Chapter 17
Soul
I’d never seen a soul soothed—not when they were so close to the edge of turning violent. Not when they were coming apart at the seams.
Not only had Caiden reached out, touching the thing like it wasn’t capable of tearing him apart… but he’d made it shift from monster back to man. I recognized the bright light that had radiated from him before he’d disappeared… I didn’t have to drag him to the Lake.
He’d gone on his own.
Caiden had done that with a few simple words, a soft touch. He’d done something that, in all my years, I’d never experienced.
I’d been on the verge of telling him how truly amazing he was when we were interrupted by the very man we were waiting for. Even though it was exactly what we wanted, his sudden appearance was irritating.
He’d refused to even entertain the idea of helping the last time I’d seen him.
And it was obvious from the fact that he’d called Caiden by his brother’s name that he knew him. I’d seen them here, though—the graveyard had been where I’d found Cole in the first place.
It made sense.
“We need your help.” I didn’t phrase it as a question, and his expression instantly closed off.
“Okay, what fucking entity did I piss off? It’s like I attract helplessness.” The sarcasm in the man’s voice dropped. “Seriously, though, how the fuck did you do that? That man was already broken open for the Enmity. I’ve never seen someone come back from the edge before.”
He wasn’t talking to me, I realized. His gaze was fixed on Caiden, who was still standing where he’d been, though the soul that he’d helped had completely disappeared.
I didn’t have to be a Reaper to know that it was headed to the Lake.
I hadn’t needed to prove my loyalty to Death—Caiden had done it for me.
“Who are you? How do you know my brother?”
“I’m Unlucky.” The man answered, and then blew out a breath.
“Wait, your dog is probably dumb enough he’d actually think that’s my name.
” Caiden’s brows snapped together, his lips tilting down in a frown.
“Gethin. My name is Gethin. And I know Cole because he came sniffing around asking for the same thing you are. Help…” He rolled his eyes, but I noticed that he wasn’t being a complete asshole now that it was Caiden standing in front of him instead of just me.
As though to prove my point, Caiden let out a nearly helpless sigh and held his hands out, palms up, like he wanted to prove to Gethin that we weren’t a threat.
“If you helped Cole, then I trust you. We just… we don’t have anywhere to go.
We don’t know what we’re doing. We really need your help. Please?”
Maybe that was the difference—I’d demanded he assist me the first time I’d seen him. Caiden was asking like it was the simplest thing in the world to open up, like he was someone the asshole in front of us could trust.
I saw the moment Gethin’s expression went soft before he pulled back on his mask of sarcastic indifference.
That didn’t stop me from wrapping my arms around Caiden when our would-be savior started toward him.
The low growl that rumbled from my chest was a warning—maybe we were asking him for help, but I still didn’t want anyone to touch him.
“Calm down, Cujo. If you start foaming at the mouth, I’m going to change my mind.”
“Change your mind?” Caiden’s voice held the smile I saw cross his lips, and Gethin rolled his eyes as he nodded.
“Yeah, so tell Old Yeller to cool it.” I didn’t understand the small laugh that spilled from Caiden’s chest at the name. “I swear, this is my lot in life, taking in fucking strays. Come on… I have a foldout couch with your names on it, I guess.”
He turned without waiting to see if we would follow him, heading back toward the graveyard.
Caiden watched for a second before starting after him, and his hand slipping into mine was the only thing that pulled me forward. This was exactly what we’d wanted… so why was I apprehensive now that we were finally getting it?
Gethin murmured under his breath once we got to the graveyard, and I felt a spark of power a moment before the barrier in front of us blew wide.
The power radiating off it was enough to make my hair stand on end, to nearly force my body to shift back into my natural state out of sheer instinct.
If anyone was going to have answers, if anyone could point us in the direction of someone who might have enough power to fix the mess we were in…
Well, it really might be the asshole who was walking in front of us.
“That’s my house.” He pointed to a cabin at the edge of the walkway as we followed him down.
“Sadly, no pets allowed, so you’re going to have to stay in the library.
Fuck, though…” Gethin threw us both a dirty look.
“With how often people come knocking for help, I might as well start renting it out by the hour.”
Caiden seemed immune to the sarcasm that made me want to bite, because he tugged us forward until he was walking beside Gethin. “You said you know my brother?”
The man beside him sighed, crossing his arms over his chest as he stopped in front of a small building.
He leaned against the door and looked Caiden up and down once before nodding.
“Yeah. He came here with a Reaper not that long ago asking for help. I owed a friend, so I said yes. They needed a safe place to stay, and apparently that’s what I’m known for these days, so… ”
I could see it on his face, though, the way Caiden was starved for more information—being this close to someone who’d so recently had the chance to interact with his brother was probably making something inside him ache.
