The Life After Trilogy: Soul Taken / Soul Possessed / Soul Betrayed - Katlyn Duncan

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      I took a sip of the coffee so I’d have less to spill on myself later. It tasted like burnt toast but the scent was delicious.

      Cooper looked at me funny.

      “What?” I asked, gulping down the rest of the coffee, even though it burned the inside of her mouth. A few drops dribbled from her lips.

      “Attractive.” Cooper laughed.

      I swiped the liquid off her face. “Shut up. What’s with the look?”

      He shrugged. “You’re taking this seriously.” He sounded genuinely surprised.

      “What else can I do at this point?” I said. “It’s not like I can transition out of her body.”

      Cooper jutted his lip out and nodded as Calliope popped into the room. She opened her mouth to say something but stopped when the doctor knocked on the door.

      “Good afternoon, Allegra,” he said with a hint of an Indian accent. “Let’s check you out so we can get you home and into your own bed.”

      The doctor examined me, just as Jamie had, but a little more in depth. He got me with the cuff again but the pain wasn’t as bad the second time around. He asked questions about Ally’s health and Cooper assisted me with those. He poked Ally’s skin and I had to pretend she was in pain. He gave me a bottle of pain medication and arranged a follow-up appointment.

      “I’ll have Jamie bring you some food to take with the pills.”

      I waited for the doctor to leave before I acknowledged Cooper.

      “How did I do?” I asked.

      “You did fine,” he said.

      I smirked and heard Calliope chuckle.

      “So what’s the plan?” I turned to Cooper again.

      “The plan is to get you home and keep you there until we find Ally’s soul and somehow get it back inside her body.”

      “Okay,” I said. “That sounds easy enough. How long do you think that will take?”

      They exchanged a look.

      “Felix is working with the rest of the Guard as we speak. Hopefully they can retrieve her soul soon.”

      “At least before—” Calliope started, but Cooper silenced her with a hand.

      I looked between the two of them. “Before what?”

      Calliope clasped her hands behind her back. “She should know what we are up against.”

      Cooper scrunched his nose and sighed. “Like I explained before, the Prognatum undergo a transformation at eighteen.”

      “Okay,” I said, not really understanding where they were going with this. “How old is Ally?”

      “Seventeen,” Cooper answered.

      “Then we should have plenty of time; it’s not like her birthday is tomorrow.”

      Neither of them met my eyes.

      Ally’s throat tightened and I swallowed hard, a lump forming in her throat. “Her birthday isn’t tomorrow, is it?”

      “No,” Cooper said.

      I exhaled, lifting a hand to Ally’s chest. “You two had me going there.”

      Calliope stepped forward. “Her birthday is Friday.”

       Chapter Seven

      My ragged breaths were the only sounds I could focus on. I swallowed furiously. Ally’s ears popped, the sensation unfamiliar and definitely unwanted. Sweat beaded across her skin.

      “Maggie,” Cooper said, his voice distorted.

      Those black spots appeared again and I closed my eyes to settle the strange feeling rising up from Ally’s stomach.

      “Take deep breaths.” Calliope’s voice floated into my head, less distorted.

      The roaring breaths lessened yet the popping intensified.

      “So you are telling me,” I said, Ally’s voice sounded inverted, “that she is going to have her transformation next Friday?”

      “Yeah,” I heard Cooper say.

      “What day is today?”

      “Sunday,” Calliope answered.

      Ally had been in the hospital for almost three days. Three days closer to her birthday.

      I pulled a hand through Ally’s knotted hair and opened my eyes. “What happens if you don’t get her back?”

      “We will,” he said.

      “I’m sorry for being the pessimist here but you weren’t exactly successful in preventing this from happening.” I indicated my soul trapped inside Ally’s body. “So, forgive me if I need to know the worst case scenario.” I clenched and unclenched Ally’s hands waiting for their answer, but neither of them spoke. I looked down at Ally’s palms. They were marked with half-moons from her fingernails. I studied them as they slowly disappeared.

      “You can’t keep doing that,” Cooper said finally, anger coming off him in waves.

      “Doing what?” I snapped.

      “Any other human will see Ally Greene, albeit a bruised one. Not you. You can’t stare at your arm or keep touching yourself.”

      Calliope nudged Cooper with her elbow.

      He moved away from the bed and stared out the window.

      Calliope mouthed a “sorry” at me.

      I understood his anger. I wasn’t pleased to be stuck inside a mortal body either. I blew a breath through Ally’s lips. “Let’s get her home then.”

      After Marie finished the paperwork, Nurse Lucy and Jamie watched me eat pudding. The gelatin-like substance stuck to the back of Ally’s throat as I attempted to swallow the horrific consistency. Cooper kept egging me on since the humans were intent on ‘Ally’ finishing it before she could leave. Soon after I was done, Nurse Lucy brought me—Ally—a wheelchair; she explained that it was hospital policy to bring me out to the car.

      I stood up from the bed but Ally’s legs moved out from under me. Her frame was significantly taller than I was used to, by at least a foot. Never mind her stilt-like legs. I towered over Marie and Jamie, but Cooper and I were almost eye-to-eye. I was thankful for the wheelchair, it gave me a little more time to adjust.

      Cooper, Calliope, Aaron and three other Guard flanked us as we walked down the hallway. Marie and Jamie carried the flowers from the windowsill. I didn’t dare speak to the Guard while the other humans were around, I didn’t need to extend Ally’s stay in the hospital for mental problems along with physical.

      Although, by the time they wheeled me out of there, Ally’s bruises were almost non-existent and I could move her plastered leg without any pain. But the pin-pricks across her leg didn’t let up much.

      Cooper had explained that, since Ally was a Prognatum, she had quick healing abilities along with the long list of other talents that would manifest after her transformation. He and Calliope had switched the X-rays for Ally’s already healed leg with a broken one so as to not raise a lot of questions from the humans.

      Nurse Lucy wheeled me through the sliding glass doors at the hospital entrance and toward a black Mercedes sedan idling at the curb. A portly man wriggled out of the front seat as we arrived.

      He smiled at me and opened the back door. “Glad to see you are feeling better, Ally,” the man said.

      A name bubbled across my lips. “Henry.”

      He

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