Page 74 of Hunted By Darkness

“You’ll need more, but those should hold you over until we get back,” he told me.

I nodded my thanks. I could finally stand on my own two legs without a huge amount of shaking. It was better than nothing.

The whispers came again, their chorus soft and melodic. The guys came back to life and hit the ground as soon as Ryker broke the enchanted stone to pieces. It only took them a few seconds to collect themselves before they noticed the frozen demon in the room.

“You took his soul, love?” Silas questioned slowly. “You can do that? That’s bloody brilliant.”

Rilas’s growls and shouts filled my head, and I grabbed onto it, hoping to stifle the sound. But it didn’t help. The abrupt shouting was deafening.

Silas wrapped his arms around me, concern filtering into his voice. “Is that demon fuckwit in your head now, little rebel?”

“I’m not sure how long I can keep him,” I admitted, cringing when another shout rang out.

“Niks,” Lev said in his most soothing voice yet. He was about to say something I didn’t want to hear. “You need to send him back before he hurts you or gets out.”

The whispers beckoned, and for the first time, I understood what they were saying.“It’s the choice you’ll have to make, the soul you’ll be forced to take,”they said over and over.

I lifted my misty eyes to where Salvator stood, and he came over as if my mere gaze had summoned him. His stare bored into mine, and he took my face in his hands. Silas snarled, but the shifter ignored him. “Let me do this for you, Nika.”

I grabbed his hands, my tears falling freely. “I don’t know if I can. I care too much about you. It’s not fucking fair.”

He laughed. “You’re right about that, woman, but it’s the way things are. And let’s face it, I died once already.” His eyes were painfully kind as he sighed and used his thumbs to wipe away the tears I cried for him. “This is the only thing I can do for you, so will you let me? I’ve never really gotten to be the hero. Give me this one hero moment, Nika.”

Silas held me tighter, but he didn’t say anything. His embrace said it all. He wished it was him making the choice. He wished I was never put in this position. He might not like Salvator, but he knew what the shifter meant to me.

He was my friend.

Salvator’s smile was so painfully affectionate it only made me cry harder as he dipped down and stole another kiss, this time in full view of Silas.

“Oi, you wolf bastard. Don’t think I won’t lay your ungrateful arse out right here, right now,” Silas bellowed angrily, rigid against me, but Salvator didn’t pay him any mind.

“What is it that the humans like to say? One for the road?” The shifter offered us a one-shoulder shrug and let my face go.

Ryker gaped at the grinning man in front of us. “Did this grumpy asshole just make a joke?OurSally? He’s about to cross over to his next life, and he finally cracks a fucking joke? How dare you wait until now to show us your fun side.”

I laughed in spite of the new stream of tears, then nodded. My head hurt worse the longer I had the demon inside it. It was hard to focus on anything, but it wasn’t an option to do nothing. If I didn’t send Rilas back, then the world would fall to his power. It seemed cruel of fate to make me choose between one person I cared about and many of them.

I only had one choice to make.

Salvator slapped Silas on the shoulder and grinned at my mercenary for the first time since he came back into our lives. “Take good care of our girl, Sparkles. I’ll see you guys on the other side.”

The whispers continued their chorus.

The grinning tribesman crossed his arms and took several steps back. With nothing but acceptance in his expression, he waited. I pivoted and peered up at Silas. His gaze met mine with visible grief. My big brute might play his part well, but even he didn’t want another senseless death.

He cradled my face, lending me his strength. “Let him have his hero moment, love. Even I think this wolf bastard deserves the glory of it after all he’s done.”

After one last kiss, I left Silas’s arms and stood in front of the naked shifter. I barely cared as I wrapped my arms around him and held tight. “I hope you find everything you want in the next life, Salvator. I’ll miss you so much,” I whispered to him before sensation crept over me and the world slowed to a stop. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do it if I didn’t act quickly.

If I heard anything else…

Salvator was smiling down at me when the ice grew across his beautiful brown skin. His fathomless eyes lost their gentle gleam. Everything about him ebbed away. A sliver of white left his mouth in a swirling dance, but to my sudden confusion, it split into three pieces. Two of the three shot behind me, and thelarger one dashed back and forth and rubbed against me before disappearing into my necklace.

The white gem immediately became a perfect grey color when, without waiting, I sent his soul to its awaiting afterlife. Salvator’s familiar warmth left me, and my eyes burned with the loss of him.

Rilas was yelling inside my head, fighting to break free, sensing Fate’s hand reaching for him. I eased back out of Salvator’s frozen hold. Inside, something was tearing. I didn’t have time to second-guess myself.

As the world moved back into motion, I let go and my magic created a vortex around me. The gem around my neck glowed bright grey as I summoned the sensation from the deepest recesses of my soul and created the necessary symbols in pink light. Each one I had memorized. Each one sealing his fate. Each one damning him to an eternity of pain.

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