strength of his grip was put to rest with one look at her face, twisted in agony, as if his very touch burned.
“Bana, look at me.”
She tried to refuse. Her free hand clawed uselessly at the wall behind her, scratching the Sheetrock, resistance etched into the terrified, angry lines of her jaw and forehead. But she couldn’t resist. Nor could she blink out. Somehow, Levi was blocking her abilities. Guaranteeing her cooperation.
Would Tod ever have that power?
“Look at me, Bana.”
Her eyes flew open, and a cry leaked from her mouth. She looked straight into Levi’s green eyes, which seemed to … shine. To glow with a bright, cold light.
We watched, every one of us fascinated. Including Dekker, but especially Regan Page, who was getting her first terrifying glimpse of the world she’d just entered. The world she’d sold herself to.
Bana’s shoulders slumped and her eyelids fluttered, as if they’d close. Levi’s grip on her arm tightened visibly. Dekker stepped back and the reaper went suddenly stiff. Her eyes opened again, but began to dull immediately. To simply … go dark.
And that’s when the panic hit. My heart pounded, bruising the inside of my chest. Sweat formed between Nash’s hand and mine. The cry rose in my throat, clawing me from the inside out, demanding an exit. An audience. Bana’s soul song wanted to be heard.
I clenched my jaw against the wail, my mind whirring with questions.
A soul song for a reaper? It made sense—she did have a soul—yet somehow I’d never expected to actually wail for a reaper. Did that mean that Nash and I could save her if we wanted to? But why would we want to? And if we did, would someone else be taken in her place? Did doomed reaper souls require an exchange?
Surely not. Tod had said reaper souls were much rarer than human souls, so if we were to save Bana, would another reaper have to die? Because one human soul wouldn’t be enough, would it?
The kernel of an idea I’d had earlier exploded in my head so violently it felt like my skull would split wide open. Because it wasn’t just an idea. It was an idea. The kind of idea that could change lives.
Or save souls.
My hand clutched Nash’s, and he tore his gaze from Bana to look at me in surprise, at almost the exact moment the scream leaked from my sealed lips. Just a sliver of sound at first, sharp and painful, but controlled. For the moment.
“Bana?” he whispered, hazel eyes wide, forehead crinkled.
I nodded and let another slice of sound slide from me.
Tod noticed then, and shot a questioning glance at Nash, who could only shrug. “You can make it stop, Kaylee,” he said finally, his lips brushing my ear, his peaceful Influence brushing my heart. “I’ve seen you do it. Bring it back. Hold it in.”
But I twisted away from him, shaking my head adamantly. I didn’t want to hold it in. I wanted to let it go. Let my shriek pierce every skull in the room and rattle the windows. And let it capture Bana’s filthy soul.
The rogue reaper was about to pay for her part in Dekker’s soul-trafficking ring, and I was going to personally wring the recompense from her.
Addy and Regan watched me now, rather than Bana and Levi, and their stares made me nervous. Broke my concentration.
I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them along with my mouth. Sharp spikes of sound burst from me, washing over the room like a wave of glass shards. Addy, Regan, and Dekker flinched as one, as their brains were pierced by the evidence of my intent. Their hands flew to their ears. Their eyes squeezed shut. Their noses wrinkled in displeasure bordering on pain.
Levi shuddered, but his concentration never faltered. Bana was in too much pain from the brutal removal of her soul to even notice what I was doing. But Nash and Tod each wore odd smiles, their faces almost slack in pleasure. They heard my wail as a beautiful, eerie song, a melody without equivalent in the human world. A gift from the female bean sidhe, which only the males of our species could experience.
Even the undead males, apparently.
The panic ebbed inside me, riding the sliver of sound out of my core and into the room. With that pressure released, I was able to focus on my part in the plan I was forming. And to somehow communicate Tod’s part to him.
An instant later, the last ember of light died in Bana’s eyes, and her soul rose from her body. It looked exactly like a human soul—pale and formless. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but that wasn’t it. Shouldn’t a reaper’s soul be different, somehow? And if it wasn’t, would my plan even work?
Only one way to find out …
I sang for her soul. Called to it, suspending it in the air like a thick fog as Levi let go of the dead reaper’s arm. He stepped back, and she collapsed on Addy’s plush living-room carpet, a tangle of bent arms and awkwardly twisted legs.
Dekker jumped away from his dead employee so fast he tripped over his own feet and would have gone down if not for the chair he grabbed for balance. If I hadn’t been screaming loud enough to rouse the dead, I’d have laughed. I wouldn’t have thought someone who dealt so closely with reapers and hellions would be spooked by a little death.
But despite my fleeting amusement, my plan was not funny. It was born of desperation and inspiration, and it would never work if Tod didn’t get on board. Fast.
Unable to take my eyes from Bana’s soul, I felt around on my left, reaching blindly for Tod’s arm. I found it, and pulled him forward just as Nash bent to whisper into my ear. That was the only way I could hear him over my own wail, and I probably wouldn’t have heard a human voice. “What are you doing? She’s dead. Let her go. I’m not bringing her back.”
I shook my head vehemently, frustrated by my inability to communicate. When Tod’s head came into my field of vision, I shoved him toward Bana, pointing at her hovering soul with my free hand then at Tod. Specifically, at his mouth. I needed him to suck up her soul, like Libby had sucked up the Demon’s Breath.
To hold it, just for a little while.
And finally, he seemed to get it. “You want me to take her soul?” he asked, and I nodded, relief washing through me so quickly the edges of my vision went black.
I grabbed Nash for balance and concentrated on maintaining my song.
“Why?” Tod asked, shrugging when Levi shot him a questioning glance.
But I couldn’t explain until he took the soul so I could stop screeching. I made more frantic gestures with my arms, and he finally nodded in concession. Then he opened his mouth and sucked in Bana’s soul. In seconds, it was gone.
I closed my mouth and the room went silent, but for the awful ringing in my ears, which I knew from experience wouldn’t fade completely for a couple of hours.
Tod wiped nonexistent soul crumbs from his mouth, and I shuddered.
“That was … surreal,” I said, my voice as scratchy as an old record player. I stumbled, weak from exertion, and Nash caught me. He half carried me to the couch along the far wall, which was
