Page 103 of A Soul to Steal

That made Gideon’s head rear back and his brows furrow. “Emerie, my sister?”

“Yes, Emerie,” Aleron quickly rasped out, his tone growing lighter – eager, almost. “She is a female, with bright-red hair and dots on her face.”

His eyes drifted to the side.Well, that is awfully convincing.That did sound like Emerie.

“She also has scarring across her face as well.”

Gideon stiffened. “She absolutely does not.” Still, it was hard to deny that they may have met if he knew her name.

Aleron palmed his skull. “Little human... it has been eight years since you died. This was easier when she was there to explain this, but it has been a long time.”

Icy dread slipped down his spine. Cradling the back of his injured hand to his stomach, he spun around and put one foot in front of the other. He ignored his swinging dick for the moment.

Nope. Absolutely not. He refused to believe what Aleron had just uttered. He’d only been taken last night, or a few days ago, or something. It had not been eight years. Impossible.

Because... if he were to accept that it’d been that long ago, then his life wasover. His friends, his family, his boyfriend, his job, everything was gone. He couldn’t – and wouldn’t – accept that.

This delusional monster could go spout this shit somewhere else. Gideon was going home, because his home still existed, just as he still existed.

He was alive, breathing in cool, fresh air, with speckled sunlight warming his skin. The world around him was real.

As he stormed forward, ignoring the sharp rocks and sticks that cut into the bottoms of his bare feet, Aleron continued to follow.

Gideon was not given a moment of peace as the hulking presence attempted to explain some great meeting, followed by a journey, all of which he ignored.

He had not woken up in some afterlife called Tenebris. He had not met this so-called ‘kindred’ named Ingram, who had a ravenskull and short, upwards-jutting horns and scales over his body – apparently.

He mockingly snorted a laugh when Aleron told him Emerie had been a Demonslayer.That girl would almost piss her pants in fright when there was a rodent or cockroach in the house.The idea of her being some Demon hunting badass was so damn insane that it was funny.

And it was even funnier that Aleron tried to convince him that Ingram and his easily frightened little sister just magically skipped off into the sunset together. Especially since she would have needed to have died in order to do so, and he was hoping he’d find her back at home with their parents.

She wasn’t out in the world with a monster.Emerie in love with a Duskwalker? Pfft.That sounded as true as Gideon apparently being this one’s companion; therefore, it was utterly false.

All of it was a delusion, a lie.

His life was not over.

It had not been eight years.

“Please wait,” Aleron pleaded, grabbing his arm again.

“Don’t touch me!” Gideon shouted, twisting his arm and ripping it away from him. How many times did he need to say that? He glanced back over to the town that stood just across a small meadow, like it was a pillar of salvation. “I am going into that human town. I am going to get some clothing so I’m not walking around naked, and I am not coming back out here, so you’re better off leaving.”

The fact he had to approach the gates in the nude was going to be humiliating, but he’d just grit through it. He’d survive being mocked if it meant he could escape all this. Escape Aleron.

“In a day, you will return to my side.”

“Is that a threat?” Gideon sneered, his nose crinkling in outrage. “What? If I don’t come back out here, you’re going to go in there and kill all the soldiers guarding it just to get to me?”

What a piece of work! Aleron couldn’t get his consent to stay by his side, so he was going to kill a bunch of innocent people instead?

“No,” Aleron answered in a low voice tinged with... sadness? His head lowered, and his shoulders and wings drooped. “You will see. When you do, I will be waiting for you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” An emotional Duskwalker was not his problem.

Gideon waved his good hand as he walked away.

He’ll eventually get the point and leave.

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