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into Robb terrified her.
    “ It’s not all that bad. You and me, we’ll have fun together .”
    “ I wish I could believe you, Loku .”
    Dev’s hand wrapped around hers. She savored the brief contact. After her mother died, the villagers treated her like a leper, scared to touch her because she appeared so different from them. When they did approach her, it was with fists and threats. Yet here was a man who knew what evil lived inside her and wasn’t afraid to hold her hand.
    “Are you feeling a bit more rational now?” He waited until she nodded before he added,
    “Good, let’s go. There’s a necromancer in the area, and I want to get as far away from him as I can.”
    Her feet moved in response to the gentle tug of his hand. “Why?” One auburn eyebrow arched. “Besides the pain of dealing with undead?”
    “So you weren’t lying about that, were you?”
    He lifted her up on his horse and stared at her. “This isn’t some wild tale I’m fashioning to scare you. I believe the necromancer was behind Robb’s death.”
    “ And if that’s true, you’re the next target .”
    Arden froze. What kind of trouble had she gotten herself into now?

Chapter 4
    Trouble stopped asking questions for almost an hour after Dev told her about the necromancer. The silence soothed him after all of her hysterics earlier. Thankfully, the calming spell seemed to work on her.
    “Are you hungry?” he asked when the shadows began to lengthen from the late afternoon sun.
    Her nose moved from side to side against his back.
    He cringed at the thought of what she might have wiped on his cloak. “I’m planning on stopping at an inn tonight. You could use a bath and some suitable travelling clothes.”
    “I smell bad?”
    Far from it. Underneath the smoke, she still smelled of warm bread and baked apples.
    “You’re covered in soot and dirt.”
    She sighed. “I suppose a bath would be nice, and a hot meal.” A hot meal would do her some good. Several meals, in fact. She was far too thin for his liking. The hollowed recesses under her cheeks and along her collarbones made him fear she would snap in his hands.
    “Why did you want to return to that place when they treated you so horribly?” She removed one hand from his waist. Although he couldn’t see what she was doing, he suspected she was playing with the thin gold chain around her neck. “It’s the only home I’ve ever known. My mother was from there.”
    “And where is she now?”
    Her body went rigid. “She died ten winters ago.”
    “And your father?”
    “Why are you interested in my past?”
    The acid in her voice almost singed him. He had unwittingly stumbled on a touchy subject with her. But at least now he knew why she worked for that bully of an innkeeper. “I was just curious about you. Perhaps if I knew more, I might understand why Loku chose you.” She flinched, followed by a hiss.
    “What?”
    “Loku said something very crude.”
    Despite her reaction, he couldn’t suppress his amusement. “That sounds like him.”
    “Have you ever heard him?”
    Her body began to relax against his again, and the sensation felt so good, it almost unnerved him. She was the first female Soulbearer, a fact he couldn’t ignore. Dev cleared his mind and focused on her question instead of the pressure of her cheek between his shoulders.
    “I’ve had a few conversations with him over the years. Occasionally, he’ll take over the Soulbearer’s body and speak.”
    “Like last night?”
    The image of her face when Robb grabbed her hand and Loku spoke to her flashed in his mind. He’d called her tasty. Odd choice of words for the thin girl riding behind him. Dev had drawn his sword and was about to rouse Robb from Loku’s control with a whack on the shins when the assassin’s blade lodged itself in the old man’s back.
    Guilt over his failure weighed down his limbs like heavy chains. This was the first time a Soulbearer had been murdered. He feared what the