Rachel Vincent - With All My Soul

“Do you have any idea how hot it is when you lick that plastic ice cream thing?” Tod’s eyes were swirling when I scooted across the mattress toward him, rumpling the already chaotic mess of sheets and blankets. It never ceased to amaze me how disheveled his bed always was, considering that he rarely slept at all. If ever. I’d never seen him sleep, anyway.

“No. But you’re welcome to tell me....”

“It’s so hot I’m considering opening another carton, just to watch the replay.”

I smiled. “Sounds like you need to cool off.”

“That’s not what I need. In fact, that’s the opposite of what I need. But I might accept a short delay in the form of one of those little chocolate fishes.”

Laughing, I dug a fish-shaped bite of fudge out with my spoon and fed it to him.

“Mmm... This is the best part of being dead.”

“No, this is the best part of being dead.” I kissed him, and his tongue was cold and he tasted like fudge. So I kissed him again.

“We did that when you were alive, you know.”

Yeah, but only for a day. Because I’d died on the second day of our relationship. And... “But never here. Never in absolute privacy. Never after my father went to sleep, in a totally separate building, with no idea where we are or what we’re doing.” If I were still alive, my dad would be enforcing my curfew much more strictly.

I took a bite of ice cream and let it melt slowly in my mouth. We’d suffered a criminal lack of perfect moments since the day I’d kissed him in the hall at school. There always seemed to be something or someone standing in the way of perfection, however brief, and that something was a hellion more often than not. But this moment was perfect. This moment was chocolate, and privacy, and bare skin, and cold mouths, and warm hands, and cell phones set on Silent.

I didn’t want to ruin the moment, but Tod seemed to realize at about the same point I did that we could eat ice cream and hold hands, but if we didn’t also do something constructive, we would look back on this moment plagued with guilt, when our lack of preparation got someone killed.

Someone who wasn’t already supposed to die, that is.

“Anything new with Sophie?” he said, but his tone and the eye contact he was making with my mouth told me he was less interested in the answer than he was in...me.

“Sabine says half a drop of liquid envy is more than enough. We were right about that. Turns out my cousin is a possessive little monster, though, so Sabine’s going to skip the morning dose tomorrow, because no one has any pre-lunch classes with Sophie, and we don’t want her to...well...go psycho when no one’s there to help.”

“Really? I think that might be kind of entertaining. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“You know how Laura Bell has this horrible Pat Benatar-from-the-eighties haircut?”

“I don’t even know who Laura Bell is, and I can’t honestly say I care about her hair. Your hair is the only hair I care about.” He ran a strand of it through his fingers. “And I love how it looks kinda red in the light, and how it feels when it trails over my skin when we’re—”

I could feel my cheeks burn. “Well, Laura has tragically short hair, courtesy of Sophie, from back when Invidia was polluting the entire school with a monster dose of jealousy. We’re trying to avoid as many civilian casualties as possible this time. Especially since the point of this whole thing is to keep the hellions from doing any more damage at Eastlake.”

“Great. Good plan. I approve. Now can we do that thing where your hair trails over...?” He made a vague gesture encompassing his chest and my hair.

I laughed. “In a minute. Business first.” I slid another spoonful of ice cream into his mouth when he started to object.

“Fine,” Tod said when his mouth was empty again. “So, how’s Emma holding up? Any more accidental syphoning?”

“Yeah,” I said around a bite of chocolate-laced marshmallow cream. “I think she was taking a bit of her sister’s...pregnancy emotion this afternoon.”

“What emotion would that be?”

“Several at once, as near as I can tell. Fear. Grief. This fierce love for her unborn child, which was kind of amazing to watch. I mean, she’s never even seen the baby. And she can’t have felt it kick yet. I looked it up, and it’s too early for that, unless things are different for an incubus pregnancy. But she loves that baby like it’s the only thing she has in the whole world.” Which wasn’t true. But that didn’t make the intense love I’d seen in her eyes any less real.

“I guess sometimes the parental bond begins in utero.”

“I guess.” I sat up and put the lid on the ice cream carton, then handed it to him. “Tod, do you ever wind up with any... extras? ”

“Extra what?” He swiveled on the edge of the mattress to put up the ice cream, and when he turned again, he handed me one of the cups of water, then took a sip from his own.

“Extra souls.”

Tod choked on his drink, then coughed while I pounded on his back. Dead people can’t choke to death, but you’d never know that from the way it still feels when you inhale water.

“You okay?” I said, when he finally stopped coughing and met my gaze.

He set his cup on the fridge without even glancing away from me. “Kaylee, I know what you’re thinking, and you need to stop thinking it. Seriously. It won’t work.”

“He’s a baby. We can’t just let Traci’s baby die.”

“Yes, we can. We have to.”

“What is wrong with you?” Angry and disappointed, I stood and stomped across the floor and into the bathroom—a four-step trip—and dumped my water into the sink.

Tod followed but hovered in the doorway. Giving me space but not giving in. “Kay, listen to me. Please. I’m not just being randomly cruel. I have nothing against Traci Marshall, and you know I’d never intentionally hurt Emma.”

Unless it was to save me. He’d hurt Em to save me. He’d hurt anyone to save me, and I didn’t quite know how to deal with that knowledge.

“Traci’s baby is an incubus. She wouldn’t be so sick otherwise, right?”

I nodded. But I didn’t look up. I couldn’t look at him, because I wasn’t sure what I’d see swirling in his eyes this time.

“That baby will never be on my list. Just like his father never would have. Just like Avari never will be. Because they’re...they’re monsters, Kaylee. Predators.”

“Sabine’s a predator. She can’t live without hurting

others.” That sucked, but it was true. “If she can control it, so can Traci’s baby.”

“No.” Tod stepped into the bathroom and stood at my back, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his skin through my shirt but not close enough to actually touch me. “Sabine’s the exception, Kaylee. She’s native to our world. She’s the product of two human parents. She’s a predator, but not a monster. Beck was different. His son will be different. You know what Beck did to Traci. You know that he would have done the same thing to Emma. And to Sophie. And to you, if you weren’t immune to his abilities.” Because I was a bean sidhe. “He feeds to survive, just like everyone else in both worlds. The difference for incubi is...what he did to Traci. To your friend Danica. They had no choice.” He stopped talking, waiting for a response from me, but I had none. I didn’t know what to say.

“Kaylee, look at me, please. I need to know that you know I’m not just being cruel.” He closed what little distance stood between us and pressed his chest against my back. He ran his hands slowly down my arms, and finally I met his gaze in the mirror and saw the truth swirling in his eyes.