My Soul to Keep (18 page)

It found what it sought at last, asleep in one of the bedrooms. Her hair spilled a dark red around her on the mattress, a bloody beacon in the deep of night.

It hovered above her, a shape darker than the night, floating, flexing, pulsing heat on the air.

She felt the sudden warmth. Uncomfortable, pulsing heat. Kicking off her covers, she whimpered the moment before the shadow swooped in, vanishing inside her body, rooting and burrowing deep in her vulnerable shape.

S
ORCHA OPENED HER EYES
, her skin tight and snapping, pulling with an alertness born of the beast.

Murky night surrounded her. She blinked and glanced around, wondering what had woken her. She wasn't in the habit of waking suddenly in the
middle of the night. Especially after thorough and body-shattering sex.

She held herself still, her gaze flicking left and right, nerves stretched, reaching, feeling for whatever it was …

Jonah slept soundly beside her, on his stomach, one arm disappearing off the edge of the bed.

Her skin rippled and she shivered. Lacing her fingers over her stomach, she listened to the silence. Nothing. If she'd heard something, if there was anything to worry about, Jonah would have woken, too, she reasoned. He was like her, hypersensitive to sound and movement.

Sighing, she closed her eyes, determined to reclaim sleep. Tomorrow would be another long night of scouring the city.

Eyes closed, she tried to sink back into darkness, lose herself in the swirling dark, shapeless black.

Then she felt it again, whatever sensation had torn her from sleep moments ago. Her skin shivered.

Her eyes flew back open, and she gasped.

Darby stood over her. Still as a statue and silent as death. Only it didn't look like Darby. Something was different. Her eyes weren't hers. They looked darker, deeper, motionless black space.

Sorcha opened her mouth to ask her what she was doing in Jonah's bedroom when she noticed
the pillow in Darby's hands. Before Sorcha could speak, Darby swooped in faster than she'd ever seen a human move. As fast as a lycan or dovenatu.

Sorcha opened her mouth to scream, but no sound escaped before the pillow slammed down over her face with surprising force.

Writhing, she inhaled, but couldn't draw breath through the heavy press of cotton. She clawed at Darby's hands, her nails scoring the flesh.

This wasn't right. Darby shouldn't be this deadly strong. She shouldn't be capable of such an act.

And why should she
want
Sorcha dead?

Suddenly, the pillow lifted and she tasted air.

She knew it could only have been a moment with that pillow on her face, but it felt like forever. Her lungs filled with sweet oxygen and she knew, felt in her core, in the stretch of flesh over her expanded bones, that she had fully shifted. She had turned and still been unable to fight off Darby. How was it possible that Darby had overpowered her?

Gasping, she jerked to her side and glanced wildly around.

Darby collapsed to the floor, shuddering, holding herself tightly as she convulsed.

Jonah dove out of the bedroom, a streak of movement.

Trembling, Sorcha gave Darby a wide berth. Still unsure if the woman was out to kill her, she staggered after Jonah.

With one hand pressed to her heaving chest, she leaned against the bedroom door, gasping, struggling to catch her breath. Bewildered, she watched Jonah tear through the living room, vaulting over furniture as if he was being chased.

He looked like a madman racing naked around the condo. Possessed.

He clutched his sword, wielding it like some kind of warrior of old, swinging it through the air. At first it appeared he struck nothing, stabbing into empty space.

And then, she realized what was happening. She understood.

He
wasn't being chased. He was chasing … something.

Squinting, she detected the cloudlike shadow twisting through the room, over furniture, around objects.
A demon.
Jonah followed it, slicing furiously and stabbing with his sword. He'd turned, too. His body was huge, his skin a tawny bronze, rippling with muscle and sinew.

She tried to follow his quick movements, but he moved so fast he looked almost as blurred and hazy as the demon's shadow he chased.

The croaky voice at her side made her jump.
She turned, snarling, on Darby, remembering that moments ago her
friend
had tried to kill her.

“Oh, God,” Darby managed, clinging to the door jamb, watching in horror. Her lips trembled.

“What do you see?” Sorcha snapped. “What's it look like?”

