My Soul to Keep

by Sharie Kohler

  “Sorcha,” he hissed. “Not now. Shut up. I’ll explain later.” Hopping off the witch, he edged back toward Sorcha, never tearing his gaze from Tresa.

  Tresa rose to her feet, watching them with that unreadable black gaze that did nothing to conceal its evil.

  “Go,” he barked, waving an arm.

  With Jonah’s attention fixed on Tresa, Sorcha moved, shoving aside the pain burning through her chest. She’d heal.

  Heart racing anxiously, she picked up the sword, wet with her blood. Before Jonah realized her intent, she flew past him with an animal cry, sword swinging.

  “Sorcha! No!”

  The witch’s hand went up in the air again. Instantly, Sorcha was lifted off her feet and slammed onto her back—as though Tresa’s hand was connected to a rope tied to Sorcha’s feet.

  She barely had time to absorb the sudden cold at her back before a great, jutting pressure stabbed her in the chest, impaling her to the frozen earth. Her ribs cracked in protest, and she moaned, wondering if she could in fact die. The pain was so intense that she felt as if she were dying … like it could happen. Like it was happening.

  She struggled to move. Could only lift her head, gaze in horror at her own sword embedded in her chest, skewering her to the ice-covered ground. She felt the metal blade clink and chafe between her vertebrae. Agony burned through her.

  She tried to speak, but blood gurgled in her mouth and she choked, spraying blood.

  She swam in the stuff. Warm and sweet-smelling, it rushed over her broken body, running in a steady stream to the snow-packed ground. She turned her face, watched the dark red sinking into the pristine white.

  She squeezed her eyes tight, frustrated by her helplessness. She had failed Gervaise. Lost Tresa … maybe even lost herself.

  Her vision grayed, blurred. Blackness rolled in. Then, suddenly, she inhaled as strong hands pulled the sword free.

  Still she could not fight off the darkness. It came for her like a great, thirsting beast. Even a dovenatu could not cheat death. She would endure it, would suffer the full consequences of her injuries before her body could start to mend itself.

  Even as the end claimed her, as color faded from her world, one face loomed over her, filling the sweeping dark.

  Her lips worked as she tried to speak, tried to say his name. The barest whisper fell. Jonah.

  Then she lost sight of him. Lost sight of everything but the swallowing black of death.

  SIX

  Jonah hovered over her for a long moment, scowling savagely as the sound of her voice sifted through his head like sand between his fingers. The whisper of his name on her lips reminded him of the little girl who had always looked to him, needed him.

  He stared hard at her now, his hot breath puffing out white fog. There wasn’t an inch of her that had been spared blood and gore. Even her dark bangs were matted and stained red on her forehead.

  A quick glance over his shoulder revealed Tresa’s fading figure. Anywhere else but this freezing tundra, and the demon would have overpowered the witch and let Sorcha kill her to gain corporeal form. This bitter cold made the demon weak. Clearly why Tresa chose to live out here.

  Looking back down at Sorcha, he watched her chest sink in a final deep, rattling breath. His own breath arrested inside his chest as he stared, waiting, already knowing he would not see it rise again.

  She was dead. For a few moments, at least. Even though he knew she would wake, the sight twisted through him, made him feel slightly ill.

  Luckily, she was an unnatural creature … like him. They could not be killed through typical measures. Poisoned with silver. Incinerated in fire. Exploded into a million fragments. That did the job. Gutted and impaled with a sword? Not a pleasant experience, but not lethal.

  She would breathe again shortly, this woman he knew and yet didn’t. This woman he’d been sent to kill and yet couldn’t. She’d sip the arctic air and come to life and slowly start regenerating.

  He cringed at what she would endure then. That much hadn’t changed. He still didn’t wish her hurt. Only, unfortunately for her, she would feel the agony of her mangled and shredded body. There was no way to save her from that pain. But he could at least get her out of the subzero temperature and make her as comfortable as possible.

