looking perpetually more alarmed, and Rae was coiling up like a spring, steeling herself against my fury. “Your soul in exchange for protection. It’s an easy bargain, Raelynn.”
She was shaking her head. “That’s not easy, Leon. That’s eternity. I can’t...I can’t just…”
I scoffed, pacing again, barely able to reign in my anger to even talk properly. I wanted to rip up the goddamn floorboards. I wanted to yell until every window cracked and the foundations shook. That crushing, sickening, smothering entrapment was bearing down on me. I thought of Kent’s concrete prison, the hours alone in the dark, the years of choosing between pain and obedience.
No. Not ever again. Not even for her.
“I just need you to protect me,” Raelynn babbled on, as if she thought her words would calm me. “Just for a little while, not forever. Just until I —”
“Until you, what?” I sneered. “Until you manage to move away from here? Until you run far enough away that maybe the monsters won’t track you down again?” I laughed bitterly. “Goddamn it, Rae, don’t you get it? It’s you. They’re after you. They’ll keep coming. I told you.”
She frowned. “What...what do you —”
“I told you the real reason the Hadleighs are so goddamn friendly to you,” I snapped. “They’ll keep coming after you no matter how far you go from this town.” I let her tension build. I wanted it to seethe. I wanted her terrified, as she should be. “You’re meant for their God, Raelynn. You’re their sacrifice.”
Her hands were clenched at her sides. “Why me?”
“Three survivors of the disaster in 1899.” I held up three fingers. “Three who ate the flesh of their fellow men. Three who were chosen by the Deep One. Three lives spared, but the God does not spare for nothing. In return, someday, those lives must be given back.”
She had gone pale. She was shaking her head. I stuck in the knife a little deeper, and twisted it.
“Some old relative of yours survived that mine, Raelynn,” I said, my toes pressed right up against the boundary of the circle. “The God let him survive. In exchange, It demands a life back: yours.”
She looked as if she’d seen a ghost. Her voice shook. “No. You’re a liar. You’re just trying to get me to —”
“I haven’t told you a single goddamn lie, Raelynn! Not one!” I growled so loudly that she stumbled back a pace and clutched onto the kitchen counter. I knew I was looking truly beastly at that point. Every muscle was taut, my claws fully distended, my teeth sharp enough that I couldn’t fully close my mouth. “Fuck, I’ve been more honest with you than any human I’ve crossed paths with in four hundred years! And I’ve been more kind, more merciful, than I have with anyone who has dared summon me.”
I wanted to hold her pinned against that countertop. I wanted to run my claws along her neck and sink my teeth into her and make her scream — but hell, even now, even now, I didn’t want to harm her. The thought of causing her unwilling agony was vile.
I hated it. I just absolutely hated it.
“Why do you think they call me Killer, Rae?” I hissed. “Did you think it was because I’m a guardian, killing the enemies of my master? Because I’m a fucking guard dog who only bites those who trespass?” She looked like she wanted to run — but where could she go? If she wanted to keep me trapped here, I wasn’t about to make it easy for her. “I’ve killed every single summoner who’s ever called me. Every single one, and I was glad to do it. You humans think you can just use whatever you want for your own gain. As if I’m a tool to be maneuvered and locked away and worked until I break. Fuck that. Any summoner who calls up my name has been made an example to those who would dare consider it after. Look it up. Paris, 1848. London in ‘41. Istanbul the year before. Want a real pretty picture of my work? Cairo, 1771. They still tell legends of it. My best kill, honestly.”
She looked sickened, as if she’d finally realized exactly what she’d gotten herself into. It was difficult to do it from a binding circle, but I still managed to nudge a little something into her mind: an image of that kill I was so proud of, of the three summoners I’d ripped to