My Soul to Keep (20 page)

“But you don't go out very often.” True. She'd emerged from her loft in Soho hoping for distraction while she waited for the private investigator she'd hired to contact her with information on Maree.

Since their last dealings, the witch had mysteriously vanished, packed up all her things and abandoned her apartment. Clearly, someone or something had gotten to her, leaving Sorcha without any leads on where to find Tresa.

She usually avoided going out this close to a full moon, as lycans grew more aggressive then, but she couldn't stand the silence or endless space of her loft. It felt too lonely, and her thoughts echoed loudly in her head. Thoughts of Jonah thousands of miles away, on the other side of the country and quite happy to be rid of her. His cruel words reverberated through her head in a terrible litany.

The city, activity, people, had seemed like a good idea, a good escape from the noise in her head. Only it wasn't working. It was as though Jonah's memory burned brighter, the echo of his voice rang louder, rising over the city's restless purr.

Richard seized her hand, lacing their fingers intimately. Before, she wouldn't have minded the gesture. Before, she would have taken whatever comfort his body could give her. Only now his touch made her feel faintly ill, heightening the empty feeling inside her. She slipped her hand from his.

His pout turned into a genuine frown. “I'm sure you're starved for company. All your friends miss you. I still don't understand why you had to sell your penthouse.” Jonah's face flashed across her
mind. She was starved only for him—damn his soul.

Richard arched his eyebrows and used a coaxing tone. “Good times. Good theater. And afterward …” His eyes darkened to a deeper shade of blue.
Afterward, good sex.
That was his clear suggestion.

She stifled a sigh. What else would he think? He was one of the two men she'd let in her bed. Gervaise's estate attorney, he'd been invaluable to her. After Gervaise's death, she'd accepted the invitation that had always been in his eyes. She knew he would like nothing more than to take their relationship to the next level. She'd entertained before the notion of them in a more permanent arrangement. But she knew it could never last even in those fleeting moments when she'd played with the idea. They could never have a future. She could never have a future with anyone.

Her life loomed ahead of her … a string of empty encounters and empty relationships. She swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. At least she still had her mission. Tresa was still out there.

Sometime in the next year she would have to relocate, move far away, hire a new firm to handle the estate. She was twenty-six, but looked more like twenty. She couldn't stay any longer, couldn't raise suspicions. She had to start over. Maybe this
time out west. Nowhere near Jonah, of course. He wanted nothing to do with her. She would not be desperate enough to chase him around like a starved little puppy.

“The night's still young. And so are we, Sorcha,” Richard coaxed.

She stepped back, edging away and laughing lightly. “Well, tonight I feel old.”

“Oh, that's tragic. You can't call it quits after such a glorious dinner. Let me take you out. It doesn't have to be the theater. There's a wonderful new club in the East Village.” His eyes glinted and he leaned his golden head toward her. “Or we can be alone. Go back to my place. Let me make you smile again.”

To oblige him she smiled, the curve of her lips brittle on her face. She reached out a gloved hand and stroked his cheek fondly, wondering why she couldn't love someone like him. Someone handsome and uncomplicated. Kind and flirty. Then she remembered. Not that she ever forgot. He was human. She was not.

He'd be terrified at the truth of her, at the sight of her in full shift … at what she was beneath her pretty, shiny exterior.

“Good night, Richard. Another time.”

He held his hands over his heart. “Please let me at least take you home in the car.”

She buried her hands in her coat pockets. “Thank you, but I want to walk. It will do me good.” She blew out a gust of frothy breath. With a small wave she turned and left her blond Adonis standing alone outside the restaurant.

Crossing the street, her booted heels clicked over the sidewalk, skillfully skirting grates as she weaved through people out for the night. She paused a moment outside the salon Gervaise had first taken her to when she was seventeen, shortly before they married.

She sniffed and rubbed at her cold nose, determined not to cry, not to feel sorry for herself. There was nothing wrong with being alone. Plenty of people were alone. They led perfectly contented lives. And who was to say it would be like this forever? She shook her head, disgusted with her forlorn thoughts.

