by E. J. King
“When I was a kid, my family tried camping. Lincoln got mad at me for something stupid and left me in the woods. My dad found me hours later.” It was a pretty mean thing for him to do, but I still remembered the story with a smile. “When we got home, I waited until he fell asleep and then I cut a huge stripe of hair down the middle of his head.”
“That’s terrible!” Ethan said, laughing. “Remind me never to cross you.”
“You definitely don’t want to mess with me.”
We left the trees and reentered the clearing. Drunk people mingled everywhere. A few of them had even passed out.
Ethan looked around in concern. “Did we miss a zombie apocalypse?”
“Zombies, drunk college kids- same thing.” I stepped over a guy sleeping with his head on a pile of leaves. “Dare we even bother with the keg?”
“I’m on it.” Ethan took my empty cup. “Wait here and try not to turn into one of them.”
I found a quiet corner of the clearing and tried to look uninterested as I waited for Ethan to return. I failed.
“Does the curtain match the drapes?” A vaguely familiar guy asked with a leer.
“Seriously?” I shook my head, amazed at the lack of originality.
The guy didn’t take the hint. “How do you like your eggs in the morning?”
“The same way your face is about to look. Scrambled and runny.” Rafe appeared from nowhere and stepped between me and my new friend.
“No need to get hostile, bro.” The guy took a few steps back.
Rafe was an intimidating figure, so I had to give the guy props for not running away with his tail between his legs.
“She your girl?” He nodded at me.
“She’s nobody’s girl. Now go away.” Rafe turned his back on the guy, dismissing him. “Where have you been all night?”
“Around.”
He eyed me suspiciously and stepped closer. “Getting lucky in the woods?”
“You’ll have to ask your brother,” I said with a coy smile.
Rafe frowned, not sure whether I was joking or not.
“Kaylie!” Hope came flying across the clearing, her hair streaming behind her. “Have you seen Breanna?”
I had to think for a second to remember which girl was Breanna. “No, not since we got here.” I hadn’t even seen Hope until just now.
“She completely disappeared.” Hope looked legitimately concerned. “The last time I saw her, she was over by the trees stumbling around. I tried to get to her, but she just vanished.”
“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.” I looked around, but it was really too dark to see much of anything.
“What if something happened to her?” she asked with wide eyes.
Rafe nudged me. “We’ll go look for her.”
“We will?” I gaped at him in surprise.
“Sure.” He shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do.”
I scoffed. “The right thing to do?”
“You guys are the best!” Hope was already walking away. “I’ll check over by the keg. You guys should try the trees over there.”
“This night just keeps getting better,” I muttered, following Rafe onto a dark path. “How can you see anything right now?”
It seemed impossible that Rafe could see anything with his sunglasses on.
“I’m gifted.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and started whistling.
We walked until we were completely surrounded by trees. “Why did you bring Ethan here tonight?”
“To keep an eye on you.” Rafe lifted his head and looked around like he could hear something I couldn’t. “I think it’s pretty clear you aren’t ready to fight on your own yet.”
“You’re being paranoid. Nothing is going to happen tonight.”
“Something already has.” He glanced at me. “You really don’t feel it?”
I held out a hand, palm up, like I was checking for rain. “Feel what?”
“Evil.”
It sounded so ominous, so threatening, that I laughed. “Paranoid.”
He turned, ignoring me.
I was tired of standing in the middle of the woods with someone that could barely hold a conversation. Annoyed, I started off on my own. The snapping twigs behind me said that Rafe had decided to follow.
“I don’t want us to be enemies, Kaylie,” he said, surprising me.
“What do you want then, Rafe?” Without turning, I stopped to give him a chance to catch up.
He stepped close to me, close enough that I could feel his body warmth at my back. It was oddly enticing.
“I want to keep you safe. And maybe become friends in the process.”
“You want us to be friends?” I spun around in surprise.
Rafe was just inches from me. His spicy scent was intoxicating.
“What do you want, Kaylie?” he asked gruffly.
You. The thought came so suddenly and so passionately that it scared me. My lips parted as I thought about what it would be like to press them against his. As if he sensed my thoughts, he leaned closer. When his mouth opened, I thought for sure that he was going to close the distance between us.
“Do you hear that?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
And then I did hear it, a snapping noise overhead. Looking up, I gasped as a large tree limb broke free and hurtled downward.
Rafe moved first, throwing his body at mine. We tumbled to the ground with him on top of me as the branch landed just inches from our heads. I could feel Rafe’s heart pounding in his chest as it pressed against mine. His hard body weighed heavily on me in a completely erotic way.
“Are you okay?” he asked, slightly breathless.
I couldn’t find words, so I nodded.
“That was a close one,” he said, smiling slightly.
My eyes flitted from his lips to his eyes and that was when I realized that his shades had fallen off when he’d lunged for me. Rather than seeing my own reflection, I saw his true self. The goldness in his eyes was just a touch brighter than mine- a shade that was unnatural for human eyes. But it was also one that I had seen many times in my life.
