Page 26 of Hunted By Darkness

Our eyes met, and Salvator took another step closer. Lev stiffened, but I wasn’t worried. Because I’d felt what this man in front of me felt for so long that I knew he’d never hurt me.

Reaching out, Salvator touched some of my stray hair that had gotten swept up in the wind. “I don’t remember it being this purple…” he murmured to himself. Then his knuckles brushed my cheek, and Lev snapped.

“Don’t touch her,” he warned. It’d been a long time since I’d heard Lev so hostile. He didn’t sound like himself.

A smug smirk graced Salvator’s mouth before he withdrew his hand and answered my question. “It wasn’t long after he took our souls that I found myself here. But I couldn’t say how many days.” His jaw clenched. “Something told me to wait, so I stayed here, and now I know why.” His dark eyes glinted as they roamed my body again. “What’s with the cape?”

“It’s a cloak.”

“Looks like a cape,” he grumbled. “You Dark Fae are weird.”

Yeah, this was definitely Salvator.

“So you woke up like this? Alive? Back in your body? But how does that make any sense? Were you resurrected? But who would’ve done it?”

He cradled his jaw, his fluid movements oddly animal. “It doesn’t make sense to me either, but I do remember that old fox saying something right after Rilas took us. Right before she took over his body and anchored his magic.” The sudden mention of my grandmother had my full attention. “She said balance had to be struck. That life and death always found a way to correct the imbalance. She was sure you’d know what she meant, the babbling hag.”

Correct the imbalance…

I stared at Lev, and he returned the look, eyes dropping to where I kept the book. A flash of blue surged out in front of me, and Salvator was suddenly in wolf form with Silas attacking him. A huge explosion of blue nearly sent the two of us several feet back.

Terrifying growls quickly morphed to soft whines. When the blue cleared, Salvator took another hit after Silas spirited to a place behind him. The bear-sized wolf hit the ground hard enough for the earth to quake underfoot, and it whined again.

My heart lurched inside my chest. It wasn’t just Salvator who felt the pain of those injuries. It was Ryker, too. My sassy little wolf was hurting, and I needed to stop it. His belly was left exposed as he struggled on his back. I rushed forward, moving like my life depended on it, and intervened before the mercenary could land a deadly blow with his sword.

Getting to his feet and crouched, ready to lunge, Salvator snarled behind me. He was slumping to one side, suffering an agony that I felt in my own body. I couldn’t explain it, but the pain radiated inside me. His pain was my pain.

I stretched my arms out in defense of the man I’d once considered my enemy. “It’s really him!”

Silas removed his mask, glaring at the wolf behind me. “It’s a demon, love. He couldn’t be anything else if he’s back. I don’t know how Rilas did it, but taking care of him now—”

“Balance!” I yelled, baffling everyone around me. I clicked my tongue and explained what I meant. “Balance goes both ways, right? This has to be…it’s exactly like my dream. I know it is.”

Suddenly, Silas growled. “If he’s been brought back—”

“Then him being who we think he is makes sense, doesn’t it?” I cut in, arms still out like they’d really stop a monster like the Shimmering Assassin.

The mercenary’s face was warped with fury. He couldn’t argue because he knew I was right, and after a long, silent stand-off, he finally sheathed his sword. In a blink, I was in his arms and several feet from where Salvator was crouched, still ready to fight.

Silas’s voice was next to my ear the way it had been in my dream. “You can’t trust him, love. I know what you saw in that little vision of yours, but now I’m convinced I was right to stop you.”

When it was evident that Silas didn’t intend to attack him again, Salvator shifted back to his human form. His pants were shredded to pieces around him. With a little growl, Silas ripped off his cloak and tossed it at the naked shifter who didn’t seem at all bothered to have all his bits out for the rest of the world to see.

“I don’t trust a sly bastard like you. A toe out of line, and I’ll personally see to it that you’re second life is ended as quick as it begun.” The silver-haired mercenary issued his warning before dropping a possessive kiss on my mouth. “Touch my bird, and I’ll take limbs.”

13

Silas

Ididn’t take my eyes off the demon sipping from a cup Nika insisted on preparing for him. The wanker was smug, and why wouldn’t he be? My bird had vouched for him after throwing herself between us. To add insult to injury, she’d refused to hear one word from me about how unsafe it was to bring him back. How it was a disaster waiting to happen. How this wolf bastard was the worst of the worst.

He'd changed? What a load of fucking bollocks that was. The fact that his eyes were no longer red and he didn’t bear the mark of the Brotherhood didn’t mean anything.

Say for a minute we ignored the fact that he was dead and in her head less than a few weeks ago, and that this tosser hadn’t come back as a demon smelling like the After and bent on destruction, it didn’t change the fact that he was still the same old Bear Claw, and that bastard was as sly and as conniving as they came. As long as he was near my goddess, he was a bloody problem.

If he was really the one she called the Soul of Death, then I agreed with the version of me she saw in her dream. He couldn’t be trusted. She wasn’t safe. It didn’t matter what she thought about him, what she was sure she knew. Bear Claw had been, and would always be, a vicious killer.

Nika tried to take a seat on the other side of the sofa after putting a plate of food in front of the wolf bastard, but I slipped closer and pinned the feisty darling to my side before she could fully perch. Her annoyed glare was lost on me. My eyes were firmly set on the bastard eating foodmy birdhad made for him.

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