A single soul, p.1
A Single Soul, page 1
A Single Soul
L.A. Witt
Contents
Artificial Intelligence
About A Single Soul
1. Matt
2. Cory
3. Matt
4. Cory
5. Matt
6. Cory
7. Matt & Cory
8. Matt
9. Cory
10. Matt
11. Cory
12. Matt
13. Cory
14. Matt
15. Cory
16. Matt
Acknowledgments
Also by L.A. Witt
Also by L.A. Witt
About the Author
Copyright Information
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
A Single Soul
First edition
Copyright © 2023 L.A. Witt
Cover Art by Lori Witt
Editor: Mackenzie Walton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, record ing, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact L.A. Witt at gallagherwitt@gmail.com
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-64230-176-2
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64230-177-9
Hardcover ISBN: 979-8-86124-974-4
Created with Vellum
Artificial Intelligence
No artificial intelligence was used in the making of this book or any of my books. This includes writing, co-writing, cover artwork, translation, and audiobook narration.
I do not consent to any Artificial Intelligence (AI), generative AI, large language model, machine learning, chatbot, or other automated analysis, generative process, or replication program to reproduce, mimic, remix, summarize, train from, or otherwise replicate any part of this creative work, via any means: print, graphic, sculpture, multimedia, audio, or other medium. This applies to all existing AI technology and any that comes into existence in the future.
I support the right of humans to control their artistic works.
To Michael Ferraiuolo, who sent me an email starting with “Hey, here’s a plot bunny…”
Just remember when you’re narrating it that you brought this on yourself.
About A Single Soul
Matt Russo knows better. Everyone does, but no one knows better than an attorney who routinely works with the fae: you watch what you say, or else you find yourself in the crosshairs of trickster magic.
Or in this case, with an angel on one shoulder and a demon on the other. And the ridiculous bickering celestial beings aren’t going anywhere until they help him change his perpetual single status. Worse, if someone finds out he used magic for any kind of gain, his personal and professional reputations might never recover.
Fortunately, his best friend and downstairs neighbor—not to mention the man he’s quietly wanted for the past five years—is smart and level-headed. If anyone can help Matt out of this fiasco, it’s Cory Miller.
Except while Cory’s happy to help Matt get rid of the pint-sized magical idiots, the only way they’re leaving is if they succeed in finding someone for Matt to love. Cory will do anything for his friend, but he’s not so sure he can take part in helping Matt find the man of his dreams. Not when he’s wished all this time that he could fill that particular role.
But maybe this magical disaster is exactly what Matt and Cory need to realize their secret attraction is mutual.
A Single Soul is approximately 40,000 words.
Chapter 1
Matt
I… did not think this through.
And damn it, I knew better. You don’t spend fifteen years representing fae, sorcerers, and the odd alchemist in the courtroom without learning to be very careful about every word you say. Otherwise you ended up like that district attorney—his name escapes me right now—whose political aspirations went up in smoke because he got careless and gave his name to a trickster who was now a U.S. senator running for reelection.
So. Yeah. I knew better.
In my admittedly weak defense, I was desperate. Everyone thinks they’re so smart and would never fall for trickster magic, but let’s see how rational and responsible you are when your love life is so pathetic that Spirit Halloween wants to rent out one side of your bed.
Staring into my bathroom mirror now, I rewound the events of the last few days, trying to figure out how exactly I’d ended up here.
Or rather, how they’d ended up here—“they” being the two tiny beings perched on my shoulders.
On the left, a demon. On the right, an angel. I supposed I should be thankful the angel wasn’t one of the Old Testament angels with the dozens of eyes and however many wings. I’d had a little too much to drink last night to process that. Not that I was doing such a hot job of getting all this into my head.
I wiped a hand over my unshaven face, then glared at my two passengers. “Okay, now that I’m… Maybe ‘awake’ is being generous, but…” I gestured dismissively. “Just… run it all by me again?”
In an instant, they were talking over each other, both sounding entirely too conscious and—at least in the angel’s case—perky for 7:43 on a Saturday morning.
“One at a time,” I growled.
They quieted and leaned forward to look past me at each other. I watched in the mirror as they gestured and shrugged in a pantomime of “You want to? No, you do it.”
I rolled my eyes. Then I pointed sharply at the angel. “You.”
He jumped and stammered, “Oh. Uh. I…” After a second, he recovered, pushed his shoulders back, and spoke, his accent British and his voice a little too loud, given the night I’d spent with Jack Daniels. “We’ve been sent here to assist you in finding a companion.”
