My Soul to Keep

by Sharie Kohler

  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.

  FOUR

  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.

  The witch bolted toward the open door, like a crazed creature seeking its last chance at survival.

  In a flash, Sorch
a sprang, launching herself over her. She landed on the balls of her feet before the witch, the stinging cold wind at her back.

  Unarmed, she could at least keep her penned. Until she reclaimed her sword from Jonah, anyway.

  “Going somewhere?” Sorcha hissed, her voice altered, thick in her mouth. With a growl, she grabbed a lamp near the door and knocked the shade free. She tossed the cold, solid metal pole in her hands, figuring it could work to slice off a head.

  Just as she hauled back the pole, she was yanked by her hair and flung through the air. She hit a wall and landed on her side. Scalp stinging, she swallowed a cry.

  Shaking with fury, she lifted herself up and watched through slitted eyes as Jonah stood between her and her prey, a great wall of muscle shielding the murdering bitch. Betrayal stung her, flayed her like a whip. He was so quick she had not even seen him move.

  Jonah, her mind seethed, any lingering tenderness for him dying instantly.

  “Go,” he barked over his shoulder at Tresa, motioning with an angry wave. “Flee this place.”

  Tresa turned for the door. Jonah protecting her—it was more than Sorcha could stand!

  “No!” Sorcha shouted, surging forward as the demon witch escaped out into the ice-burned wasteland. She quickly became obscured in the white swirls of freezing wind.

  With a wild glance around, Sorcha spotted her sword where Jonah had abandoned it. Sprinting across the room, she snatched it off the ground, ready to give chase, but Jonah blocked her.

  “Get out of my way,” she hissed, flexing her grip.

  He shook his head warningly. “You’re in too deep here, Sorcha.”

  “Yeah?” She glanced beyond his shoulder, spotting the dark smudge of Tresa shrinking on the snow-craggy landscape.

  She was getting away. Gervaise’s killer was getting away.

  All her probing, waiting … for nothing. Desperation hammered against her pulse. She had to go after her.

  “I’ve faced worse than you.” It was a miracle that she’d survived that year before she met Gervaise, alone, a scavenger on the streets, fleeing man and lycan predator alike. In those days she still hadn’t transitioned, but that hadn’t stopped every lycan within miles from sniffing her out.

  Jonah smiled a humorless grin. Pity lurked in the curving lips. Pity. Again. It had always been pity with him. He’d never looked at her as an equal, as a potential mate. That’s why she’d left that night.

  To see that same smile on his face now drove her over the edge. With an enraged cry, she lunged forward, arm raised, knowing the saber wouldn’t kill him, not a dovenatu, but it sure as hell would hurt. And hurting him sounded pretty good right about now.

  All these years she’d thought him dead. Instead, he was running around protecting the likes of Tresa. It was beyond imagining. She almost wished him dead … or at least she wished she’d never found out he was alive. She would rather have kept the bittersweet memory of him. Better than this reality.

  He sidestepped the sword, so that she only grazed his shoulder. He glanced at the blood welling through his coat. The wound would have been deeper if not for his thick winter gear. “You’re out for blood?” he murmured, his voice lethally soft, deep and intense, silently questioning: Is this the way it has become between us?

  “I didn’t come here to play. Let me pass and you may still live.” She shrugged aside the whispering voice that asked if she could really kill Jonah. For all that had happened, all the bitter feelings he roused, he was a part of her past … her beginning. Could she snuff out that life?

  She swallowed the tightness in her throat and allowed herself to be honest with herself. Okay, she couldn’t kill him. But he didn’t need to know that.

  “You packing silver?” He cocked his head to the side, a muscle feathering the flesh of his jaw. “Explosives?”

  She looked over his shoulder again, craning her neck desperately for a glimpse of Tresa. Nothing.

  He continued, “Because I’m not.”

  Her gaze inched back to him.

  He held his hands palms out. “You want a go-round, Sorcha? ’Cause we can beat each other to death all day and never die.”

  “You’re right.” Sighing—and hoping she didn’t exaggerate the effort—she turned with feigned defeat. “All right. I guess this is pointless …”

  She waited, let a moment pass for her words to sink in …

  “I’m glad you feel that—”

  She whirled.

  His eyes flickered with the barest surprise as she barreled past him, striking his shoulder with her fist to push him out of her way.

  He stumbled, caught off guard. Righting himself, he caught her around the waist with one arm.

