My Soul to Keep (6 page)

Sorcha resisted the temptation to touch her face, to feel whether she had fully transformed. Her emotions ran high, and she'd never been very good at wielding control over her inner beast.

“That's right, I'm not. I'm a creation of
your
making.”

“Ah.” Tresa nodded, her sleek, dark hair moving fluidly over her shoulders. “Not full lycan, though. Some relief, I suppose.”

Considering her loneliness since Gervaise's death, it was hard to imagine anything good about
being a species that walked on the fringes of two worlds, never belonging in either. Relief? What a joke. There was little relief in her solitude, her isolation from mankind, from … anyone. Trapped in her cursed existence. No real friends. Only strangers for lovers because that was all she could ever allow a man to be. On the rare occasion she had let a man into her bed, it was always temporary. A fleeting satisfaction of the flesh to fill the emptiness. She never permitted more. She couldn't allow that. All she ever had was Gervaise.

Thoughts of her husband tightened her throat. “Why?” she whispered hoarsely. “Why did you have to kill him?”

“I didn't have a choice—”

“But you did once. Long ago, when you decided to sell your soul to a demon bastard.”

Tresa gave a single hard nod, her features tightening. “Yes. I did do that.”

Sorcha sank her blade a fraction closer, readying it to slay her.

“Heed me,” Tresa continued. “I'm many things, but never a liar. Even when it might be good for me.” Her eyes flashed and Sorcha suspected she was remembering something else, thinking of a time when a lie had hurt her. Those whiskey-gold eyes narrowed. “Kill me, and you'll know true regret. The kind I've lived with for two thousand
years. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. You don't wish to free my demon.”

Sorcha's brow creased, certain it wasn't human decency she heard in the witch's voice. It couldn't be that. Tresa couldn't possess a scrap of humanity. “Rest easy. I'll dispatch your demon to hell fast on your heels.”

Just then, the witch's head cocked sharply to the side. She closed her eyes as if she were listening to something. Or someone.

Not about to let her establish a connection with her demon—that would make her harder to kill—Sorcha dug the blade deeper. Blood swelled around the point. “Stop that. Open your eyes.”

The blood continued to pool, more black than red, but Tresa didn't wince, didn't even seem to feel the pain at all. Finally, the witch opened her eyes. “You must go. He's coming.” As stoically as she stood, her voice betrayed her, trembling to a vibrating chord on the air. “God help us, he's coming.”

Sorcha didn't miss the irony that a witch in service to a demon asked for God's help.

Anxiety surged through her despite herself, despite the fact that
he
was the reason she had come here. “Let him come,” she hissed.

“Quickly, flee, go. Once he's here, I can't stop—”

“Your demon,” Sorcha finished. “I get it. Bring him on. Let him see his precious witch destroyed—”

“No.” Tresa shook her head fiercely, her voice angry now. “You don't understand. He
wants
you to kill me and free him. You can't kill me!”

“Wanna bet?” Sorcha leaned forward, adding pressure. Black-red blood ran, a steady river down her throat, staining her sweater.

A shutter fell over Tresa's face, banking the glow in her eyes, making them appear dull, lifeless.

With blood running thickly down the column of her neck, she looked to a point over Sorcha's shoulder. Lips barely moving, she croaked, “It's too late. He's here.”

Sorcha followed her gaze and looked. Nothing was there.

Well, almost nothing.

The wind outside grew louder, howling like a beast. The air in the house seemed to darken, thicken with swelling shadows. She shivered with a foreboding sense of awareness. The temperature inside the lodge rose several degrees, as if someone had tossed more logs onto the fire.

“Go,” Tresa hissed, her face pale and drawn. Her lips trembled, as if it took her very will to speak, to spit out the words. “Run.”

Sorcha's beast stirred, awake and alert on a primal level.

Suddenly the shadows converged into one great cyclone of air. Tresa screamed as she was enveloped in the dark gust. Her body and arms were flung backward, as if struck with the force of a truck.

Her scream faded, dwindled to a prolonged hiss, like a drop of water on a hot stove.

