My Soul to Keep (2 page)

She shook her head fiercely, dark hair tossing wildly, tears warm on her cheeks. “What do you want from me?”

His voice cracked liked thunder in the air. “I want you to be strong. To be a dovenatu.” Hard, punishing fingers circled her arm.

She cried out, dragging her heels as he hauled her toward the ravenous lycan. “Perhaps you need further incentive.”

She shrieked as he thrust her toward the deadly creature.

The lycan strained his thick neck, jaws wide and dripping saliva as he stretched for a taste of her flesh.

Tears blurred her eyes. Pathetic little whimpers
choked from her throat. A sound she loathed, but could not stop.

Her father wrapped an arm around her waist, positioning his larger frame behind her. Struggle was useless. Her feet dangled, toes grazing the floor.

“Come, Sorcha, show me your fangs, show me that there's a reason I should keep you around. Prove to me you are my daughter.”

She moaned, tossing her head from side to side as he forced her hand up,
out
—closer and closer to the hungering jaws. Her curled fingers shook, spasmed. The lycan's hot breath fanned her knuckles.

“Father, please,” she begged, her terror thick and terrible.

“I've no use for a defunct dovenatu, Sorcha. Turn!” He tugged her hand closer and that was when she knew he was going to do it. This was no test, no game to him. She'd either become what he wanted of her, or he'd see her dead.

Sorcha turned her head, jammed her eyes tightly shut, unwilling to watch as her hand was ripped from her body.

“Let her go!”

Sorcha's eyes snapped open at the sound of the voice that whispered to her in her dreams.
Jonah.

J
ONAH STORMED ACROSS THE
room with no thought to his actions, no thought to the
consequences. In that moment, he did not even care that interfering in Ivo's games could mean his death. He wrenched Sorcha from Ivo's grasp, a hairsbreadth from the slavering jaws stretching for her.

She stumbled against him, crying out sharply. He pulled away and looked down. Bile swelled in his throat. He choked it back, gulping in a breath at the sight of the blood coating his palm and fingers—her blood, thick and dark as tar. A dangerous heat stirred at his core, a killing fury aimed at Ivo.

Danae rose, hissing at him, her face instantly flashing into hard animal lines, the centers of her eyes glowing torches. “You forget your place, Jonah!”

A growl erupted from his lips, vibrating from deep in his chest. He was ready to fight, to defend. Unwise perhaps, but he could not stop the impulse … or the urge to tear both Ivo and Danae apart. They were her parents! If they didn't protect her, who would?

Ivo held up his hand, stalling his mate from pouncing on Jonah.

Jonah's gaze shot back to Sorcha. Blood pumped freely from the deep gash in her arm. The sweet copper scent flooded him. Her frightened eyes locked on him, and he felt her pull, her need. She always looked at him that way. Her dark eyes devouring him, her heart laid bare in her youthful expressive
face—as if he were her only hope in a roiling sea. He hated and relished it, hating the burden but relishing the fact that there was something as sweet and pure as this girl in the cesspit of his life.

“Jonah,” she said, breathing his name, sighing it like a benediction. He grasped her uninjured arm and pulled her behind him.

Ivo chuckled, the sound brittle as dry leaves. “So possessive, so loverlike. How heartening.”

“Are you trying to kill her?” Jonah jerked his head toward the salivating beast at the wall. The lycan's pewter gaze fixed on Sorcha, the sounds grinding from his teeth desperate and inhuman.

Jonah was well aware of Ivo's penchant for tormenting the lycans they captured, pitting them against each other—sometimes with live human bait—and then watching the ensuing bloodbath. But he'd never thought he'd play one of his gory games with his own daughter.

Ivo's chuckle faded. “As good as it is to see you so protective of your future mate, tread carefully when you speak to me.”

Jonah inhaled, chest lifting deeply, nostrils flaring at the aroma of Sorcha's blood. Ivo had long planned to mate Sorcha with him. It was all part of his agenda to build a master race of dovenatus—a race that could dominate both humans and lycans. With Ivo at the helm, of course.

Ivo settled his gaze back on Sorcha. “You're spared for now.” Jonah felt her shrink behind him and he hated that her father had that power over her. “But you'd better concentrate on transitioning.”

