“I said I’m handling it.”
“Yes, I’m quite familiar with your refrain, but—”
I cut him off with a hand in the air. It was an old argument, one we resisted whenever we were worried about Gray, which seemed to be happening more and more lately.
I stalked over to the water’s edge, giving us both a minute to cool off. When I returned to the scene, I gestured at the toothless fuck-up sprawled out before our girl. “So who’s the asshole, anyway?”
Sarcasm dripped off his smug face. “Well, Ronan, I didn’t quite catch the gentleman’s name, but I’m certain there’s a logical explanation. Gray wouldn’t attack someone unprovoked.”
“Oh, you’re the expert on her now?”
“Careful, demon.” He flashed that icy grin. “Your jealous streak is—Christ.” Darius’s grin suddenly flatlined. “What the bloody hell isthat?”
I snapped my attention back to Gray. Silver mist slithered out of the dude’s mouth like smoke, curling around her fingers—same shit I’d seen the night we’d found Sophie.
But this time Gray wasn’t trying to bring a friend back from the dead. The guy wasn’t her friend, and he wasn’t dead.
She was stealing his soul—yanking it right out of his body while the guy watched helplessly on, eyes wide, scared out of his fucking mind.
He was right to be scared.
Gray was killing him.Worsethan killing him.
My guts dropped into my fucking boots. She might not have known what she was doing, but if she succeeded? Game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
If Gray stole this man’s soul—if she willingly and successfully trapped it in the Shadowrealm while he was still alive—it would be seen as a violation of the natural world order.
And the punishment for such a heinous crime—her eternal fate—would make demon enslavement look like a trip to god damn Disney World.
I fell to my knees and pressed my hands against the shield, begging with everything in me, a desperate plea to all the gods of men and demons and witches and fey, to anyone who might be listening.
Pleasedon’t take her from me.
Thirty-One
Gray
Blood dripped from my hands, soaking into the dirt as I made my way down the darkened path.
It was becoming a thing with me, the blood on my hands.
The soul slithering through my fingers was starting to feel familiar, too.
But unlike the beautiful gossamer of Bean’s and Sophie’s life forces, Travis’s soul was tattered and flimsy, full of holes. A ragged excuse for something so precious—I doubted he’d even miss it. I stretched my hands apart and felt the taffy-like pull as it tried desperately to return to his body.
Sorry, Trav. Not happening.
The eyes of the forest blinked awake as I marched onward, glittering and eerie. Thorny black vines choked the path, leaving it even more narrow than it was on my last visit.
I trampled them.
I needed to get to my stone archway. To the black wood and the Shadowrealm beyond.
Logically, I knew my actions weren’t normal. Weren’t right.
But my heart—that place inside me where all the deep, ancient things lived—wanted this soul banished, and I knew my magic would stop at nothing to see this through.
I was almost there.
