by E. J. King
“He’s planting the seed in as many people as possible. He gets his blood in them whatever way possible, maybe even compels some of them. Then, when he is ready, he’ll snap his fingers and kill them. Or have those that he’s compelled do the killing.” I looked at Ethan. “In a matter of hours, he’ll convert hundreds, if not thousands of people into Souls.”
“But why? What’s the end game?” Hope asked.
My hand tightened around the wooden stake I still held in my hand. “He’s building an army. And when the time is right, he’s going to war.”
SAVED Souls
CHAPTER ONE
For the first eighteen years of my life, all I wanted was to live outside the Hunter world. I wanted a “normal” life, one where I didn’t have to kill supernatural creatures and put my life in danger every night. I wanted a life where my parents weren’t slaughtered by monsters.
I would like to say that I outgrew that wishful thinking, or that I had matured and learned to accept my destiny. But most nights, I fell asleep still dreaming of that normal life. Then there were nights like this, ones filled with quiet drives on deserted roads. Ethan and Hope were dozing in the backseat, huddled close to each other. Rafe was next to me in the driver’s seat as soft classic rock hummed through the speakers. His eyes were focused on the road, but his hand tapped a steady rhythm on my knee.
I sat half-twisted in my seat so that my back was pressed against the door and I was facing Rafe. I could see darkness rushing past the window as we moved further into the night.
In times like this, I could almost convince myself that my life was normal. I was on a road trip with my boyfriend and best friends. It was a thought that made me smile. Maybe someday I could have that life. I just needed to kill my evil father first.
Rafe sensed my eyes on him and he turned to look at me. Our glances connected in the dark and he smiled, his hand gently squeezing my knee. “What are you thinking?” he asked quietly. “You look so serious.”
“This might be one of our last nights like this. Quiet…calm… I’m just trying to savor the moment.” I didn’t have to tell Rafe why I felt that way. He knew as well as I did that we were close to a showdown of epic proportions and the odds were stacked against us.
“When this is all over, you and I are going to find a secluded place, maybe in the countryside. Someplace where we can be alone and shut out the rest of the world.” His eyes sparkled in the darkness. “Just you and me, forever.”
We both knew it would never be that easy. Even if we managed to survive Benton’s apocalypse, there were plenty of other monsters that would keep us from a normal, quiet existence. But it sure sounded nice.
“Do you really think we’ll survive whatever Benton is planning?” I reached for his hand and laced my fingers between his. “Be honest.”
“Honestly… I have no idea.” He turned his focus back to the road and sighed. “The four of us against and army of Souls doesn’t sound very promising.”
“Maybe it would be better if it wasn’t the four of us,” I said, my mind heading down a twisted path. Wouldn’t everyone be better off if I went after Benton myself? It was me that he wanted to kill, after all. The others didn’t need to risk their lives.
Rafe knew exactly what I was thinking. “Hey. Don’t even think about it. No way I am letting you take off again.”
“Rafe, you have to at least consider it. Benton only wants me. The rest of you could be safe.”
“Safe until when? Until he kills you and comes after us with his army?” Rafe’s jaw clenched tightly. “There is no chance that I’m letting you sacrifice yourself.”
“Why not?” I asked. “You sacrifice yourself for me all the time. Your whole life is about protecting me.”
His head shook quickly. “That’s different.”
“It’s not,” I protested. “You want it to be different, but it’s pretty much the same exact thing. You would do anything to protect me, including putting yourself in danger. How can you tell me not to do the same thing?”
“Because I love you, that’s how.” Both of his hands were on the wheel now and he no longer stole glances in my direction. His steely eyes stared straight ahead. “I’m nobody, Kaylie. If I vanished from this world tomorrow, I wouldn’t be missed. But not you. You’re special. You have a purpose and a destiny.”
I never thought of myself as special. I knew that my blood had unique properties in the supernatural world, making some monsters immortal while killing others. But that had always felt like a curse, not something worth protecting.
