WEST
Evangeline has lost her damn mind if she thinks I’m taking this soul when she’s so hungry. By her face, she’s thinking the same damn thing about me. The stubborn twist to her mouth tells me I’m going to lose this one.
“I’m not going to argue with you about it. This is not the time nor the fucking place to have this discussion. Take the damn soul, West. I will get the next one,” she whispers furiously through gritted teeth.
Out of all of us, she is the only one in control.
She always is.
I love it and hate it all at the same time. But then, I see how close to losing it she is. How frightened she is that she will hurt someone. How much pain she’s in so she doesn’t mess up and take good souls to hell. Her pale blue eyes beg me for understanding.
So, I concede, phasing as quickly as my battered body will allow, feeling the ache in my jaw as my fangs break free, the bitter sting in my fingertips as my talons grow despite the fact that they’d been ripped out during my torture. I unhinge my jaw the same way a snake would and breathe in the soul.
For so many years I hated what I was, hated that we as Wraiths had to consume so much evil just to survive. I assume my Angel hates herself just as much as I did at her age. I see it differently than I did as a younger man – we are keeping the balance. We are making the world safer and if that brings us nourishment, well then, so be it.
Tessa’s soul gives me energy, heals some of the most superficial of my wounds, and eases the ache in my abdomen. But with the good, comes the bad. I can see every single stain on her soul and for a woman less than half my age, she had many. The children she’s slaughtered at her own hand for power. The abilities she stole by way of torture. The Witches she shunned – cutting them off from their families so they had nothing and no one. The damned souls she brought back from hell and the good souls she stole from the heavens at their parent’s command.
Including Devereux Emerson.
I have no idea what to do about him or the fact that his and his brother’s deaths were the reason Evangeline demolished an entire city. And if I have to venture a guess, he was the man who nearly took my goddamn life.
I have to tell her, but it can’t be right now.
“We need to put these children to rest. Aurelia. Mena. Rhys. Help them identify their dead, and get the souls taken care of. A few of us are going to search the rest of the property. Claire, I need you to show us around the grounds,” Evangeline orders, snapping us out of the feral bloodlust.
She’s right. We do have a job to do.
Evangeline turns to go but immediately comes back to grab my hand before getting the fuck out of there, marching double time back to the cars. She’s shaking, practically vibrating with the strain of holding back. I yank on her hand, pulling her into my arms as she breaks. Aidan, Cam, and Claire stand back for a moment as my Angel tries to get herself under control.
“Th-those children. All those lives. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t consume her with them so close. I couldn’t… What if I took them with her? What if I consumed too much and hurt people?” she sobs, her breathing picking up to full-blown panic attack hyperventilation.
“Shh, Angel,” I murmur into her hair as I wrap her up in my arms. “We’ll get you consuming again. We’ll start small, and it’ll just be you and me.”
Her head snaps up at that moment as her nostrils flare. Her eyes bleed from blue to black, her fangs snap down, talons erupting from her fingertips. I realize pretty quickly there is another soul out here. I didn’t notice before, but now that I’m not in pain my mind is clearer and I can sense it.
But the Evangeline I know is not here right now. This woman before me is a feral representation of my Angel, and she’s three steps past hungry.
She’s famished, and there is something to eat, or rather someone.
She breaks from my hold, taking off in a sprint. Not for the house or the forest but for the water of the lake. Cam and Aidan rush after her, but I can feel it – the tasty morsel she’s heading toward – so I travel there to wait for her because there is no fucking chance in hell I’m running.
I make it to the wooden planking of the path to the boathouse before she does, but that doesn’t stop her. Evangeline leaps into the air, plants both hands and feet on my chest, and takes me down to the ground as she uses my body like a fucking springboard to get past me. It would be hot as hell if she didn’t just pop some of my staples and knock the breath out of me.
I turn and scramble to my feet, hobbling for a moment until Cam and Aidan come up behind me and grab me by the arms to chase her down.
Shit. Fuck. Motherfucking shit. Holy Christ that hurts.
We bust through the already obliterated boathouse door to see Evangeline stalking around Walter’s body. By the looks of him, he’s been dead about a day. The pooled blood around his still stiff body is nearly congealed, so I’m not worried that she killed him.
I’m more worried about her ability to discern reason at this point. Oh, and that whole please-dear-God-don’t-eat-him thought that seems to be running on a constant loop in my brain. I’m prepared to tackle her, and I’m honestly scared I might have to – popped staples or not.
She circles him like an animal on the hunt, her nostrils flaring. The crack of her jaw audibly unhinging sends a shiver of unease down my spine. I don’t know what I would do if she turned Revenant.
“Angel,” I rasp, and her eyes snap to mine – clearing for a moment before falling back to her meal. Her eyes fall closed, and she breathes him in, consuming him and transporting his vile soul to hell. Immediately, her cheeks fill out, her color coming back. Such a change isn’t normal. It had to have been months since her last feed. Jesus. She had to be starving.
Evangeline phases back instantly, and her eyes won’t meet mine or Aidan’s or Cam’s. No. She’s looking for the exit just behind us. Deciding it isn’t worth the footwork, she travels from the room. My mind grays out for a second, and it is then I remember I popped staples in my gut. Looking down, I see my white shirt stained red.
Shit. If faint like a bitch, I’ll never forgive myself.
I suck it up, and hobble out of the boathouse – away from Walter’s ashes and the lingering stench of his corpse – and look for my Angel. It doesn’t take too long to find her. She’s busy puking her guts up on the grass at the lake’s edge.
I make it over to her and plop to my ass, careful not to fall in the water, but just barely.
“Doing okay, Angel,” I whisper as I start fading, holding onto my consciousness by a very thin thread. She wipes her mouth, and brings her tear-filled eyes to mine.
“He hurt you. He hurt Claire. He hurt Devereux and Sam, and so many others. He did things I never want to say out loud. And I could have spared you so much pain if I would have just killed him when I had the chance. My father should have killed him. Someone should have stopped him and no one did. And I hate feeling thankful to whomever killed him, but I am.”
“You consumed and didn’t lose it at least. Can we be happy about that?”
“Sure, I’ll get right on that after we send murdered children off to their rest, hunt down a resurrected Guardian, and oh yeah, find the evil bitch they brought back from hell because she wants to kill me before I kill her. I’ll be sure to pencil in my happy time after that, mm-kay? There is no bright side situation in this scenario,” she fires back. “And I popped your fucking staples. Fuck. Cam, can you see if Mena or Ian can do a patch job?” she asks him and he nods before traveling across the property rather than taking the hike.
Aidan looks down at me, and reaches in his back pocket for the clean handkerchief he keeps there, placing it on my open wound.
This day just sucks all around.
Mena was able to patch me up a bit, and Ian fixed me up the rest of the way after they identified and put twenty souls to rest.
Evangeline was right. There was no bright side.
Doing everything they could think of, Aurelia and Mena still couldn’t find Nicola or Devereux. Anthony and Sebastian promised to put out every feeler and call in every favor to help find them, and since Claire had no clue her brother was even alive, so she was no help. I’m not sure how much I believe that, but Claire had been through enough without us badgering her. She didn’t need more.
Devereux needs to be taken down – that wasn’t the question, but Nicola… Her situation was sticky at best and fucking lethal at worst. The horrible question in everyone’s mind was what to do when we found her. We didn’t know what happened for certain, and without the knowing, there wasn’t much we could do.
Kyle left us as soon as he was able. Evangeline didn’t want him to go, but she couldn’t blame him for wanting to search for his mate.
We all just hoped he didn’t regret what he found.