Torn: A young adult paranormal romance (Breath of Fate Book 1)

by Angelina J. Steffort

  While mine had been real. Cas had tried to take my soul. I had barely escaped. Had I not been able to unfreeze from whatever spell he’d put on me and given him a right hook, I would now be a hollow shell of a person, feeling empty, feeling … lost—

  I hit the brake, not even bothering to check if there was a car behind me, and listened to the screech of the tires as the vehicle skidded to a halt in the middle of a crossing.

  Empty. Lost. Like something was missing.

  Had he succeeded? Was that the reason why I had broken down in Leon’s arms after my trip to heaven? Was I … soulless?

  The thought crept through me like black tendrils of smoke, spreading a cold within me that made me shudder.

  Soulless.

  It was possible—

  “You should continue driving,” Cas’s night-woven voice said from the passenger seat, and I cringed aside, hitting my arm on the door.

  Cas, however, chuckled at me from the other side of the car. “Chances are high someone will hit you if you don’t move,” he reminded me, those storm-gray eyes seeming to swirl as he leaned over just enough to make me want to reach for the door handle and bolt. “And trust me, you don’t want to die with a Shadowbringer sitting right there to collect.”

  His words were laced with a threat, with a promise of revenge, with anything and everything that made me go utterly cold.

  He rubbed his chin over a mild bruise blossoming where I had struck him. “Yes, hell doesn’t forget,” he warned and leaned back in the seat he had claimed uninvited.

  In the rearview mirror, headlights of a car glinted, and I reluctantly took Cas’s advice and pushed down on the gas pedal, making the car half-jump as I accelerated.

  Again, Cas seemed to find this utterly amusing. He had folded his arms across his chest, his black clothes letting him melt into the shadows that seemed to be swirling around him … and a grin sat on his lips, spreading them wide like a grimace.

  “Get out,” I commanded, keeping myself from panicking. He no longer was a threat. Not the way he had been at least. He no longer could take my soul … and leave me alive to suffer, that is. But could he kill me? Would he go to those lengths just to take revenge on me?

  The car was stable again as I took the turn that led back to the main road.

  “Are you even allowed to take a soul without waiting for a Lightbringer to bargain?” I asked as he didn’t show any intention to disappear to where he had come from.

  He shifted beside me, accommodating himself in my car. “It would certainly break the truce,” he said as if I was supposed to know what that meant. “But it might be worth it.” He flashed me a lazy smile, which I ignored, determined to never take a close look at his beautiful face ever again.

  His smile faltered when I didn’t give the reaction he had obviously been waiting for. “Or if the soul was utterly corrupted, I wouldn’t need to wait for a Lightbringer,” he mused then turned in his seat so he faced me and asked, “You haven’t by chance killed anyone, have you?”

  This time, I couldn’t avoid my reaction, and my head flipped to the side, finding him studying me with a taunting grin.

  “You must be kidding,” I simply said and turned my focus back on the street. “And, go away.”

  Again, his chuckle, full of the shadows swirling around him, filled the air as he leaned back in his seat once more as if he owned the car.

  “Maybe I am.” He gestured in the air before him and the shadows spread through the car like an extra layer of night. “Maybe I am not.”

  My heart raced in my chest as it got harder and harder to see through the spreading darkness.

  “So you’re going to kill me?” I shot at him, taking my foot off the gas and letting the car roll to the side of the road where no one could hit me. “Because I escaped? Is that what this is? Revenge?”

  Another laugh, disguised by night, muted by shadows.

  It had become hard for me to see at all, to hear, to breathe; that’s how tightly his shadows were wrapping around me.

  I didn’t reach for the door, knowing that running would only make things more interesting for him. He had been circling me for months, biding his time as he watched me squirm at his glances and as I cried in his presence. There was no escape now.

  “Kill me, then,” I spat and took my hands off the steering wheel. “Come on, and kill me.”

  I wasn’t sure if I was serious, if I truly was giving him permission to end my life and take my soul, but I heard the anger ring in my voice as if in the distance. Until … until it hit me…

  If he was here to kill me for my soul, it meant that he hadn’t succeeded; that I still had a soul.

  And within a fraction of a second, I broke free from my petrification and shifted into my ethereal body … and then, I took flight, leaving the car, the night, and the Shadowbringer behind.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Leon

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a shower without rushing through the routine, without being half-petrified by fear about what would happen to Laney if I left her out of my focus for even ten minutes. So this was nice for a change. It was like the first real vacation in years … even if it was a mere shower.

  I had walked home, all the long miles, simply because I had nowhere else to be. No constant fear, no restless thoughts—just the cold November air and the blinding, pale light of the sun high up in the sky, dispersed and brightening the haze that hovered over Glyndon.

  Now that it was dark outside, the shroud of growing night bringing back with more intensity the events of last night, I was determined to be clean when I went to see Laney again and looked into her electric blue eyes. So I shrugged out of my clothes and stepped into the shower without haste, wondering if this was what life could be like.

  I braced my hands against the wall and let the water wash over my head and my neck, leaving the smeared paint on my face for last. It was a reminder that Laney’s kisses hadn’t been a dream.