“I’m not special,” I said extra quietly. “And you are wrong. I would miss you, so much I’m not sure how I would go on without you.”
Love had never been on my radar. While other teenage girls had gossiped about boys and spent years nurturing crushes, I watched them and rolled my eyes. But that had been before I met Rafe, when I realized that love didn’t give you a choice. When you met the one you were destined to love, you couldn’t ignore it no matter how hard you tried. And when you loved someone, really and truly with all of your heart, you would do absolutely anything to keep them safe.
“You would be pretty pathetic without me,” Rafe agreed after a moment of silence. I knew him well enough to know that he was making a joke to hide his true feelings. But he reached out for my hand again, a sure sign that he hadn’t just ignored what I had said. “But not nearly as much of a disaster as I would be without you.”
“Awwww….”
We had been so focused on ourselves that we hadn’t noticed that Ethan was awake, listening to our every word.
“Adorable, guys. Really.” He yawned loudly. “If you’re done with your love affirmations, can we talk about making a pit stop? I really need to pee.”
This was my life. Not a moment of privacy, not a moment that was just mine.
We still had quite a bit of driving ahead of us before we reached our destination, the home of my pseudo-uncle. We were hoping that he might hold the answers to how we could defeat Benton. It was a long shot, but it was also our only shot.
Collectively, we made a decision to stop in the next town. Being cooped up in a car for so long wasn’t healthy, and Rafe had been behind the wheel for far too long. All of us could use some rest in an actual bed and a hot shower.
“Normal?” I asked doubtfully when I saw the city’s welcome sign. “What are the odds that this town is actually normal?”
“Normal is a relative term.” Rafe slowed the car to a crawl as we approached the town center. “But I’m sure there’s at least one paranormal creature hiding in the shadows.”
My eyes widened as I looked up and down the street. “Is it just me, or does this place look oddly familiar?”
“It’s just you,” Ethan said quickly. “All of these towns start to look the same when you’ve been on the road too long.”
He was right about that. Most of the time I barely knew the name of the town. We hardly ever stayed more than a few hours, and most of that time was spent sleeping. The parts of the town we did see were usually cheap motel rooms and greasy diners.
But this town was different.
It was still nighttime, barely past midnight, but we had no trouble finding a motel with vacancies. I got the feeling that Normal didn’t get a lot of tourists. We were all starving and the young man who gave us our room keys directed us to the only place in town that was still open and serving food- Moonshine Tavern. From the name alone I could tell that we wouldn’t be doing any fine dining.
We dropped our bags in our rooms and headed down the street on foot. Three blocks later, a blinking neon side beckoned us inside with one word: Whiskey. It didn’t take much to impress us.
The inside of the tavern was just as I had feared- dirty, old, and packed with a bunch of hard, drunk men. It was times like this when I was glad to have strong guys like Rafe and Ethan alongside me. I didn’t scare easily, but this wasn’t a crowd I would want to face on my own.
Nearly every eye da
rted in our direction, most of them lingering too long. I did my best to ignore them.
“There’s a table in the corner,” I said, grateful to find a spot away from most of the crowd centering around the bar.
Rafe stayed close to me, his hand on my lower back as we moved through the crowd. I heard a few growls and whistles from the men, but Rafe’s glaring eyes kept things at a PG-13 level.
“My job as your boyfriend would be a lot easier if you weren’t so hot,” he said, not sounding entirely displeased.
“These men would think any woman was hot,” I countered. “Actually, some of them might be checking you out. Should I be worried?”
“Ha ha.” He nudged me toward the chair next to the wall. “Sit down and try to look repulsive.”
I glared hard at him and stuck out my tongue.
“Well done,” he said with a pleased nod of his head as he took the seat next to me. “I see you’ve been practicing.”
