Fire in the sun, p.1
Between Soul and Vessel: A Dark Fantasy Romance Series (Between Life and Death Series Book 4), page 1
Books by Jaclyn Kot
The Between Life and Death Series
Between Life and Death (Book 1)
Between Sun and Moon (Book 2)
Between the Moon and Her Night (Book 2.5)
Between Soul and Vessel (Book 3)
Between Soul and Vessel
Jaclyn Kot
Copyright ©2025 by Jaclyn Kot
Editing by Jessica McKelden
Proofreading by Alexa at The Fiction Fix and Vanessa at Veerie Edits
Cover design by Gigi Creatives
Formatting by Imagine Ink Designs
Map by New Ink Book Services
Chapter art by Steven Rice
All Rights Reserved.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Intended for Mature Audiences
This book is a dark fantasy romance that contains content that could be triggering.
Please visit www.jaclynkotbooks.com for more information.
To you, the warrior, the woman, fighting battles no one can see.
You are strong. Your voice matters.
YOU matter.
<3
Sage
I drifted on the current of nothing.
The vessel that housed my soul was weightlessly suspended in the air. It was as if someone had severed the cord that connected me to my body—but there was something about this place of nothing. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. A finger I did not need. Nor a hand, nor an arm. Because in the realm of nothing, I didn’t need my body.
. . . I didn’t need anything.
My eyelids were closed, and yet I could see.
In particular, I could see what was above me—
A plethora of stalactites reached down from the rocky ceiling. The uneven, icicle-like structures were luminescent, glowing a brilliant, effervescent blue on the roof of the cave’s mouth. The color pulsed, growing brighter and then dimmer, as if it were breathing. As if it were alive.
I recalled that feeling. I had been alive once.
But when or how, I could not recall.
I admired the sparkling, brilliant, breathing formations.
How lovely. How true.
How true?
It made no sense and yet, it made perfect sense.
I would stay here for the remainder of eternity, drifting on the river of nothing.
Please do not leave me, Little Goddess! a male roared inside my head.
But the owner of the voice I could not place.
Hands that were tipped with vicious claws fished me out of the waterless river. They hoisted me onto the rocky bank and began to drag me along. My soul peered at them, taking in the strange, beautiful, enchanting creatures, their skin forged of charcoal gray and intricate white markings. They were tall and lean, their faces long and finely tailored and so heartbreakingly beautiful. Both of them had large, ethereal wings, tucked neatly in. And their eyes—housed beneath hairless brows—were completely black.
“It’s a pretty one,” said an ethereal voice, beautiful and soft and . . . male.
“Indeed. The empress did a good job upon its creation,” said the other one. The sound was equally lovely, but this one was higher pitched. Female, perhaps?
“Yes, she did,” agreed the male as they continued to drag me forward. If they found my body heavy, they didn’t let on. In fact, by the way they walked, one would think they were hauling something as light as a pillow behind them.
Weave her another fate! a masculine voice demanded—the same one I had heard before.
“Where do you think she will send it to next?” asked the female as she glanced down at me. Her hairless brows lowered, her expression changing to confusion.
“I dare not make a guess. The empress knows things we never will,” replied the male in his soothing voice. He dropped my arm, and it slapped against the rocky floor—the sound echoing. “Put her on the table and I’ll prepare for the extraction.” His clawed toes scratched against the ground as he walked away.
“Nemtuk,” the female said as she quickly dropped my hand.
“You know I can’t let you perform the extraction,” the male—Nemtuk—said. “Not after what happened last time. You nearly destroyed that poor soul.”
“No, that’s not it. I think it’s watching us,” the female said, her eyes fixed on mine.
“Impossible,” Nemtuk scoffed. “They do not possess the ability to be conscious here.”
“I’m serious. Come over here and look,” she said.
“Fine. Fine,” he sighed. His nails clicked against the ground, growing louder as he approached. Clawed fingers clamped onto my cheeks, moving my head from side to side as he gazed into my blank, lifeless face. He let out a shriek and dropped my head. “We must take it to the empress at once!”
All around us, minuscule water droplets were suspended in the air, blanketing it in a heavy layer of fog so thick I did not know how the strange, beautiful creatures were able to fly through it. Yet, they did, as if they had some inner compass guiding them. Light fought its way through the mist, bouncing off the frozen crystals, making them glitter.
It was beautiful.
If I had breath to take, I imagined it would have been stolen.
Nemtuk carried me in his unusually long, lithe arms, his wings stretched out behind him. They were a shade darker than his charcoal skin, almost black but not quite. My gaze drifted to the end of his left wing. There, the air worked away at one loose feather, as if it were chiseling it out, desperate to take it. I had been watching it for the duration of our flight, a time I had no means of measuring.
Did time even exist here? Or was that back . . .
Back where?