  Air crashed through her lips as he lifted her off her feet. That steel band of his arm shot a hot ripple through her. Shock and awareness. She couldn’t recall a time when he’d ever held her so intimately, their bodies locked flush together. Never when she was a woman. She could feel the wild pounding of his heart against her, and her body reacted, came to aching life.

  A sound, almost like a growl, burned in her ears. It was with some shock she realized it was her.

  It was unique and not a little terrifying to have met her match—to be so vulnerable again. She almost felt like that helpless fifteen-year-old once more. Almost.

  Clutched close to him, her body tingled. Her stomach clenched. This was Jonah. She had never thought him cruel or sadistic. Not like her father. Jonah had never been heavy-handed, forcing her into extreme situations just to see if he could urge her through Initiation.

  Even though Jonah had acted as her father’s henchman, he stood apart from all the brutality, especially anything that might have caused her harm. He’d tried to help her, spare her … and comfort her when he couldn’t. Those memories were dangerous. They made her body soften against him, the backs of her knees quiver. The growl at the back of her throat turned into a purr. In that moment, it was as if they were the only two people on earth.

  His arm muscles bunched. His hand on her hip spread wide, fingers fanning out, each one a separate brand, searing her through her layers of clothing.

  He said her name, the sound soft and dragging, ruffling the loose strands of silky hair near her ear.

  It sucked the fight from her, urged her to melt into him. The muscles in her neck loosened, sagging her head back into his shoulder.

  His fingers brushed her cheek, the barest touch. “Sorcha,” he said again, sighed really. “I … I missed you.”

  A shudder racked her. He missed her? Right.

  She jerked her head away from him. No. Hell, no!

  Remembering her purpose—and that he intended to keep her from it—she kicked his knee out with the heel of her boot, satisfied at the crunch of bone. He released her, cursing in pain.

  She dropped to her feet. Panting, warm and flushed despite the arctic temperature, she jerked her gaze back to the open door. Tresa. She dove for the opening, screaming when a rough hand clamped around her ankle and brought her down hard.

  Her body crashed flat, stretched out on the wood floor. She twisted around and kicked.

  He dodged the attack of her boots, his expression furious, eyes like ice, the flame at the center twisting blue-cold.

  “Stop that,” he hissed, crawling up the length of her and flattening his chest over her, trapping her arms at her sides.

  “Go to hell!”

  His body pressed, hard and heavy, like a rock weighing her down. His face loomed above hers, so close she could see the tiny white scar above his right eyebrow. She’d always wondered about that. It had to have happened when he was a boy. Before his Initiation, before she knew him.

  She released a ragged breath. The hot air fanned against his face in a frothy white cloud. They’d never touched like this, body to body. Adult male to adult female. As a girl, she had fantasized about it, but it never came close to happening.

  Her heart hammered with alarming speed against her too-tight chest and s
he worried that he heard it. Felt it. Read more into it than fear and panic. She couldn’t have that.

  Like lycans, dovenatus were a primal species, driven by their more fevered emotions. Emotions like lust.

  Shaming warmth pervaded her. He might get it into his head that she wanted him to take her right here, like a pair of rutting animals.

  “Are you going to quit this stupid game?” he demanded, his voice a hard bite on the air. Hardly the sound of a man driven by insatiable desire … and a part of her bristled at that, even as another part breathed a small sigh of relief. Some things never changed. She didn’t affect him then, and she didn’t affect him now.

  The familiar burn of shame crept over her, reminding her of the girl she had once been, longing for his attention, craving his love. She had wanted him to be her first kiss. Her first. Period.

  She stifled a snort. She was more experienced now. She’d tasted desire and wouldn’t fool herself into thinking this man could deliver what no other could. If she had an itch, she would get it scratched by some other … as soon as she got away from him and finished her business with Tresa.

  “Well,” he demanded, “are you going to quit?”

  “What? You want me to say ‘uncle’?” She sneered at the sudden memory. That had been the only word she could say to get him to stop tickling her as a girl.

  His lips twitched and something inside her froze at that. It was like a flash, a glimpse into the past, when she could amuse him and make him grin. “Something like that,” he murmured.

  Mentally shaking herself, she glanced desperately to the door again. She could still overtake the witch if she escaped now. Although immortal, demon witches didn’t possess any of the super speed or strength of dovenatus or lycans. They had their gifts, their magic, but nothing else. Right now, Tresa was a normal woman out there running at snail speed through the tundra. It didn’t matter that she’d gotten a head start. Sorcha could track her down in moments.

  As though he read her mind, his chest sank ever deeper over hers, pinning her, crushing her achy breasts. “You’re not going after her.”