Her Soul to Take (Souls Trilogy #1)(3)

I’m sure he would have loved to snap back at me, but we’d arrived. There, in the shadows of the trees, was the White Pine mine shaft. Boarded up for nearly a century, the stained wood framing of the entrance had been covered with numerous runes: some carved, some painted, some branded. A metal sign dangled from the wood on a broken chain, reading, CAUTION: OPEN MINE. DO NOT ENTER. The ground was mossy, and numerous white-capped mushrooms grew in thick clusters around the shaft’s opening.

The ground itself was vibrating. The trees were restless. An odd smell, like deep water and rotting algae, permeated the air. Somewhere, deep in those flooded tunnels beneath our feet, an ancient God was stirring.

I didn’t spook easily, but I still got a chill.

“Well, here you go.” I shoved Marcus into Jeremiah’s arms, who leapt back with a yelp and let poor Marcus thump down into the mud.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” His voice shot up in pitch. He wasn’t sounding so cocky anymore. “I don’t want to touch that!”

“It’s your sacrifice.” I shrugged. “You really want a demon to claim your offering to the Deep One by tossing him in?”

Jeremiah wavered, his eyes flickering between the corpse and the mine. His throat clenched as he gulped. I really didn’t give a fuck how the damn body got down there, but if I had the opportunity to make Jeremiah squirm, I’d take it.

Finally, with a groan of disgust, Jeremiah hauled Marcus up into his arms; no easy task, considering the dead man was nearly his same size. He trudged toward the mine, and stopped just outside the entrance, peering into the utter blackness beyond.

How much would I suffer if I just shoved him in? Two sacrifices for the price of one. Kent should consider it a real bargain.

But I resisted. Vengeance would come, someday.

Or the Deep One would wake and kill me first.

With a grunt, Jeremiah threw Marcus down into the darkness. His body hit the ground with a thud, there was a shuffle as he rolled, and then a splash as he hit the water in the flooded tunnel below. The smell of sea water intensified, and the wind picked up, rattling the pine needles above. My stomach lurched unpleasantly, and Jeremiah quickly stumbled back from the mine, wiping his hands on his cloak. He didn’t say a word to me, just marched back down the hill.

I stayed for a moment, staring into the darkness. My toes curled at the rumbling below, my skull vibrating with the force of it. The tides would be high tomorrow. These trees would begin the long, slow process of trying to pull their roots up from the dirt, as if they could walk away from the thing below that felt so wrong.

Then, from the darkness, there came a howl. Like the scream of a fox, but drawn out into such an agonized cry that it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It was time to leave. I didn’t feel like dealing with that now. Or ever.

The God wasn’t the only thing waking up.





There was something magical about going back to a place I hadn’t stepped foot in since childhood. Those early memories felt hazy, like a feverish dream, an entirely different world than what I’d gotten used to in Oceanside. Smoking joints and drinking Modelo on the beach had been my teen years, but when I was little? 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.

He wasn’t wrong. The real world was boring and involved office jobs, stiff collared blouses, and way too many uncomfortable shoes. It also involved getting to retire to Spain — hence why I was driving back to my childhood home, while my parents finished the process of selling their house in Southern California to retire luxuriously on the Spanish coast.

I could have gone with them, sure. But choosing to stay and finish my last year at university was responsible and very adult, as my dad would say, which I needed to start acting like considering I was on the verge of no longer being a college student.

It was a long drive up north. My butt was sore, my back hurt, and my chubby kitty, Cheesecake, was absolutely livid to be back in the car for the second day in a row. Not even the fries I kept tossing him from my fast food bag were keeping him placated any longer. I drove through a world awash in wet grays and soaked dark greens until, finally, I passed the Welcome sign for the town of Abelaum, population 6,223 — or 6,224 now, thanks to me. The downpour became a drizzle, and the watercolor world deepened its tones until the forest took shape: tall pines surrounded by a thick undergrowth of ferns and saplings, with mushroom caps sprouting pale and ghostly among their roots.

I should have stayed at the house to unpack. Instead, after hurriedly hauling my boxes into the living room and making sure Cheesecake got his food and water, I got back into my car and made the short drive into town, to Main Street. Right in the corner shop of a three-story brick building, I met my best friend of nearly fifteen years, Inaya, in Golden Hour Books.

Her Golden Hour Books. My best friend had made her dream a reality and was the proud owner of the cutest damn bookstore I’d ever seen.

“Almost finished,” she said, her fingers flying over her laptop keys. Her hands were adorned with delicate gold rings that shone brightly against her deep brown skin, the rings bejeweled with little bees and flowers that matched the cute floral patches stitched on her pink jacket. She was the brightest ray of sunshine I’d seen since passing San Francisco, and I felt warmer just being in her presence.