“Get off of me, Rafe.”
His face fell and he looked at me with hurt in those strange eyes, but he did as I asked.
“How could you?” I spat as I jumped to my feet. “How could you mess with me like that?”
He looked at me, stunned. “What are you talking about?”
“You lost your shades,” I said.
Understanding dawned on his face. He took a step forward, but I darted away.
“Kaylie!” Rafe reached out to grab me, but I dodged him easily.
“Stay away from me!”
I ran. A part of me was ready to fight- his betrayal stung. Based on what I had seen, I was going to have to fight him sooner or later. But I didn’t have a weapon with me, and the thought of actually killing him made my chest tighten painfully.
Rafe followed me all the way to my car. I hurried inside and locked it behind me, glancing in the rearview mirror. Rafe stood motionless, watching until I pulled away. As I drove, I couldn’t shake the image of Rafe’s eyes- brilliant gold, the same shade as the eyes of the Dark Souls
That meant only one thing- Rafe was one of them.
CHAPTER FOUR
For sixteen years, I helped my family hunt Souls. When we found them, we killed them. It was that simple. We never came across a Soul that was good. Never met one that was worth saving. I had never let one get away, never walked away when I had the chance to kill one.
Until Rafe.
How could I have been so close to him and not known what he was? I had the gift. My family had joked about it, but it was true. I had always been able to spot a Soul well before anyone else. It was a sixth sense that I couldn’t explain. But Rafe had slipped past my impenetrable defenses.
All of these thoughts bounced around in my brain when I climbed into bed. Fortunately, training and the party had exhausted me. I was able to drift to sleep earl
ier than usual and stay asleep a little longer before the nightmares came. This time they were different.
Instead of my family, I saw Rafe. His gold eyes flashed at me in the dark as he chased me through winding tunnels. Then we were in my old house and he was standing over the dead bodies of my family, covered in blood.
The next morning, I didn’t even bother with the coffee. I sat by the window, staring blankly outside until Ethan appeared. He approached the house hesitantly, pausing at the bottom of the porch. As if he sensed me watching, his eyes darted to the window.
We stared at each other for several seconds while I debated whether to go to the door. When he didn’t look away, I realized that he wasn’t planning to leave until I gave him a chance to talk. Reluctantly, I went to the door.
“I have no desire to talk to you,” I said before he could speak.
“I figured as much.” He put his hand on the doorframe and leaned toward me. “But I’m not going anywhere until you give me a chance to explain.”
I glared. “I could call the police on you.”
“You could. But you won’t.” He pushed away. “You want to hear the explanation.”
Ethan was right. As much as I didn’t want to talk to him, I wanted to know the truth even more.
“I suppose you want me to invite you in?”
He pointed to the wicker chairs on the porch. “We can do this out here.”
I stepped out on the porch and pulled the door shut behind me. It was only then that I noticed Rafe, sitting in one of the chairs with his feet propped on the porch railing.
“How long have you been there?” I gasped. For the last hour, I had been staring out the window. His position was just outside of the line of sight.
“I followed you home last night,” Rafe said. He sat up, letting his feet drop with a loud thud. “These chairs are pretty comfortable.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been out here all night.” I was both touched and horrified. “That really doesn’t make me feel better about this whole situation.”
“Please. Most girls would die to have me come home with them.” Rafe heard his poor wording too late and winced. “Okay, I didn’t mean it that way.”
I took a seat in the chair farthest away from him and turned to Ethan. “You have five minutes to explain.”
“I got attacked last year. They turned me. I’m a Soul now.” Rafe shrugged. “Turns out we didn’t need all five minutes.”
“Rafe.” Ethan shot him a warning look. “Look, Kaylie. I know that you think all Souls are evil. We used to think the same thing. But Dark Souls are only one type of Soul.”
My eyes narrowed, but I was intrigued. “Go on.”
“Everyone knows that if you die with their blood in your system, you come back as one of them. But what most Hunters don’t know is that you have to feed on human blood after you come back to finish the transition.”
I had been avoiding looking at Rafe, but I glanced at him quickly. His shades were back in place, so I couldn’t tell where his eyes were focused. “What happens if you don’t feed?”
“You die.” Rafe’s voice was tight.
“But not right away,” Ethan added. “It’s fatal, but a slow process.”
It suddenly clicked. I turned to Rafe. “You never fed, did you?”
“No.”
“And now you’re dying?”
He leaned back in his chair. “We’re all dying. I’m just going to do it a little faster than most people.”
“There’s no cure?”
“None that have been confirmed,” Ethan said. His voice had changed slightly. “Anyway, for the Souls that don’t complete the transition, they live in a state of in-between. They have the desire for blood, but as long as they don’t feed, they remain at least partly human. That’s why Rafe can walk around in the daylight. But they don’t really belong in either world.”
