Page 16 of Bright Soul

Myuna made a silencing gesture. “Yes, yes, yammer more about how terrible I am.” She rolled her eyes. “If she is dead, why is she here? And why does her soul feel sopowerfulandjuicy?”

Slowly, she unspooled the truth from me about libraries and power sources. Her eyes glittered with interest as we discussed the possibility of there being a Cerris City Library and what “delights” might be locked within it.

8

CRESS

The first thing I did was shower and change into a clean, fluffy robe left behind in the room I’d claimed. With my damp hair still piled on my head with a towel, I took up my phone and flopped onto the bed. The room was little more than a rectangle of space with all the essentials lined up. A small kitchen area, a bed and closet, and finally a bathroom, with utilitarian decorations that were probably uniform across all the temporary living spaces on the second floor of this library.

I paid my surroundings little heed as I waited for a website to load. When it did, I muffled a curse in the off-white duvet I laid on and jabbed the refresh button like that would change the fact that the hacker’s feed of the Crown Coven’s audience chamber was disconnected.

I scrolled past a couple paragraphs the hacker had written, gaze snagging on a moving GIF. Myuna was swinging a startlingly bright rope that blinded the camera before the viewpoint went dark. Had she known the supernaturalcommunity was watching her? I took a breath to calm my racing heart before reading the text above the GIF.

In it, the hacker explained that there were no other working camera feeds in the audience chamber. He also linked a petition, which I tapped.

Thousands of digital signatures already graced the plea to open up Cerris City again for long enough to evacuate everyone left behind. It read like the powerful men and women debating collapsing the pocket dimension were nearing a decision and that it looked bleak for us.

“It is an unnecessary cruelty that they should die with the dimensional monster we’ve seen on the news,” I read out loud, my dread rising. “Please save these innocent people before it’s too late.”

Hana had mentioned the possibility that Myuna would be winked out of existence this way if we failed. A future she’d seen that didn’t need to happen if we killed Myuna. But someone had to reach out to the supernatural community on this side of the pocket dimension to mention that we were going to try fighting her and needed more time to regroup. Had Madigan or Hana already done that?

Was the greater supernatural community just going to collapse Cerris City anyway?

As cynical as it was, I recognized that the hundreds of lives stuck here were a small sacrifice compared to Myuna escaping and consuming the whole world instead. With a ragged sigh, I closed my eyes.

Everyone I held dear was here. If the pocket dimension was destroyed now, the mother who’d adopted me and the sister I was raised with would be gone. I saw Carly in my mind’s eye and wondered where she’d fled to. She still hadn’t answered her phone or any texts I’d sent. I hoped she was all right.

There was also my coven to consider. All of them were my friends…maybe even prickly Wren. She had come here to stand behind me in the audience chamber and confronted her father’s misdeeds head-on. I found myself hoping that she would be all right too, after the loved ones she’d lost and all the emotions that’d rocked her rich-girl world.

My mind strayed back to my men, though. With the softness of bedsheets under me, it was inevitable I thought of the three guys I wanted here with me.

First Phaeron, the one who kept me at arm’s length despite acknowledging something between us. I felt the ghost of his touch skimming goosebumps up my arms. He liked to lean down and whisper in his deep, smooth voice over the shell of my ear. Though he didn’t trust himself and his instincts not to harm me, he’d still teased and tasted and given me glimpses of the animal that lurked underneath his princely veneer.

I only hoped those moments weren’t all I was left with. I missed him with a fierceness that made needling pains in my chest. If he were here, I’d slip this robe off my skin ever so slowly and watch the heat light in his otherworldly yellow eyes. He’d seen it all before, even had the self-control to watch as Ben and Geo took me right in front of him without joining in.

Hell, both Ben and Geo were a shout away, and here I was fantasizing without them. But with Geo in gargoyle form for so long and Ben burdened by his brother’s condition, would either of them want me right now? I moved to sit at the foot of the bed, robe gaping around my body with how the tie had come loose.

Well…I wasn’t going to be much of a seductress like this. I went to the bathroom mirror to dry my hair and lamented my plain face. I hadn’t packed anything, least of all makeup, and I wasn’t about to go take some from one of the librarians who’d abandoned the pocket dimension, either.

I supposed my men were getting serious, plain-faced Cress for a while. My face didn’t rest in a friendly expression, but I poked color into my cheeks and forced my lips to turn upward in my reflection.

“It’s not all bad. They’ve seen this before,” I said aloud for my own benefit. We’d gotten past the stage where all they saw of me was the primped, polished Cress rather than the rumpled, morning-after Cress. Ben usually enjoyed tousling my purple hair further, mirth a shine in his eyes.

We should be sharing this room, not going to different parts of the library. I secured my robe firmly and peered out into the hall, looking left and right to be sure it was quiet. On bare feet, I padded to the door I thought Ben had claimed and knocked.

He answered as I was raising my knuckles to knock a second time. He’d been scowling, but his expression brightened the moment he saw me standing there. “Hey, babe. Come tell Geo to eat,” he invited, stepping aside.

Puzzled, I came inside and spotted Geo in his human form. His tall body was folded awkwardly over the squat table in the kitchen area, a plate of smoked meat and crackers set out next to a steaming mug before him. His eyes gleamed with quicksilver irises, a sign that he’d just recently changed back from gargoyle form.

“You need to eat,” I parroted.

On cue, Geo coughed up a puff of dust. We’d learned that eating and drinking gave his human side a kick start, drawing back the man I loved from the shell of stone he could encase himself in.

“As you insist.” His voice was deep and guttural, yet his generous lips curled into a smile before he drank from his mug.

They’d made coffee, the smell of it lingering. I searched for creamer before committing to a mug of it, knowing I couldn’t stomach it black but wanting the kick of energy all the same.Ben came behind me while I poured and stirred, his hands warm pressure around my hips. I placed everything on the counter and leaned back, tilting my head toward his.

The same longing I’d been feeling reflected back at me. I knew Ben well enough to gauge the slant of his clever mouth. “We were going to come find you,” he said. His fingertips skimmed up my waist, finding the soft tie of fabric holding my robe together.

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