A Soul to Revive (Duskwalker Brides, #5)

Emerie didn’t even move out of the way as they exited, forcing them to barge into her shoulder. Then she waited for them to give her cleaning tools as the Duskwalker continued to roar.

He was uninjured – they hadn’t managed to hurt him yet – but he wasn’t calming. He seems enraged. She eyed the ground. Is it because of the blood?

Funnily enough, she found it easier to clean up the blood of the guildmembers. Perhaps it was because they’d gotten what they deserved.

She didn’t know what it was, but she was becoming desensitized to their deaths, and more vulnerable to him. Yet Wren’s constant barrage of opinions just spun her mind into a confused ache.

What was right and wrong? Good and bad? Evil and righteous? Emerie was tired of being in limbo.

She was heart-sick from it. Unable to eat, unable to sleep. It festered within, causing her skin to itch until she threatened to break it apart. She was covered in small rashes underneath her uniform.

She would eventually need to pick a side and wholly accept what they did.

It barely took any time at all for her to clean up the blood from the room, and she was stupid enough to approach him to wipe the worst of it from his thrashing face – the tip of his beak. She spooked quickly and backed up. Not long after she asked for a new bucket of water – an excuse to remain with the Duskwalker – he eventually calmed, albeit very gradually.

Or, rather, when the remaining bits of blood on him dried.

He gave wild huffs through his nose holes, his chest rising and falling in rapid succession. She knew his red orbs were upon her, and she didn’t find them as hollow and soulless as she once did.

“You–”

“Leave me alone!” he yelled, jerking and causing the sound of bones to rattle from him, as well as the chink of his chains.

“They will just use a different doctor,” she told him.

“Then I will destroy that one too,” he rumbled, his words unnerving.

Her skin rose in goosebumps.

“Did it feel good to kill him?”

She didn’t know why she asked him. Maybe she wanted a reason to hate him, to make her okay with all this happening.

“Yes,” he snarled.

A humourless, singular snort of laughter escaped her. I felt that way about the bandit.

Since she’d also asked for a cloth, she approached the Duskwalker again now that he wasn’t mindlessly thrashing.

“I’m going to clean you,” she informed him.

She needed to do something in this room before they took her from it.

“Don’t touch me.”

Emerie ignored him and wrung her cloth of water before she faced him. He jerked, but his bounds kept him in place.

“Were you lying when you said you came here for our aid?” she asked, dabbing at his chest to rid him of a few crimson droplets.

This time, she thought it best to start with the place they weren’t just fucking with.

“You look like a Demon,” he snapped, the swirling vortex of his orbs reddening.

Emerie paused with her eyes narrowed. Then she hooked her index finger into the side of her hood to unclip her mask and pushed both away.

“Is that better?” she asked, already noting the colour of his angry orbs softening.

“Yes.”

He wasn’t lying. Considering his reaction to her uniform, it was obvious he felt hatred towards them.

Emerie held her breath as she gently gripped the underside of his beak, expecting him to jerk. He didn’t, his orb redness fading even more, and she was able to comfortably wipe the seam of it.

She noted the tension in his shoulders eased, and she thought he may have even rested a bit of the weight of his head in her palm.

Then her eyelids flickered when his orbs changed to a colour she’d never seen before. An orchid hue of purple.

She’d already summarised that red meant anger and hunger, and white was fear. She could only guess that blue was sadness.

She didn’t know what orchid meant.

His skull twitched in her palm, and she was surprised the bone was so warm.

“That scent is gone from you,” he stated, quick huffs escaping him. He was sniffing her. “The one that smelt possessive.”

Her head darted back. She had no idea what he was talking about.

“If...” she started, lowering her voice to make sure the guard couldn’t overhear. “If I were to release you, would you promise not to harm anyone?”

She thought he would leap at the potential opportunity to escape. He didn’t, and his silence was crushing.

“Duskwalker?”

“Ingram. My name is Ingram. Do not take away my name when I only just obtained it.”

Emerie, done cleaning him and merely wiping at a now-white skull, stepped back. He has a name? Why did that gouge at her chest? A real monster... wouldn’t have a name. Does that mean someone cares about him?

Gosh. Was there someone out there who missed him?

“You did not answer me, Ingram,” she whispered, hoping he would follow her lead.

“Promises are things that should not be broken, yes?” She nodded. “Then I cannot promise this.”

Her lips parted at his honesty. He was a fool! He’d almost had her in the palm of his hands, and he’d chosen to reveal he’d gladly kill her fellow Demonslayers.

“Okay, fine,” she grumbled, turning her back to him so she could collect her supplies.

“You are angry?” his high-pitched tone of surprise was unmistakable.

“I’m not going to free someone who will go out of their way to hurt my people.”

“I would not be able to help it if they harm me, or I them.”

Her lips tightened. She halted from leaving to toss her head to the side and look at him from her peripheral. “How so?”

“Mavka cannot help letting their rage take over. We... do not always mean to hurt, especially if we have been harmed.”

Mavka? Is that what they call themselves rather than Duskwalker?

She slowly turned around to warily face him. “Sometimes it’s an accident?”

“Yes. Like when your people struck me with arrows as I knocked on your gate. I could not calm down once they started to attack me.”

The word ‘knocked’ lingered in her mind.

Emerie cupped her chin in thought. I see. So Duskwalkers turn mindless? Like an instinct to destroy? At least when she killed, it was completely on purpose. Animals act out when cornered for self-preservation.

And if Wren and the other Elders had been doing this to a wolf or a bear – that was immortal and couldn’t die – she would have long ago tried to free it.

Hell, even humans behaved differently when cornered and afraid.

“I also hunger. The scent of blood calls to me. It is never-ending, never goes away.”

Emerie chewed at the right corner of her lips. She muttered, “If you smell blood, you’ll go bat-shit crazy like when we captured you?”

Great! The likelihood of that was high. He wouldn’t even make it out of the hallway just beyond his dungeon door before he lost his shit.

She couldn’t think of a solution right now. She wasn’t even sure if she would actually let him go. Emerie was just trying to figure out what she wanted to do, how she would handle this.

Emerie needed to pick a side, but first she would determine what was actually possible – and wouldn’t get her killed for no reason.