A Soul to Keep (Duskwalker Brides, #1)

by Opal Reyne

Duskwalkers. To see one meant death was near. Not just for humans, but also the Demons, animals – everything. They were terrifyingly intelligent. They could speak, they could bargain, and they could destroy if their mood decided it.

“You meet all the requirements. You are pure, since no man would dare lie with you. You are willing, as it is either this or the cell.”

Ten years between each human did little to satisfy his hunger, and as the years grew and he got older, living on mind-numbingly endlessly, the more tired he was becoming of it.

How much longer will it be? An ongoing question without a matching answer. How much

longer would it be before he found a human who wanted to...

Perhaps this one will be different. If not, Orpheus would be back on the surface world to hunt for a new ‘bride.’

I have not held a human in a long time. It had been decades, and the last time had been because it was dying, not by his own hand. I forgot how soft they are.

Reia felt warm and soft, making him want to squeeze her tighter against his chest. Can’t do that, I will kill her.

His eyes turned to black, which was the only way she would have been able to tell that he’d closed them for a short while. When was the last time I heard someone speak my own name?

“Say my name again like how you did before, and I will give you your answer.” “That’s it? You just want me to say your name?” “Yes, but like how you did before.”

“I have never had a

human laugh as I’m about to eat them before.”

It’s nerves. Simply nerves. I’m just excited because he doesn’t plan to go out of his way to eat me! That was it, that had to be it. There was absolutely, positively, no way that Reia was actually being turned on by a monster right now.

“Come, little human.” He gestured his hand out to present more of his left arm for her. “Let me melt your heart.”

She came to me. Even after he’d changed into his most monstrous form in front of her. Perhaps there is a chance of hope after all.

“In order to become my bride, you must gift me something. No human ever has, and I am beginning to doubt they ever will. You will be no different.”

“What must be gifted?”

“No human has ever been comforted by the answer.”

“What must be gifted to you in order to become your bride?”

“You must offer your soul for me to keep,” he said hastily.

“I once thought the bargain of eternal life as long as I live would be enough, but no human has ever wanted to be bound to me.”

It’s fine. He’s not doing this to be perverted. She chanted to herself, ignoring the strange, pleasurable twinge that shot through her when his gloves ran over them. I doubt he even has a cock... Or does he?

She is the first to smile at me. Will she be different? Not much made Orpheus afraid, but he feared becoming attached to her.

The prickling emotion she felt in her chest was unwelcome, knowing it was something akin to tenderness for him. She felt many emotions for the Duskwalker.

His eyes were somehow... prettier in the dark. She would always know where he was, and in his own way, he was ethereal to look at. Not handsome – he didn’t have a human face to be granted such a word.

Come on, Reia. He has a fucking skull for a face. She kept questioning why she didn’t find him totally unappealing. Is it because I don’t totally hate his touch?

He hoped one day she would allow him to be seated next to her and allow him to gaze at her while they did this. I want to lay my head in her lap.

I am becoming fond of her. She was making it too easy for him to allow hope.

I want her. To stay, to become his companion, to ease him.

“There is a strange scent coming from you,” he explained, his deep and gruff voice making her feel drunk after what she’d just experienced within her own mind. Her eyelids shuddered as a pant fell from her. “I’ve never smelt it from you.”

Oh god, he can smell that I’m turned on.

His horns should have made her think him a Demon, a devil, the monster he was supposed to be, but her mind knew they’d be the perfect things to hold onto when she was thrashing under the wave of lust.

They halted in the air when a light growl came from him. Within the blink of an eye, his orbs changed to a deep purple, and her breath hitched. “You are aroused,” he growled, his head turning up to face her.

It was too late to turn back.

Orpheus was there, licking her pussy in the dark, his purple eyes the only light, and Reia was adoring it.

Something... like me. She would never know, but her words hurt him terribly.

Okay, fine. I like his stupid tongue, and glowing eyes, and bony face, and his stupid smell. Why does he even smell so good anyway? It was evil, calling for her to want to sin in its embrace.

She will never want me. Why was Orpheus bent on trying to find a companion, even a bride, when it always ended in tragedy? The humans, this human, would never grow fond of him. No matter what he did, what he tried, he would lose them one way or another.

Mine! She was his human! His offering! His to touch, his to see, his to eat.

He was inhuman. He could never be human. So why would a human ever want him? But I want her. Every kind of hunger inside him wanted her. His desire, his loneliness, his need for flesh and blood.

“Do you desire me, Orpheus? Is that why they change to purple?” He flinched. She felt him

tense by his fingers twitching. What he didn’t know was the thought that he might was making Reia feel unbearably hotter. “Please, tell me. I won’t be upset.”

“I have desired you from the first moment you smiled at me, my little doe.”

“I have wanted to play with your body from the moment I brought you into the safety of my home. To toy with it.” Oh god, so that’s what he meant when he said toy.

“Do you understand how hard it’s been? To touch, but not play?”

“But only when you want it, will I give it to you,” he said when she started to go lax, dipping his tongue out against her cheek almost like a kiss. “Only when I’ve melted your heart, and you accept me, will I try to claim this.”

“Why is it you think I wanted a bride, Reia?” “For a companion... because you were lonely.”

“That is true, but I have many hungers, little human, and this is one of them.”

“I do not want you to leave me, Reia.” Her eyes almost watered instantly at the sincerity and the deep well of loneliness and sadness she could hear in it.

“If you give me your soul, Reia, I may be able to give you what you want.”