My Soul To Steal

Praise for the novels of

New York Times bestselling author

RACHEL VINCENT

“Twilight fans will love it.” —Kirkus Reviews on My Soul to Take

“A high-octane plot with characters you can really care

about. Vincent is a welcome addition to this genre!” Kelley Armstrong on Stray

“I liked the character and loved the action. I look

forward to reading the next book in the series.” Charlaine Harris on Stray

“Fans of those vampires will enjoy this new

crop of otherworldly beings.” —Booklist

“My Soul to Take grabs you from the very beginning.” —Sci-Fi Guy

“Wonderfully written characters … A fast-paced,

engrossing read that you won’t want to put down. A story that I wouldn’t mind sharing with my pre-teen … A book like this is one of the reasons that I add authors to my auto-buy list. This is definitely a keeper.” —TeensReadToo.com

Also available fromRachel Vincent

Published by

Soul Screamers

MY SOUL TO TAKE MY SOUL TO SAVE MY SOUL TO KEEP

Coming soon … IF I DIE

My Soul

to Steal

Rachel Vincent

www.miraink.co.uk

To all the real life couples, exes, and unrequited romantic interests, tangled up in love and nightmares. Sometimes that frayed knot is the best lifeline in the world. Other times, it works more like a straitjacket …

Thanks first of all to my editor, Mary-Theresa Hussey, who knew just what this book needed. Her suggestions challenged me to find better solutions, and the book is so much better for it.

Thanks to Natashya Wilson, for so much enthusiasm and support.

Rinda Elliot, for the lightning-fast critique, and for being the first to love Sabine.

Thanks to #1, who made fajitas and helped me figure out how to hurt a hellion.

Thanks to Ally, Jen, Melissa, Kelley, and everyone else in the YA community for advice, camaraderie, and for making me feel so welcome.

And most of all, thank you to the readers who have given Kaylee and her friends a place in this world. Without you, none of the rest of it would matter.

BY THE TIME the second semester of my junior year began, I’d already faced down rogue grim reapers, an evil entertainment mogul, and hellions determined to possess my soul. But I never would have guessed that the most infuriating beast of all, I had yet to meet. My boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend was a thing of nightmares. Literally.

“I WON’T BITE.” Nash looked up at me with a green bean speared on his fork, and I realized I was staring. I’d stopped on the bottom step, surprised to see him at school, and even more surprised to see him sitting alone at lunch, outside in the January cold, where I’d come to get away from the gossip and stares in the cafeteria.

Obviously he’d had the same idea.

I glanced over my shoulder through the window in the cafeteria door, looking for Emma, but she hadn’t shown up yet.

Nash frowned when he noticed my hesitation. But I wasn’t worried about him. I was worried about me. I was afraid that if I got within touching distance of him—within reach of the arms that had once been my biggest comfort and those gorgeous hazel eyes that could read me at a glance—that I would give in. That I would forgive, even if I couldn’t forget, and that would be bad.

I mean, it would feel good, but that would be bad.

The past two weeks had been the most difficult of my life. In the past few months alone, I’d survived horrors most sixteen-year-old girls didn’t even know existed. But a couple of weeks without Nash—our entire winter vacation—had nearly been enough to break me.

Whoever said it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved was full of crap. If I’d never loved Nash in the first place, I wouldn’t know what I was missing now.

“Kaylee?” Nash dropped his fork onto his tray, green bean untouched. “I get it. You’re not ready to talk.”

I shook my head and set my tray on the table across from his, then sank onto the opposite bench. “No, I just … I didn’t think you’d be here.” I hadn’t gone to see him, because that would have been unfair to us both—being together, when we couldn’t really be together. But I knew he’d been very sick from withdrawal, because my father, of all people, had called regularly to check on him.

And based on his brief reports, withdrawal from Demon’s Breath—known as frost, in human circles—was hell on earth.

“Are you … okay?” I asked, poking at runny spaghetti sauce with my own fork.

“Better.” He shrugged. “Still working toward okay.”

“But you’re well enough for school?”

Another shrug. “My mom was giving me a sedative made from some weird Netherworld plant for a while, to help with the shakes, but it just made me sleep all the time. Without dreams,” he added, when he saw my horrified expression. The hellion whose breath he’d been huffing had communicated with Nash through his dreams sometimes. And through me, the rest of the time. By hijacking my body while I slept.

I’d been willing to work through the addiction with Nash—after all, it was my fault he’d been exposed to Demon’s Breath in the first place. But his failure to stop the serial possession of my body—or even tell me it was happening—was the last straw for me. I couldn’t be with him until I was sure nothing like that would ever happen again.