“No longer …,” I repeated, frowning.
“Until you die.” The words, delivered with all the sympathy and warmth that Sofie could muster, still turned my blood icy cold.
“So … that means …”
“Wraith will be with you for the rest of your natural life, whether it be seventy years or seventy minutes. He’s bound to you forever.” Forever. Such a long time. Or not. But as long I lived, Nathan’s life-sucking ghost would trail me. And that meant I would carry around a constant reminder of Sofie’s lost love, knifing her in the heart daily with his indifference. Being with me would cause her more pain. Soon, she’d be forced to abandon me. How else would she survive this? Shards of pain splintered through my heart. Nothing seemed to be going Sofie’s way.
“He will attack anything he feels is a threat to you, Evangeline. Anything at all. Nothing can harm him. Vampires, werebeasts—he will leech our strength from us with a touch, weaken us until we can’t fight back, or simply kill us. Mortal beings … they will die.” Sofie’s eyes darted behind me. “Stay far away from him, Julian. I can’t fix you if he decides you’re a threat.” Julian nodded soberly, giving me a sympathetic smile as Amelie’s arms enveloped him. Sofie went on. “And he can sense danger. He can dig into a person’s soul, read their evil intentions. Therein lies the danger, Evangeline. He won’t always ask you before he reacts. He may act on his own assessments of a person, of their danger to you.”
I glanced haphazardly at Wraith and then at Caden. He is capable of causing fatal injury to you. That’s what Wraith said. That’s what he dug out of Caden.
Caden was already shaking his head, distress evident on his face. “I don’t … I wouldn’t … not anymore!”
“He sees it in all of us,” Mage explained. “We are all capable of hurting her. She is human and it is in our DNA to kill her. Don’t take it personally.”
Awkward silence hung over the entire group until Sofie simply turned and left, half stumbling, dejected, down the hall. When she reached the doors out to the courtyard, I heard her call out, “Don’t worry. Wraith will not harm Evangeline.”
I almost didn’t catch her last words. I wish I hadn’t. “He’ll protect her from all of us.” And then she was pushing through the doors, disappearing into the wintry outside, leaving a horde of supernaturals and Julian and me alone with this new unstoppable creature. My newest curse.
“Well … on that note.” Viggo’s shoes slid against the floor as he stole down the hall. “Now that our fearless leader has given her permission, I’ll be happy to go deal with a certain blood-sucking mutant.” Sofie must have released them from their leash while we were roaming the halls and getting drunk. Viggo wasn’t wasting any time for good reason. If Wraith bothered to poke around in his soul—or whatever existed inside him—he’d find enough evil intent to decide to permanently affix himself to Viggo’s arm. He was Contender Number One in the “Threat to Eve” department, and if Viggo couldn’t kill Wraith, as he had every other threat to him—Lilly’s mom included—he would need to keep as far away as possible.
“Mortimer …?” he called.
Mortimer couldn’t seem to peel his focus off Wraith, though, a distant grief tugging at his face. For once, I knew exactly what he was thinking. What would it be like to have Veronique turned into a wraith? To have her soul sucked out, her beauty marred, to have her look through him, not recognize him, not love him. It would be enough to break any of us, and Sofie had to live it.
When Viggo appeared in front of Mortimer’s face to rudely snap his fingers under his nose, Mortimer slammed Viggo’s hand away with such force that it sent Viggo back a few steps. “I heard you!” With a head bow to the rest of us, Mortimer walked away.
And that’s when it finally dawned on me. “You guys are going back to New York?” Closer to discovering Veronique’s predicament, if you catch and interrogate someone? Another wave of lightheadedness swarmed me. Bishop’s hands found their place on my elbows, steadying me.
“Someone has to clean up the mess! You children have fun here … with that!” Viggo called out over his shoulder, strolling away.
“Remember Sofie’s caveat, Viggo. Stay away from the witches!” Mage warned. “As long as they’re in there, they’re not causing us issues.” When Viggo didn’t answer, she looked to Mortimer. “Be the sensible one, please.”