Sorcha watched, grasping the fact that the shadow was no trick of light. No shadow at all.

The demon she hunted was back and bent on reclaiming his witch.

Tresa twisted and writhed, devoured within the dark, whirling shadow.

Finally, she stilled. Faced Sorcha.

Now she resembled the dark, evil entity that Sorcha had expected to find here. She stood taller. Those lovely whiskey eyes were gone, swallowed up in a sea of black that sent a chill straight to Sorcha's heart.

Eyes wide and aching in her face, Sorcha focused on Tresa's bloodied throat, peeking above the collar's edge. It had to be the throat. Decapitation was the only way.

Before she lost her chance, before the demon intensified his hold on Tresa and proved harder to
kill, Sorcha pulled back her arm and brought her saber down in a flashing arc of steel.

Air hissed as her sword fell, descending toward Tresa's neck.

Sorcha's arm jerked, caught hard on something. A cry ripped loose from her throat. Her shoulder constricted, her muscles pulling and straining to bring down her sword.

Her heart froze in her too-tight chest. She glanced up at her blade, suspended above Tresa's head, locked, motionless. Her gaze flitted up, resting on the strong, masculine hand clamped over her own hand, squeezing her fingers until the blood ceased to flow. The rough-looking knuckles whitened, not loosening despite her effort to pull free.

He was strong. Stronger than she was.

Her senses flared, filled with
him,
and she knew she was in the presence of something inhuman. Something like herself? A lycan or dovenatu. It had been a while since she'd been around one, but she knew.

She remembered.

Relaxing the tension from her shoulders, she eased her arm down. Still, he clung to the sword, to her hand that gripped it. She turned halfway to face this new threat.

Her nostrils flared anew, overcome by the male, heady scent of him.

Before she lifted her gaze, before she locked eyes with the interloper, she marked him—knew he was one of her kind. A dovenatu. As a species recognizes one of its own, she knew, and every pore snapped wide, her skin stinging and alert.

Nothing could have readied her for the sight of him.

As she locked eyes on his face, a blistering cold swept through her, killing the feverish beast inside. Her bones shrank back down, the animal vibrations at her core falling silent.

She blinked several times, doubting herself, wondering if coming face-to-face with a dovenatu might not have confused her, made her see what wasn't there. What couldn't be there.
Who
couldn't be there.

Her heart slammed within her chest. It couldn't be
him
.

Ripping off her goggles with one hand, she tossed them to the floor with a thud and shook the dark fringe of bangs from her eyes, staring hard at the man before her. No. Not a man. Never that. As long as she had known him, Jonah had never been just a man.

Her stomach heaved and she thought she might
be sick.
Jonah.
Swallowing bile, she lifted her chin a notch and schooled her face to reveal nothing, not happiness, not the betraying thrill in her heart.

She couldn't look away from him. Her gaze scanned the well-carved features of his face, drinking up the sight. His dark blond hair was cut shorter than the last time she'd seen him, almost spiky. He was as tall as she remembered, as lean-muscled. And despite herself, her stomach knotted and clenched with the pull of longing.

Some things never changed.

He
hadn't changed, hadn't aged. Not that she'd expected he would had he lived.

Had he lived.

He did live. A bitter taste filled her mouth as she processed that. He stood before her, alive. He had survived the explosion. He stood before her now.
Here.
She felt the insane urge to strike him, slap his face again and again for daring to be alive after what she'd gone through when that building blew into a million particles.

She had grieved for him, even blaming herself for living when he had not. Her fingers curled inward, nails digging into her palms.

Light glowed at the centers of his eyes, tiny torches within the orbs of blue. “Sorcha,” he rasped, killing any hope that he might not recognize her.

He tugged the sword free of her hand. Numbly, she watched him take it as if he were taking it from someone else and not her. Plucking a toy from a child's hand.

He took a step toward her. She quickly sidestepped him.

Standing a wary distance away, Tresa forgotten, she breathed his name. “Jonah.”

