Page 39 of A Soul’s Awakening

“I’ll pick for you, demon. Let’s start with truth. You’re hiding something from Theo, aren’t you? Tell us what it is.”

“Oh, interesting.” Eric scanned Ren’s magic with his eyes. What was he seeing? Could he tell Ren was protecting my soul? That we shared the same magic? He wasn’t giving any answers.

“What makes you think he’s even hiding something from me?” I glared at Sly, but when I looked over at Sly, he shied away from my gaze once again. He had already shared his past with my family months ago. Earlier, he even told me about his acquaintance who knew Caspian. Was there more he left out of the story?

Sly’s grin sharpened, his eyes darting between me and Ren. “For a couple that's supposedly inseparable, you two seem pretty good at tearing each other apart. What do you say, audience, should we try a little encouragement?”

The crowd, half drunk and unaware of the cruelty that was happening right in front of them, urged Sly to do his worst. I wasn’t sure if he truly believed Ren was hiding some dangerous secret from me, or if he was just trying to get a rise out of him for the spectators.

“Elena?” he commanded.

The dryad’s magic flashed a grassy green, and those vines slithered on the ground toward me once again. The thorns squeezed through my pants, green goo oozing out of them and penetrating my skin.

“Oh no, I seem to have forgotten that Theo can’t currently access his magic,” Sly’s theatrical voice carried all the way across the street. “He has maybe fifteen minutes before that poison kills him. Now tell me, demon, what are you hiding?”

“Don’t you fucking dare touch him!” Ren spat in his face, and with that defiance, Sly turned his attention to me.

I tried to dissolve the chains with no luck, the magic sending a pulse of electrifying pain down my arms. So I called upon my living magic, speaking to it as calmly as I could, wishing to work together to break the chains holding me hostage. I was greeted with an empty response and silver clouding my veins.

“I never had magic of my own.” Sly spoke. The chains grew brighter as their power intensified. My magic felt like it was boiling inside me. “But this magic? Oh, this magic feels … intoxicating. To touch it, to control it … it’s like holding the world in your hands and watching it squirm beneath you.”

Gasps erupted from the crowd, along with a few drunken cheers. Still, no one stepped forward to help us.

My jaw tightened, my body twitching under the chains as Sly’s magic pried and probed at me while the poison mixed with the alcohol, slowing ‌my heart and mind.

“You’re a sick bastard.” Ren’s breaths came in sharp gasps, the same poison thorns dragging him down as well.

“Go on, demon,” he said with a smirk. “Or maybe your pride matters more than he does.” His smile widened. “After all, every second you hesitate, his magic slips further out of his control. And with those chains around him combined with the poison thorns …” He shrugged. “Well, even someone with control over death can’t evade that.”

“Ren, don’t—” I pleaded.

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” Ren’s fierce tone had lost its edge. “That I’ve killed people? Stolen their magic?”

By now, there were probably about thirty people surrounding us … and they had all just heard Ren, a good-for-nothing demon, confess to murder.

“Ren …” I could feel Caspian’s magic inside me churning in my stomach, disgusted at its treatment as it tried to reach the surface and battle against Sly’s possession. I was panicking, my thoughts unclear, and with each worrying pulse of my magic, the chains took another slice of control, the silver growing brighter.

Ren’s eyes met mine. There was pain etched across his face, but it wasn’t physical. The emotional turmoil that raged inside him was raw and burning, a storm he refused to let show outwardly. I could feel it as if it were my own heartbeat, full of anger, fear, frustration, and determination all tangled together.

My body hummed in response, heat coiling through my blood and throbbing inside my chest. Every nerve was alive, every sensation amplified. My magic stirred, twisting through the warmth and power that flowed out of me and toward Ren.

I suddenly realized what he was doing; borrowing my magic to protect me, and I welcomed it. Sly may have thought Ren was a useless demon, but he didn’t know the first thing about his powers. The chains may have cut off access to my magic, but it did nothing to stop Ren from taking it for himself.

The thread between us had become something tangible, pulsing and alive. My magic surged with my emotions: the rage and anger to get revenge on my ex, the instinct to protect Ren, the desperation to keep him safe, and the quiet, impossible trust that he would not let me down.

“Do you hear that everyone?” Sly threw up his arms as he addressed the crowd. “This demon just confessed to murder!”

Sly never saw it coming. My fear, my anger, and my magic all aligned with Ren, waiting to be unleashed by the demon beside me.

With a crack loud enough to make me flinch, magic burst out of Ren and his thorny prison crumbled into shards of rotted wood.

Ren lunged forward, magic guiding his movements as his fist flared outward in a controlled, retaliatory strike to Sly’s jaw that sent him staggering back.

“Elena!” Sly cried out as the dryad thought twice about unleashing another attack, instead cocooning Sly in a cushion of cotton flowers to soften his impact against the brick wall behind him. Sly’s confident smirk faltered, replaced with a flash of raw, personal fury.

“I warned you to leave Theo out of this.” Ren flexed his fingers as he gripped Sly’s jacket. I should have stopped him, but a disturbingly satisfied part of me wanted to watch Sly suffer. However, when I saw some onlookers filming with their phones, I knew I had to put a stop to it.

“Ren,” I said sharply. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”