I wondered if shaking him would make Gethin give a little more information, but Caiden beat me to it.
“Did he seem… okay?”
Gethin snorted, opening the door to the building he’d led us to. The scent of books hit my nose a second before I realized we were in some kind of little library with a sofa tucked in the corner.
“If being tied to a Reaper and running from Death is what you count as okay…” When Caiden’s expression fell, Gethin blew out a breath. “Look… I don’t know much, but by the time they left… they both seemed… happy.”
Happy.
I’d never known that a Reaper could be happy.
“Really?” Just that word seemed to light Caiden up from the inside out. “That’s all I ever wanted.”
As we walked into the room, Gethin tilted his head, looking Caiden up and down. “You should really think about pointing that shining ray of positivity on yourself every now and then, you know?”
Caiden just shook his head.
“Right, well… you wanted my help so bad that you’ve been stalking around the edge of my graveyard…” I guess he had noticed us. “Now that you’ve got my attention…” Gethin trailed off, looking at us expectantly.
“Caiden was never supposed to leave the Lake,” I finally confessed, worried that I was feeding him too much information. He worked for Death, after all. Maybe he wasn’t thrilled about it, but I didn’t know him. I didn’t trust him.
He was just the only option we had.
“And? Do you want me to push him back in?” When I snarled in response, he threw his hands up. “I’m kidding.”
I didn’t think he was very funny.
“Caiden can’t go back to the Lake. He’d be consumed by it… and we’re… we…” My eyes dropped to the line between us, and I watched his gaze follow. For a second he looked at that line like it was burning him, and then he shook his head.
“What do you expect me to do about it? Look, I can keep you hidden here for the rest of eternity, but that isn’t going to help.
And if Fate can get past my barrier, gods only know what Death will do if he crawls his way back up here.
” Gethin shuddered at the mention of it, and I shook my head.
The fact that Death had come to the mortal world at all should have been an impossibility.
“I doubt he’d do something like that again. He might send my brothers…” The thought made something in my stomach clench. I’d never imagined a world where I might have to fight my brothers, my pack…
But when I turned my eyes to Caiden, I realized that if I had to… if I had to, I would.
“Brothers, huh?”
My gaze dropped to the floor. “My brothers and Death are all I’ve ever known—them and the Lake. But I’d give all that up for Caiden, if I had to.”
Beside me, Caiden was silent.
“Fuck. Love really does make us do the stupidest shit, doesn’t it?” Gethin’s tone was bitter as he took a few steps away, pressing his back to the wall and writhing his shoulders there for a second before he settled down. “I still don’t know how you want me to help you.”
“You know people powerful enough to make this barrier, right?”
His eyes narrowed. “Yeah… so?”
“Who are they? How did you get them to help you?”
Gethin stared at me like I was speaking in tongues.
“Half a dozen different people who I did favors for. You’d end up selling more than your namesake to get the same.
” I opened my mouth to tell him I would—that I was willing—but he kept on.
“And even if you did talk to them, what favor are you going to ask? How do you think you can fix this? You can’t bring him back to life, and a soul can’t just wander the earth forever without a purpose.
” When he turned his gaze to Caiden, I saw his expression go soft again.
“You need to know what questions you’re going to ask before you try to hunt down solutions. ”
“I don’t know if there is a right question.
” Caiden spoke for the first time since we’d come into the room, and the soft melancholy in his tone was enough to make me want to rip Gethin apart.
I knew he was being honest—that we’d spent the entire time we’d been together roaming around, fucking, discovering our bond…
and not much else. We weren’t any closer to answers now than we’d been in the beginning.
“Right. So… why don’t you figure that out? Do what everyone else did.” Gethin gestured around the room. “Read some books. And until then, I guess you can stay here.”
He didn’t sound happy about it. And when Caiden murmured a soft, “Thank you,” he didn’t sound happy either.
Gethin sighed, opening the door like we’d been nothing more than an inconvenience. “You’ll figure it out. This library is apparently capable of fixing everyone’s problems but mine.” He turned to go, and then whirled, pointing a finger at me. “No pissing on the carpet, pooch.”
I snapped my teeth at the air as he exited the room, but when I turned my eyes to see Caiden looking at me with a soft expression, I forgot why I’d been ready to bite.
“Come on,” he said, taking hold of my hand and leading me toward the sofa at the edge of the room. “Let’s rest for a while before we start figuring things out.”
I let him lead me without resistance. We were here—we were safe. And if relaxing with him could erase that melancholy expression still lingering on the edge of his smile, I’d lock us in this room for the rest of eternity until the only thing he knew was the feeling of my arms around him.