Gervaise had thought her amazing, beautiful, in any shape or form. He'd insisted that she keep herself open to the possibility of love. He didn't think it necessary for her to hide what she was, but then Gervaise never could see the existence of evil in others.

She dare not expose herself. Ever. Mankind had a history of persecuting anyone deemed “different.” She couldn't bring herself to trust
a human. She couldn't bring herself to trust
anyone
. She'd stumbled upon Gervaise quite accidentally. She didn't count on that kind of tolerance from anyone. Hell, she hadn't even found it with Jonah.

Moving away from the salon, she hurried from the familiar sights that reminded her so much of Gervaise, eager to return to her loft.

The waxing moon followed her, peeping out between bony tree branches.

She thought about the tundra again, about Tresa's comfortable lodge there, a haven nestled within that hard, relentless ice world.

She'd lost her chance to kill the witch. And her demon. Jonah believed the risk of freeing Tresa's demon was too great. He was wrong. Still living, she wrought her evil at the behest of a demon. How was that any better?

Suddenly Sorcha stopped, stared ahead unseeingly in a sudden moment of clarity. Maybe she hadn't lost her chance entirely. Surely Tresa would return there. She'd left her life there. Her clothes, her belongings, everything. And she felt safest in the cold, where she had more autonomy from her demon. Even if Tresa didn't return, maybe there were clues. Something that indicated where she might go next.

Sorcha's pace quickened, her heels clicking
sharply, matching the sudden racing rhythm of her heart. A renewed purpose flowed through her, fortifying, heartening her as nothing else had since she'd left Jonah.

She knew exactly what to do.

If possible, the tundra seemed even more desolate the second time around. Sorcha's wind-chapped lips twisted in the cold-burned air. But then, it hadn't been too desolate the last time. She'd confronted all manner of life: Tresa, Jonah, a lycan and his mercenaries.

She approached the lodge slowly, her boots crunching over dead, ice-singed earth. Subarctic wind whipped over the ground in curling drafts the color of smoke. She bit back the guilt rising inside her. She owed Jonah nothing. He'd sent her packing with no thought. So why did each step she took toward Tresa's lodge feel like a betrayal of him?

Shaking her head, she cleared it of thoughts of Jonah. This was for Gervaise.

A tarp covered the lodge's broken door. Pushing it aside, she entered the dim confines and saw that the fabric had done little to shield the structure from the harsh elements. Ice covered almost
every surface. Even snow had managed to gather and pile up in the forgotten corners.

“Guess Tresa didn't come back,” she muttered to herself, disappointed even though the hope had been slim.

Undefeated, she walked into the deep shadows, determined to unearth something, some clue that would lead her to the witch. Her tread rang hollowly in the house as she strolled over the hardwood floor. She eyed her surroundings, looking at everything with fresh eyes, trying to see the house as a home, as Tresa had seen it.

In the bedroom, she inhaled and caught a faint whiff of the cursed witch, a lingering earthy aroma, woodland grasses and fresh-tilled earth. The wind howled outside, a forlorn sound, like the howl of some beast haunting the snow-craggy terrain. She approached the bed, brushed her gloved fingers over the bedside table, leaving a streak in the layer of icy frost. Shaking her head, she forced herself into action. She lifted the small pile of books on the bedside table and examined them, flipping through the pages of each one. Tresa was a reader. Mystery, nonfiction, the occasional biography.

Sorcha slid open the drawer and thumbed through two journals, each written in a language she was not familiar with. She tucked them into her large coat pockets for later dissection. From
there, she moved on, searching the rest of the bedroom.

She was rummaging in the closet when she stilled. Cocking her head to the side, she listened. Nothing. Not a sound. And that was the trouble. Even the wind seemed to have slowed to a stop. She dropped the clothing in her hands and turned, facing the open door. Slowly, she stepped over the threshold.

Had Tresa returned, tamed the winds with her corrupt magic? Or could it be Jonah? Her lips wobbled, tempted to smile if it was him. Heart hammering in her too-tight chest, she peered into the dark bedroom.

