Soul of a Witch (Souls Trilogy)

A soul bargain required both participants to consent. But Everly’s eyes were far away, her breathing shallow and sporadic, the warmth gone from her limbs. Cradling her against my chest, I brushed the damp hair out of her face.

“Everly. Listen to me.” Her eyes fluttered. Her pupils twitched; they focused on me. “It will kill you if I break the cuffs, but you will die if I don’t. You need strength.”

“Not strong enough,” she whispered. As if she’d known it all along, as if it was confirmation of what she’d feared.

I gripped her tighter, shaking her. “No, no, listen to me. You have strength in you that’s greater than my own but your body is failing you. I can lend you my strength —” But it terrifies me. But it’s the one thing I’ve feared above all else. “But I need you to agree. I need you to say you’re willing.” She nodded, eyes rolling back. I shook her face again and demanded she look at me. “Say you willingly offer me your soul. You have to mean it, Everly. Please.”

Her lips moved soundlessly. There was no more furniture nearby for me to smash, no outlet for this sickening fear.

She was all I had left. For so long, my vision of her was the one and only thing that spurred me to continue. To bother to stay awake and not simply sleep away the pain for eternity.

She was my hope.

My faith.

She was everything.

Bowing my head, I clutched her hands and realized this was the closest I would ever come to a human prayer.

“I bind myself to you, from this moment until the end of eternity. I offer you my obedience, my loyalty, and my protection, in exchange for your soul. I offer this willingly. I offer this desperately. Stay with me.” I slapped her cheek lightly to keep her awake, and her eyes widened as she drew in a deep breath. “Repeat it back to me, darling, come on. You’re not fucking dead yet.” She squirmed, a little of the fierceness coming back to her. “Come on. Say it. I offer you my soul…”

She licked her lips, blinking her eyes repeatedly as if she couldn’t see me clearly.

“I offer…offer you…my soul…”

She’d already lost too much blood, but there was no other way to proceed. Manifesting a knife out of aether, I brought the sharp blade down, tapping the flat side lightly against her chest. She didn’t flinch, she didn’t shake. There was no fear in her eyes as I told her, “I need to scar you. My sigil in your flesh. I’ll be gentle…”

But she shook her head. “I didn’t ask you to be gentle.”

Certain she was delirious, I said, “It will be quick, just deep enough to mark.”

She laid her hand against my neck, nudging me closer with a demanding press of her fingers. “Talk to me…like before…like that night.” She sucked in a shuddering breath and her words grew steadier. “Tell me that I can take it for you.”

My eyes widened as I realized what she meant. That first night we’d fucked, when her strength had blossomed with just a little encouragement.

Her mouth tasted like blood and ash as I kissed her.

“If you can feel pain, that means you’re still alive,” I said, and she nodded against me. I trailed my hands over her body, feeling the ripple of her muscles beneath her skin, the softness around her hips and belly. “You’re a warrior, Everly. You can take the pain, you can endure it, I know you can.” With one hand tangled in her hair, I gripped the long blonde locks near the roots, smiling when she winced and then offered a small smile in return. “That’s it, that’s right. The pain means you’re alive.”

When I pressed the tip of the knife into her flesh, cherry-red blood welled around the blade and streaked down her skin. The sweet scent of her magic filled the air, heady and as intoxicating as liquor. It was remarkable every demon within a hundred miles hadn’t been drawn to her by now; but they’d have no chance at all if they pursued her.

She was mine. Entirely, wholly, irrevocably mine.

“Take it for me,” I murmured. Her face contorted with pain and her eyes rolled in her head, dangerously close to passing out. But as the ancient demonic runes bound us together, our strength mingled. I felt a rush of her pain, then bliss. The most perfect, stunning pleasure. Heat tingled through my veins. Hidden within her struggling body was a knot of magic so great that it made me shake.

She was not the only one made stronger by this bargain. I was too.

Blood smeared across her skin, but with every cut, she smiled a little wider, even when her eyes narrowed with pain. Warmth came back to her. The cuts were deep enough to scar but only barely, and she looked so beautiful with those stark red lines crisscrossing her stomach.

“It’s done,” I said gently. The knife vanished from my hand as I allowed the manifestation to dissolve. She was trembling violently, and she felt feverish, sweat beading on her forehead.

“The cuffs,” she growled. “The fucking cuffs…please…shit…”

Crouching over her, her legs splayed around my waist, I gripped one of the cuffs and warned her, “It’s going to hurt.”

