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The passage was taken from a translated text on the secret of the alchemists’ philosopher’s stone.
And I didn’t highlight the passage.
“Devyn,” I whisper, my voice shaky, my heart and mind violently battling for dominance.
Rationally speaking, I’m logical enough to admit that it’s our vanity that wants to denounce the inexplicable and declare the things we cannot explain as impossible. That it’s the most logical, rational explanation to accept we’re simply incapable of understanding the workings of the universe.
“I hear the music,” I whisper to the elements, my hand cradled to my belly.
I clutch the soft blanket, a sprig of hope growing, before I clear the tears and tuck both the notebook and blanket away in my crossbody tote. Then I start up the ravine.
Kallum appears at the top of the ridge, and heat gathers beneath my skin at the strikingly sinful sight of him. I swear, it should be illegal to be so fucking sexy.
He meets me at the halfway mark and extends his hand, pulling me up beside him and keeping his fingers laced through mine until we reach the top.
Beneath the weeping limbs of the giant willow, he cups my face and kisses me, tasting the salt on my lips. “I want to spend the rest of the day just tasting you.”
I link my arms around his neck and push onto my toes to be closer to him. “Are you finding that too much of a challenge, professor?”
“Don’t tempt me, Dr. St. James.” His groan makes me shiver, then his features contort as he pulls out his phone and shows me a text from Hernandez, who has recently become a part of our team after the last case we worked together. “A fourth victim was just recovered.”
The strike of a drum resounds within me as a wild flame ignites, whispering to the huntress like a seductive lure to chase the darkness.
My wrists locked against his neck, I spin the ring around my finger as I look deep into Kallum’s beautiful, clashing eyes. He created the Harbinger for me, to save me when I was lost, and when we destroyed all the evidence, we retired the killer to a cold case.
But a cold case is never officially closed.
“I think it’s the Acolyte that needs a challenge,” I say, sensually stroking the back of his neck.
Kallum’s nostrils flare, and a muscle flexes along his jaw as he swallows. Sometimes, I can only glimpse of the killer banked beneath his charisma and deceptive beauty as he keeps the Harbinger at bay. But then there are other times, like now, when he lowers the mask, and I’m confronted with the devil in all his fiendish, diabolical glory.
He licks his lips and catches the white strands of my hair between his fingers. “We can do whatever we want,” he says, his tone suggestive.
“We can,” I agree as I bring a hand between us and slip my fingers down the sculpted ridges of his chest. “But first…maybe we can get lost for a few hours,” I say, earning another rough groan from him.
“Fuck, sweetness.” A devious glint flashes amid the flinty shadows of his eyes before his lips crash against mine.
He hauls me up against his strong body and carries me toward the hood of the car, where he doesn’t waste time stripping me of my clothes.
As he removes my shirt, I glimpse the fresh tattoo on my forearm, the verse that reads:The alchemy of the soul is transforming pain into creative genius.
I once told Kallum that he was the philosopher I wanted branded on my body, and now I have his words inked into the scar tissue.
Out of all the beautiful things he’s said, I chose this because of what it means to me, of what it reminds me. When Kallum said this our first day on the case, at the time, his blurt felt random, but I can now see how his mind drew the conclusion.
Kallum took my pain, all of my anguish and heartsickness, all the broken pieces of me, and transformed the darkest parts of my soul into a ghastly masterpiece.
During those early moments, I was too consumed with the case, and honestly, with him, to see the signs clearly. I questioned Kallum’s mental health many times throughout the course of the case, wondering if it was a performance.
Trying to diagnose Kallum Locke is like trying to fathom quantum theory—a topic he insists on sadistically torturing me with. One of the leading psychiatrists in the country was unable to establish a diagnosis, when he told me that I’d have to do so myself.
Dr. Torres said that Kallum’s violent tendencies were made worse by his obsession, but it’s in his obsession where the treatment lies.
Just as Kallum looks to synchronistic symbolism to guide him, I’ve been linking the signs. Like how on that very first day Kallum was displaying the marks of psychosis and an affective disorder.
At that point, he had spent six months apart from me. As we grew closer during the case, those moments of delusion and chaotic bursts of mania happened less frequently.
I touch my ring, thinking about theouroboros. To the ancients,pharmakonwas both poison and cure. The snake’s venom is where we derive its antidote. In the same way, as Kallum’s obsession is the root of his psychosis, it’s also what keeps him tethered to sanity.