  Steam billowed around me like wafts of mist, the heat of the water almost burning into my skin, keeping me grounded in my corporeal body. It had become my first nature to float through the world in my ethereal body. Only when I was in school or hanging out with my mother was I in this shape any more. It made so many things in life easier. For once, I didn’t need to shower that often, for not having a physical body meant that there was no sweat, no hunger—at least, not in the same way.

  It also helped with the sleep issue. I didn’t tire as fast or need as much time to recover when I remained in that form. So when I had held Laney last night, when her lips had brushed against mine, when her hand had twisted almost painfully in my hair, pulling me closer, her chest pressed against mine—

  It had felt oddly real … in a way I wasn’t used to. My first kiss. A perfect, paint-smeared, emotion-driven, and passionate sensation that had made it hard for me to remain grounded in my corporeal body. Especially when Laney’s touch was even more intense in our ethereal forms.

  But it had been perfect. Almost … normal. The way a first kiss should be. Full of memorable flaws, full of awkwardness, and still—perfect.

  I grabbed the soap and squirted it into my open hand, determined to scrub my face until there was no trace of Laney’s costume left on me … only that memory of her lips on mine and how alive I felt.

  “Leon?” her voice called me like an echo from behind the curtain of water, and I dove out of my thoughts. “Leon?” Again, but louder like she wasn’t calling from somewhere in the sphere of our ethereal bodies but—

  I turned off the water and turned, only to find Laney in the doorway, eyes wide as she stared at me through the misted glass. “I need to talk to you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Laney

  I tried to keep my eyes on Leon’s face as he asked me to hand him a towel. Then, grateful to have something to do, I turned away and grabbed one of the fluffy, russet cloths that hung next to the sink.

  I kept my eyes av
erted, forcing myself not to peek as he opened the glass door and let me place the towel in his hand. Once he had slung it around his hips, he climbed out of the shower.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his voice husky in the steam-filled room as he took my hand as in an old reflex, yet with a new gentleness that momentarily made me want to forget the Shadowbringer even existed.

  The Shadowbringer. Right.

  I let my gaze snap back to him, finding myself studying his shoulders and chest rather than his face for a brief, awkward moment until Leon cleared his throat.

  When I looked up at him, despite the alarm in his eyes, a slight smile was playing on his lips.

  “Cas popped up into my car and threatened to kill me,” I heard myself summarize what had just happened, what I had barely escaped.

  The smile on Leon’s face was instantly gone. “He did what?”

  It was clear he didn’t need me to repeat myself but rather had no words to describe what was going through his mind.

  But I explained anyway, how he had surprised me in my car, how he had told me that killing me would break the truce—whatever that meant. “Can he do that? Can he actually kill me and get away unpunished?” I finally asked, still standing there in my jacket and shoes, gesturing in the narrow space between us while Leon was scrutinizing my face with horror in his eyes, water dripping from his hair and running down his torso to soak into the towel.

  I didn’t know what answer I had expected, but when he said, “Let’s sit down first,” it certainly didn’t give me much confidence my situation had actually gotten any better.

  I followed him to his bedroom anyway, realizing I was still in my ethereal form, and sat on the edge of his bed while he headed for the dresser and pulled out a fresh set of clothes.

  “Don’t disappear,” he told me as he vanished back into the bathroom, pointing at the bundle of fabrics in his arms, and closed the door behind him.

  I had no intention of disappearing. Who knew what the Shadowbringer had planned for me next. It certainly wasn’t anything I wanted to find out. We needed a plan. Something better than just Leon going back to his duty of twenty-four-seven protection. I was a Lightbringer now, and apparently, there was something more than just Leon standing between the Shadowbringer and the end of my life. A truce.

  I fidgeted on the bed, eventually sliding out of my jacket and boots, and was folding my legs beneath me when Leon returned in his usual jeans and white Henley. It was hard to ignore the way his shirt stuck to his skin where he had dried himself off sloppily. He caught me staring, and I swallowed the urge to grab him by that same shirt and pull him down onto the bed with me.

  “The truce,” I prompted, struggling to regain focus on why I was here.

  Leon sighed and prowled to the bed where he flopped down and leaned against the headboard.

  “With all the people being born and dying every day … every minute … every second … obviously, one Lightbringer and one Shadowbringer are not enough to keep up with the workload,” he explained with exasperation on his tan features.

  “Obviously,” I confirmed and wondered just how many of us there were exactly.

  “And while Shadowbringers serve for eternity, being granted immortality in exchange for their dark deeds, Lightbringers don’t need to endure this longer than a normal human lifetime.”

  His words settled in my mind like dark stains as I realized their meaning.

  “This is not a gift from God, is it?” I held his gaze as questions formed in his eyes. “I mean, the angels choosing us … it is not a blessing. It is a curse.”

  Leon didn’t respond for a long while, the coffee brown of his eyes turning darker as the seconds ticked by. “I am not sure it is either,” he finally said, looking older than the teenage boy he was, the wisdom of generations surfacing in his gaze. “Are we blessed for the good we do? Are we cursed for the souls for whom we don’t bargain hard enough? Is it even up to us to judge?”

