Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“Well, we have to try. I have to hope Lee knows what he’s doing.” She polished off the first Danish and went for the second. “We haven’t had a ton of luck finding your soul. Evan and Fen are in town asking a black-market dealer what Myrddin would keep it in. I don’t guess you want to give me a hint where you think it could be?”
My eyes rolled. “How the hell would I know? It’s not like I had a…”
I’d been about to say choice. But I had, hadn’t I? That piece of my soul had been a gift to the master.
Like the demon blood had been my choice?
I wasn’t sure what was more pathetic—the idea that I laid down everything I believed in and became something terrible, or that I’d been a scared girl in a woman’s body shoved into becoming something terrible.
“I don’t want you to get a headache, so don’t worry about it right now. I’d actually like to talk to Lily when we get back to Frelsi about figuring out a safe way to access your memories,” Kelsey said, her tone gentle for once. “I’m not going to push you to remember. I can’t help but think about how when you took my wolf off, it went to Trent.”
Before they’d devoured my magic, those witches had forced me to pull Kelsey’s wolf off her soul. They’d wanted them separate so Kelsey would only have her human strength, and so all those human insecurities would flood back into her without the wolf to balance them. They hadn’t cared about a vessel for the wolf, wrongly thought it would simply disappear. They hadn’t known or cared much about the soul. That wolf had leapt straight into Trent, into its mate, and he’d held her until Kelsey could take her back.
I’d had no one.
“It’s different. I didn’t have a mate.” I was fairly certain it was useless for her to look for it.
“You’re sure it’s not inside Casey? He could miss having a piece of soul in him. He’d probably think it was weird vampire indigestion or something.”
“It didn’t go into Casey. He was too far away. If it had gone into someone, they would have had to be close to the Coven House at the time my soul was taken. No. I think Myrddin found a way to store it. It doesn’t matter. I don’t want it back. What he took from me was pain and rage and vulnerability.”
“And your ability to feel joy. He took your deepest emotions. Liv, I know you were hurting, and if I manage to find it, you’ll have to feel those things, but you can’t heal without going through the pain.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
She sighed and stood, her disappointment obvious. “It’s not. I remember how bad it is to go through something traumatic. I remember how awful it is to feel empty, like no one in the world could ever care for me. I remember what it was like to not want to exist anymore. Lucky for me I had someone who did care, who didn’t let me go.”
I also remembered the day I’d found her bleeding and how the world had stopped and I’d begged her to stay with me. I hadn’t been able to think about a world without Kelsey in it. She’d been my safe place for most of my life, and then she’d been gone. “Well, I didn’t have anyone.”
“You do now. I’m here. Casey’s here. All you have to do is reach out and you’ll find what you need.”
“What I need is for you to let me go.” I wasn’t even sure if letting me go meant I would return to Myrddin at this point. All the questions had opened some place inside me I hadn’t encountered in a long time, and honestly, I didn’t want to confront it. I might go to the woods and live the hermit life. Or build out a van and drive around the world with three cats and a travel vlog.
“Can’t do it,” she said almost sadly. She grabbed another Danish and walked to the door. “I can’t give up on you. No matter what it costs me. I’ll come and get you if Lilith shows up. I’d love your opinion on whether you think she’s actually the one sending Hell beasties to kill me.”
I didn’t know why she would trust me at this point, but I had nothing better to do. “I won’t take my soul back, Kelsey. If I know Myrddin, he’s used it for something and it’s destroyed, and I say good riddance.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that,” she concluded. “You really should try the pastries. And there’s a vial of blood for you under the napkin. Evan left it so she could go and do the research thing.”