Whatever Darby saw as she gazed at that shadow must have been terrible. She didn't even flicker an eyelash at Sorcha in full shift beside her. She rubbed her arms and shook her head fiercely, gawking at the demon shadow. “It's horrible,” she whispered. “He …
it
took me in my sleep.”

Sorcha released a slow, hissing breath, understanding at once. A demon had used Darby to try to kill her.

Sorcha dragged a shaking hand down her face, her own heart hammering with a frenzied beat. Steel clanged loudly on the air as Jonah's sword made contact with a lamppost.

Darby shook her head, her fiery hair a floating nimbus around her head. “It's never happened to me before. They've never invaded
me
and made me do things—” Her voice ended with a choke. “They're not supposed to do that to a witch. Not without the witch submitting, giving consent …”

Sorcha grabbed Darby's arm and forced her forward, pointing to the living room. “What do you see?” she demanded, her voice thick and garbled in her mouth.

Darby shook her head again. “I've never seen a demon like this. He wears his bones on the outside, stretched over this horrible, gross”—her fingers worked on the air—“black flesh. I see the mark of the fall on him … Jonah sees it, too … it's right near a horn that's sticking out of his back.”

Sorcha absorbed her words, tried to imagine the scene described as she stared at Jonah chasing the shadow and plunging his sword into it again and again. “The mark of the fall … what's that?”

“The only place he's vulnerable. Jonah has to stab him there to kill him.” Darby yelped suddenly. “There! He almost got him!”

The shadow took a sudden dive toward the front door. Jonah dove after it, landed on top of it. For a moment it looked as though he were riding the air. The great shadow billowed up around him, swallowing him in a cloud of smoke and char.

Jonah lifted his sword high in both hands and plunged. The sword embedded itself in the carpet with a heavy
thwack.
Sorcha watched, her eyes aching, wide in her face.

Darby shouted, the sound exultant.

The demon cloud grew then into a great billow, rising, twisting up, up, up, until it reached high in the air, where it faded, evaporated like fast-fading smoke.

“Is he gone?”

Darby nodded. “Yeah.” She released a breathy little laugh. “He did it. Sent it back to hell.”

Jonah rose and yanked his sword from the floor with a vicious pull, indifferent to his nudity. His bronze-hued flesh rippled like a beautiful animal as he moved. He stared up at the last curling wisps
of shadow. He swallowed, the tendons in his neck working. “What the hell happened here?” he spat out.

Eager to reclaim some semblance of calm, of normalcy, Sorcha forced her heart rate down into an ordinary range and shifted back. Her bones tugged, pulling into place with a faint crackle. The heat at her core ebbed.

Jonah pointed a finger in the direction of where the demon had once been and glared at Darby. “Explain how that demon took possession of you.”

Darby looked at Sorcha uncertainly, apology all over her face. “I don't know. He must have sensed me when I was having a vision …” Her voice faded, her hazel eyes bleak.

“In your sleep?” Jonah barked. “How in the hell did he take possession of you and force you to stuff a pillow over Sorcha's face?”

Darby waved her arms. “I—I don't know! I don't remember doing that! The dream realm operates at a different level. I guess as long as I didn't wake, he could guide me—”

Jonah advanced on her, his expression furious enough to make Sorcha cringe. “And why didn't you just wake up?”

Darby's eyes sparked. “I never wake during my visions. I'm practically catatonic in those
moments. Look, I wasn't trying to smother your girlfriend! And can you shift back, please! You're terrifying yelling at me like this!”

Jonah inhaled a deep breath, the muscles of his chest undulating.

Sorcha stepped between them. “Jonah,” she said in a low voice. “Get hold of yourself. It's not her fault.”

Darby moved to the bar counter, and sank down on a stool, shaking her head in slow torment, inhaling deeply, as though she was fighting tears. “This has never happened to me,” she muttered softly. “What if it happens again …”

Jonah drew in a deep breath. His body turned back then, shifted in a blurring flash.

“It can't … if it does, then anyone with you is at risk,” Jonah snapped.

The color bled from her face, and Sorcha knew what Darby was thinking then. Her family. Her friends. Any future family. A lover, husband, children … She could never have any of that and keep them safe from her.