“That’s sad.” I looked at Rafe again, but he was looking off into the distance.
“They’re known as Lost Souls.” Ethan was also looking at Rafe. “Only a few dozen exist at any given time. Their numbers are kept down due to their mortality.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if I had ever killed a Lost Soul in my time as a Hunter.
“Do you crave human blood?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Why haven’t you fed?” It was such an obvious thing that I felt I needed to rephrase. “If only a few people are able to resist, how have you been able to do it?”
Rafe finally turned back to us. He slipped the shades from his face, letting his gold eyes catch the light.
“I will never let myself be one of them.”
When I looked into those golden irises, I didn’t see the burning hate I was used to seeing. Rafe was telling the truth- he was still a good guy. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust him, or Ethan for that matter, but I was overwhelmed by a desire to help him.
“Where are you going?” Ethan asked, alarmed by how quickly I had jumped to my feet and marched to the door.
“I’m going to find a cure. You guys can sit there and mope, or you can come inside and help.” To emphasize the point, I left the door open behind me.
In addition to being Hunters, my parents had also been history buffs, particularly Hunter history. When I had packed up our belongings after their death, I had left a lot of stuff behind. But I had been sure to take all of their books and notes with me. I hadn’t understood why at the time, but now I was glad that I had.
“What is this?” Ethan asked, awed when he stepped into the room.
“This is my spare bedroom, and it also doubles as the Hart family library.”
An entire wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves was packed to the point of overflowing. Because I had come from a long line of Hunters, some of the books were over a century old. Faded, cracked leather spines held yellowed pages.
“The older stuff starts at that end,” I said, pointing to the far end of the room. “My parents’ journals are here. We used to jokingly call them the Hunter Chronicles.”
“Do you really think there might be something in one of these books?” Rafe perused the shelves skeptically. Now that I knew the truth about him, he didn’t bother with the shades. It was strange to be able to tell whether he was looking at me or past me.
I lifted a book from the shelf and settled into an oversized chair. “If anyone found evidence of a cure, my family will have documented it somewhere.”
The Harts held claim as the oldest Hunter family in existence. Our ancestry and Hunter roots could be traced all the way back to the founding of the country. That lineage had almost been broken two years ago.
“It’s going to take a while if I have to do this myself,” I commented after they both continued to stand frozen, staring in awe.
Ethan was the first to move, reaching for the nearest book. He settled on the bed across from me while Rafe grabbed a stack of notes and took the chair on my left.
It was slow-going. Most of the notes were handwritten, elaborate, and messy penmanship blurred together. I brewed a pot of coffee and that seemed to help all of us concentrate for a while. Rafe discovered my father’s old vinyl collection and filled the room with music from the late 70s. I could practically feel my father in the room, could almost hear him singing along.
Ethan had an annoying habit of reading small phrases aloud as he read. Rafe and I would take turns glaring at him in annoyance. One of us would catch the other one, and then we would both smile.
“This has been a delightful morning,” I said, stretching out my stiff muscles. “But I need to get ready for class.”
Both of them put down their books.
“You guys don’t have to leave,” I said. “Stay. Keep reading.”
“One of us is going with you,” Ethan said, standing to return the book he had been reading for the last hour.
I glanced out the window. “It’s still daylight, dummy. No Souls are going to attack me.”
His shoulders
relaxed. “Right. It feels like we’ve been in here much longer than a few hours.”
“Are you trying to say that spending the morning with me has been long?”
“Long, but stimulating,” Rafe said, yawning. “Your ancestors are boring.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “You’ll regret that when they save your life.”
“I hope so.”
As I was putting my book back on the shelf, something slipped from the pages and fluttered to the ground. Ethan snatched it up.
“Is this your family?” He held up the photo for me to see.
My heart thudded in my chest at the sight of them. It was the last picture we had taken as a family, just a week before they were killed. Jack had just turned ten and we went to the amusement park to celebrate. Lincoln, almost ten years older, had pretended he was too cool for the whole thing. But once he got on the first roller coaster, he had just as much fun as the rest of us.
“Yeah, that’s them.” I cleared my throat. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Good idea.” Rafe stood, pretending like he was going to join me.
I pushed him back down. “Nice try. Keep reading.”
Even though I had pretended it was perfectly natural to have them in my house, I found myself locking the bathroom door behind me and I set a knife on the edge of the bathtub. Not only were two strange men in the room just down the hall, one of them also craved human blood. And women. I couldn’t be too careful.
Rafe and Ethan stayed behind while I went to my Modern Civilizations class. It was hard to concentrate on the professor’s lecture with so many other thoughts running through my brain. The news about Rafe had been unsettling on many levels. The idea that not all Souls were dark went against everything I had been raised to believe.
“Class is over.”
I looked up and the professor was standing in front of me, the rest of the room empty.
“Sorry.” I packed up my books and headed outside. The sharp contrast of the dark lecture hall to the bright, cloudless day made it hard to see.