The Mythean Arcana Box Set

by Linsey Hall

  “Hide!” he yelled, but before he could turn to fight the shadows, something wrapped around his arms and legs and dragged him out the door. He struggled against the bonds, twisting around to see that shadows had caught him from behind. He strained to reach the dagger but his arms were held tight.

  “Warren!” Esha hurtled out of the doorway. She ran down the stairs after him. His fear for her had been for naught. The shadows weren’t attacking her.

  She shot a blast of power at them, and they released him.

  Warren crumpled to the ground, then surged to his feet. Before he could get his dagger, they rushed back, reaching for him once again, gripping his arms and legs with iron bands of strength that they shouldn’t possess. From the corner of his eye, he saw the mysterious shade fly forth.

  It charged into the group of shadows, scattering them. Esha’s blast of power took care of the rest. In a flash of white light, they were obliterated.

  “Esha, are you all—” Warren’s knees collapsed out from under him once again, his muscles turned to jelly.

  “Warren!” Esha fell to her knees by his side. “You’re so white. Are you okay?”

  “Pills,” he gasped. “Left pocket.”

  “For what? What’s wrong with you?” She scrabbled through his pocket and pulled the pills loose.

  “One.”

  She pried the cap off and handed him one. He’d just had one an hour ago, damn it. They weren’t fucking working anymore. He blinked up at Esha, who was running her hands over his body, looking for injuries. The sky was darkening behind her head and long shadows stretched across the square.

  “We’ve got to get you back to the house,” she said.

  With her help, he struggled to his feet. His stomach still lurched like a ship on a rogue wave, but his muscles held long enough for him to stumble back to the house. Rage welled within him at being unable to move, to fight. This wasn’t him, damn it.

  It felt like hours had passed by the time they got back. Full dark had fallen, but a wave of Esha’s hand lit the lamps in the entryway. He groaned in relief when he collapsed on the bed.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Esha asked, her hand pressed to his forehead.

  He drew in a ragged breath. “Whenever Aurora uses the power of my soul, it makes me ill. The witches gave me pills to fight it, but they’ve been failing. My body is becoming immune to them.”

  “Shit.” Her worried gaze searched his face. “I’m going to the witches. You need more pills.”