My thoughts stumbled, tripped, and fell, straight down a black hole of nothingness. There was a lapse, something I was missing or forgetting. But when I tried to reach for it, it was fleeting.
I returned my attention to the feather, watching it tick back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. I wondered when it would give up its fight and just let go.
Nemtuk cleared his throat. “Imari.”
“Hmm?” she answered, her face fixed ahead.
“I must admit . . .” There was a small bit of hesitancy, as if he didn’t want to reveal the next part. Slowly, he continued, “The closer we get to the Celestial Opal Palace, the more anxious I become.”
“I can understand why. If I was your gender, I would probably feel the same way.” She let out a breath through her narrow nostrils—more slits than circles. “But you must remember, Empress Avena’s laws do not extend to our kind. We are her most prized creation. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I suppose you are right,” Nemtuk agreed, albeit his teeth weathering against his bottom lip spoke otherwise. Charcoal skin crinkled between his hairless brows as he stole a quick glance at me. When our eyes met, he swiftly looked away.
Attention returning to the wiggling feather, I noticed the stubborn current had made some progress, as I could now see a bit of the quill. At any moment, the wind would have its way and finally pluck the silky, shiny plume free—stealing it away like a thief in the night.
When it finally did, I expected to feel some satisfaction at seeing the lone feather fly into the air, something I had been heavily invested in, but as I watched it fade into the distance, there wasn’t a sliver of feeling to be found.
Von
Find her.
With every strike of my phantom heart, that message rang out. Again, and again. A steady, constant thrum pushing adrenaline into my bloodless veins. Pushing me into madness as I grappled with reality. I had lost her. My mate. My Sage.
But I would get her back.
It was a vow I had roared for all to hear, to the heavens, to the Creator above. I didn’t care what it would take. Rivers of blood, piles of bones, souls upon souls—whatever the cost, I would pay it for her, without hesitation.
I knew she might hate me for what I was willing to do in her name, but that’s why she had always been the hero, and I the villain.
With my shadows clawing at the air behind me, I stormed into a cell at the very back of my dungeon, in the underbelly of my obsidian castle. The air was thick, riddled with the stench of rot, shit, and piss.
In the dim blue firelight provided by the braziers placed outside the cells, my eyes locked on the redheaded ass-licker. Before he could loosen his brown-tipped tongue, the iron of my fist smashed into his jaw, sending him careening to the floor.
I barely recognized my own voice, more demented creature than immortal, as I demanded, “Where is Soren?”
“Aggressive,” Folkoln said as he strolled around me, watching Arkyn as he rolled onto his side, choking and sputtering. “But tell me, brother, if yo
Ignoring him, I grabbed hold of Arkyn’s collar and lifted him from the cell floor. I shoved him against the wall, teeth gnashing as I reiterated, “Where is he?”
“I told you before, he’s probably at the castle,” he sputtered, his hands grabbing hold of my wrists, squirming like a maggot covered in its own filth as he tried to fight my unbreakable hold.
“He’s not.” I squeezed my fist, cinching the cloth tighter, allowing him a fraction of the air he needed to properly breathe. I could have easily snatched the air from his lungs without lifting a finger, but right now, more than ever, I needed to use my hands. I needed to feel the crux of pain as I split my knuckles open, needed to feel every bit of it so I could stay grounded in my cause.
A flutter of wings sounded, followed by light footsteps.
“I found him, my king,” Fallon’s voice came from the cell door.
My eyes remained on Arkyn. “Where?”
“In Belamour.”
I shoved Arkyn into the wall, the volcanic glass spiderwebbing with deep fissures. Releasing him from my chokehold, he slid to the floor, gulping down mouthfuls of air.
Turning, I faced Fallon.
Her eyes stretched wide, the air in the back of her throat catching. I was no stranger to the look she gave me, my immortal ears familiar with the whisper of a breath faltering. It was the same response everyone else seemed to emit whenever they saw me, now more than ever—
Fear.
After the Three Spinners agreed to help me get Sage back, I had just barely wrangled my beast form into submission, but he had not left me unmarked. My eyes were stained an inky, otherworldly black. My ears, sharpened into points, like two daggers, remained, as well as the menacing horns. My skin was stained with bolts of onyx as if I was the conduit between the heavens and the earth, struck by the electricity produced from warring clouds.
In truth, when I caught my reflection in the mirror, I no longer recognized myself, but that disconnect was not because of my appearance. It was deeper than flesh and bone, and it went directly to the core of my being.
If I ever had any humanity in me, it had been destroyed when she died.
When I lost Sage the first time, when our babe died with her, I fell into the abyss of darkness. There, in the swirling pit of emptiness, I was forged into the hunter, my task at the forefront of my mind—tracking down the immortal who murdered my mate and my child. I had vowed to make Nicholas suffer, ten-fold the amount he had inflicted upon her.
