speak as he slowly raised his head and licked his fingers clean.

  “Fucking delicious,” he murmured. “And just in time for the main course.”

  There was a knock at the door as room service arrived, and I promptly hid my shaking form back under the covers as Leon answered the door with the towel around his waist. The waiter sounded particularly flustered as he asked if Leon would be needing anything else.

  The overly-laden tray was left on the small table, and I ate as Leon dressed and lounged on the bed. He’d ordered just about everything on the breakfast menu, so I started with the eggs benedict and strawberry pancakes.

  “Where are we?” I asked, in-between bites.

  He shrugged. “Northeast of Abelaum. I just kept walking until I found a place to stop.”

  I frowned. “Toss me my phone, would you?”

  As I suspected, I had about a dozen missed calls from Inaya and frantic voicemails. Guilt gnawed at me, even though I hadn’t really had a choice but to leave her last night. It was nearly eleven in the morning, so I called her back.

  “Holy fuck, Raelynn, I thought you’d gotten kidnapped!” I winced at her greeting. “Girl, where are you? I was about to file a missing person report —”

  “I’m okay, I’m okay, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly. I glanced over at Leon, who narrowed his eyes in question. “I…I had to leave early last night. Someone, um...someone drugged my drink.”

  There was a beat of total silence on the line. “Oh my God...oh my God, are you…?”

  “I’m okay, I promise. I’m sorry I didn’t call you or anything, I was just —”

  “Don’t apologize, oh God, I’m just glad you’re okay!” The relief in her voice made me feel even guiltier. I wasn’t exactly lying, but I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. “Do you need me to bring you anything?”

  “That’s okay, I’m good. Can you just take care of Cheesecake for a few days? I’ll come pick him up soon, I promise.”

  “Of course!” The sound of Cheesecake’s li
ttle meow in the background made my heart hurt. “He can stay with Auntie Inaya as long as he needs to.” Another pause. “Do you...do you know who drugged you? Did they try anything? I’ll kick their fucking ass, Rae.”

  I took a deep breath. “The only person to hand me a drink was Jeremiah. It didn’t leave my hand all night.” I couldn’t tell her the whole truth, but I wasn’t about to pretend she could trust the Hadleighs.

  More silence. Anxiety twisted my stomach. Please believe me, Inaya, please. It wasn’t a blatant accusation, but my point was clear. I knew they were her friends, but she didn’t know them. She didn’t know what they were capable of.

  “Then he’s not coming near us again,” she said, and I wished I could reach through the phone and hug her. “Fuck him. Do you want me to tell Victoria?”

  “No,” I said. “No, I...I don’t know if she’ll...if she’ll believe…”

  “Fuck her too if she doesn’t!” She sighed heavily, her mama bear slowly calming. “But I get it. I get it. This will stay between us unless you’re ready to tell anyone else. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes before I hung up. The relief of having Inaya know that Jeremiah couldn’t be trusted — even if she only knew a small part of why — lifted a massive weight off my back. I ate a little more enthusiastically once I was off the phone, shoveling forkfuls of crispy hash browns into my mouth.

  Finally satiated, I hobbled back to the bed, crawled up onto the mattress, and pressed myself against Leon’s bare chest. With my face buried against him, I let myself melt into his heat for a moment before I said, “What are we going to do?”

  We. I wouldn’t have even dared to think of it a few days ago. Even now, with him having snatched me away and hidden me...somewhere...I still felt a pang of anxiety to dare say we. What even were we in all this? Just a possessive protector and his pet? Friends or...or lovers?

  A summoner and her demon?