“What are the odds that this place serves anything but burgers?” Hope asked, looking a little unsettled by the atmosphere. She wasn’t quite as used to these types of places as I was.
Our waiter for the evening was a balding man with a belly that bulged under his stained t-shirt. When Hope asked for a menu, he let out a loud laugh.
“We have beer and whiskey. If you want food, you can have a burger. No cheese,” he said.
At least that made it easy to decide our orders. We sent him off to get us burgers and beers. It never would’ve occurred to him to ask for our IDs.
We made it through our meal without any problems. The stares eventually faded away, especially when another group of out-of-towners entered the tavern. Three guys and one girl, all of them with looks on their faces that said they had seen much worse than the Moonshine.
They were Hunters.
Rafe was busy stealing the last two bites of my burger and didn’t notice them. Hope and Ethan had their backs to the door. I was the only one watching them, and I was also the only one who saw the girl’s face light up when her eyes landed on our table.
She marched in our direction, a cocky smile spread across her face. “J.R.”
The mere sound of her voice made Rafe’s head snap up. A slow smile spread over his face, a smile that he usually reserved for me
“Chase.” He stood slowly, unfolding his lean body from the table.
The three of us watched with open mouths as the blond threw her arms around his neck, her lithe body pushed against him in a sexual way that made my fists clench. I felt Hope’s gaze snap in my direction.
“I never expected to see you here,” the girl said in a sultry voice as she pulled away just a few inches. She looked him over from head to toe. “Looking good, J.R.”
“J.R.?” Ethan mouthed in my direction. I shrugged and pretended that it didn’t bother me. In reality, I wanted to dump my beer on the new girl’s head. “Who’s your friend, bro?”
Rafe reluctantly took his eyes away from his new distraction. It took him a few seconds to focus on us, almost like he had forgotten we even existed. “This is Dylan Chase,” he said, not sounding like himself. “Chase, this is my brother Ethan. That’s Hope. And this is Kaylie.”
Not “my girlfriend Kaylie.” Just Kaylie.
“Nice to meet you,” Chase said, smiling only at Ethan. Her hand was still on Rafe’s arm, her body still far too close to his. She moved even closer when she turned her attention back to him. “Wanna buy a girl a drink?”
“Uh.” Rafe seemed to remember that I was there. “Sure. Why don’t you join us?”
Her smile faded. “Yeah, alright.”
Rafe grabbed a chair from another table and we all shifted to make room. I made sure to keep Rafe’s chair close to mine.
“Always such a gentleman,” she said when he held the chair for her. I wanted to puke. “What are you doing in town?”
Now that we were all seated again, Rafe seemed to relax fractionally. “Just passing through. Needed a place with a bed to get some rest.”
“Rest?” She let out a breathy laugh that sounded sexy even to me. “I recall you preferring to do other things in bed.”
Rafe coughed hard, choking on a sip of beer. I asked, “How exactly do the two of you know each other?”
“Intimately,” Chase responded with a sly smile. “J.R. and I spent a hot and steamy summer together.”
Rafe had begun fidgeting uncontrollably. His leg was shaking so hard that our beers were also quivering. “It was a few years back,” he explained quickly. “Right after I left home.”
“Are they…” Her eyes scanned the table and she raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Hunters? Yeah.” Rafe looked at Hope. “Well, technically.”
Chase nodded. “That makes this conversation less awkward.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” I muttered, reaching for my drink.
“Well, J.R. and I met in New Orleans on, like, the hottest day of the year. We were at a bar and he bought me a few drinks. One thing led to another…” She paused for dramatic effect. “I ended up inviting him back to my room. Which would’ve been just fine except that we had to cut through this dark alley where a Soul was attacking this girl.”
“At that point, we hadn’t realized that we were both Hunters,” Rafe clarified, his voice sounding a little shaky.
“Right. But then we both went after the Soul at the same time.” She grabbed Rafe’s beer and took a big drink. “We fought so well together, we figured we might as well keep working as a team. Before you know it, two months had passed.”
