by E. J. King
By the time I finished off my fifth Soul, I had a chance to check on the others. Ethan seemed a little bruised, but otherwise okay. Lincoln was covered in Soul blood, but appeared to be unharmed. Rafe finished off the last Soul, then stopped with his hands on his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
“Are you okay?” I asked, only after I was standing next to him and was able to speak in a hushed voice.
“I’ll be fine. Give me a sec.”
I bent down to clean off my blade with some leaves, stalling for Rafe. A few seconds later, he stood up straight, looking more like himself.
“I don’t get it,” Ethan said, spinning slowly. “Did this Benton guy really think that a dozen Souls could take out four experienced Hunters?”
“Don’t be offended. I don’t think my father is known for being smart, just savage. And a total asshole.”
“Ethan’s right,” Lincoln said. “This doesn’t make sense. There’s no sign that Hope was ever here.”
And then it hit me. We weren’t brought out here to find Hope. We were brought out here to get us away from the house.
“We have to go back. Right now.”
I didn’t wait to see if any of them were following me as I ran down the path. It was two miles, but I was back at the car in ten minutes. I was surprised to find Rafe right behind me, breathing hard.
“Get in,” he said. “They’ll be right behind us.”
Rafe drove crazy like always, exceeding the speed limit and disobeying all traffic laws. It had taken us twenty minutes to get out of town, but only fifteen to get back to the house. Rafe pulled the car up to the curb and I jumped out before he put it in park.
A shadowy figure was huddled on the porch steps, visible only because of the moonlight. I was so excited to see Hope that it didn’t occur to me that something might be wrong.
“Hope!”
She looked up, startled. Her hair was wild and tangled, her skin pale. She was hugging her knees to her chest and rocking slowly, muttering something that I couldn’t quite make out.
“Hope, what’s wrong?” I started forward without thinking. It was instinct to want to comfort my friend.
But Rafe knew that something wasn’t right. “Kaylie, stop!”
I turned toward him at the exact moment that Hope sprang to her feet. She lunged toward me and at the same time, Rafe raced forward. He was just a second too late, and Hope crashed into me. I fell backward, smacking my head on concrete. My version blurred, but not before I saw Hope’s fangs baring down on my throat.
Then she was gone and more voices muffled the air. I rubbed at my eyes and sat up slowly, taking deep breaths until the world stopped spinning. Lincoln was kneeling next to me, fingers probing the back of my head.
“Just a bit of blood. You’ll be all right,” he said.
Rafe was holding Hope, crushing her against his body. Her head was turned so that I could see tears streaming down her face. Rafe looked nearly as distressed as Hope.
“Get her inside and clean up the blood,” Ethan barked. He kept himself positioned between the two groups.
Lincoln helped me to my feet, nearly carrying me toward the door. While he unlocked it, I looked back, sensing that we weren’t alone. Down the street, I noticed a dark figure watching us. It didn’t try to hide, didn’t look away. And even though I couldn’t make out any facial features, I knew that it was Benton.
“Link.” I turned and grabbed his arm.
“What?”
I nodded down the street, looking for the figure. “It’s him.”
“Him? Where?” Lincoln searched the dark. “I don’t see anyone.”
He was right- Benton was gone. But I knew that he wasn’t gone for good.
The blood had pretty much soaked my hair and the easiest way to clean up was to jump in the shower. Lincoln waited until he was sure I wouldn’t fall over, then left me alone to undress and lather up.
After a few minutes, the red tinge in the water faded and I determined that the bleeding had stopped. I dried off slowly, struggling to keep my balance. Wrapping a towel around my body, I stepped into my bedroom.
“How are you feeling?” Rafe asked anxiously.
“Clean.” My arms and legs felt very heavy. I sank next to him on the bed. “She’s one of them, isn’t she?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
His head moved slowly from side to side. “I don’t know. She’s clearly a vampire- the fangs, the bloodlust. But she’s also still Hope. After she attacked you, she started crying. I’ve never seen a Soul cry.”
“Maybe she’s like you? Maybe she didn’t complete the transition,” I said hopefully.
“She has fed. Her clothes were covered in blood and her eyes are the bronze shade of a Soul that has recently fed.”
My chest tightened painfully. “I need to see her.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Kaylie.” Rafe looked at me sadly.
“She’s my best friend, Rafe, and she needs me.”
“Okay.” He threw up his hands in defeat. “Get dressed and we’ll go check on her.”
I had sounded tough in my bedroom, but standing in the hall in front of Hope’s door, I was less confident.
“What if she attacks me again, Rafe? I can’t kill her.” I looked at him for support, but he looked just as lost as me.
“We’ll figure it out, Kaylie. Let’s not worry about that until we have to.”
He pushed open the door and I sucked in a deep breath.
Hope sat on her bed, looking small and afraid. Ethan sat next to her, his eyes never leaving her for a second. Lincoln sat in a chair not far from the bed, ready to pounce if need be. I noticed them, but my focus was on my friend. Her eyes were gold now, just like those of a Soul, and her fangs still peeked out between red lips.
