Page 64 of Tethered Souls
So despite the tightness in my chest about hurting Micha, I don’t take my hand off Louise as I guide her up the spiral metal stairs. We enter a bedroom on the second floor. The door shuts behind us, and I drop my hand immediately.
Louise and I stay by the door as Khalid heads forward and strips the sheet off the king-sized bed. He tosses the black fabric to Louise, and she bundles it in her arms. The air crackles with dark magic as my brother calls upon his shadows. He wraps them around the base of everything in this room, stripping it bare and taking it all into the Plane of Monsters. Louise presses her back to the door, the pulse at her neck beating erratically. One touch of the shadows, and she can be pulled into a nightmarish world where she will be ripped apart by claws and fangs, where only a Shadow can survive.
When nothing but a cold floor remains, Khalid releases his magic and turns to us. He holds out his hand, and Louise hesitates a moment, her back still to the door, her breathing panicked. Inhaling an attempt at control, she pushes away from me and slowly walks towards my brother.
I pull out my phone and look at the app connecting me to my little monster. I want to stay with her as she comes, as she slides her fingers between her lips and uses her palm to apply the pressure she needs. One of these days, I will get her to orgasm from my dick alone, but for now I need to deal with this.
After setting the app up so the vibration is continuous, I lock the phone, then slip it into my pocket as Louise returns to my side, the sheet now spread out on the floor. Leaving my blood for another witch to collect and use would be suicide. They might not be able to kill me exactly like Khalid does his targets, adding my DNA to a soul doll that looks exactly like me, but there are many dark spells that will kill someone just as quickly. So I start to strip.
Louise turns away from me, her face now to the wall, giving me privacy despite the looks I’ve seen her give me over the years. It is a reaction I don’t understand, and it makes my hairs rise, wondering if an attack is imminent. If she’s turning away from a potential explosion.
“In respect to Micha,” she says, calming my paranoia. I stare at her for a moment, reading the truth of her words in the calm beat of her heart and the smell of her slight arousal that she’s fighting.
My respect for her grows, and I continue to shrug off my suit jacket. I let it hit the floor as I undo the chest holsters holding my guns, one on each side. The knife holsters. My shirt. My shoes. I lay my pants down gently, taking care of the phone inside them. My fingers itch to pull it out and check the app, to draw Micha to me one last time before I put my life on the line.
But I don’t.
I will see her soon.
If I can’t trust Khalid, I can’t trust anyone.
Once I’m completely naked, I stride over to the spread-out sheet Khalid stands beside. My brother, also stripped of his clothing so it stays free of any blood splatter, draws his shadows to him once more, this time forming them in the palm of his hand. They swirl around his arm, restless and ethereal.
“Are you sure?”
When I nod, he reaches into the shadows on his palm, his arm disappearing up to his elbow. When he pulls it free again, he’s gripping a combat knife in his hand.
Turning from him, I kneel on the middle of the sheet, my hands resting on my knees as I wait for him to strike.
I breathe in.
I breathe out.
I breathe –
Clenching my teeth to bite back a scream, I arch my back as pure agony ruptures from the blow. He’s used a magical tool that increases pain tenfold, that stops one’s brain from shutting down the nerves around the wound in an attempt to keep you functioning. There’s no adrenaline to cover up the pain, to hide it until I pass out from blood loss. No numb relief.
Gasping, I fall forward, feeling every scrape of the blade as Khalid pulls it free from my body. My skin sticks to it, the edges of the cut tugged at by the metal. In the gaping hole that’s left behind, blood rushes in, overwhelming my system as it goes where it’s not supposed to be.
My arms instinctively reach forward to stop my descent, but as soon as my hands touch the floor, my strength leaves me, and my arms buckle beneath my weight. My head hits the ground. My vision blurs, and my consciousness is pulled from this world and tossed back into the past.
To that night when I walked home from the warehouse and someone I trusted came up behind me and stabbed me before I could turn.
The smell of familiar soap teases my nose right before the rich tang of blood assaults me. I stumble forward. The lights go out.
I hear a scream.
Feminine. Close. Full of terror.
Did she witness what happened? Did she see my would-be murderer? Was she the reason he ran away before he made sure I was dead?
I get a flash of a face. Dark-blonde hair, nearly brown. Long and straight and matted in blood as it clumps around her face. Sharp nose. Hazel eyes. Sunken cheeks. Is she an addict? Or someone too poor to eat? My gaze lands on her neck. It’s been ripped out. Whoever attacked me had to get rid of the witness.
My chest burns. My heart struggles to pump, like there’s something wrong with it. Like the blood isn’t making it out of the arteries.
I shake my head. Try to clear the fuzz.
No.Mother said the knife missed it...