  Slipping his hands beneath her lax body, he lifted her dead weight into his arms. He headed back to the lodge, feet eating up the frozen earth. He covered ground quickly, determined to reach the warmth of the lodge before she regained consciousness.

  Clearing the threshold, he kicked the door shut behind them. He drove a hard line toward the bedroom, tracking the heat to the warmest room. His boots thudded over the hardwood floor.

  With great gentleness, he laid her on a rug before the fireplace, relishing the flames licking heat on his cold-bitten face … deliberately forgetting the fact that he was charged with destroying her … that Darby had predicted Sorcha would destroy him.

  Turning away, he added several logs to the dwindling fire, vowing to stay on guard. Letting her live was one thing, letting his guard drop so she could kill him another. He didn’t know this new Sorcha and he would do well not to confuse her with the girl of his past.

  He jerked back around at her sudden gasp—like the first sharp breath you take when emerging from a great pool of water. Sorcha’s body arched off the rug like a taut bow. Air hissed between her teeth as she resurfaced and ran full force into the agony of her injuries. With eyes wide, her gaze darted wildly within her ravaged face. Then, as if the pain were too much, she squeezed them shut again.

  She groped the air with clawing fingers, as if searching for purchase, an escape from the overwhelming pain. He dropped down beside her and grabbed one of her scrabbling hands, cradling it in both of his.

  Garbled speech tripped from her feverishly moving lips, the words indecipherable.

  “It’ll pass,” he soothed gruffly, setting to work removing her ruined clothing. What he couldn’t remove with ease, he simply cut from the wreckage of her body.

  Firelight gilded her, made the blood appear redder, brighter, on flesh as cold as marble. The little skin that wasn’t stained crimson glistened as golden as a peach and he muttered an obscenity for noticing, for seeing her as anything other than the child he once knew.

  He left her for a few moments, searched the kitchen until he found what he needed. Soon he was back with a basin of water and washcloths. He cleansed the blood from her. As much as he could anyway. The angry red wounds had ceased to bleed, but the ragged flesh still gaped horribly. In places the white of her bones lay exposed.

  She moaned against his attentions, fighting his efforts to help her.

  He could simply leave her alone and she would heal in her own time. He knew that from experience. She didn’t need him to hold her hand. He was charged with stopping her from destroying a demon witch. Charged with killing her if necessary. He’d been prepared to do that. Nothing required that he tend to her.

  Nothing except the twinge of tenderness he felt deep in his chest. Nothing except that, years ago, she was the only one who had penetrated the thick walls of his heart.

  He told himself that it wasn’t that. He told himself that it merely wasn’t in him to stand by as someone suffered so horribly. He wasn’t a sadist.

  He shook his head. Rising to his feet, he wrenched the thick down-filled comforter from the bed and tossed it over her naked body, his movements jerky, angry.

  She arched her spine beneath the fabric, fighting her body’s torment. Her head tossed from side to side, eyes opening and closing as if she could not decide between sleep and consciousness. Life and death. He smoothed a hand over her fevered brow, hoping to ease her.

  At last, her eyes drifted shut and her head rolled to the side. He breathed a small sigh of relief, glad she’d escaped from her pain in sleep.

  Frowning, he watched her, studying her face, appreciating her beauty, seeing the Sorcha he remembered in the delicate lines … and someone else.
Someone he wasn’t certain he wished to know.

  He was accustomed to beautiful women. He’d had his fill of them over the years. He was no saint, and at times he needed to lose himself in a woman’s heat. He needed that brief moment when he could forget that anything bad or evil existed, when he could forget that he belonged to that unnatural order of the world, where it was kill or be killed. Females flocked to him, drawn to whatever it was his nature emitted. Some sort of animal pheromone, he guessed … the animal part of him that functioned as a predator. Lycans possessed the same ability, could almost mesmerize their prey. Victims didn’t know what hit them until it was too late.

  But it wasn’t him they wanted. It wasn’t him they knew.

  With a sigh, he propped his arms on his knees and sank onto the floor, settling his back against the bed to wait.

  Wait for her to heal.

