Page 94 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

“Turn around, Justine, and no one will get hurt.” Not Nephesh’s voice. It was another human, one of the dozens of nameless soldiers.

Tears streaming, I slowly turned, raising my hands to my shoulders as several raised their weapons. I looked down, seeing that dots were appearing across my chest and belly.

Red dots.

A calling card for the death I was about to endure. I closed my eyes. At least there was a chance that I could see Nephesh again in the Underworld. Tell him that I never meant any of this.

“Captain?” one of the men shouted, a sharp edge of hysteria clear in his voice. “Orders?”

“If she moves, she dies.”

I could hear, with inhuman perfection, the sound of a finger twitching on a trigger. Adrenaline shot through my system, and I braced myself for the worst, when suddenly there was nothing. It was as if time slowed down. One minute there was a bullet coming for my body. The next there was a surge of heat and I was looking up into the chest of…of something I could’ve never dreamed up in a thousand lifetimes.

“Nephesh,” I whispered to the creature in front of me. He faced me, hunched over, balanced on two legs as glowing red eyes swept my body. He was immense, even hunched over as he was, with a heavy silver coat that rippled over a thick, heavyset body. A snout had replaced Nephesh’s features, parted to reveal a set of vicious white teeth, the fangs dripping lightly as he huffed in a short breath. In my mind, he was something between the heavyset polar bears of the north, and the gray wolves I’d seen on television. Yet the horns I’d been so enchanted by just days ago still spiraled up over the doomed head, right next to sharp-pointed white ears.

He was built for speed and destruction, four-inch-long claws at the tip of each pawed leg. And I could see the exact moment the rest of the group saw him for what he was. A predator, for sure. But still mine.

Slowly, carefully, I realized, the creature lowered his head to my level so that those red eyes were looking right into mine. I smiled up at him. “You’re still beautiful, Nephesh.”

“Stand down, lieutenant!” another voice shouted, breaking the tension in the room, as Nephesh whirled around, his heavy front end slamming into the earth as he twisted to face our attackers. He was the size of a horse like this, moving forward a step as he settled on all fours. The picture of a villain from a fairytale.

He was flesh and blood, the scent of smoke and flame still lingering on his fur as he leaned down, taking the opportunity to wrap his body around me.

I reached up, one hand digging into the soft, fluffy fur at the base of his neck, and clung to him. “We’re leaving,” I announced to the group.

Nephesh’s rumbling growl followed my words.

“Now,” I stated.

30

Justine

No one moved. The one barking orders, the one Faye had glared at the other day, shifted forward a little. “You’re staying right where you are.” He raised his gun. “Don’t think about it, monster.”

I blinked, my eyelids slow and lethargic as the bond in my chest thumped back to life with a ferocity that shocked me. When my eyes closed, the world slowed, and while I couldn’t see, there was a visibility that flickered to life, as if staring into the darkness of night and seeing shadows. Only, I saw them as figures, shapeless, and at their core, a small scale, constantly shifting. But the others, they were less solid, more blurred lines, and at their center something inky and dark twisted around the soft glow of what I knew instantly had to be their soul. I was seeing the difference between the Corrupted and the human souls.

Letting my head turn to my mate, I reached a hand out. Instincts I’d never felt before rose up, overruling all else.

So many were hurt. So many souls were lost.

And I was here to fix that.

“Nephesh…”

Yes, his voice echoed in my head, low and rough.

“Can you see them?”

“Always.”

For a moment, my eyes went wide open in shock, taking in the massive wolf-like creature that leaned against my side. Then back to the soldiers in front of me. They looked so ordinary with my human eyes, just frail, scared people who were staring down the personification of what they feared the most. Without their master, they were pawns left to die in the trail of destruction that the Drude was weaving.

“You should run,” I told them, but my voice was different now, the power racing through Nephesh’s body into mine, making it a dark rasp. Or was that my power running into him? I couldn’t tell any longer.

“Stand your ground,” the captain barked out when several of his soldiers attempted to flee.

My heart pounded for their loss, even as my eyes closed again.