Page 3 of Between Soul and Vessel
“In Belamour.”
I shoved Arkyn into the wall, the volcanic glass spiderwebbing with deep fissures. Releasing him from my chokehold, he slid to the floor, gulping down mouthfuls of air.
Turning, I faced Fallon.
Her eyes stretched wide, the air in the back of her throat catching. I was no stranger to the look she gave me, my immortal ears familiar with the whisper of a breath faltering. It was the same response everyone else seemed to emit whenever they saw me, now more than ever—
Fear.
After the Three Spinners agreed to help me get Sage back, I had just barely wrangled my beast form into submission, but he had not left me unmarked. My eyes were stained an inky, otherworldly black. My ears, sharpened into points, like two daggers, remained, as well as the menacing horns. My skin was stained with bolts of onyx as if I was the conduit between the heavens and the earth, struck by the electricity produced from warring clouds.
In truth, when I caught my reflection in the mirror, I no longer recognized myself, but that disconnect was not because of my appearance. It was deeper than flesh and bone, and it went directly to the core of my being.
If I ever had any humanity in me, it had been destroyed when she died.
When I lost Sage the first time, when our babe died with her, I fell into the abyss of darkness. There, in the swirling pitof emptiness, I was forged into the hunter, my task at the forefront of my mind—tracking down the immortal who murdered my mate and my child. I had vowed to make Nicholas suffer, ten-fold the amount he had inflicted upon her.
And that was exactly what I had done, before I ended his miserable life.
Now, I was being forged into that same creature, but this time, it was different. Although the years were long, I had hope back then. I’d known Sage would reincarnate, and eventually, we would be reunited.
But now I knew the truth. She would not.
And it changed everything.
It had changed me.
It had made me . . . whatever I was now.
“Show me,” I said to Fallon.
“Alright.” She nodded, her form shifting into a raven.
“Lock the cell,” I directed Folkoln, his reply lost as my umbra swept around me, taking me to the Living Realm.
The Jewel of Edenvale was going to shit, and it was going to shit fast.
For hundreds of years, Belamour had been a sanctuary for the wealthy and the upper class due to its proximity to the castle, which had traditionally housed a great deal of the monarchy’s army. But when news had spread of Aurelius’s and the mortal king’s deaths, Edenvale had been thrust intochaos, fumbling to decide on a new heir—the mortal king’s young son or his estranged nephew. As the idiots of the court argued over which one to choose, mortals did as they always did when they had no authority to answer to—they began to pillage, turning their sights on the richest city in Edenvale first.
In less than a few weeks, a good portion of the opulent, indulgent city was left in ruin. The once polished, brick-paved streets were full of mud and excrement. The stained-glass windows were shattered, the stores gutted and ransacked, though some establishments and houses had been left untouched, Sage’s and my manor included.
When my winds had whispered to me about what was happening in Belamour, I’d come here and placed wards around the gothic manor I had built for Sage—ensuring it would not be harmed. During the too-short time we spent together, the memories of that place were something I cherished, and I would do everything to guard it, to ensure it would still be standing when I finally brought her home.
Fallon flew beside me as I walked, her wings held straight out as she drifted on a pocket of air. Bits of ash rained down on us. A crackling, popping fire chewed at a building to my right. People dashed toward it, carrying buckets of water as they attempted to quench the ravenous flames.
The boisterous laughter of a drunk, copulating pair caught my attention—the man’s dirty, unwashed ass on full display as he jerked into the woman, his trousers slung down by his feet. I did not see how she could find any pleasure, all things considered, but she had her head tossed back and wasmoaning in ecstasy.
Mortals.
What a peculiar bunch.
Fallon tucked her wings in as she descended to the ground, shifting into her human form at the same time. She nodded toward an inn a few buildings down. “That’s it.”
Like the majority of the buildings on this street, the inn looked to have seen much better days. The windows were boarded up with slats of wood, and the door looked like it was one swift kick away from falling off its hinges.
As we walked up to it, I looked up at the cracked wood sign swinging above the entrance.
The Little French Cat Inn.
