Souls (Runes series) Read online

  “Who are you, and what do you want?” I asked, trying to sound brave but failing miserably. My voice came out breathless and squeaky.

  It stopped moving. I stepped back when it changed directions and moved closer. A cold front followed him, making me wish I wasn’t wearing silk cami shorts and top. Where was a thick winter robe when you needed one?

  I shivered and waved the poker menacingly. “Stop or taste the iron.”

  The Shadow vibrated, and a sound rumbled from its core. Was that a chuckle?

  “You think that was funny?” I asked, continuing to brandish the poker like it was Excalibur. “Wait until this baby slices you into a gazillion energy pockets. It takes months, years even, to come back together,” I lied.

  The Shadow stopped and drifted back toward the portal.

  “That’s right,” I said, becoming cocky. “Run. I don’t know what kind of soul you are or care about what you want. Leave. Now.” It stopped moving and did that vibrating thing again. It sounded whiny and pitiful this time. “What? You don’t want to leave?”

  It pointed at the portal, and for the first time, I saw fingers. The edges were undefined like the rest of it. At least it wasn’t threatening to possess me.

  “What about my room?”

  He floated toward my room and gestured that I follow him.

  I stopped near the portal, scared of following him. “Are you asking me to come back in there?”

  The Shadow nodded. At least I thought it did. The dark mass that was his head moved up and down.

  “Why?”

  More vibration and humming.

  “Come on. You can do better than that.”

  The Shadow gestured frantically, pointing at something inside my room.

  “Okay, I get it. Sheesh. I’m coming, but don’t try anything funny. I’m still holding this baby.” I shook the rod.

  This time, I recognized the chuckle. I left the portal open in case Echo returned. Just because the Shadow hadn’t tried to possess me didn’t mean it was friendly. Inside my room, I realized he’d been pointing at my laptop.

  “What do you want me to do with that?”

  He kept pointing.

  “What kind of soul are you? Why don’t you have features?” It made a growling noise, which I assumed meant he was getting frustrated. “Yeah, you and me both, pal. I should be asleep, you know, yet here I am playing Gestures with you. Okay, I get it. You want me to open it. Move aside and give me space.”

  The Shadow floated away and stayed by the wall. Keeping my gaze on it from the corner of my eye and pointing my poker its way just in case, I opened my laptop, pressed the power button, and backed away.

  “What are you going to do?”

  The Shadow slithered inside my laptop through a USB port, like a genie getting sucked into a lamp. I moved closer warily. A weird squiggle appeared on the blue screen, then another and another… They looked like the ones on Echo’s rings and chains.

  The writing stopped, and the Shadow slithered out through the same USB port and moved back to the wall.

  “I don’t read Druidic,” I said. “But Echo does.” I grabbed my cell phone and took a picture of the screen. “I’ll show this to him and he can figure out what you want, okay?”

  A groan came from the mass, and I jumped back. “Hey, enough with that. I’m willing to help you, so don’t get pissed at me. Is this message for Echo?”

  He nodded, then appeared to change his mind and gave an emphatic shake of his head.

  “Can’t make up your mind, can you?”

  He folded his arms and tapped his foot. Bet he was glaring at me. I smothered a giggle. When his hands landed on his hips, I knew he was definitely pissed by my attitude.

  “Okay, no Echo. But how am I going to read Druidic?”

  A shrug.

  “Yeah, big help you are. How about I go to sleep now and you come back tomorrow, and together, we’ll figure out what you want? In English,” I added.

  It seemed to shrink, shoulders drooping.

  “Listen, Master of Different Body Languages and Sounds. I don’t know whether you can see my world, but it’s nighttime. It’s almost midnight, and I have to get up early tomorrow for lessons. I promise to help you, so go home or wherever you came from, and come find me tomorrow,” I said.

  I was surprised when it nodded and drifted through the wall. Laughing with relief, I crawled back into my bed. This time, I wasn’t worried. I even put away my energy-dispersing poker. Still, sleep eluded me.

