The Soother Read Free

breath, then stood on her tiptoes and placed her other hand against his bloodied face.
    Open those eyes, angel
. While unable to speak, Krystoff hoped she could hear him. He no longer wished to see his mother when he passed to the afterlife. This one, the one with the angel eyes, was all he wanted to know.
    Her eyes popped open, wide and questioning. “What did you do? Why would they do this to you?”
    Such empathy. Such sadness. All for him. For that, he would give her the truth. “Blood … magick. They … want. Gave … my … soul.”

Chapter Two
    Calliope still had no idea why she’d done it. But with the help of her sister, she’d cut the dying man down and carried his body through the forest and straight to her bed. She hadn’t heard the cry of the banshee since. Oddly, they hadn’t encountered any resistance from the shadowed creatures after their initial attack either. With her help, the prisoner may have cheated death. For now. Perhaps he’d deserved to die after all.
    Carrine, the Brennan sisters’ mentor and confidant, had always told her to pick her battles wisely. This had probably not been the wisest of choices. He’d played with fire and sold his soul. Technically, he’d said he’d given his soul, but no one did that. Not willingly. There was always an exchange. His words had been so stilted and cryptic. Maybe she’d misunderstood. She didn’t think so. Even now, shadows prowled beneath his skin. Exhausted from the gloom within the sleeping man, Calliope shook her head and sighed. Blood magick should never be toyed with.
    Unless he found a way to recover his soul, the shadows would grow until they consumed his body, ultimately turning his mind as dark as the realm they’d just left. The odds weren’t in his favor. History showed once a soul had been removed, the chance of getting it back was nearly impossible. And yet she had brought the soulless man into her home.
    Shadowed creatures rarely had redeemable qualities. But something about him called to her, and she held out hope he would live and find a way to conquer his demons. Her pulse jumped at the thought. She cursed her romantic heart.
    Calliope hadn’t heard from Bevva in a week and already missed her terribly. After toting the heavy body for hours and arguing about where to take him, her sister had reluctantly agreed to help take him to Calliope’s house. Then with a chaste kiss to the cheek, she’d hit the road. But not before she’d nicknamed the poor man Charmer, swearing he must have charmed Calliope for her to take such a risk. Calliope disagreed, but the nickname stuck. And Bevva flew the coop. Fight, then flight, seemed to be Bevva’s motto. Hopefully she’d head over to the realm of Saharren and let a certain guardian help her refill her magickal well. The two were destined to be together, whether the fire witch wanted to admit it or not.
    Calliope studied Charmer now, stretched out on her queen-sized bed with his arms tight against his sides, and dried yarrow leaves she’d ground into a powder covering his stomach wounds. She might have bathed him in burdock to ward off infection, and she might have burned angelica root to call upon the angels, but no way would she do more than that to ease his obvious pain. Singing to him, bathing him and brushing his hair didn’t count. Absolutely not.
    For no other reason other than something to do, Calliope readjusted the sheet over his legs and gently pulled it up to his waist. She kept her eyes on his face, a face she’d memorized over the last several days. Dark eyebrows had yet to relax and she knew if Charmer ever opened those eyes again, they’d be the color of rain. His black hair, just long enough to comb her fingers through — not that she’d done that more than once or twice, or a thousand times — currently laid in a disheveled array upon her blue pillow. His caramel-colored skin lacked the luster that came with good fortune and health. His torn cheeks, so gaunt,