Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy, #1)

by Harley Laroux

My world was those deep green forests that seemed to go on forever, full of fairies and unicorns, my little kid brain bursting with so much imagination that my dad thought I’d never manage to settle down and just exist in the real world.

In French, there’s a phrase for the random urge to jump from high places, the irrational desire to swerve into traffic despite imminent destruction: l'appel du vide, the call of the void. Those sudden feral impulses tend to be shoved away immediately, but humans still experience them. What if you jumped? What if you touched the fire? What if? What if? When I looked at him, staring at me, the void called. What if?

There was something thrilling and cathartic in imagining being helpless. Helpless but pleasured. Helpless but desired.

The thought of curling up in bed with a glass of wine, watching Scream for the umpteenth time as the rain pattered outside, made me walk faster.

Leon had told me to stay inside, but there was no threat outside that door that was going to keep me from going after my cat.

“I can’t just keep severed heads around my yard,” I said. “Oh, I’m sorry.” Leon turned to face me. “Do they not fit your aesthetic? Would death suit your aesthetic better?”

“Why are you protecting me? Why? What makes me any different than the last girl?” He was really scowling now; his hands were working inside his jacket, as if he was clenching and unclenching his fists. His jaw, too, was tensing. But I let the question hang. I wanted an answer. There was a hell of a lot going on that I didn’t understand, but him? Us? Whatever the hell that meant? I wanted to know. “I decided I wanted you,” he said simply, but the words barely made their way out from between his teeth. “I saw you, and...and I felt…” He winced, as if the word stung. Felt. What did a demon feel? “Not anger. Not hatred or fury. You…” He turned his face away, staring back into the trees. “You’re a light in the dark, and I’ve been in the dark a very long time.”

“I want you. Irrevocably. But I can’t settle for less than all of you. Body and soul, Raelynn. We demons, when we see something we like, we need to possess it. It’s in our nature.”

“You say you think you love her, but it’s clear that you do. It was clear the moment Kent told you to take her.” Love. What an awful, beautiful, terrifying word.

I’ll rip Heaven and Hell and this goddamn Earth apart before I let them steal you from me.”

“Not a goddamn thing is taking you from me, baby girl. No man, and no God. I’ll kill them all.”

I streamed Youtube on the TV, putting on some deep-dive into an unsolved mystery from the 1970s to keep myself distracted. Nothing like watching the story of a woman disappearing without a trace to soothe my brain.

“Don’t say you’re sorry.” His voice was just a whisper as he backed away, putting distance between us as if he was afraid I’d cling to him again. “No human is ready for forever, and forever is all I have. But you gave me a part of your life, when mortal lives are so short.” He laughed softly. “I suppose saving your soul could be as good as owning it, so you’d better fucking survive.” He glanced back at the trees, as a freezing wind ruffled his hair and another cry shattered the night. As the awful sound faded away, he said, “You should know that I love you, for whatever that’s worth. Stay alive. Don’t waste that mortal life.”

My soul was his to take, to love, to own – forever.