Just when I was about to accept that she was one of them now and that it was too late to save her, she looked at me and said, “Kaylie. Help me. Please.”
I slept in the hall outside Hope’s room that night. It was too dangerous to be inside, tempting her with my blood, but I couldn’t bear to leave her. Rafe stayed in the room with her since his blood wasn’t human, and was thus unappealing to her. As I slowly began to drift off to sleep, I could hear their muffled voices through the door, but I couldn’t understand their conversation.
Lincoln was asleep in my room and Ethan had reluctantly gone upstairs to get a few hours of sleep before sunrise. The house was surprisingly peaceful given the circumstance. I was able to fall asleep for almost an hour before falling into one of my usual nightmares.
The guest stars in this bad dream were different than the usual ones. In the past, I was chased by unseen monsters. This time, it was Hope that was after me. She was joined by Rafe, and the two of them closed in with fangs exposed, gold eyes ablaze. Just before they reached me, I woke in a panic.
Two male voices came from my bedroom. I crawled down the hall so I could hear more clearly.
“Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on Hope?” Lincoln asked.
“She’s out cold,” Rafe said. “Besides, she had me tie her up just in case.”
“We can’t keep her in there forever.”
“I didn’t come in here to talk to you about Hope.”
Lincoln sighed. “Kaylie?”
“I know that you don’t like me. You don’t want me with your sister, and I totally get it. I wouldn’t want a guy like me with my sister either.”
“So you’ll go away?” Lincoln asked hopefully.
“Not a chance.” Rafe laughed softly. “I can’t leave her, even if it might be best in the long run.”
“You do know that if you want to live, you’ll have to kill her? That’s how the whole blood cure works.”
“I know that her blood is the cure, yes. But I’ll never hurt her to save myself. Never.” Rafe’s voice was so strong I could picture his eyes flashing as he spoke.
“Weirdly, I think I actually believe you
.” Lincoln’s voice got even softer and I struggled to hear his words. “I really want to hate you, but I just can’t.”
Rafe laughed again. “Thanks?”
“It’s not for lack of trying. But I’ve seen the way she gets around you. For some reason, you make her happy. So I guess I’ll find a way to get past my issues.” He paused. “Don’t get me wrong- I’ll kill you if you hurt her.”
“Good.”
“Now go away. I’m tired.”
I hurried back to my spot on the floor and feigned sleep. Rafe paused on his way past, kneeling down briefly to tuck a blanket around me. His fingers brushed hair off my face.
“Sweet dreams, Red.”
Just as he was about to move away, I opened my eyes.
“I love you.” It felt like something that needed to be said.
Rafe froze, his gold eyes searching mine. A faint smile played at the corners of his lips. With one last stroke of my hair, he said, “I don’t deserve that.”
“Yes, you do.” I sat up.
“I definitely don’t deserve you,” he said with confidence, letting me put my arms around his neck.
“That’s probably true,” I said with a smile. “But you’re stuck with me.”
“For how long?” he asked, lips just an inch from mine.
“For as long as we’ve got.”
His kiss was passionate and tender at the same time, just like our love. I wanted to get lost in him, forget about everything else for just one night. But then Hope started to scream and Rafe hurried away.
The sound of my friend in pain was too much. There was nothing I could do to help, so I went upstairs for some peace and quiet.
“It’s getting pretty intense down there, huh?”
Ethan was sitting in the dark in the living room, wide awake. I had just assumed he had come upstairs to get some sleep.
“Rafe is trying to help her, but I’m not sure there’s much we can do.” I leaned against the doorframe and hugged my arms around me.
“Hope is a good girl. She doesn’t deserve this.”
When I looked at Ethan, I realized that I had been so consumed with my own love life that I hadn’t noticed how much he had changed in the last couple of weeks. His eyes were soft and kind when he talked about Hope, even now.
“You’re in love with her.” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it sooner.
Ethan’s eyes found mine and he answered honestly. “Yes.”
Suddenly, Ethan and I were kindred spirits. We were both in love with people that hovered at the brink of death. If we didn’t find a way to help Hope soon, one of us would have to kill her.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to her, Ethan.”
“I think it’s too late for that.” He sounded utterly defeated.
I pushed away from the wall, standing up straight. “Hope isn’t going to be one of them. I’ll find a way to stop it.”
But we both knew I had said the same thing about Rafe, and I still hadn’t found a way to save him.
I let myself into Rafe’s room, fully prepared to collapse on his bed. But I found a book propped on his pillow and I couldn’t resist opening it. What I found inside made my breath catch in my throat.
Benton Hart’s Hunter Journal
Proceed at your own risk.
BOUND SOULS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
PROLOGUE
As a kid, I always liked morning more than night. Maybe that was because of all the death that happened at night, all the monsters that lurked around the corner. But the Hunter lifestyle didn’t care about my preference. Souls came out to play at night, and I had to be waiting for them.
My family relocated to Alabama when I was twelve. Dad had detected a string of attacks that had to be supernatural in nature. For the first couple of weeks, nothing happened. We enrolled in school, acted like a normal family, and I even made a friend.