I blinked. They’d both said as much when I’d first discovered them, but I’d been so freaked the hell out because hello—a tiny angel and demon? What the fuck? Now that I’d calmed down… no, it didn’t make any more sense than it had during my initial panic.
“Assist me. In finding a companion.” I shook my head. “What the fuck does that even—”
The demon huffed, and he sounded Scottish and bored: “What my feather-brained colleague means is that we’re here to get you laid.”
I eyed him as much as my throbbing head would allow. “So you’re my divine wingmen?”
The angel made an indignant sound. “I am not a winged man. I am an angel.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” The demon rubbed his hand over his face much like I had a moment ago. “He didn’t mean—mortals call someone a wingman if they help them get laid. Do you even read the briefings?”
“I do read them!”
“Do you, though?” The demon’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Because on our last assignment, you thought Grindr was a power tool.”
Annnd just like that, they were bickering again, flailing arms, wings, and—I thought—a tail at the edges of my peripheral vision as they shouted past me.
I rubbed my eyes. This was a dream, right? I’d had a little too much to drink last night, and I was still sound asleep in my bed, hallucinating vividly about two mosquitoes buzzing around my head.
This was absolutely not reality. It definitely wasn’t a consequence of visiting a former client from the Fae District and asking if her whole matchmaking thing actually worked. Or of her smiling sweetly and asking, face and voice full of innocence, if I needed help finding a companion.
I stared at the angel. At the demon.
At my loud, obnoxious, bickering wingmen.
Oh, fuck my life.
That loud, obnoxious bickering wasn’t helping my throbbing head, so I barked, “Hey!”
That also didn’t help, but it did have the desired effect: they both fell silent. I was pretty sure the demon almost fell off, too, but he recovered his dignity, if one could call it that, and perched on my shoulder with his feet resting on my collarbone like he owned the place.
“I don’t suppose I can say, ‘no thanks’ and send you guys back to… uh… wherever?”
In the mirror, two tiny heads shook. The angel looked vaguely sympathetic. The demon looked highly amused.
Goddammit. You knew you were fucked when you were a lawyer and didn’t know a single argument or loophole to help you weasel out of a situation. I was way too well-versed in fae law to think I could technicality my way out of this.
I pressed my hands onto the cool edges of the sink and gave a resigned sigh. “Okay. Fine. What are the rules, then? How does this work?” I paused. “And are you guys just… always here until this is over?”
They both looked at me stupidly in the mirror.
“Where else would we be?” the angel asked.
“Um.” Okay, that was a fair question. “I don’t know? Somewhere other than…” I motioned at my shoulders. “Like do you take breaks? Do I get privacy?” I inclined my head. “Are you guys going to stick around until I finish getting laid? Because that might, uh… not help the situation.”
The angel rubbed his chin.
The demon groaned and seemed to roll his eyes—he was pretty small and my own eyes ached too much to focus—and then reached into the insid
The angel huffed. “Says the Scot.”
“Hey! Sod off!”
“I beg your pardon?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Would someone just answer my damn question? Can you guys wait to argue until …” For fuck’s sake. Did this contract really include state-mandated fifteen-minute breaks for them? Then again, that gave me fifteen minutes of privacy, so I probably shouldn’t bitch. “Argue on your own time,” I growled. “And that’s it? Just… fifteen-minute increments a few times a day?”
The demon kept reading. He flipped to a second page and muttered to himself. Something about more legalese and just getting to the bloody point already.
The angel cupped his elbow and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Doesn’t it say we’ll depart if he makes a connection with someone?”
I lifted my eyebrows. That sounded promising.
“Aye, it does.” The demon nodded. “The assistants and—” He waved a hand and lowered the agreement. “The English version is that when it looks like you’re about to get laid, we’re gone.”
The angel made an indignant sound. “It most certainly does not say something so crass.”
The demon waved the parchment pages. “Says the birdbrain who obviously doesn’t read the contracts or the briefings.”
The angel’s indignation intensified to the point I swore it made that ear ring, but I spoke before he could.
“Okay, okay, but how exactly am I supposed to connect with someone if I’ve got…” I gestured at each of them.
More confusion. More poring over the tiny parchment.
I swore under my breath and rubbed my eyes again. How the hell was I supposed to connect with someone like this? Because nothing said “look how stable and put together I am” like unavoidable evidence you’d resorted to magic. For anything. It was unattractive, undesirable, and un—
“Oh shit!” I straightened suddenly, barely noticing the way that made my head throb. “Can other people see you?”