“It will happen when it happens,” Jonah growled, taking her with him as he moved to the door. “You can't force it by cutting her with a knife, or scaring her.”

“It had better happen soon,” Ivo spat. “She'll serve her purpose for me, or I have no use for her.”

Jonah's flesh crawled at the statement. He glanced down at Sorcha, so young, so very …
human.
She looked like any other teenage girl with a splotchy face and a body given to chubbiness. She barely reached his shoulder. If she didn't shed her humanity soon and become one of them, she would perish in the world her father was intent on carving.

“Come on,” he murmured. He had almost cleared the door when Ivo's ice-cold hand on his neck stopped him. “Go,” Jonah quickly said, pushing her down the corridor. Sorcha obeyed, fleeing, her nightgown swishing at her ankles. Immediately, the tightness in his chest eased. He was relieved to see her gone. Even if he was left to face Ivo's wrath.

Ivo had moved without a sound, without the faintest
stirring of air. A cold reminder of his power, of the years and experience he had on Jonah. Those fingers tightened around Jonah's neck, crushing, digging into the flesh until he broke Jonah's skin.

Inhaling deeply, Jonah smelled his blood mingling with the coppery sweetness of Sorcha's that still clung to the air. But he didn't flinch. Didn't show the faintest sign of weakness. Like the animal he was, Ivo would sense that, exploit it. Jonah had already revealed Sorcha to be a weakness. He would give Ivo no more power over him.

Ivo's fingers pressed harder, digging into bone, testing Jonah's long-sustained loyalty. Ivo had saved him from the gutters when he was just a boy, newly turned, wild and crazed with the confusion of what he had become.

He clenched his jaw against the clawing pain, resisting the impulse that burned darkly inside him, hungering for Ivo's blood, begging Jonah to turn around and unleash all his animal fury on the bastard who would dare lay a hand on Sorcha and drive the innocence from her.

“Know this,” Ivo rasped, his voice close, ruffling tendrils of hair at Jonah's neck. “You live because you amuse me, and I find you useful. Your possessive feelings toward Sorcha please me. Fitting, as she will be your mate. But heed me well.
Her life is mine. If I ever want to end it, I will. And you.” Saliva flew from his lips in a hiss of air, landing on Jonah's neck. “You work for me. You do what I say, and don't ever forget it.”

Ivo released his neck and shoved him through the door, apparently finished with him.

Jonah, however, wasn't finished with Ivo. In the corridor, he turned and faced the dovenatu he had served for too many years to count, knowing it could all end over Sorcha. That maybe one day it would. “And heed me, if you ever harm your daughter, all your grand plans will never happen.” He paused with a heavy breath. “Because I will kill you.”

Ivo's lips peeled back from his teeth in an unnatural grin. “You can try.”

With a curt nod, Jonah strode down the corridor. He scented Sorcha before he spotted her in a shadowed alcove, a mullioned window at her back, her face a pale smudge in the darkness. His chest clenched at the innocent vision.

She stepped out into the moonlit corridor in a swirl of coppery-sweet blood. The small hand she pressed to the flesh wound did little to mask the aroma. Beneath that scent lurked
her
smell, a whiff of chocolate and mint, testament to her sweet tooth.

Stepping forward, he moved her fingers aside
and examined her arm, gingerly probing the angry slash. “We should take care of this.”

“What if I don't transition, Jonah?” she whispered, her voice a desperate rush, as though she feared expressing the possibility aloud. He mulled that over for a moment—Sorcha, human. Forever. A part of him wished for that. Wished she'd never be like him. Never know the dark animal that stirred beneath the surface.

“He'll kill me,” she stated. Her dark eyes glanced nervously down the corridor, as though she expected her father to appear and finish her off.

“He won't. I won't let that happen.” Jonah held her gaze, staring intensely at her, hoping to convey his determination to keep her safe. “Do you believe me?”

“Okay.” She nodded slowly, the fear ebbing from her eyes, giving way to the hero worship he was accustomed to seeing. Before he could stop her, she wrapped her arms around him in a hug, pressing her cheek to his chest. “I wish we could run away, Jonah. Just the two of us.” She breathed the words against him in a small sigh.