  “Nay. You canna aetherwalk that far. It’ll drain your power too much.”

  ~~~

  Esha stared down at Warren, her heart twisting in the most horrible way. He looked near death. This was what it was like to lose someone. It was everything she’d been afraid of. He shouldn’t be mortal, but his body was giving out like one.

  “I don’t care,” she said. “You need something to make you better. I can fuel up on power when I’m with the witches. Aetherwalking back will drain it more than if I came back the slow way, but I’ll still have enough. There’s no other option.”

  She yanked the covers up over him and said a brief prayer to whatever magic had kept this room in pristine condition since it had been abandoned so long ago. “Can I get you anything before I go?”

  “Nay. Doona go.”

  “I don’t see how you think I have a choice.” She called the Chairman to her. When he pressed up against her leg, they disappeared.

  It was dark and moonless on the university campus when they appeared and Esha prayed that all the witches would be together when she knocked on the cottage door. Not that she wanted to see them, but she needed a hell of a lot of power to make up for aetherwalking that distance.

  She was in luck. There were at least twenty in the small cottage when the door swung open at her knock. She breathed a sigh of relief as their power flowed into her. The marmot witch stood on the other side, hand on the doorknob and frowning, as if she were the designated witchy butler.

  “Warren’s sick. Your pills aren’t working. We need something else,” Esha said.

  “You don’t have to be so bitchy,” marmot witch said.

  “He’s sick. Really, really sick. I’m being urgent, not bitchy.”

  The witch huffed. “I can see that you’re just scared for him, so I’ll cut you some slack. And I like him. But there’s nothing else safe that we can give him.”

  “He’s so sick he can barely move,” Esha said. “And I don’t think he’s going to get any better. We’re desperate.”

  Marmot witch frowned, her eyes dark with worry. Unconsciously, she reached up to stroke the fat brown rodent who rode on her shoulder. Esha recognized the act as something she did with the Chairman and scowled at the similarities between them.

  “Come on, I’m begging you,” Esha said. Which was crazy, because she hated these witches. But she couldn’t bear to see Warren so sick.

  Marmot witch turned and joined two other witches in a corner. Esha couldn’t stop her feet from tapping as she waited. They conferred in hushed whispers and after approximately a century, marmot witch went to a tall armoire and pulled out a tiny emerald glass bottle.

  “Here.” She thrust it at Esha, scowling. “That’s elictum erarus. He’ll feel no pain as long as he takes that. One drop of liquid per day, right on the tongue. No more, or he’s dead as a squashed toad. But it will only last for five days, maybe four, before he’s immune to it too. Then he’ll be left in even worse straits than he is now.”

  “Worse?”

  “Much. So get his damned soul back.”

  Esha nodded. “Thanks. Really.”

  Marmot witch shrugged. Desperate to get back to Warren, Esha didn’t even bother to leave the front stoop before she aetherwalked. Upon arrival, a quick survey of her power supply felt like she was already down to half. Damn, that was a long way.

  She ran up the stairs to Warren, who was sitting up but still white as a sheet. Her heart slowed its frantic, worried beat when she saw him alive. Gods, had she really been afraid he’d die on her like Brian had? Of course he wouldn’t. He was a Mythean.

  “Here. The witches gave me this.” She held out the glass bottle. “One drop per day. Five days. Maybe four. Then you’re worse off than you are now.”

  “Damn.” He held out a hand for the bottle, but it shook so badly that she pushed it down.

  “Let me.” She sat next to him on the bed, and he tilted his head back and opened his mouth. She focused hard on squeezing the dropper the slightest bit. One drop of silver fluid fell onto his tongue. She tightened the cap on the bottle and looked up. His color had returned abruptly and his eyes had brightened.

  “Bloody hell, I feel amazing,” he said. He stood and flexed his arms, and her eyes shot to the muscles that bunched beneath the fabric of his shirt. “I feel completely normal. That’s serious medicine.”

  “Not medicine. Magic. Strong magic.”

  “Well, it’s fucking awesome.”

  His vitality was such a contrast his former pallor that it reminded her all the more of how sick he’d been. How sick he could become again.

  She panicked. Obviously this was only going to end terribly. She spun on her heel and walked out of the room, saying over her shoulder, “I’m glad you’re better. I’ll see you later.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  An invisible hand tightened on Warren’s throat as Esha walked out, so there was nothing to do but follow her. Light spilled out of the room that she’d claimed as her own, dim enough that it was likely torchlight.

  He stepped up to the cracked door and knocked, though he didn’t wait for an answer before he pushed it open. Esha whirled from where she stood near the tall glass window.

  “Is anything wrong?” she asked.

  “Nay. I’m fine. Better than I’ve been, well, ever, really. But you doona seem all right.”

  “I’m fine. You should go rest. Just to make sure.” She turned back to the window.

  Warren
was behind her in two strides, his hands gently gripping her arms. “Wait. You’ve been acting strangely. Distant ever since the night we kissed.”

  “Nothing is wrong. We’re fine.” She looked up at him and nodded encouragingly. “Go rest, Warren.”

  But she didn’t pull out of his arms. Just being close to her made his heart speed up. Made something in his mind settle. If he’d had a soul, he’d have said something settled there as well.

  She was afraid. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how different her life was from his. Similar in that they were both loners. But he’d chosen his lifestyle. She hadn’t. Not from the time she was a child and had been made an outcast at school because of what she was, and not now. He’d at least grown up within his clan, knew what it was like to be part of something.

  All she’d known was rejection by the people she thought were her friends and the boy she thought she loved. He hadn’t helped that by being an ass to her for a decade. Though she presented a tough front to the world, one in which she was happy with her life, the reality was bloody depressing. She thought so too, or she wouldn’t be avoiding him after admitting that she knew she was an outcast. He was getting under her shell, figuring out the real Esha she kept hidden from the world, and she didn’t like it.

  He turned her around to face him, then reached up and brushed a swath of hair back from her face. Though she scowled, she leaned into his hand almost imperceptibly.

  “We’re friends, Esha.”

  “I don’t really know how to be around friends. I’ve Ana, but what you and I have is very different.”

  “Aye,” he said huskily. “I’d say that what I feel for you is more than friendship.”

  She shrugged and looked away. “Sex? Sure. There’s that. I’ve wanted you for ages. Now you finally want me back, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.”

  Just sex? Far from it. She was becoming the light in his dark world. The only one who saw who he really was, yet kept coming back. “You’re running.” From me.

  “No.” She shook her head sharply.

  “Then you’re afraid.”

  “Of what?” Her voice challenged him.

  “You’re afraid of being close to another person.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone wants to be close to someone. I just don’t want to be close to you.”

  “That’s a lie. You’re too clever for lies.”

  ~~~

  His gaze ensnared hers until he was all she could see. He was what she wanted, had been for years, and now he wanted her back. And it terrified her. He’d asked her what she was afraid of. She was afraid of him. Of his taking her up to the sun like Icarus’s wings, then dropping her. Which he inevitably would, because someone like him wouldn’t stay with someone like her. They were from two different worlds.

  The thought gave her the strength to tear herself from his arms, to stride across the room. But not to leave. She couldn’t bear to, because even though it hurt to be so close and yet so impossibly far from what she wanted, she couldn’t break away. So she walked to the other window to give them space, to see what he would say.

  But he didn’t speak. Instead, she felt the heat and hardness of him at her back. One big hand was braced against the glass. So strong, with the scars to prove it, yet so beautiful. She wanted to reach up and touch it. She clenched her fist instead.

  “Do you no’ want to be close to someone?” His voice was rough at her ear, and the heat of his breath made her nerve endings sing all the way down her back. Though his heat and strength surrounded her, he didn’t touch her. Always so close, yet so far away.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  “Aye. I want to be close to you.”

  She closed her eyes. “Why?” She wished she hadn’t asked, but she couldn’t help herself.

