Page 141 of Soul of a Witch

He leapt back, fangs bared, wings flared back, claws out and ready. A vicious snarl roared out of him. “Stay back, witch! Don’t come a step closer!”

His words slapped me in the face. I stared at him, unable to understand. “Callum? It’s me, it’s…”

“How do you know my name?” he hissed. “Answer me truthfully, human, or I’ll strike you dead where you stand. How the fuck do you know my name?”

His words dripped with venom, with an undeniable hatred. My weakly beating heart throbbed, while the pain in my side grew worse. This had to be a nightmare. Why didn’t he know me?

“Callum, you claimed me.” I didn’t dare take another step closer. “Please, we marked each other! We’ve slept together, we’ve fought alongside each other!”

His eyes widened, and I was stunned to realize his irises weren’t black. They were glittering gold, so bright and intense it was like staring into the sun. But black veins were shot through the gold, like burned cracks in a gilded surface.

I looked at the lump of rotting flesh beside me, the monstrosity that had only recently been killed. And suddenly, I knew where I was.

Not only where. Butwhen.

“Callum, please listen to me…” He flinched as I reached for the laces on my shirt, loosening it slowly, painfully. It peeled away from my side, sticky with blood, and the demon’s eyes fixated on the injury. His nostrils flared, and I wondered if he could smell the truth of what I’d told him. Could he smell himself on me?

“I’m not supposed to be here,” I said. “I’m in the wrong place, the wrong…time. I found you too soon. But I know your name because you gave it to me. You carved it into me.” I shrugged off my shirt, baring myself to him. Even now, even here, centuries before he knew me, I trusted him not to hurt me. He gave no vocal reaction as I showed him the scars on my stomach, but I saw the conflicting emotions on his face.

Horror, confusion, suspicion.

“How is this possible?” he whispered. The silence in this vast field felt so heavy, so full of grief. He’d lost everything here. Here, in this field soaked in blood, he had watched countless die. And there, beside me, rotting in the open air, was a dead God.

One of dozens. One of hundreds scattered around us. Yet somehow, in the midst of all this death, my frantic search for life had led me here.

“Witches wander where they will,” I said. “And I’ve wandered very far. I need…I need your strength, Callum. To keep going. To get back to you. Please.”

“Back to me…” He stepped closer, his entire body coiled as if to leap away at any moment. It was truly strange to realize he was afraid of me. “And where, exactly, do you think you will find me, if not here?”

“In the future,” I said, desperately hoping he would understand. “Please, Callum, you need to remember this, please. I’m coming back. I promise you, I’m coming back. Don’t stop fighting, don’t…don’t give up.” I reached for him, and he didn’t flinch away when my fingers brushed against his chest. “Please don’t give up. I’m coming back to you. It’s not over, please…”

God, I wanted him to hold me. I wanted to sink into his arms, I wanted to feel safe with him and know he was safe with me too. I wanted to tell him the truth, that the future we had together was already better than either of us could have imagined.

I stepped closer, and he flinched but something made him stay. He sniffed the air, his expression morphing from anger, to confusion, to shock.

He was staring at me now as if I’d revealed to him the secrets of the universe. But he didn’t truly understand, not yet. It would be centuries before he understood.

For so long, you haunted me. The familiar face of a stranger in a hundred lifetimes. As if we were always circling each other, two planets in cosmic alignment, thrown into a continuous loop by the power of one another. I waited for you, before I even knew it was you I was waiting for.

His eyes softened. Tears poured down my face, but I couldn’t reach for him, I couldn’t stay.

I backed away.

“Wait.” He reached out for me, his viciousness gone. “What’s your name?”

“Everly,” I said. “Everly Laverne. You’ll find me someday, Callum. And I’ll find you again. Please don’t forget. I’m coming back to you. I will get up. I will. Please…” I didn’t want to leave him. It hurt; it was terrifying. It felt like ripping myself away from the one being I wanted most, with no idea if I would ever find my way to him again.

But I had to. No matter how far or how long I had to wander, I would find him again.

He called my name as I stepped back into the mist. But I had to keep following that thread, pulsing and pale as it snaked ahead of me.

I would find my way back to him again.

The mist was never-ending. I had been walking for an eternity. Time and space meant nothing.

Was I already dead? My heartbeat, erratic as it had been, had stopped. Or become so weak I could no longer feel it.

Now and then, my surroundings would change. Cities would loom around me, ancient and strange, full of shadowy faces. But one face was always clear: Callum. I would spot him in a crowd, a brief glimpse before I walked on. I walked across decades, across centuries, and I found him again and again.

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