Page 38 of Ghostly Touches

“Ithinkthe curse was trying to destroy all of our souls,” I admit quietly. “I saw you, and you,” I add, looking at Kwil, “collapse. Your spirits rose, preparing to leave, but then they, too, began to break apart like Viktor’s. So, I held all of our spirits until the curse had run its course.”

“Wewere being destroyed?” Theo’s eyebrows crash together.

“I should have been less rash,” Viktor grumbles. “I could have destroyed us all.”

Theo shoots Viktor a dark look. “Yes, you should’ve been more cautious. Your lack of patience keeps putting us in precarious situations, brother.”

His endearment throws me off guard. They look nothing alike, but maybe one of them was adopted.

“Are you really brothers?”

“No,” Theo says flatly.

“How did you three meet? Were you close before becoming Ghosts or—”

“You are not privy to that information,” Viktor interrupts. “Now let’s get back to the issues at hand.”

I throw my hands up in frustration.

“I think it’s time we speak to our superiors about this,” Kwil speaks up for the first time in a while. “We have a book that curses people and monsters flooding this realm searching for Willow. We need to alert them to up our numbers.”

“No,” Theo dismisses the idea entirely. “We have another pressing issue that the Brotherhood cannot find out about.”

Kwil sighs dramatically, “On top of what we already hide from them?”

Theo’s eyes narrow on his friend before he looks back at me.

“Before we go to the Brotherhood, Kwil, I need to figure out why a necromancer would want to keep a piece of our souls.” Theo’s voice drops an octave, and his gaze darkens as he stares at me.

As soon as he says it out loud, I understand what that incomplete feeling inside of me is. After saving their souls, I felt the wrongness take hold. Like something inside me had morphed and become distorted. I had awoken at the Elders feeling shattered and incomplete. But not here. Not when I awoke in Kwil’s arms. Horror draws the blood from my face, and I feel lightheaded.

Chapter13

THEODON

They think I haven’t noticed their suffering, Viktor and Kwil. As if their wellbeing isn’t always my utmost concern. But I’ve been watching, and I’ve been thinking. The day Willow saved us, I knew something had happened to all of us.

But I doubted myself, wondering if perhaps what I experienced was just a strange break in my sanity. Having seen myself floating above my body, I’d felt as if my entire being was about to shatter. I remember feeling, and seeing, Willow struggling. Her hold on Viktor stretching out to us. I could feel her presence on a higher level. Her presence, strong and comforting, had wrapped around me, easing the pain and fusing me back together.

But then I felt it. A part of me being ripped away.

At first, the pain was so great I thought I’d been dealt a fatal blow. But as swiftly as it came, so did Willow’s healing presence, removing the agony as if it had never been. While the pain was gone, I knew something had changed. If this was just something I experienced, maybe I wouldn’t worry too much. But this involves the men I’ve been tasked to lead and care for. Whatever she’s done, I won’t let her ruin them or cause them any more suffering than they’ve already gone through.

“What? No, I don’t have pieces of your souls,” Willow’s voice is hardly more than a whisper. “This is ridiculous. You can’t have a part of your soul missing. If your soul isn’t intact, you run the risk of just withering away. You’ll die from the inside out. That’s why I tried to hold on to every piece of Viktor that I could.”

“I saw it with my own eyes, Willow.” I pin her with a steely look. “And I remember it clearly. I saw, and felt, you take a piece of me.”

“How? You were unconscious!” Willow asks incredulously.

I shrug. “I don’t know the mechanics of it, only that it happened.”

Willow starts to shake her head, her mouth opening to say something, but before she gets the chance, Viktor lunges for her, his hands going for her throat. Before he grabs her, I move quickly, grabbing the back of his shirt to pull him away from Willow as she takes an incredulous step backwards. Viktor whirls around to face me, his eyes wild. The vein in his forehead is throbbing, and his face reddens.

“Do not touch our guest.” It’s the only warning he’ll get. If I need to, I will remove him.

“She did something to us, and you expect me to stay calm?” He tries to knock off my hold, but I only grip him tighter. Glaring down at me, he says, “We should end this before it gets out of hand.”

Kwil startles the both of us with a deep snarl. He steps between Viktor and Willow, his body shaking hard.

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