My Soul To Steal

I followed Nash to his bedroom, where he sat on the bed and leaned back on the headboard, leaving the desk chair for me.

“Was Sabine in here?” I set the plate on his nightstand, glancing around his room as if I’d never seen it.

Nash popped open his can, his posture tense and expectant. He watched me like I was a bomb about to explode. “Does it really matter?”

“Yeah.” I set my can on his desk and faced him, fighting through suspicion and fear so I could focus on my anger. “Your ex-girlfriend just told me she has no problem going through me to get to you. So yes, Nash. It matters where you were when you talked to her until after two in the morning.” Because that’s as far as I’d narrowed it down so far. She was here until after two. When I was sound asleep, and probably already dreaming about them making out in front of my locker.

Nash closed his eyes, then opened them and took a long drink from his soda. Then he met my gaze. “Yeah. We were in here.”

My chest ached. I don’t know why finding out where they’d been made it worse—I knew they’d only talked. But knowing they’d been in his room made it more personal. Made it sting more.

“On the bed?” I asked, when I’d recovered my voice, hating how paranoid I sounded.

“Damn it, Kaylee, nothing happened!”

“Right. I heard. But did this ‘nothing’ happen on the bed?” I couldn’t breathe, waiting for his answer. “Was she on your bed, Nash?”

“For the last time, she’s just a friend,” he said, his voice low, the wet can slipping lower in his grip. “She’s the only friend I have right now who knows more about me than my football stats from last season.”

I knew more about him than that. I knew a lot more. But I hadn’t come to see him even once while he was working his way through withdrawal, because I couldn’t deal with it. The wounds were still too fresh. Too raw. When I thought about Nash, I thought about Avari, and the things they’d each let the other do to me, when I wasn’t in control of my own body.

In the painful silence, I popped open my Coke, just to have something to do with my hands. “So … what is she?”

Nash looked up, obviously confused. “I thought Tod told you …”

“He just said she’s my worst nightmare. Whatever that means.” But frankly, any girl openly trying to steal Nash from me would qualify as my nightmare. “So … what is she?” I repeated, hoping I wouldn’t have to say it again. “Siren? Harpy?” I raised both brows at him in sudden comprehension. “She’s a harpy, isn’t she? She acts like a harpy.” Not that I’d ever met one.

Nash laughed out loud. “She’d probably get a kick out of that.” But I had my doubts. “She’s a Nightmare, like Tod said. Only that’s kind of an antiquated term. Now, they’re called maras.”

“There’s a politically correct term for Nightmares? Would that make me a death portent?” I joked to cover my own confusion and ignorance, and Nash laughed again to oblige me.

“Sure. We could start a movement. ‘Rename the bean sidhe.’ You make picket signs, I’ll call the governor. It’s gonna be huge.”

“Funny.” Only it wasn’t. “So what exactly is a mara?”

Nash leaned forward and met my gaze with a somber one of his own. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything, but you have to promise not to freak out. Remember, it was weird finding out you were a bean sidhe at first, too, right?”

Weird didn’t begin to describe it. “Nash, I just found out she was on your bed at two o’clock this morning. With you. How much worse could this be?”

He gave me an apprehensive look, but didn’t deny that they’d been on his bed together, and another little part of my heart shriveled up and died.

“Maras are a rare kind of parasite, and unique in that they aren’t native to the Netherworld. At least, according to my mom.”

“Did she and your mom get along?”

“Yeah.” Nash shrugged. “Sabine didn’t know what she was when I met her, and I’d figured out she wasn’t human, but that’s as far as I’d gotten. But my mom narrowed it down pretty fast. She wanted to help her.”

Of course she had. Harmony’s heart was too big for her own good. She wanted to help me, too, and I was definitely starting to see a pattern. Nash and his mother shared their hero complex—I should have seen that coming, considering that she was a nurse—and so far, only Tod seemed immune to the family calling to help people.

He killed them instead.

“So she’s a parasite? That sounds … gross. If I get in her way, is she going to attach herself to my back and suck me dry like a tick? Or a vampire?”

Nash rolled his eyes. “There are no vampires. And no. Maras don’t feed physically. They feed psychically. Off of human energy.”

Alarms went off in my head. “She eats human energy? Like Avari?”

“No.” Nash frowned, like he was mentally organizing his thoughts, and it was a struggle. “Well, kind of. But she’s not a hellion. Hellions thrive on pain and chaos, and they’re strong enough to take it from the bleed-through of human energy between worlds. Parasites are nowhere near that strong. They have to feed through a direct connection, of one sort or another. And maras, specifically, feed from fear.”

I blinked. Then blinked again, grasping for a nugget of comprehension from the words he seemed to be throwing at me at random. “She’s a fear eater?” I said at last. “So … as long as I don’t show her any fear, she can’t feed from me?”

Nash took another long drink from his can, then set it on his nightstand. “Not exactly. There’s a reason they used to be called Nightmares.”

But before he could continue, movement from across the room caught my eye and I looked up to find Tod scowling at me. “You really think this is smart, after what he did?”

Nash obviously could neither see nor hear his brother, but he’d seen me stare off into space often enough to interpret the silence. “Damn it, Tod.”

I sighed, glancing from one brother to the other. “I needed answers.”

“I would have given them to you.” Tod crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Nash, who stared at nothing, two feet from the space Tod actually occupied.

“He owes them to me.”

“Show yourself or get out,” Nash said, finally tired of being ignored. “Better yet, just get out.”

Tod’s eyes narrowed and he stepped forward, clearly stepping into sight, just to spite his brother. “Did you tell her about the dreams?”

Nash’s frown deepened. “I was about to.”

Dreams. Nightmares. Parasite. Sabine kissing Nash in front

of my locker. No! But the pieces of the puzzle fit, so far as I could tell, and there was no denying the picture they formed. “She feeds during nightmares? She fed from me, during my sleep last night?”

“Probably,” Tod said, while Nash asked, “What did you dream?”

I wasn’t going to answer, but they were both looking at me, obviously waiting for a response. “I dreamed you and Sabine were making out in front of my locker. And you dumped me for her, because she ‘delivers.’”

Nash flinched, while the reaper only shrugged. “Yeah, that sounds like Sabine.”

“I’m sorry, Kay.” Nash looked miserable. “I’ll make sure she stops.”

“Yeah. You will.” I didn’t even have words for how repulsed and scared I was by the fact that she’d been there while I slept, sucking energy from me through my dream. A very personal, horrifying dream.

“Kay, she didn’t just feed from your nightmare,” Tod explained, lowering his voice, as if that might soften whatever blow was coming. “She gave you that nightmare.”

Huh? “What does that mean? How do you give someone a nightmare?” Other than scaring the living crap out of them. Which, come to think of it, fit Sabine to a T.

Nash tapped his empty can on the nightstand. “Sabine creates nightmares from a person’s existing fear. It’s a part of what she is, just like singing for people’s souls is a part of who you are.”