  Wait for the moment when she would wake and he would figure out what he was going to do with her.

  SEVEN

  They hunted her in her dreams.

  One moment grotesque demons chased her, and in the next it was a black-eyed Tresa.

  They all spoke, snarling threats and curses. In that they were the same … mauling her to shreds with great claws. It didn’t end until Jonah arrived. Her girlhood hero, saving her from the agony. Like those many times he’d saved her from her father’s cruel games.

  At that moment, she forgot her anger with him, forgot the sting of his rejection.

  Jonah, Jonah, Jonah.

  Warm hands slid up her arms, cradled her shoulders, made her feel safe, protected.

  Because it was a dream, she could fool herself, let herself believe in the fantasy of it, let him hold her—and hold him back.

  She let herself need him. Want him. Again.

  She purred, arching. It was okay. This time he wouldn’t turn her away. This time she wouldn’t get hurt. It wasn’t real. Just a dream.

  “I’m here.” His voice rolled over her, deep and rich. “Talk to me.” She could almost feel the warm breath of his voice on her cheek. She lifted her face toward the sensation.

  Jonah, Jonah, Jonah.

  She wasn’t certain when the dream crossed into reality … when she realized Jonah was really beside her, really touching her, holding her, whispering soft words.

  She opened her eyes to his face, inches from her own. Her hands gripped his shoulders as if he were a lifeline, the only thing preventing her from sinking back into the hungry dark where monsters hunted her.

  His gaze glittered an icy blue. He brushed her forehead with a light touch, delicately fingering her hairline. “You okay?”

  She shook her head, darting her tongue out against cracked lips.

  “Here.” Suddenly, there was a cup. He lifted it to her lips and she drank greedily, stopping only when he pulled the cup back. “Easy,” he cautioned.

  She stared at him warily, wiping at the dribble of water on her chin. “You saved me,” she said, her hoarse voice accusing. She didn’t want help from him … wished she hadn’t needed it.

  “Yeah. Imagine that.” A smile twisted his lips.

  “Why? Why did you help me?”

  He cocked his head. “Isn’t that what I do when it comes to you?”

  “Not anymore.”

  A shadow passed over his face. “Right. Not anymore.”

  “So why, then? You’re protecting the demon witch I’m going to kill.”

  His blue eyes flashed. “No. You’re not.”

  She inhaled sharply but bit back the denial that burned on her tongue. Instead, she said, “We’re not family, not even friends anymore. Why help me? You could have left me to Tresa.”

  His stare drilled into her. “Yeah. Maybe. Except you called out for me. Maybe I helped you because you asked me to—”

  “No.” She shook her head fiercely. “I didn’t—”

  “Yes. You used that little-girl voice I remember so well and said my name.” He shrugged a broad shoulder. “You know me. I was never one to deny you.”

  “Oh, really? That’s not how I remember it.” She snorted, nearly choking on the sound, instantly regretting hinting at that long-ago night when he had crushed her.

  He cocked his head. If possible, his stare intensified. He remembered that night, too. Embarrassing heat swept over her.

  Had she called out for him? Said his name? There at the end? Damn it. Did she want his pity again? For him to look at her the way he once did, the pitiable child her father wanted him to mate with in order to breed a grand race of dovenatus? She’d worked hard to put that all behind her. To move beyond the shame of her father treating her like chattel, the heartache of Jonah’s refusal. Maybe the worst thing of all was that despite her father’s horrible misuse of her, she would have happily given herself to Jonah. She would gladly have gone along with her father’s mad schemes. Seeing Jonah again reminded her of that. Reminded her of how pathetic she’d once been.

  She had no wish to repeat that humiliation—would not tolerate him looking at her as he once did. She was no longer that girl. For all intents and purposes, that girl died in the explosion.

  She shook her head, then stopped, wincing at the lancing pain the movement caused. She struggled up onto her elbows and glanced around the toasty-warm bedroom. Outside the wind howled.