The empty bedroom stared back at her. Bit by bit, the tension eased from her shoulders. No Tresa. No Jonah. Something closely resembling disappointment settled in her stomach. Still, the quiet was oppressive. She walked through the bedroom and into the living room. No howling wind.

Shaking her head, she turned to finish searching the bedroom and stood face-to-face with a total stranger. Beyond him loomed three others, dark-swathed figures with an aura of menace, of barely leashed violence. Their pewter gazes drilled into her, marking them instantly.

She held herself perfectly motionless, shoving down the rising tide of panic. Her skin tightened and her core heated, vibrating. She smelled them
then. A subtle, distinct odor, as coppery as fresh-spilled blood. The blood of their kills coursed through them. They smelled of evil.

Alone, facing the four lycans made her feel small and weak. Defenseless. They were big, well-fed males who dominated the room, ate up all the space.

“What do you want?” she asked in a surprisingly steady voice.

They exchanged looks.

“We've come for the witch,” a gravelly female voice announced. A woman stepped forward, her voice ringing with authority. “Where is she?”

Sorcha turned, eyeing the older female. With gray-streaked hair, she looked more like a librarian than anyone who hung around these killers. Inhaling deeply, Sorcha immediately picked up on the fact that while she wasn't human, she wasn't lycan either.

“I'm looking for her, too,” Sorcha said, hoping to position herself as an ally—not an enemy. They outnumbered her. Her best chance of getting out of the situation unscathed was to let them think she was useful.

The female looked around again, assessing, her keen eyes missing nothing. The motion stirred the air, kicking up a pungent aroma of loamy woods. “Appears she hasn't been here for a while.”

“You mean we came all this way for nothing?” one of the lycans griped.

“She was here not that long ago,” Sorcha began. “I can—”

“Not for nothing,” the witch announced, looking at Sorcha in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Angling her head, she gazed intently at Sorcha. “There's you.”

“Me?”

“A dovenatu is a rare find. That's what you are, isn't it?” She didn't bother to let Sorcha confirm before continuing. “Even if we didn't find Tresa, we'll not return empty-handed. We'll have you.”

Sorcha swallowed, her muscles tensing, readying for battle. “And what do you want me for?”

The witch smiled then, her lips pulling back in a slow stretch over her teeth. “You'll see.” She flicked her fingers toward Sorcha. “Gentlemen, escort our guest to the vehicle.” They moved in as one, a great menacing wall.

Sorcha focused her attention on them, kicked the one nearest square in the gut, sending him from her like a launched missile. Spinning around, she kicked the next one.

The final two charged, closing in.

“Leave her be.” They stopped abruptly at the terse command.

How was it she controlled them? She approached
Sorcha with a benign smile on her sun-browned face. “We want to bring her home in good condition, after all.”

Curious and bewildered, Sorcha looked the female up and down. “Who are you?”
What
was she that she could command a group of lycans?

She lifted a hand, the motion unthreatening, almost elegant. “You'll be a wonderful addition. He'll be very pleased, don't you think, boys?”

He who?

The lycan Sorcha had launched across the room limped to her side and rasped in her ear, “Yeah. She'll be great in the arena. Excellent bait.”

Arena? Sorcha shook her head, uncomprehending. “What are you talking about?”

“We may not have Tresa, but we have you.” The woman flashed a bright smile, her teeth white as plaster. Then she lifted her hand higher, stopping it before Sorcha, curling and uncurling her fingers as if she were grasping something on the air. Something invisible to Sorcha, but it was there. Sorcha felt the change in the air current. A tinny thinness. Her skull began to pound, a twisting pain squeezing at her temples. A warning buzz filled her head. Enough. Time to get out of here.

She jerked back a step, willing her feet to move, run … speed had always been her ally before—

Nothing.

Her gaze slid down. Her arms wouldn't move. Her body had issued the command, but nothing. The buzzing grew, centering in her forehead.

She tried to move again, concentrating on making her limbs cooperate. Her lips moved silently with fervent words.
Go, run, go …