Page 26 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

“Got something for you first, though.” Damien held out a small object, too close to my face for me to focus on it easily. I squinted, and Evangeline’s pendant swam into view. I inhaled sharply and looked up at him, even sharper.

“How?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t take it off her,” Damien said. “It was with the stuff from when your dad held her captive.” He bent and tucked the pendant inside my shirt, right over my heart. His hand came away streaked with blood, and he grimaced as he wiped his fingers on the sheets.

The cool weight of the stone on my chest was a soothing balm. I had a reminder now of who I was outside of this place—a reminder of the sort of man I wanted to be, the sort of man Evangeline made me want to be.

The relief was abruptly undercut when Damien spoke. “I’ve never liked you,” he said. “I don’t know if you knew that. I didn’t really try to hide it, but you’re a lot like your father when it comes to seeing what you expect to see.”

I stared up at him, livid. I wanted to—what? What did I want? Did I want to lash out at him like my father would have?

“Not that I blame you,” Damien continued. “You’ve never needed to learn to be clever. You’ve always had anything you needed. Didn’t have to learn how to fend for yourself, did you? Your daddy made sure you were all soft and spoiled.” He scoffed. “Centuries old, and you never grew up. It’s pathetic.”

I snarled at him, baring my fangs, and he laughed.

“Very scary,” he said, like somebody telling a toddler their drawing was amazing. I knew what he was doing. With the anger to focus on, my father wouldn’t bother looking for anything else. However, I wasn’t overly focused on that at the moment. I wanted to strangle Damien. I tried to reach for him, but the chains pulled tight around my wrists, and I collapsed back onto the bed with a ferocious, animalistic sound.

“You’re a useless, spoiled brat. Frankly, I’m amazed it’s taken your father this long to get you back in line.”

He turned to leave, and I reached out to hurt him in the only way left available to me.

I was used to the minds of animals, which were simple and generally quiet. Deer didn’t think about much aside from leaves, suspicious noises, and other deer. Damien’s mind, on the other hand, was a chaotic tangle of senses, memories, and emotions. I threw myself into it recklessly, and images flashed past me in a dizzying array. The corridors of the citadel. Falling snow. Hunger. A red-haired man holding a baby, giggling madly and slapping small, pudgy hands against his stubbly cheek. A swing set, and the feeling of flying. Warmth. Hunger, hunger, hunger. Burning anger and a deep, constant, aching grief, so intense that it overwhelmed everything else, saturating each memory.

I was snapped back into my own mind when Damien threw himself at me, bearing me back against the bed with his hand around my throat. His face, barely an inch from mine, twisted into a furious snarl. His grip was tight, and I was grateful I didn’t need to breathe.

“Never do that again,” he hissed. His cinnamon breath was hot against my face. “Stay the fuck out of my mind, do you hear me?” He shook me roughly.

I snarled right back at him but didn’t resist. When my father pushed himself into my head, it was intrusive, brutal, like being flayed open, all my innards exposed to the light. Perhaps I did take after my father in some respects, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make my own choices. I didn’t want to become any more like him.

I looked into Damien’s watery eyes and thought of that horrible sucking pit of grief that lived inside him.

I nodded minutely. With his hands on my neck, I didn’t have a wide range of motion, and even with the tiniest movement, the skin of my throat pressed against the delicate webbing between his thumb and palm. It wasn’t an apology. He didn’t deserve that. But it was a promise—his thoughts were his own.

I was not my father.

Damien pulled away as suddenly as he’d attacked me. He looked unmoored, his shoulders drooped and raw emotion on his face. Then I watched him pull himself back together. He straightened and fixed a slightly vacant smile that verged on obsequious onto his face. He began to smooth out his suit jacket, but realized at the last moment that his hands were covered in blood again, and he let out a weary sigh.

“He’s planning on starving you for a while,” he told me quietly. “Making you beg for more blood. You’ll have a little time to rest. Take advantage of it while you can.”

I nodded again. I didn’t know what to say to him. For the first time, I was grateful I couldn’t see the door. It meant I didn’t have to watch him leave.

Soon, the room was quiet and still again.

I was alone with the smell of blood.

10

EVANGELINE

Marcus’s safe house was on the edge of town. Even though Marcus had mentored me for years, I’d never set foot in his place. Generally, he just showed up at my apartment, like a stray cat I’d fed too many times.

He hadn’t offered any description beyond ‘not a mansion’, and while that was accurate, it had not prepared me for the old mill building—four tall stories of brick pressed tightly onto the banks of the river. The walls were studded with windows, massive ten-foot things that peered down at us curiously. It probably had an amazing view of the river, but I was guessing that whoever had built the place cared less about that and more about saving money on lighting.

“It was a textile mill,” Marcus told us as he undid lock after lock on the front door.

Green paint flaked off the huge, thick, wooden double doors, settling on the grooves on the normal-sized door set into it. The big doors could be thrown open for a flood of factory workers, and the smaller door could be used when there weren’t so many people going in and out. The hinges of the bigger doors were speckled with rust, but the set on the small door were perfectly maintained.

“They made broadcloth here, wool and silk. There used to be massive looms, big hulking things. No safety features. Absolutely horrible, maiming people left and right.”

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