  I debated whether to turn on my computer and research shadowy figures in Norse pantheon and the meaning of the Druidic letters the thing had written, but I didn’t want to touch my lap top yet. Who knew what it had left behind? Dark energy or gooey ectoplasm stuff, another thing I’d picked up from the Winchester boys.

  I did the next best thing. I picked up my smart phone and got busy.

  ***

  I was still awake when Echo swaggered through the portal wearing nothing but his leather pants and runes on his face and chest. My heart melted. He was such a beautiful man. Eyes like a wolf’s. Chiseled cheekbones. Sensual, totally kissable lips. Skin so smooth… except for the scars criss-crossing his back. But I didn’t mind them. They were his badge of honor.

  “Not asleep, Cora-mio?” he whispered, stroking my face. His fingers were freezing, but I didn’t care. I loved it when he called me his Cora.

  I covered his hand with mine and engaged the few runes I had. We generated heat faster with them, and he needed to be warmed. “I was waiting for you. We need to talk.”

  “Later.” With smooth and graceful movements he shed his pants. He didn’t believe in sleeping with a stitch on. Not that I was complaining.

  He slid beside me, and a shudder rocked his body when our skin met. The pulsing sensations we generated whenever we touched were nothing new, but the effect on him never failed to amaze me. Sometimes he sucked in a breath and closed his eyes with a bemused expression on his face. Other times he looked like he was in pain.

  I melted in his arms and welcomed him with a kiss, savoring the taste of him. The combination of his hot tongue and cool lips was stimulating. But he was in one of his moods, super intense and hell-bent on driving me insane, which meant he’d had a rough night or something was wrong. It couldn’t be because of me since I hadn’t been possessed by some selfish soul. Whenever that happened, the Hulk in him emerged.

  He lifted my leg around his waist and rolled so I was on top. His hands journeyed down my back, leaving heated skin behind, while his mouth trailed along my neck. My breathing grew shallow. Then it became raspy.

  His masculine mouth seared my flesh, his tongue sending flames through my body. He knew me. Knew what pleased me and what drove me crazy. Our lips met again and again, my hands stroking parts of his body I could reach, his muscles spasming underneath my palms.

  His skin was no longer icy. He was burning hot. He rolled me over again and pinned me to the bed with his leg. Glowing eyes met mine questioningly.

  Was it time to turn off the heat and cuddle, or move to the next level? Funny, he always let me decide, even when he needed me like tonight. He might not have said it, but I felt it in his taut muscles and the fire in his eyes. Something bad had happened tonight.

  The Shadow could wait. I wound my arms around his neck and nodded.

  Echo sat up then stood with me in one fluid motion. We had an unspoken rule never to let things go too far under my roof. It was wrong and disrespectful to my parents.

  The portal responded to his runes, and he ate the short distance between my cute little bedroom and his mammoth one. He dropped me right in the middle of the bed and smirked when I glared at him. But it was hard to stay mad at a man who looked like an avenging angel, runes flashing and eyes smoldering. He was all my fantasies rolled into one delicious, hot body.

  “We need to set a date and get a place of our own, Cora-mio,” Echo said, deft fingers tugging at the strings holding my cami top together. “I’m
tired of sneaking around and using portals. I want to come home to you. I want to make love to you while you wear nothing but my ring. I want to watch the sun’s rays kiss your skin first thing in the morning and make love to you in front of a fireplace in the evening.”

  Holy crap, he was in a bad way. Whatever had happened must have scared the crap out of him for him to be discussing marriage. I was eighteen and of age, and he’d already given me a Druidic promise ring, which I loved to death, but I had a year of high school left. I also planned to attend college, so marriage hadn’t really crossed my mind. I’d never thought beyond the present—loving him and making him happy.

  I shed my top, and he sucked in a breath, conversation forgotten. The awe in his eyes would never get old.

  “There are no words to describe you, Cora-mio.” He ran a finger from my chin to my chest and stayed there. Heat followed his finger, and my senses hummed. “The things you do to me.”