And that was exactly what I had done, before I ended his miserable life.
Now, I was being forged into that same creature, but this time, it was different. Although the years were long, I had hope back then. I’d known Sage would reincarnate, and eventually, we would be reunited.
But now I knew the truth. She would not.
And it changed everything.
It had changed me.
It had made me . . . whatever I was now.
“Show me,” I said to Fallon.
“Alright.” She nodded, her form shifting into a raven.
“Lock the cell,” I directed Folkoln, his reply lost as my umbra swept around me, taking me to the Living Realm.
The Jewel of Edenvale was going to shit, and it was going to shit fast.
For hundreds of years, Belamour had been a sanctuary for the wealthy and the upper class due to its proximity to the castle, which had traditionally housed a great deal of the monarchy’s army. But when news had spread of Aurelius’s and the mortal king’s deaths, Edenvale had been thrust into chaos, fumbling to decide on a new heir—the mortal king’s young son or his estranged nephew. As the idiots of the court argued over which one to choose, mortals did as they always did when they had no authority to answer to—they began to pillage, turning their sights on the richest city in Edenvale first.
In less than a few weeks, a good portion of the opulent, indulgent city was left in ruin. The once polished, brick-paved streets were full of mud and excrement. The stained-glass windows were shattered, the stores gutted and ransacked, though some establishments and houses had been left untouched, Sage’s and my manor included.
When my winds had whispered to me about what was happening in Belamour, I’d come here and placed wards around the gothic manor I had built for Sage—ensuring it would not be harmed. During the too-short time we spent together, the memories of that place were something I cherished, and I would do everything to guard it, to ensure it would still be standing when I finally brought her home.
Fallon flew beside me as I walked, her wings held straight out as she drifted on a pocket of air. Bits of ash rained down on us. A crackling, popping fire chewed at a building to my right. People dashed toward it, carrying buckets of water as they attempted to quench the ravenous flames.
The boisterous laughter of a drunk, copulating pair caught my attention—the man’s dirty, unwashed ass on full display as he jerked into the woman, his trousers slung down by his feet. I did not see how she could find any pleasure, all things considered, but she had her head tossed back and was moaning in ecstasy.
Mortals.
What a peculiar bunch.
Fallon tucked her wings in as she descended to the ground, shifting into her human form at the same time. She nodded toward an inn a few buildings down. “That’s it.”
Like the majority of the buildings on this street, the inn looked to have seen much better days. The windows were boarded up with slats of wood, and the door looked like it was one swift kick away from falling off its hinges.
As we walked up to it, I looked up at the cracked wood sign swinging above the entrance.
The Little French Cat Inn.
I quirked a brow at the strange name, repeating my earlier sentiments—
Mortals.
When we walked inside, the scent of ale and damp wood was strong. People sat at their tables, hunched over their drinks as they spoke to one another. Their conversations fell short as they turned toward me, horror spreading from face to face, passing like a torch. I scanned each one. Not a single, sniveling Soren to be found.
“Where did you see him?” I asked Fallon.
“He was over there, sitting at the bar,” she replied, nodding in the indicated direction.
“Well, he’s not there now,” I observed before I started to walk between the tables, my bootheels sticking to the ale-covered floors.
Fallon scurried behind me. “My king, where are you going?”
I eyed the face of the weathered innkeeper. “To have a little conversation.”
As I approached the man, he reared back into the cupboard behind him, causing the bottles and cups to chatter. I slid onto a wooden stool and dropped my elbow to the bar top with a loud thunk. The man nearly jumped out of his swiftly paling skin.
“C-c-c-an I get you something?” he stammered.
“The hospitality,” I said with a saccharine grin, one that quickly fell from my lips. “I’m looking for a boy around eighteen years of age. Dirty blond hair. Brown eyes.” I raised my hand to just below my shoulder. “About this tall.” I wiggled my fingers. “Missing a few of these.”
The innkeeper glanced at the stairwell.
That one look told me all I needed to know.
“Room.” It wasn’t a question, so I didn’t ask it like one.
He swallowed harshly, his Adam’s apple performing a desperate bob, as if it were attempting to squirm out of him, something I imagined his soul wanted to do as well.
“The king asked you a question,” Fallon grated. “I suggest you answer it.”
“You best listen to her. I’m a desperate soul, and you know what they say about desperate souls, don’t you?” I paused for a moment, my gaze shifting lazily from one side of the room to the other. “They’ll burn it all to the ground to get what they want.”
“Second floor. Room twenty-four,” he squeaked, clenching the countertop behind him.
I tapped the counter twice, my rings clattering against the stone top. “Thank you, boss.”
My shadows swept around me, taking me to the second floor.
I walked by the first three rooms, stopping when I found the one I was looking for. My knuckles drummed gently against the door as I purred, “Housekeeping.”