The angel looked contemplative. The demon looked confused.
“Let me guess,” I grumbled. “You don’t know that either?”
They both shook their heads. The demon kept looking though the parchment, still shaking his head.
Oh no. Oh fuck.
“I can’t go to work like this!” My voice came out shrill and panicked. Which… I mean… the shoe fit. “Do you know what this will do to my reputation? I have two depositions this week! And I have to be in court on—I can’t just… Oh, Jesus Christ.”
“No, no.” The angel shook his head again. “He’s not involved in any of this.”
The demon facepalmed. I concurred.
And I still didn’t have an answer. I mean, what did I have to do? Just… venture out and see if anyone saw my ridiculous companions? Ugh. God help me if they did. The last thing I needed was to advertise to the whole world—and all my colleagues and clientele—that I’d stupidly asked a fae for help, and that was exactly what everyone would assume when they saw this shitshow. What other explanation could there be?
If someone did see me—if they saw this angel and demon on my shoulders—that would be a disaster. A professional and personal one that I couldn’t afford and was way worse than being depressingly single. I couldn’t have the stigma that came with using magic to get what I wanted. I’d worked hard for my professional reputation, and if it got out that I’d used magic for literally anything, then everything I’d ever done or achieved would be called into question. My law degree, my partnership at one of those most prestigious firms in the state, the athletic medals and trophies I’d won over the years—everyone would wonder if I’d used magic to get those, too.
God, what a mess.
And even without the stigma, these two were allegedly going to help me find a man? But how was that supposed to work? How was I even supposed to leave the house? And how the hell did I connect with someone when I had these two morons flitting around above my shoulders? Wait until their fifteen-minute breaks to make my move?
Over and over, I kept landing on the same unanswered and panic-filled question: what was I supposed to do now?
Fortunately, I had someone nearby who I could go to in a crisis, even if it was a stupid crisis of my own stupid making.
Chapter 2
Cory
As luck would have it, I was mid-sip when someone pounded on my front door.
“Damn it,” I muttered as I tried to brush hot coffee off my hand, my face, and my shirt, all while trying not to drop the mug. And who was at my door this early on a Saturday morning, anyway? Because the missionaries usually waited until at least nine or ten, and they were a bit more polite about knocking. This kind of loud, demanding sound didn’t usually herald “Do you have some time to talk about your Lord and Savior?”
Whoever it was, they banged on the door again. Great. They must’ve been selling something really important.
“Just a minute!” I barked. Then I muttered, “Son of a… Who the fuck?” Still wiping coffee off my hand, I strode down the hall to the front door.
There was yet another knock a split second before I turned the deadbolt, which nearly prompted a cranky, “Well, fuck you, then.” But I don’t know—now that I thought about it, the knocking sounded less demanding and more… frantic?
As concern chased away my annoyance, I opened the door. “What in the—”
“Oh, thank God.” Matt, my best friend and upstairs neighbor, stared at me with wide, panicked eyes. “I need your help.”
My pulse surged with panic of my own. Matt was one of the most level-headed people I’d ever met. It wasn’t just because he was a lawyer, either. My ex’s dad had been a lawyer and he’d been anything but level-headed. So seeing Matt like this—freaking out and pleading for help—was alarming to say the least.
“Uh. Okay. Okay. You—my help? What? With—”
But then my teeth snapped shut. Because I realized Matt hadn’t come alone.
I flicked my gaze from his right shoulder to his left to his right again. Were they… Was I hallucinating? Was there really a pair of—
“So you see them too?” Matt’s shoulders dropped beneath his two passengers. The angel was hovering gracefully, but the demon had been perched on top of Matt’s shoulder, and he squawked as he damn near tumbled off. With a few flaps of his leathery red wings, he too was upright, floating above Matt’s shirt, tugging at his own jacket sleeves as if to reclaim his dignity.
What… in the holy…
I shook myself. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I see them, too.” I met Matt’s gaze. “What’s going on?”
His shoulders fell even more, and he sounded more helpless and crestfallen than I’d ever heard him. “I fucked up.”
I nodded, still stunned, and stepped aside, gesturing for him to come in. “Okay. All right. Just, uh… Let’s sit down and see if we can figure this out?”
The breath he released as he stepped into my apartment was full of relief. Did he think I was going to magically have all the answers? Or had he thought I was going to turn him away? I hoped he hadn’t believed I’d slam the door in his face. He had to know me better than that.
