Fated (The Soul Seekers 1)

What the heck is he feeding them?

I study them again, taking in dark hair, dark features, light eyes … and I know—I immediately know it’s more than a coincidence.

When Paloma spoke of them communing with their long-dead relatives on Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead—claiming that they don’t so much honor their relatives as resurrect them—she was also quick to assure me that it wasn’t what I assumed. That it wasn’t the physical bodies they resurrected but more their spiritual essence.

They call upon the energy of the dead and infuse themselves with the dark power of their lineage—an effect that lasts a few days at best … they’re not necromancers, or at least not yet, anyway, she’d said.

But as I gaze upon them again, I realize Paloma is wrong. Cade has brought them back. There’s an entire army of long-dead Richters lined up before me.

“Leandro’s gonna freak when he sees you,” Cade says, his voice nudging me back to the present. “And once Daire’s on board … the whole world is ours…”

I swivel around until I’m peering at him—staring into the eyes of a narcissistic roadkill-snacking psychopath who seriously thinks he can convince me to join him.

This is far worse than I was warned it would be.

I squinch my eyes tight, striving to break my bond with the cockroach, when Cade slams the lid of the metal container so hard it severs the thought. Turning away from his family of freaks, he yells at them to scram, and they do. Not necessarily leaving in the most orderly manner, though they are obedient, leaving no doubt who’s in charge around here.

“Now what?” Cade glances between his watch and Coyote. “Time for a run?” Coyote howls, excited by the idea, but Cade hesitates, scrunching his face when he says, “I don’t know. I should probably get back, keep an eye on things in the club.”

Coyote ducks his head low, looks up at him with sad, red-glowing eyes. The sight causing Cade to laugh softly, chucking him under the chin as he says, “Okay, but just a quick one. I can’t let that Santos out of my sight for too long.”

They move through the place, heading toward a wall at the far end. But just like the wall that led us here, this one is also a mirage that allows us to push through to its other side—staring upon a wide, seemingly endless expanse of desert, with hard-packed, well-traveled sand.

Cade kicks off his left boot as the coyote races excited circles around him, and I hang on for dear life, convinced there’s no way I can survive a run without falling off and getting lost here forever. Even though it’s not technically me who’ll be lost but rather the cockroach, it’s still not something I’d wish upon him. He’s served me well. He deserves better.

I steel myself. Committed to making the journey, doing whatever it takes to hang on so I can eventually find my way back to the club, where I can deposit the cockroach in a nice, dark, damp spot where he can live out the rest of his days with hopefully no memory of all the wretched things I forced him to witness—when Cade unbuckles his pants.

It’s a move I didn’t expect.

His jeans dropping to the ground as I spring toward the hem of this T-shirt, where I cling with all of my might. Overcome with relief to have nailed my target, when he begins to remove that as well, and I’m swept across his torso, up over his armpit (ick)—and then—

“What the—?”

He shrieks.

Or maybe that was me shrieking in my own head, I can’t say for sure.

All I know is right after he yells, “Filthy … disgusting…” time seems to stop as we glare at each other.

The moment suspended, on pause, and I’m just about to break it, just about to make a run for it, when his eyes turn to slits of rage and he snaps the T-shirt toward the ground so hard I lose my grip. Sent sailing, soaring, flying through the air—so startled and flustered and helpless, I’m unable to use my wings to propel myself anywhere.

Then the next thing I know, I’m belly-up on the ground. Staring into a pair of cruel, nonreflective, icy-blue eyes, as Cade lifts his shoe high and slams it so hard I become one with the heel.

thirty-seven

“Hey—hey there. You okay?”

The voice sounds male. Concerned. A male who’s concerned about me?

It’s gotta be either the ghost of Django or Chay’s come to get me—those are the only two males who would care.

“Do you need a doctor? Come on, open your eyes and look at me, please?”

I do as he says. I see no reason not to. And I find myself staring straight into a pair of icy-blue irises.

I flinch at the sight, squirm backward, try to get away. But then when I see my own reflection gleaming back, my entire body goes soft once again.

“Whoa, there.” He eases me back onto the seat.