“Sorcha.” Darby looked at her then. “I'm so sorry.”

“Of course,” Sorcha cut in. “Do we have to talk about this now?” she asked quickly, her voice almost shaky. “I … think I need a shower.”

“There's plenty to talk about,” Jonah growled,
marching into the bedroom. He was back in an instant wearing a pair of boxers.

Facing them both again, he took his time glaring between them. “You,” he said, pointing to Darby. “Go home. You're going to have to figure this out … talk with your aunts. You can't be around us, trying to hunt demons, when you're a ticking time bomb.”

“Home? What about training Sorcha? You need bait to—”

“That's over.” His gaze settled on Sorcha, intent, hard. “It was a bad idea from the start. We're finished.”

Sorcha felt his words like a punch to the gut. She held her ground, masking the impact the words had on her.

“I can't train you anymore,” he announced.

“You mean you won't,” Sorcha corrected.

His eyes stared down at her, cold as ice. “Whatever. This isn't going to work. I've been kidding myself, kidding you.”

“Jonah,” Darby pleaded. “After what just happened, I need to be around you.” Her face flushed, as though it embarrassed her to admit this. In that moment, Sorcha could not recall any of the jealousy she'd harbored toward the witch. She felt only pity.

She remembered Jonah telling her that this was
what he hated, what he could not tolerate. Someone
needing
him. Still …

She stared at him expectantly, waiting, certain he could not refuse Darby when she was in such desperate straits.

Jonah dragged his hand through his hair as if he would pull it out by the roots. “Don't you hear me? I just want to be left alone.” Releasing his hair, he swung around on Sorcha, leveling on her a blistering glare—as if she was responsible for all this mess. “You need to go home, too.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly, wondering what had happened to him tonight. Why was he so angry? She was the one Darby had tried to smother. Where had the tenderness she felt whenever he touched her gone? She had grown accustomed to it. Craved it.

“Did you see what just happened?” He swiped a hand savagely through the air. “If I hadn't been here, that demon would have used Darby to kill you.”

Indignation burned down her throat. “She wouldn't have killed me.” She wasn't certain of that, but she felt the need to argue the point. She'd survived this long without Jonah, after all.

He pointed at her. “You're not a slayer. You can't pretend to be one. Go home.” Something quivered deep inside her, a jagged, shuddering
pain at the ring of finality in his voice, at his flat, dark stare. He was finished. Finished with her. “Just go. Pretend you and I never met up with each other again.”

She drew a deep, wounded breath, getting it at last. Understanding. He was afraid. Afraid to get involved, afraid of being needed. And failing. “I took you for many things,” she whispered, “but never a coward.”

He jerked back, flinched as if she had reached out a hand to slap him, but then he changed direction, came at her, an angry light in his eyes.

“Jonah!” Darby's voice rang out, stopping him cold.

He inhaled sharply and looked at Sorcha, standing there as if he didn't even know her. With a shake of his head, he growled, “Go to your room, Darby. Start packing.”

For a moment, they all held still, emotions swirling thickly around them.

Then Darby finally moved, her voice tight and small, her eyes suspiciously bright. She looked like such a little girl that Sorcha felt a surge of protectiveness toward her. But before Sorcha could do anything, Darby was gone, vanishing into her room.

Alone with Jonah, Sorcha looked down, glared at the wood floor as if she saw something there
in its swirling pattern, something that made sense out of why he was sending her away.

She shook her head in frustration, her hands curling open and shut into fists at her sides. It was happening all over again.
Damn him.
“Why can't I stay and train?”

“This isn't for you. I know you're looking for purpose, meaning … but this will only get you killed.”

She laughed brokenly, inhaling through her nose and catching his scent in the shirt she wore—his shirt. She'd put it on sometime during the night, cold in bed beside him.

“Look,” he bit out. “I want us to part knowing that I didn't set you on a course that's going to get you killed.”

“You, you, you,” Sorcha hissed. “We're discussing my life. I'm not a little girl anymore whose fate is in someone else's hands … it's not in
your
hands anymore, Jonah.” Bitterness filled her as she glared at him, absorbing the tiresome truth of that statement.