She was nodding, squirming, every inch of her tense with anticipation. “I know. It means I’m alive.”

She screamed when the glass cracked in my hands. Barbed spikes tore out of her wrists as I pulled the shattered bits of glass off her flesh. The skin beneath was blackened with bruises, purple and yellow splotches marring her.

“You’re almost there,” I said, locking my hands around the other cuff.

I hated to hear her cry. Having to hurt her was agony, but I had no choice. My mind kept drifting into the past…to all the lives I was too late to save. All the beings I’d watched slip away.

I wouldn’t lose her too.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Just do it. It’s almost over.”

The sound of breaking glass was nearly drowned by the shriek that escaped from her. The cuffs’ wicked barbs were finally out of her, and life came back into her face. She held me breathlessly, clumsy hands caressing my neck as trembling legs wrapped tighter around me.

She looked like a wild creature, something untamed that had crawled in from the woods and now lay looking at me like a succubus. Bloody, face smudged with dirt, body covered in bruises and those fresh cuts on her stomach.

“Where were you?” she said. “You left me…you left for so long…”

“I was taken.” I burrowed my face against her neck, as if I could impress into her body how sorry I was. “Lucifer took me to Hell and I couldn’t escape until you summoned me. But he can’t take me from you again. Not anymore.” I trailed my fingers through the blood, the cuts that bound us as one. She smelled so sweet, and my head was light with all the magic in the air.

“I was so scared.” Her voice was weak with exhaustion. Her eyes drooped, her heart pounding steadily at last.

“I’m so sorry, my lady.” Laying my head against her chest, I listened to its beat, reassuring me with every throb that she was still with me.

For the first time, Everly slept in my arms.

She was limp and warm as she lay against my chest before the fire, a blanket draped over us and the bearskin rug beneath us. She slept for hours, regaining her strength. I was content to simply hold her, watching as the sun rose through the open windows and filled the room with pale light.

She shifted her weight as she awoke, lifting her face to look at me. My arm was curled beneath my head so I could see her.

“Tell me about your vision,” she said. “Tell me about the first time you saw me.”

She drew back when I stiffened, as if to separate her body from mine. Instantly, my arms tightened around her, demanding she stay.

“It will be easier to tell you if you’re close to me,” I said. Despite being the one event that had guided my actions for many centuries, this memory wasn’t one I preferred to recall.

To my relief, Everly settled down again, laying her palm flat on my chest and resting her chin on top of it, so she could watch my face. Casting my eyes upward, I tried to lose myself in the swirls of carved wood on the ceiling.

“Hell had been at war with the gods for decades,” I said. “We don’t know where They came from, or how They made their way through the Veil to gain entrance to Hell. It’s always been suspected They broke through from another dimension. A predatory species, hunting for sustenance. The Elder creatures were drawn to Them because of the immense magic They contained, and so the gods amassed an army of wretched things. They wanted our worship; They sustain Themselves with the attention and devotion of other living things. But what They wanted above all else was our suffering. Our pain. Our fear. A God is well-fed when It has hordes of other living things in terror of It. But demons do not worship. We do not obey. Our loyalty is to ourselves. So we fought.”

Even now, I could recall how it felt when the council called for warriors. When Hell was threatened, and all we had ever known hung in the balance. Even the Heavenly Host was convinced demonkind had finally met our match.

“That was many centuries ago,” I said. “I was a different demon then. Younger, still powerful, but I hadn’t yet ascended. That’s what we call it when one of us becomes an archdemon. Ascension.”

I’d wanted that more than anything. I’d already spent several centuries hunting souls on Earth, growing my power.

I had hundreds of lovers. I spent my days hopping between clandestine demonic parties on Earth to making my debauched way through Hellish clubs every night. My memories of those days were so faint now. Like a different life.

Whoever I’d been back then had died in the war.

“The fighting went on for years. Every time a God killed one of us, It captured our being. Demons don’t have souls, not exactly in the way humans do anyway. Demons, like angels, instead have an energy that comprises our consciousness, similar to a human soul but simpler. Our being, we call it. The burst of energy that makes us alive. The gods were taking it when They killed us. The consciousness of the demons they killed, were forced into an eternal, spiritual suffering.”

Even now, it sickened me. So many were forced to suffer for so long after death. There was no greater torture for a demon than the loss of our freedom.

“I volunteered to fight to prove I was valiant. That I was fierce and loyal and deserved my ascension. But I watched my warriors die. Dozens of them. Then hundreds. Then thousands. I lost count. I couldn’t remember all of their names, their faces. And fuck, I tried.”