  He’d changed since she’d earlier seen him, had removed his outer gear and wore a long-sleeved gray thermal shirt and dark pants. He looked relaxed, refreshed. As if this were a winter retreat and not some reunion from hell.

  She moistened her lips, determined to drop the subject, to move on as if it were no big deal. “How long have I been out?”

  He watched her with bright-eyed intensity, assessing. “About a day,” he answered.

  “What?” Tresa would be long gone by now!

  She jerked upright, gasping as air brushed her bare breasts. She made a mad grab for the comforter that had covered her. She glanced down, peeked beneath it to confirm that she was in fact naked. “Where are my clothes?” she hissed.

  He shrugged. “There wasn’t much left of them.”

  She adjusted her arms around the comforter to better shield herself. Hard to look dignified wearing a comforter. “I suppose I should thank you for saving me … and bringing me back here.”

  He smiled mockingly, his teeth a flash of white in his tan face. “That would be nice.”

  “Thanks,” she snapped.

  A smile twitched his lips. “That’s a thank you?”

  “Didn’t you just hear me?”

  “You might want to work on that.”

  “If it wasn’t for you, Tresa’s head would be mine. Take what you can get.” She glanced around the bedroom again, spying the bathroom through an open door. She tossed her hair, grimacing at the grimy texture. She tested a tendril. It crunched between her fingers with dry blood.

  He snorted, looking her over, arching a dark eyebrow. “Really? You think so? If it wasn’t for me, your head would have been hers.”

  She stood, whipping the comforter around her. “I would have managed,” she blustered. “And now, thanks to you, she’s long gone.”

  “Good.” He crossed thick, muscled arms over his chest.

  “No,” she choked out. “Not good. I’ll have to start all over again trying to find her.”

  “No. You won’t.”

  Deciding to just hurry up and be on her way, she opened Tresa’s closet. A minimal amount of clothes hung there. Sorcha grabbed a heavy black sweater from a hanger. A built-in set of drawers stood at the back of the closet. She found undergarments and a pair of slacks within, all one size too small. Apparently women born two thousand years ago didn’t possess much body fat. Still, the clothes would have to do.

  Stepping from the closet, she faced Jonah with Tresa’s garments tucked close to her chest, a sense of urgency humming through her. To pick up Tresa’s trail. To get as far from Jonah as she could.

  He’d moved. Stood closer. His breath a soft fan on her skin.
Uncomfortably near. She resisted the urge to step back but held her ground.

  They studied each other until the air grew charged, electric. She moistened her lips. His gaze followed the movement of her tongue and the centers of his eyes grew brighter, glowed in a way they never had when looking at her before.

  The sight disturbed her, made her feel raw and exposed, awakening all those feelings she’d thought buried. Entirely unacceptable considering they were on opposite sides.

  Staring down at her with his unnervingly intense gaze, he murmured, “The bathroom might not be up to your usual standards.”

  She almost laughed. Were they really discussing bathrooms when all manner of unspoken words flowed between them?

  “I’ll make do.”

  Turning, she moved into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her with a sigh. She grimaced at the single copper tub. Okay, no running water. She ran a hand through her blood-sticky hair and glanced at the blurred glass of the mirror, grimacing again.

  “I’ve heated water on the woodstove.”

  She jumped at the low sound of his voice, close behind her. Turning, she gasped. He’d opened the door and come up right on her, as quick as a stalking cat. For a moment she’d forgotten just how fast he could move. How silently.

  He was everywhere, it seemed, the pull between them inescapable.

  “Can’t you knock?” she rasped out, her fingers clutching the comforter until they ached, white-knuckled and bloodless.

  He smiled then, the curve of his well-formed lips making her belly clench. That light at the centers of his eyes flickered with amusement and something else. Something dark and sensual that made her blood heat. “I remember a time when you would never close a door to me.”

  “The years change things,” she replied in a strangled voice. “I was just a stupid kid.”

  His gaze crawled over her face. Desire settled heavily in the pit of her stomach. “You were never stupid to me.”

  “Yeah? Well, what’s a kid know?”

  “Sometimes everything.”