“Ivo would find us,” he said gently, patting her on the back, knowing he shouldn't encourage her infatuation with him. She was just a girl, a child he would keep safe, above his own life, if need be.
Yet he loathed her fear and would do anything to chase it from her eyes. Even let her pretend he was the hero he wasn't.

“But you'll protect me.”

“Always. Now let's go tend to your arm.” Taking her smaller hand in his own, he led her back down the corridor, shivering at what he imagined to be a draft, and wondering if he had just made a promise he had any power to keep. If there was any way to keep either one of them safe.

Any way to escape the dark world burying them both.

T
WELVE YEARS LATER
…

Sorcha stared at the street below and felt a lonely chill watching the people flow past like so many fish in a stream. At this hour, they were couples mostly, and groups, out for the evening, heedless of the lightly falling rain. They existed simply, taking their pleasures, living their uncomplicated lives.

A couple passed directly below, hand in hand, crossing her building's front door. The woman's laughter drifted up, curling like sultry smoke on the air. Sorcha followed her brightly bouncing scarf as she faded down the cracked, uneven sidewalk into the water-soaked night.

Humans had no clue that creatures like Sorcha existed, walked among mankind, observing from the shadows.

They could never know.

Strange how life worked. As a girl she'd desperately craved the moment when she would grow up
and transition and become like Jonah. So he could finally love her. So her father would approve of her and no longer frighten her.

Now here she stood, a dovenatu, powerful and strong.

Alone.

Rain shivered down the glass surrounding her top-floor loft. She'd bought the building a year ago, shortly after Gervaise's death. It was a world away from the Central Park penthouse she'd shared with her husband. As far as anyone knew, the rundown building was just one of many sandwiched together in the crowded Soho neighborhood.

No one would ever expect that the wife of the late tycoon Gervaise Laurent lived within its molded brick walls. Precisely why she'd bought it. That and the windows. They gave her a view of the world she could only ever observe from the fringes. Flattening a palm on the cold glass, she exerted the slightest pressure … as though she would break through and leave everything behind. Fly away from the memories of her pack—from
Jonah
—and now Gervaise. All dead.

She shuddered, chafing her arms. Nothing was left. Nothing except an appetite for revenge that fed her heart.

Alone since Gervaise's death, the dark beast inside her prowled, clawing to come out. She could
deny it no longer, not with this constant hunger for vengeance.

She had become as dangerous as her father, her mother—consumed by a thirst for the blood of whatever thing had killed her husband.

Her pulse beat faster as she recognized a shiny town car slowing and pulling up at the curb below. Finally, she was here. Sorcha watched as the woman stepped onto the sidewalk littered with bags of late-night trash. Hopefully, she held the answers to Gervaise's death.

Turning, Sorcha moved to the elevator and waited. A small shiver chased down her arms as the motor revved, carrying her much-anticipated guest up toward her.

When the door slid open, she spared not a glance for Cage, her late husband's trusted man and a former NFL linebacker. Eventually, she'd have to let him go. Once it became too obvious that she wasn't aging as she should be.

Sorcha's gaze settled on the woman. The female was nervous, but tried to hide it, holding her chin awkwardly high. Her unnaturally dark hair was all the more striking for its contrast with her crystal blue eyes.

“Maree?” Sorcha inquired, her nostrils flaring, scenting her.
Mothballs.

The woman nodded briskly, her gaze darting
around, as if she expected something deadly to emerge from the shadows. Little did she know that the deadly thing already stood before her.

“Thank you for seeing me.”

“Like I had a choice?” Maree shot a glare over her shoulder at the hulking Cage the moment before the elevator doors slid shut on his impassive face. “He wouldn't take no for an answer.”

“You'll be generously paid for your time.” Turning toward the area she'd designated as the kitchen, Sorcha pushed the sleeves of her loose sweater to her elbows and motioned Maree to follow.

She did, the heavy thud of her boots echoing across the wood floor. “This is pretty nice. Wouldn't have thought this was tucked up here. Looked like a real dump from the outside … thought I was being dragged into some crack house.”

Sorcha smiled. Exactly what she wanted. It kept people from sniffing about where they shouldn't. “Can I get you anything before we begin?” She sank down in a chair at her table as if she dragged unwilling clairvoyants into her home every day.