  I teased back, stroking him. He sucked in a breath as though I’d scalded him. We reached for each other, his touch electrifying, his sensuous mouth scorching. He nipped my shoulder, sending heat down my spine.

  “Think about it,” he whispered along my neck. It sounded like a plea. Something had definitely happened tonight to explain his intensity. “No more sneaking around,” he added. “No more worrying about your parents finding out you’re gone. No more vacationing with others.”

  That again? Raine had invited me for a three-day weekend getaway in Florida after the fiasco with the Immortals, and Echo had joined us. He hadn’t liked sharing me with the others. He said he was selfish when it came to me. I liked to think he was just possessive, a flaw that would lessen with time when he realized my love for him was constant and unwavering.

  His runes glowed and dimmed, throwing shadows on his chiseled cheekbones and sensuous lips. I stroked his chin, spreading my fingers through his brown locks as we kissed. He ran a hand down my side and around my waist, and then pulled me closer, our bodies fitting perfectly together. We were perfect together, flaws and all.

  “I’ll talk to my parents,” I whispered. “Now, can we do less talking and more fun stuff?”

  He did just that, his tongue sliding between my lips to caress mine. He moved lower, making me squirm and moan as my senses responded.

  For the next hour, he was the center of my universe. His intoxicating scent became the air I breathed. His sighs the music in my ears. His touch the reason for my existence. With our runes blazing, every touch and nip was magnified and mind-numbing.

  He pushed me to the limit, until my world exploded, only to start over again. Yet he was there with me every step of the way. He made it easy for me to let go without fear of looking or feeling silly.

  Just when I thought we were done, he took it to another level, his touch infinitely gentle as he took his time, pushing me until I begged. And that said a lot because I wasn’t the begging type. He was unstoppable, driven as though to reclaim his soul, which he swore was in my keeping, or his sanity, which he claimed he’d lost centuries ago.

  In the final stretch, tremors shot through him and a shimmer of tears added an eerie glow to his eyes. He didn’t try to hide them from me. He never did. We clung to each other, both of us shaking.

  It was awhile later before I lifted my head and peered at his face. His eyes were closed, canopies of lashes on his high cheekbones. He was at peace now. His demons allayed.

  Funny how unique and different he was. While other guys I knew would punch holes through a wall when frustrated, Echo needed his anchor—me. Sometimes he just wrapped himself around me as though creating a barrier between me and the world. This usually followed a session with a difficult soul where he thought he’d lost me.

  Other times, he needed a deeper connection to rejuvenate his soul, as he called it, and went primal. Some might find that barbaric or unrefined, but I loved his rawness. It was who he was. Temperamental. Passionate. Deeply scarred, but he was mine. My one and only true love.

  “What happened?” I asked, gently stroking his back.

  2. DARK SOULS

  Echo didn’t bother to ask me how I knew. I read him well.

  “I reaped some evil souls tonight. The meanest bastards I’ve ever dealt with.”

  Something shifted in my stomach. “What kind of souls?”

  “Dark souls, but I triumphed like always,” he bragged. Childish, but cute. “And delivered their worthless cores to Hel’s torture chambers.” He sighed. “I hate dealing with dark souls. Hunting them down might have been a challenge centuries ago, but now they’re just a pain in my ass.”

  Yikes. Could the Shadow I’d dealt with be a dark soul? If so, Echo was so not going to like what I was about to tell him. “Are they that bad?”

  “Every reaper’s nightmare, especially when they’re in a group, which is rare. I met four of them tonight. Why in Hel’s Mist would dark souls join forces? Rounding them up wasn’t the problem. Escorting them to Corpse Strand was a freaking nightmare.”

  “But I thought there were guards to do that,” I whispered, mortified. Corpse Strand was the island where the damned souls were confined and tortured for eternity. The river to its shores was filled with venom.

  “Not tonight,” Echo said. “The goddess was in a foul mood and insisted I do the delivery. It didn’t matter that there was a gale and the venomous water kept sloshing against the boat and spraying us. Their screams mixed with the hellhound’s howls might amuse her, but it’s bloodcurdling.” He shuddered.

