The Soul Thief

Chapter 28

"Welcome," Kira said with a grin. "I don't know if you've had a chance to meet my parents."

She gestured to the pair behind her. Seeing her alongside them, it was clear she was a miniature version of her mother. But her eyes? They held the same wild look her father did.

I ran my eyes over them both. Her mother looked calm, but her hands were curled into tight fists that displayed her tension. Her father trembled with barely contained nerves. His eyes darting desperately around as though looking for escape.

When his eyes caught mine and then shot back to Kira, I saw it. Suddenly, the pieces were slipping into place and things were making sense.

Their mother had never been the one people should fear. Even their father, for all his mad scientist appearance, wasn't truly out to cause harm. But the thing they had created? Whatever was in their daughter, Blake's sister, sent shivers down my spine.

I took a step back, and she pursed her lips. "Stop."

When I next attempted to take a step back, my foot refused to obey, and I looked down at my feet in horror.

"What's going on?" I asked, as loudly as I could.

Hoping, praying, someone passing might hear and come to see what was going on. "We are having a discussion." She said laughed, "No need to be so dramatic."

"Let me go." I demanded, desperately trying to move my uncooperative body.

"Stop." she snapped, standing and marching over to me. "You will not fight me, will not harm me, will not resist."

My body went limp, the fight draining out of me as she stalked closer. The lack of resistance from the dead students made sense now. They didn't fight back because they couldn't. Because she ordered them to not to. It was her.

"You killed the students?" I asked when she stopped in front of me.

She used a hand to tilt my chin up and expose my neck. I could feel my heart thudding in my chest and knew she watched my pulse at my throat.

"I did what I needed to do. They were nothing, pathetically low level. They can hardly be considered a loss." She said slowly, tilting her head as she stared at my neck.

Over her shoulder, her parents refused to meet my eye, but the guilt was written across their faces.

"Why?" I choked out, "Why did you kill them?"

Kira ignored the question. "Do you know what it's like to feel a hunger so intense that you know you will die without it?" She asked, almost conversationally, "Because I have two hungers like that."

I swallowed hard as her eye colour shifted to a red so dark it was almost black.

"What do you get if you mix a banshee and a vampire?" Her tone was light and full of laughter, much like someone might begin a joke, before she pointed at herself with a giggle. "Me. My dear father combined them both inside of me and, in turn, created something incredible. Isn't that right, father?"

Behind her, he cringed and nodded, "Yes, my sweet. You are a wonder, and I hope my theory is correct to sate your cravings."

"What does that even mean?" I whispered.

"It means," she leaned forward close enough I could feel her breath on my throat, "that as well as the blood I need to sustain my vampire side, I crave something else. Something it took time for us to understand. But now I have learnt how to activate that part of me, I can easily consume the souls I need to and calm the hunger."

"Eating souls?" I asked, my body screaming at me to run as it recognised the predator before it.

"Indeed. If my father is correct, then this will be interesting." She whispered.