  She moved to leave, to slip around him and out the door. As if he sensed her thoughts, he grasped her hands and pressed them against the glass at the level of her head. His hands trapped her, and the cold of the window only served to enhance the heat of him at her back.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  “What?” He’d trapped her so that she couldn’t turn. How was she supposed to look?

  “Look up at the window.”

  A trick of the light allowed her to see their reflection, his head above hers. Only their hands touched, and the tension of being so close to him yet so far away made her tremble.

  “I want you, Esha. For your courage, your strength, your wit and humor. You’ve ensnared me.”

  She stared at him, wide-eyed, as his eyes met hers in the glass.

  “But I also want you for your body, for your lovely face. For the way you look at me when you think I canna see.”

  She gasped. Why was he telling her these things? Could he possibly mean them?

  “I’ve had a taste of you, Esha, and I canna rest until I’ve had more.”

  He bent his head to her neck and dragged his lips along her skin. The contrast of soft lips and prickly stubble made goose bumps break out along her arms.

  “It’s just sex,” she gasped.

  He bit her once, at the slope where her neck met her shoulder, then looked up to meet her eyes in the glass once more. “You know it’s no’. And I know it’s no’. No’ after that night on Mull, when I felt you hot and wet beneath my mouth. When your cries echoed in my ears and your hands fisted in my hair.” His voice was darkly intense, his face more so.

  She looked away, embarrassed. He released her hand to capture her chin, gently drawing her face back up until her eyes met his in the glass once again. She could have lowered her hand, could even have broken away and run for it, but she was caught in his spell. He returned his hand to hers, trapping her once more with nothing but a light pressure on her hands and the weight of his gaze.

  “I’d do anything for that again. To make you mine in that way, when all the pretenses fall away and you’re bared to me, unable to pretend you doona care.”

  “Warren, I—” She broke off when he pressed himself against her back, finally, finally making contact. The heat and strength of him were overwhelming, just enough to snap some sense into her.

  “Aye, lassie?”

  She shook her head. He pressed his hands against hers, enough pressure to let her know that he’d wait for her to finish. She couldn’t keep herself from answering. “I care.”

  He grinned, a brief half smile that made her heart jump, then tilted his head to press a kiss to the top of hers. “Then doona move your hands,” he said. “And doona look away.”

  The command caught the breath in her lungs, and she watched, entranced, as he moved his hands along her body. Slowly, as if cherishing every inch of her.

  “I love your long, beautiful neck.” His eyes held hers, almost painfully intense, as he ran a big, scarred hand down the front of her neck. His other hand gripped the side of her hip, as if to trap her because he was afraid she might run.

  She was done running. She watched as he ran a broad hand down her chest to her breasts. He cupped one, gently testing the weight.

  “They’re too—”

  “Perfect. Like the rest of you. Like your strong arms.” His touch on the bared skin of her arms made her shiver, made her wish he’d touch the rest of her. He ran his hand down over her waist, slipping it beneath her shirt to rest on her stomach.

  “Your skin is so soft. I want to kiss you and lick you here, teasing and torturing you for what’s to come.”

  She had a vision of him on his knees, doing to her what he’d done before. Her own knees weakened, threatening to collapse, and he felt the brief shift.

  “Nay. You’ll stay upright for this.” His eyes burned into hers as he spoke, compelling her to obey. To stay standing so that he could torture her some more. She could feel his strong chest against her back, the length of his thighs against hers. The steel of his cock pressed against her.

  He wanted her. Wanted to be touching her, tasting her. The idea was
thrilling, and so arousing it was all she could do to stay on her feet, desperate to see what he would do. There was something unbearably erotic about watching the two of them in the glass, watching as his fingers traced her skin and his eyes stayed rapt on hers.

  His agile fingers began to undo her pants. She held her breath as he pushed them down, scared to do anything that might stop him.

  Waiting.

  Wanting.

  ~~~

  Warren watched her in the glass, trying his damnedest not to grab her and throw her on the bed and fall on top of her like an animal. He’d accepted that she’d be the one with whom he broke his vow of celibacy—nay, delighted in it—but this wasn’t about that.

  Somewhere along the line, he’d begun to truly care for her. Enough to see that she cut herself off from the world and the people in it because she expected so little of it. She expected so little for herself. He wanted her to know how badly he wanted her, and for how many reasons.

  “I could watch you like this for days,” he said, as his hand returned to the juncture of her thighs. He repressed a shudder at the feel of her. “I could watch as my hands touch your body, all softness and heat. As my mouth traces across your skin, tasting you.”

  “Warren,” she gasped, her head dropping back to his chest.

  “Nay.” His voice was harsh. “Look up. I want to see your face as I touch you. Want you to see mine.”

  She moaned, then tilted her head up until her fiery amber eyes met his. They were heavy-lidded with desire, her lush lips parted as her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. He teased her, skimming his fingertips over her pussy, letting her know what she could have, but withholding it. Just so he could watch her want him. Watch the desperate desire flash across her beautiful face and know that he’d put it there.

  “You want me to touch you?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  “Where do you want me to touch you?”

  Reluctance flashed across her face, just briefly. Enough to let him know that she wasn’t lost in him yet. That she still held doubts. He couldn’t bear it. He nodded at her, hoping she would answer his command.