Page 97 of Solivagant

“Because she doesn’t have one.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“My Jo, I don’t know what she is. She’s human shaped, certainly. But she doesn’t have a soul at all.”

49

JOSIAH

Tash didn’t have a soul. That was why I couldn’t see it the way I could see Khorli’s. What did that mean? Was she aware?

Was she even human?

I followed her back to our camp, and Khorli followed me.

It was a good thing, I supposed. It meant she’d be safer when we crossed the Bridge, but it did raise questions, ones I weren’t sure even she knew the answer to.

It made Khorli suspicious of her. Though maybe that was how he normally interacted with people he wasn’t in love with. I didn’t exactly have other references to go off.

She seemed to be acting normally. Almost alarmingly so. She’d heard my story of what had happened since I’d woken up here, and accepted it, and me, right away. Horns, and tail, and all.

She didn’t seem to particularly care that Khorli was giving her death stares as she fiddled with the rusted and blood-soaked axe.

“Get your stuff, princess, and let’s get out of here before any more of Dale’s pals come looking for him. Or Jim. Or Bradley. Y’all can finish whatever that was in the creek when we get to… wherever it is.”

I huffed. I’d told her I killed Bradley too. She hadn’t cared. I had to wonder now if her missing soul had something to do with that.

Then again, I’d had two souls for a time, and I still hadn’t felt remorse over Bradley. How could I? He’d tried to take my monster from me. There weren’t anyone I wouldn’t kill for that.

I shoved items back into their sun-bleached bags.

Khorli told me he had a comfortable bed of furs in his den, so the musty sleeping bag and tent could stay here.

“Bring anything good with you?” I asked as I pulled on the tattered flannel shirt.

“You got your own supplies, beastie. What’s mine is mine.”

I huffed. I knew her well enough to know it would mainly be weapons in her bag anyway, and I had my own. He was about eight foot five inches, and absolutely ripped.

My eyes tracked over the swell of his pecs. His abs. The trail of fur that started at his belly button and thickened as it went down to cover his legs. A shiver ran down my spine.

I swallowed. Focus, Josiah.

There’d be time to drool, perhaps quite literally, over my monster boyfriend later. I would make sure of it.

For now, we had a journey to make.

There was just one thing to do first.

The altar that Jeremiah had died on was made of large slabs of stone. A sacrifice here would open the Bridge for us, but also any who found this place after us and figured out what it was for. For our own protection, and so that his final resting place would be free of the thing he feared most, we destroyed it.

Muscles bulged in Khorli’s strong arms as he lifted the stone, dropping it to shatter into tiny, useless pieces. I got to work assisting him, partially to have my own vengeance for Jeremiah, partially to test the limits of my new strength, but mostly because it stopped me wanting to throw Khorli to the ground and rut against him as the beast I apparently was now.

Tash whistled. “Shit, maybe you should bite me too.”

Khorli growled.

She laughed. “He’s so possessive. Nice.” Her eyes lingered over his body just long enough I almost felt my own growl building in warning before she spoke again. “Hey, do they come in lesbian?”