Anna was quiet and sweet, and she didn’t seem to mind at all that I was a total weirdo. Because of my family’s nocturnal lifestyle, I often fell asleep in class or showed up hours late to school. Teachers would shake their heads and send me to the principal’s office. None of the kids wanted to be associated with me. But Anna didn’t mind.
Our friendship was easy. She didn’t judge me when I nodded off in the middle of lunch, and I didn’t judge her when she skipped recess to read her favorite book for the fifth time. She even invited me to her house for my first ever sleepover.
Meanwhile, my parents decided that the Souls had already moved on to another town. When I asked my mom for permission to go to Anna’s, she told me that we were leaving Alabama- that night. Like any other 12-year-old, I threw a fit. Mom sent me to room to start packing and I disobeyed. After calling Anna to whine, we agreed to meet up in the park between our houses so I could say goodbye in person.
I should’ve known better. It was already getting dark when I snuck out my bedroom window. The five minute walk took longer because I made a wrong turn. As I circled around to the swing set where we had agreed to meet, I sensed that something was wrong. Evil was in the air.
Anna’s body was crumpled under one of the metal swings. Her eyes were open, staring blankly at me as I approached. I knelt next to her body, reaching out until my fingers were half an inch above her gaping neck wound.
In all the years I had been hunting, I had seen dozens of dead bodies. It never got easier. But finding someone I knew- a friend- having fallen victim to the Souls, wasn’t something I would ever be able to forget.
The only thing worse than that was seeing someone you love become one of them.
CHAPTER ONE
Finding my biological father’s journal in Rafe’s room was a shock, to say the least. I couldn’t even begin to guess where he had gotten it. Sitting on the edge of his bed, I ran my hands over the worn leather cover.
Benton Hart might be a vicious animal now, but not that long ago he had been a young man with hopes and dreams. He had been in love with my mother, happily expecting the birth of his daughter. All of that had been taken away by the creatures we spent our lives hunting. Somewhere along the way, he had decided to journal his experience.
Now, I just had to decide if I was ready to know the whole truth.
Up until recently, I hadn’t even known Benton existed, let alone that my biological father was a Dark Soul. I wasn’t sure how many more surprises I could take.
“Well, this is almost as awkward as if you had found my porn stash,” Rafe said.
I hadn’t heard him enter the room, but the second I saw him standing in the doorway, my entire body came to life. My heart beat faster, my skin flushed. “You have a porn stash?” I said.
“What? Who told you that?” He shut the door behind him and took a few steps into the room until he stood in front of me. “Planning on reading that?”
I looked down at the journal, frowning. “No. Not yet.”
He took it from me and placed it on the bedside table. “It’s an enthralling read.”
“I’m sure it is.”
But I had already pushed the journal from my thoughts, instead focusing them completely on Rafe.
“How much time do we have?”
He crouched before me, bringing his eyes level with mine. “As much time as we need. Ethan is keeping an eye on Hope.”
“We need to talk about what we’re going to do with her,” I said, leaning back.
“In the morning. We can’t do anything tonight anyway.” He moved forward again.
“Anything?” I stopped moving away. I’d learned
a long time ago that attempting to resist James Rafferty was a futile endeavor.
His beautiful lips formed a crooked, inviting smile. “Let me rephrase….”
“I’d rather you do something else with those lips,” I said, my own lips parting expectantly.
Rafe didn’t disappoint. His mouth closed over mine, hard. Quickly, his hands were under my shirt.
The first night we spent together had been slow and sweet, but it had also been amazing and we were both hungry for more. This time, we weren’t interested in taking it slow. We tumbled back on the bed, tangled in each other. Rafe’s hands scorched my bare skin, his lips left tingling trails from my neck to my pelvis.
Rafe hovered over me, his body pressing against mine in all the right places with his eyes just an inch from mine.
“James,” I whispered, my hand stroking his cheek.
His eyes closed and his forehead lowered, resting against mine. When he opened them again, he kept them locked on mine, never taking them away for a second as we moved together. Even when we were done, he didn’t move away.
“You alright?” I asked, surprised by his stillness.
“Never better.” His familiar smile was back. “You know what I like about this moment?”
“I could hazard a guess…”
He smirked. “Besides the obvious.”
“What?” I brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, combing my fingers all the way to the back of his neck.
“This is the only moment when you completely let me inside.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, duh. That’s pretty much a requirement for what we just did.”
He didn’t laugh. “You’re doing it again.”
Rafe rolled away, settling next to me on his back.
Immediately, I knew what he meant. He had called me out on this a dozen times already. Whenever he tried to talk about something important, I ended up making a joke about it.
“Okay, you’re right. I’m done.” I flipped onto my side, putting a hand on his chest. “Go on. What were you trying to say?”
“Forget it.” He sighed dramatically. “The moment is over.”
“Don’t be a baby,” I said, poking him in the ribs. Rafe’s eyes shot in my direction, but that was his only reaction. I had at least been expecting a smile.