Ethan was watching Chase with rapt attention. “What broke up the dynamic duo?”
“You,” she said bluntly. “He said he needed to go home and check on his little brother.” Her eyes scanned Ethan’s face, down to his chest. “You’re not so little anymore.”
“It’s strange… Rafe has never mentioned you.” At this, Ethan looked at his brother. “Wonder why that is…”
“Probably too painful,” Chase said confidently. “As I recall, he had a hard time saying goodbye.”
“Drinks!” Rafe looked like he was ready to explode out of his seat. “I’ll get us drinks, yeah?”
He was on his feet before anyone could respond. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t hurrying to get away from Chase. He was running away from me.
“Hate to see him go, but love to watch him leave,” Chase purred as her head followed his path to the bar.
“Excuse me.” I stood abruptly for fear that if I stayed any longer I might hurt her.
I found Rafe at the bar after squeezing my way past a few groping hands. He was hunched over with his head down, rubbing a hand over his head. He only did that when he was stressed.
“Not enjoying your surprise visitor?” I asked coldly.
“Kaylie.” He flinched like I had caught him doing something wrong. “Chase is just an old friend. She’s a little crass, but she’s harmless.”
“She was your bed buddy, James.” I signaled for the bartender to bring me a shot. “There’s no need to lie about it.”
He sighed. “I’m not lying. She really doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“But she did?” I slammed down the shot in a quick gulp, enjoying the way it scalded my throat. “Were you in love with her?”
“No.” His answer came too quick. “I might’ve thought I was at the time, but that was before I experienced real love. What I had with her was nothing like what I have with you.”
I had to admit it, he was good.
“You’re not off the hook yet, Rafferty.” I tried to squirm away when he reached for me, but I wasn’t fast enough. His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me close to him.
“I’m just fine spending the rest of my life on your hook,” he said, eyes piercing and seductive. The hours that I had spent getting lost in those eyes…
“The drinks are going to get warm,” I said, forcing it to sound like I cared. I didn’t. “Chase is going to get cold.”
> Rafe’s fingers tickled the exposed skin below the hem of my shirt. “I’m ready to head back to the room if you are.”
“We can’t leave Ethan and Hope without telling them,” I said, wondering if that was entirely true. Maybe I could just send them a text… No, that wouldn’t be right. “Besides, aren’t you at least a little interested why a group of Hunters is in the same town as us?”
It wasn’t that rare to cross paths with another Hunter, but it was rare to find them in towns that weren’t under a paranormal influence. Normal places weren’t common destinations for Hunters.
“I am a little curious,” Rafe admitted reluctantly. “Chase usually only takes on the weirdest cases of supernatural activity. That quirkiness is part of her charm.”
“I’m sure,” I muttered, picturing her perfectly symmetrical face wearing a cocky smile. I didn’t know Chase, but I thought I might hate her. “I’m also sure she’s missing J.R.”
“Ha.” He rolled his eyes. “I always hated that nickname. I’m pretty sure that’s why she uses it.”
“It’s a shame you two didn’t make it work,” I said, reaching for the drinks. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Rafe fought against a smile. He would never admit it, but I could tell that he enjoyed that I was the jealous one for a change.
Chase had been joined at the table by her friends. Ethan and Hope both looked glad to see us and reached eagerly for their drinks.
“There he is,” Chase said with a perfect smile. “We were just talking about you, J.R.”
From the glint in her eye I knew that Rafe had been right- she used that nickname because she knew he hated it.
“Whatever she said isn’t true,” Rafe said. He pulled a couple more chairs to the edge of the table. We sat in a row- Chase, Rafe, and me. This time, Rafe draped an arm over the back of my chair. That was when I noticed that one of Chase’s friends was eyeing me suspiciously.
“You’re a Hart,” he said after a few seconds.
I nodded. “Yes. Kaylie Hart.”