Page 2 of Hunted By Darkness

I’d already sent the dark souls I’d collected from the box into their awaiting afterlife. The innocent ones, too, of course. I was worried Rilas would come looking for them.

Grandmother said I had a powerful ability to change someone’s soul, but the dark ones I’d collected were far too corrupt. Darkness like that festered. It was impossible to root out. Their presence in my body would only corrupt my power over time.

It took a few weeks to send all the souls I’d collected into their appropriate afterlife—it was impossibly draining—but now only Grandmother and the guys remained.

I hadn’t used Ryker or Tometi’s animal forms in nearly a month. Every time I did, another speck of black appeared in the clear gem hanging from my neck, a warning against corruption. I needed to be very careful how I used their powers because, as far as Grandmother knew, there wasn’t any way to purify the corruption.

She argued I didn’t need anyone else’s power but my own, and I agreed. Before all of this, I’d spent sixty years with nothing but my defensive magic, agile combat skills, and wit. I’d lived despite all the torture and attempts on my life just fine.

I was a survivor.

Purple curls escaped my braided updo and fell into my eyes as I sipped my shot and cut a look to my left, watching the door. A burly man stepped inside. His eyes swept the space before hecalled out to a few patrons nearby, limping over to them. But nothing stood out about him.

Not our guy.

I let loose a sigh and took another sip of my drink.

Sometimes souls wandered. Sometimes they attached themselves to a person. Tobas was the latter. Most often, the soul attached itself to a loved one. But in this case, our guy spitefully clung to the mercenary who’d killed him. My soul-sensing abilities—a mirage of images that appeared in my head—could only tell me so much.

Soul-sensing was one of the harder abilities I’d learned over the last few months with my grandmother’s guidance. Grandmother explained it was similar to what oracles in the Fae did, but with the dead. Soul Collectors had the ability to access the afterlife in a way no other magical being could, and in this case, access the past of someone’s soul.

Nearby souls could convolute the images without good control, so it took focus to latch onto a specific one. It often required something personal if there wasn’t a connection between the soul and Soul Collector. It didn’t work on the living. It didn’t work on Rilas, whose soul was something dark and changed, and it didn’t work on the souls Rilas collected because they were anchored to him and needed to be detached first. So, I couldn’t use the ability to find him.

With Grandmother’s help, Silas commissioned an enchanted item to capture my soul-sensing visions. She warned me to erase them as soon as we got what we needed. Smart, considering that while they could help us, they could also be used against us.

Lucky for us, Lev was an incredible artist. He captured important details in his sketchbook. Lev’s art was disguised with a special ink only visible with his magic. Meaning, no one else could see it if the sketchbook were ever stolen.

In the vision I had after Silas managed to get his hands on one of Tobas’s favorite watches, a face played over and over. The mercenary who killed Tobas. A face Silas immediately recognized. It was what brought us to this pub.

We’d caught a lucky break. Silas knew where this particular brand of asshole came to let off steam. The complication? Speaking to the soul required I get closer. Detaching the vengeful spirit from the mercenary was going to set off alarms if I wasn’t careful. I’d need to touch the brute to collect Tobas’s soul, and that’d require all three of us.

Lev was in the back corner of the pub, his moss-green eyes carefully scanning the area. His blue hair was messy but styled that way. He’d leaned back in his seat, the ever-casual patron, but everything about my best friend was on high alert.

Silas wasn’t far. He’d stayed outside to do the usual perimeter sweep. Probably to make a few of the mercenaries that frequented the area cry. Turns out, his mere presence made the regulars uncomfortable, and it kept the focus on what he was doing instead of me.

One thing was for sure, the dead were rampant here. And they were talking. Their whispers droned on, begging me to listen, desperate for my help, but I couldn’t risk exposing myself or weakening my abilities by helping them cross over. This was our best chance at finding where Rilas was hiding and what the evil asshole was doing in the shadows.

We’d only get one shot at this.

After Rilas failed to collect my grandmother’s soul and realized I could steal them back, he’d disappeared to gather greater power and minions. Well, probably. It’d been half a year since we’d attacked the Dark Fae Society. The Council’s deaths hadn’t destroyed them, but without their leadership, it’d take time to rebuild their power and become a problem again. Withthe bounty lifted the minute their crownless queen died, I was a free woman.

Sort of.

Freedom didn’t mean much when a demon was out to destroy the world and you might be the only person capable of stopping him.

I turned in time for the face I’d seen in my visions to manifest right in front of me. A scar bisected his face, dragging one eyelid down halfway and cutting a deep depression in his cheek on the way to his jaw. One eye was a foggy white and the other was an abyss black. His sharp glare identified him before anything else.

Greggory Black. Mercenary for hire. Light Fae gone dark. Raging alcoholic. The only thing he liked more than blood and whiskey was women. Silas’s words, not mine. Seemed Silas and Salvator finally agreed on something—they weren’t fans of this notorious killer.

The bartender nodded at him and then pointed to an empty table at the back. Black waved a greeting and headed over to it without bothering to look around. His shoulders were slumped, his posture withered. I got the distinct impression he needed sleep but chose to drink instead. I’d let him settle in a bit before heading over.

The bartender had barely poured my next shot when a familiar sheen of silver appeared through the door leading out to the busy street.

This area was teeming with bad deeds, so it made sense mercenaries felt free to wander here.

The oversized newcomer dipped his head, a little too close to the top of the doorway. He was all height and brawn and swagger as he strolled through. Golden eyes caught mine before the brute ambled over to where I sat—confident, smirking, and completely rogue.

Again.

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