  My chest hurt, visualizing what he’d gone through. I hugged him tighter.

  “Tell me more,” I whispered.

  He shook his head. “No. The less you know, the less you’ll worry.”

  Impossible man. Didn’t he realize that not knowing only scared me more? He rarely talked about Hel. In fact, he often changed the subject whenever I asked about how he got there and what happened to the souls, which only made me worry more. What I’d read online about Hel’s Hall was sketchy and often inaccurate. I knew about Goddess Hel and her massive home for the dead, the river around it, the hellhound guarding its entrance, and the giant escorting the damned souls. The rest was shrouded in mystery.

  Online sources claimed that anyone who went there could never leave, yet Grimnirs moved back and forth freely, and Eirik, my former crush, had gone there and come back. But then again, Eirik was Goddess Hel’s son, a god in his own right. The goddess, on the other hand, sounded like a nutcase. Online literature was right about that.

  What if she decided to keep Echo, her favorite reaper, indefinitely? I wouldn’t know how to get to him. He’d alienated his fellow reapers eons ago. In fact, I’d never met a Grimnir that wasn’t an a-hole.

  “What is it, doll-face?” Echo asked.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, burrowing my face in his chest. It was almost two in the morning, and I didn’t feel like talking anymore, especially about dark souls after what he’d gone through tonight.

  He chuckled. “I can tell when you’re worried. Did I scare you with talk about Corpse Strand?”

  “No,” I lied. “I know about the hellhound guarding Hel’s realm, the river, and the guard on the boat. It’s kind of like Greek mythology. The Greeks call the hound Cerberus while you call it…?”

  “Garm. It doesn’t have three heads. It has four red eyes, and it howls nonstop. So, was it talk about marriage?”

  Getting information from him was like getting a root canal. One day…

  “No. That’s kind of exciting.” I tucked my face under his chin, wrapped my arm around his chest, and closed my eyes, but my thoughts kept going back to the Shadow—uh, dark soul.

  “But if you’d rather wait, I’ll understand,” Echo said, stroking my neck, his breath fanning the hair on my temple. “Then I’ll do my best to change your mind. It might take several weeks or months, but I can be relentless and very creative.”

  I giggled. “Then I’ll wait.”

  He grinned. I could tell by the way
his lips moved against my forehead. “You want me to change your mind?”

  “Why not? Relentless and creative sounds like something I might enjoy,” I said.

  He leaned back and peered at me. Runes lit up his face, and a cocky smile curved his lips. “If you knew the naughty things I have planned for you, you’d not be teasing me,” he warned. “We can start now.”

  Where the heck did he get his energy? “Can I finish high school first? Maybe get a degree in psychology, too?” I added.

  He rolled his eyes and sighed. “Okay, but on one condition. I help you study.”

  I scoffed at the idea. “That’s a scary thought.”

  “Your professors and the students won’t even know I’m there. I’d be the invisible ghost smacking the guys staring at you.”

  I loved the idea, but a girl had to show some pride. “No haunting my college, Echo. Besides, you hate school.”

  He smirked. “Ah, but you are the reason for my existence now, doll-face, which means putting your needs first.”

  “And whining about it,” I said and traced a line across his chest, still undecided whether to tell him about tonight’s encounter with the dark soul or not. His muscles leaped and responded to my touch.

  “I don’t whine. I complain forcefully.” The smile left his face. “You’re beginning to scare me. What’s bothering you?”

  I could never keep a secret from him when he spoke like he could single-handedly rip apart anyone or anything that hurt me and enjoy every second of it.

  “I had a strange visitor tonight,” I said.

  Echo stiffened. “Define strange?”

  “A soul. I think.”

  He sat up. “What do you mean you think?”

  “It wasn’t like the other souls. This one was black. You know, dark. I think he was a dark soul.”

  He peered at me with narrowed eyes. “What? Did he attack you? Try to possess you? Did you feel lightheaded and weak?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “It was like the other souls. Shy. Maybe colder.”