The words grated in my throat, and I fell silent until I could compose myself.

“We were slaughtering Them, but it cost us greatly. We were told the end of the war was near. That the gods had begun to flee from Hell and were instead hiding on Earth. But many still remained, and They were moving toward the High City. Dantalion, the seat of the council, and the Onyx Citadel, home of Lucifer, Bael, and Paimon, the oldest among our kind.”

It choked me how greatly I’d idolized them back then. How I’d longed for Lucifer’s attention, how I’d pushed myself to be even more vicious, more bloodthirsty, more cunning, if only to have his approval.

“I fought that final battle. I positioned myself and my warriors between the gods and the city. We were the last defense. We…were victorious.”

Saying it sounded like a lie.

“More than half of those I fought beside were killed. The demons who fought with me that day were among the greatest of Hell’s army. I’d known them, many of them, for the entirety of my life. We’d marked each other…” Seeing her frown of confusion, I explained, “Demons mark each other with piercings, gifts of metal. To pierce another’s flesh and leave a mark of your affection is one of the greatest symbols of devotion our kind has.”

“But you have no piercings,” she said softly.

Keeping my eyes fixed upon the ceiling, I didn’t dare look at her. To look into her eyes was to see that moment again in all its horror. A battlefield covered by the dead, and in the midst of it all…

“I ripped them out,” I said. “When I found them dead, I ripped out the metal they’d given me. I couldn’t live with the reminder.” But I still had them: the jewelry, the bloodied piercings. I’d carried them with me through all these centuries, hoarding them like a dragon’s precious treasure. “That was where I saw you, Everly, in the morning after that last battle. I’d survived, but I felt dead. You called my name.”

Still, centuries later, I didn’t fully understand it. Demons had never been known to receive visions of the future. We were not blessed with gifts of premonition, as some witches were. Yet I’d seen her, I’d heard her, as clear as day.

“What did I…what did the vision say to you?” she said.

“You told me your name and begged for my help.”

She sat beside me. The blanket was still draped around her shoulders, but I longed for her skin-to-skin contact to return. Reaching out, I wrapped my arm around her waist so I wouldn’t have to go without her touch.

“What kind of help?” she said, picking at her cuticles instead of looking at me. I noticed the redness around her nails; how abused the skin was.

It had been so long, but every word she’d said to me was seared into my brain.

“You said I had to keep fighting. And that you would find me.”

Her frown deepened, and I grasped her hand. Her fingers curled toward her palm, like a frightened reptile retreating into its shell.

“And what was it about me that made you so determined to help that you searched for me? For centuries…” She shook her head, scoffing as if she didn’t believe it, even now.

“It was not merely that one vision that convinced me,” I said. “The day I saw you was the day I lost everything I had left. Almost all of those I loved were dead. The demon I’d been, who could pass his days with frivolous parties, who sought nothing more than pleasure and power, was destroyed. No, I wasn’t convinced immediately. But I swear, you haunted me. Everywhere I turned, I would see your face. In crowds, in dark corners, whether I was in Hell or on Earth. Fate had thrown me a lifeline that I’d refused to grasp, and it wouldn’t stop reminding me of it. I needed a purpose; I needed a reason to live. You gave me that. What else did I have to go on for?”

Her eyes were filled with flickering firelight. She brushed a few loose strands of hair away from my face, leaving her hand there against my cheek for a moment.

“I don’t blame you for not trusting me,” I said, and she looked stricken. But it was true; she was only afraid of offending me. “Give me time, my lady. This is all I have. You are all I have. I know that may scare you.” Her eyes flickered around my face, searching it. “But I’ve fought this war for two thousand years, waiting for my commander. If I am ever meant to see peace again, it will be through you. If anyone can bring this war to its end…”

“Me,” she whispered. Such a simple word, full of so much fear, drenched in disbelief. “You really think I can…” She shook her head, laughing softly. “You think I can kill a God?”

Taking her wrist, I caressed my fingers over the mottled bruises and the swollen wounds from where the cuffs had bit into her. “The manacles you wore have been used for hundreds of years to completely and totally render witches unable to use their magic. Not only did you continue to use magic in a myriad of ways while wearing them, but you laid waste to an entire pack of beasts. You burned an acre of forest to a crisp, in just a few mere seconds.” Bringing her wrists close to me, I kissed her bruises. “You are far more powerful than you have ever been allowed to believe.”