  “Are you saying we’re just tools?” I interrupted his philosophical moment. “Because it most certainly feels like it.” I gestured at him, at me, at the world in general. “Because if I can’t even be safe from the Shadowbringer now that I have manifested, what good is it to feel so empty, to have felt what seems to be the perfection waiting for some of us if there is nothing we get in return?”

  Leon closed his eyes as if to avoid looking too closely at the meaning of what I’d put into the room between us.

  “At least the Shadowbringers get immortality,” I pointed out, voice heavy with sarcasm. “What do we get? Fast track to heaven when we die?”

  At that, Leon laughed, frustration in his eyes as he gazed at me.

  “That’s the plan,” he said, watching my expression go blank at his words. “At least, that’s what my grandfather used to say, what is in his notes … what Lightbringers have been saying for generations and generations.”

  It took me a moment to comprehend his words. “You are saying I am going to heaven?”

  Leon half-nodded. “Unless they were all wrong.”

  “Well, let’s hope they weren’t.” It was all I could think of to say as Leon pushed away from the headboard and leaned forward to take my hand.

  “We are,” he corrected in a murmur, bringing his face temptingly close to mine.

  I tried not to let my attention drift to the curve of his lips or the way his fingers played with mine between us.

  “So if the Shadowbringer took your soul by killing you,” he continued, his hands warming mine, which were still frozen from shock, “even if it wouldn’t be the same for him—not a trophy, just as any other soul he would wrongfully take—he would break the truce that has been holding over centuries between our kind—or our allegiances. Heaven and hell.”

  I listened, trying to comprehend the concept of what he was telling me … and realized just how little I truly knew.

  “Gran was from a Lightbringer family,” I pointed out, wondering if she had been destined for heaven from the start … if Cas had been there to wrongfully take her soul. “The Shadowbringer was there when she died anyway.”

  Leon gave me an empathetic look and pulled my hand up between both of his to huff hot breath onto them before he folded them in-between his palms. “Your grandmother never manifested, Laney. She was treated like any other soul.”

  “Even if she was from the same line?”

  “Like any other soul. Heaven, hell, or purgatory.” He gave me a grave look as if he was expecting to break at the news.

  I didn’t. Gran had been a good person. I knew she had. If Cas had been there to bargain for her soul, her being good obviously hadn’t been up to the standards of whoever decided our fate. But what it was that Gran had done was for another time. I could ask Mom. Maybe she knew something I didn’t.

  What I truly wanted to know was what would happen if that truce ever broke.

  “Then, it won’t matter what you do in life. You’ll be taken by either side as an act to prove their superiority. No bargaining. No purgatory. Either heaven or hell. Deserved or undeserved.”

  My already cold body went numb at his words.

  “It will be anarchy of morals,” he summed up. “And we will no longer fight with words.”

  The wind howled the entire night through the bare trees before the window, making my sleep light and full of shadow-tinted dreams. I’d returned home after a long discussion with Leon about what we could or couldn’t expect of the Shadowbringer, considering everything that had happened.

  It was unlikely he would throw a millennia-old truce into mayhem just over one soul he’d missed out on.

  But the safety and protection program was rebooted nonetheless.

  Only this time, I was sleeping at Leon’s house rather than soaking his shirt with my tears in my own bedroom, and while his breathing was even, a warm stream of air coming and going on my forehead as he had wrapped his arms around me and tucked me to his chest, I wasn’t remotely as much at peace as he w
as as we slept side by side.

  Every sound outside reminded me that somewhere out there, a Shadowbringer was biding his time until he could take his revenge.

  And then, there was the hard warmth of Leon’s chest and abdomen against my side—

  I turned my head just enough to get a glimpse of the side of his face. In response, he knotted his arms more tightly around me and folded one leg over mine, making me wriggle around until I could find a position where the weight of his thigh didn’t threaten to crush my knees.

  “You can’t sleep?” he murmured drowsily and pulled me around so I faced him.

  “I can’t stop thinking,” I whispered, snuggling into his arms, searching for his eyes in the darkness to find him gazing at me.

  “What are you thinking about?” He lifted his arm from me and stroked my hair lazily before letting his fingers trail down my jaw and along my throat. He didn’t even blink as his index finger pulled along the collar of the too big shirt I was wearing—his shirt—exposing skin that yearned for the heat of his touch.

  “The Shadowbringer,” I responded, voice shaky at the new sensation that ran through me. Not the electric current that I had felt before but a raging wildfire the flames of which seemed to rise and fall where his fingertips traced my collarbone all the way to my shoulder, down my arm until he held my hand in his.

  “Is there anything I can do to distract you?” he drawled, sounding perfectly at ease with the flames he was instilling in me, and led my hand to his lips, his breath tickling the inside of my palm as he turned it over and brushed it with his mouth.

  What had I been worrying about again?

  A gust of air escaped me as he dragged his lips all the way to my fingertips and kissed them, one after the other.