Page 25 of Hunted By Darkness

Lev offered me a dashing smile, his blue hair whipping around his gentle face. “You’re the person I trust most in this world, Niks. Of course I’ll go with you anywhere.”

“Such a smooth talker.”

“Learned from the best,” he clapped back.

“Silas?” I taunted.

He cackled loudly with a shake of his head. “You think that oversized kid is smooth? I’m so disappointed in you, Niks.”

Scoffing unattractively, I acted like he hadn’t made a very good point. “You’re extra sassy tonight.”

“Yeah, well, we’re friends for a reason, right? But our questionable decisions aside, if you say we have to go, then we have to go. And that’s that. Who else is going to keep you out of trouble?”

I might be worried about Silas and whatever waited for us at the other side of these voices, but Lev’s smile had a way of calming my anxiety. Maybe because I’d spent years coming back from torture to that smile. Maybe because I knew he’d always be there even when shit got hard.

Lev was my oasis, and I was grateful I had him to lean on.

My handsome friend reached a hand out to me, and I took it with a smile of my own. “But what if I walk us right into a trap? Hard to keep me out of trouble when you’re in it with me.”

Shrugging, he matched my pace as the wind tried to blow us back. “Then bring on the trouble. There’s no one else I’d want to be walking in a trap with,” he teased, showing a little of his sharp incisors in his amusement.

We trekked through mulch and grass for nearly a mile before the whispers were so loud I couldn’t smother them anymore. My arms prickled with the sensation of someone nearby. At first, I was worried it was Rilas and prepared myself for a fight, but the figure that loomed in a wall of fog was the farthest thing from my enemy.

It was the same man from my dream.

This time, though, the person didn’t freeze or stay hidden. He walked straight out of the blanket of misty haze and into a bright patch of moonlight. His striking eyes met mine before he stalked forward, never hesitating.

“How?”

Standing in front of me was the same man I’d killed. The man whose voice I’d heard inside my head for months. Salvator was in a pair of pants but nothing else. He stood barefoot on wet grass and earth like it was his natural state of being. His brown skin caught stray beams of light, illuminating parts of him and leaving others masked in shadow. His once-red irises were now a fathomless abyss of darkness.

Lev’s magic danced around him in alarm, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him. “Who is that?” he demanded, ready for anything with a dagger grasped in one hand.

A ghost of a smile lifted Salvator’s mouth briefly before it was gone. “Why am I not surprised you’d be the one to find me, woman?”

“How are you here?”

Salvator brushed a hand through his long dark hair, no longer a mess of curls like I’d seen him the first time. It was only the slightest bit wavy, and longer than I thought. White and red tribal paint decorated a large part of his brown chest and face, tattoos other parts. The scars were still there, but the brand of the Brotherhood the two men shared was gone.

His physique was just as impressive as I remembered, all strength and violence in one glance. After knowing he could change into large beasts that could tear a person apart, it didn’t seem so odd he was so fit.

“Your guess is as good as mine. I woke up like this.”

“Ryker and Tometi?” I asked, a bit breathless.

I never thought I’d see the man who’d growled at me in my head for months alive, let alone smile, but the naughty grin that spread across his face was one that would haunt my dreams for a long time.

“Still here.” He pointed to his head. “Unfortunately. Even my second chance at life couldn’t get rid of these bastards.”

Lev shifted uncomfortably from side to side, agitated by the seemingly calm conversation we were having. He was worried I’d lost it. I could tell by the way he kept peeking at me, sure I’d come to my senses eventually.

I was anything but calm. I was all twisted up at the thought that Salvator might be the person from the dream I had a few nights ago. That the dream wasn’t a dream at all; it was another vision. Worse, I still wasn’t sure what any of it meant. I hadtheories, but nothing in the journal talked about the Souls of Life and Death.

“Who’s this guy, and what does he have to do with those animal souls?” Lev asked, casting doubtful eyes on the man in front of us. He was wary and had every right to be.

“This is Sal—Bear Claw,” I murmured, still too shocked to say much else. “You woke up like this?” I asked the tall animal shifter in front of me. He looked exactly like he had in frozen time out of his wolf form. You know, aside from not being naked.

Crossing his arms, Salvator tilted his head and studied me for several silent seconds. His dark eyes swept down my body in open interest, as if this was his first time really seeing me. And maybe it was. I’d only been his target before I took his soul. After, he saw the world through my eyes. It had to be disorienting to see me in front of him after being in my head all these months.

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