From the ruthless cut of his mouth, the sight of her didn't affect him. Twelve years had passed. He knew her only as a chubby prepubescent. She need only glance in a mirror today to know she looked different since her Initiation. Taller. Lean-limbed as any jungle cat. Even her face had changed. Her cheeks less full, her face narrower, her eyes larger, luminous.

She wasn't the same girl he'd pitied all those years ago. She'd changed. Inside and out. No longer to be confused with the helpless, doting puppy she once was.

She never wanted to be that girl again. Helpless and needy, in love with a man who would never love her back. Whose supposed death had nearly destroyed her. Even more than his rejection had.

“Give me back my sword.” Pulling herself together, she stretched out her hand, proud that her voice did not shake.

“I think I'll keep it.” His voice rippled across her skin, the same as in her dreams. Oh, she had loved him. Wanted him with a foolishness that bordered on obsession.
Idiot.

But not again.

“Good to see you, Sorcha.”

“Yeah,” she retorted, her gaze tearing from him to her sword and back again. Her chest felt tight, a twisting mass at its center. “Good to see you, too.
Alive.
” She could not stop the sting of accusation from entering her voice.

He didn't miss it either. He cocked one eyebrow, several shades darker than his sun-kissed hair. “You sound angry.” He dragged out the words with a mildness that only infuriated her further.

“Angry? Why should I care whether you're alive or dead? Should I care that you're here, trying to stop me from finishing off this murdering bitch?”

“Not trying,” he stated, his voice as flat and cold as his eyes. “Stopping. You can't kill her.”

“You've really made something of yourself in the years since I've last seen you—protecting demon witches.” She shook her head with disgust. “I would rather you were dead than find you alive and like this.”

He sneered at her with his well-carved lips. “You didn't miss me even a little?”

In answer, she brought her leg up and kicked him solidly in the chest, launching him back through the air, taking immense satisfaction in propelling him fifteen feet, into the wall.

Somewhere behind her Tresa released a brittle, horrible laugh. Or rather her demon did. Sorcha couldn't spare a glance for the creature. Not now. Not as Jonah watched her, his glowing eyes narrowing to slits. The eyes of a predator.

He jumped back to his feet like a springing cat. She knew a moment's alarm, forgetting that she possessed equal ability, remembering only that he had been her father's perfect machine. A born killer.

He crouched low, an animal ready to pounce. His fingers brushed the floor with a dangerous idleness that belied the tension humming through him … reaching across the distance to where she stood. “Don't do this, Sorcha. I don't want to fight you.”

The demon spoke, the cadence of speech recognizable from their conversation before, even when speaking in Tresa's accented tones. “My, my. What a fascinating turn of events.”

Still, all Sorcha's attention remained on Jonah. She didn't dare look away.

“You don't want to fight me? Sure. You just want to protect her.” Sorcha braced her legs apart,
grounding herself, holding her head up with forced bravado. Her sleek ponytail brushed her back. “You think I can't handle you? That you're still so much better than I am?”

“I never thought that,” he shot back.

“Right,” she snapped, thinking of herself at fifteen, the night she had offered herself to him. His rejection had demoralized her. He was the one person she had thought cared for her.

She'd been wrong.

His glowing eyes seemed to home in on her, intent and probing. She fought to swallow, hating the sensation that he could read her mind, that he was thinking of that night, too, remembering her humiliation.

“Why are you after her?” he asked.

“None of your business. We're past the days where I tell you anything,” Sorcha snarled, moving in a slow circle around him. From the corner of her eye, she marked the black-eyed witch. She seemed to be having trouble of some sort, bending at the waist, holding on to her middle as if in great pain.

“Oh, but it is my business. And let's face it, you always have been.”

“Not anymore.” She spat out the words. Did he dare behave as though he held some authority over her? She was not a child anymore.

Beyond him Tresa suddenly hunkered over, keening shrilly, her hands pulling at her dark hair before flinging back her head. Her whiskey-warm eyes were back, darting and wild. Desperate. Instantly, Sorcha understood. She was fighting her demon, trying to expel him from her body.