My Soul to Keep

by Sharie Kohler

  “Sorcha.” He said her name with a ring of warning.

  “I’m leaving. Just like you told me to do.” Tossing her suitcase onto the bed, she swept what belongings she could find into it. “You just had your last bit of fun with me. Now strikes me as a good time to go.”

  “It’s three A.M. I didn’t mean you had to leave right now. You can leave in the morning.”

  “And spend one more moment with you? Or are you hoping for another roll in the sheets with your pathetic little fuck buddy?”

  “Don’t be irrational—”

  “I’m not. The airport’s open.” She moved about the room with long strides, changing clothes and tossing the last of her belongings into her suitcase, careful never once to glance his way, too afraid of what she might see. Of what he might see if she looked him straight in the eyes.

  After several moments of being ignored, he left her and moved into the living room. She breathed easier and took a moment to collapse on a chair near the window and pull herself together so that by the time she emerged, she would be as calm and composed as any woman ending an affair would be.

  Could she even call it an affair? Didn’t an affair need to last longer than a week?

  He sat on the couch, facing the window, studying the night as if something held his attention out there. She pulled her suitcase to the front door and hovered there for a moment, wondering whether to speak. Was there anything left to say? It seemed he had said it all.

  With a grimace, she reached out a hand for the door.

  “Sorcha.” It was Darby.

  She turned at the soft voice, almost eagerly, even though it wasn’t Jonah who had spoken her name. Still, it was something. A reason to linger in the same room as him for another moment. This might be the last time she ever saw him.

  Darby stood in the doorway of her room, clutching the hem of her nightshirt. She looked pale, her red hair a stark contrast to her wan, oval face. “Where are you going?”

  Sorcha smiled and felt a stab of compassion for the white witch. She just might have it worse than Sorcha. Darby had a hard road ahead of her. What did you do when demons invaded your dreams and took over your body? What could be done?

  “Away from here.”

  If possible, Darby’s expression grew more pitiable.

  “Good luck, Darby. I hope … You’re going to be all right.”

  With a parting glance for Jonah, Sorcha opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

  Darby’s voice was muffled through the door. “Jonah! Stop her!”

  Idiotic, but Sorcha hesitated before walking away for good, hoping that he might change his mind, that he might say something to indicate remorse. She would take that. Any crumb. Anything not to feel so bitter right now.

  Several moments of silence passed before it sank in and she accepted it. He wasn’t coming after her. So get over it and stop acting like a fool, Sorcha.

  It wasn’t as though she’d ever expected this to go anywhere with him. They’d both been up front about that from the start.

  So why did she feel this deep ache in her chest? A gnawing pain that mirrored nothing she had ever felt before. As if he were dead to her all over again.

  SEVENTEEN

  Jonah! Stop her!”

  It was several moments before he answered Darby, long after he sensed Sorcha had left the building. He knew the moment she was gone. It was as if all the energy had been sucked from the room with her. All the enlivening warmth, all life.

  Darby glared at him, hands propped on her hips.

  “Stay out of it, Darby.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. The bay loomed far below and beyond that, a thousand winking lights. Somewhere, Sorcha was out there, hailing a cab, on the way to the airport. Away from him. Safe. All this crazy demon-hunting business firmly behind her. That was best. Right. No matter the ache in his chest.

  Darby snorted. “I’m supposed to buy that you’re okay with her leaving?”

  “I don’t care what you think. Tomorrow, you’re leaving, too. And I’ll have my life back.”

  “What life?” she hissed.

  “My life. The one I want.”

  “You want her.”

  He flinched, then remembering, demanded, “And why should you care so much? You’re the one who prophesied that she would kill me.” For a moment, she looked perplexed, her brow wrinkling. “Did you forget that?” he demanded.

  “No. Of course not.” She shook her head. “Only, any fool can see she cares about you. My vision couldn’t have been right. The course isn’t set in stone.”

  “You’re always right,” he reminded her. “Never been wrong before about what you see.”

  She shrugged uneasily. “Things change … choices … my visions can be averted.”

  He shook his head and dragged a hand down his face, noticing that his skin felt cold. Far colder than when Sorcha had been here.

  He wasn’t worried about Sorcha killing him. That was not why he’d shoved her out of his life, why he’d said those things. Treated her like such shit. Even if she was still here, he couldn’t imagine her harming him. Not deliberately. Her heart was too big, too soft. A lot had changed about her, but not that.

  “You’ll regret this,” Darby murmured. Her voice carried an ominous ring.

  Scowling, he watched as she disappeared back into her room. He wouldn’t regret it. Because it had been the right thing to do.

  For years he’d thought Sorcha dead … and held himself partly to blame. He wouldn’t go through that again. Tonight put it all in perspective. He wouldn’t train her to fight demons she couldn’t even see to target. He wouldn’t lead her into certain death. He had failed to protect her the last time. This time he wouldn’t fail. No matter how much he wanted her.

  Sighing, he nodded once, decisive and satisfied despite the wrenching in his gut. She’d been ripped from him before and he had survived. He would survive this, too, he vowed. “Good-bye, Sorcha.”

  SEVERAL STORIES BELOW JONAH’S condo, Sorcha lifted her face upward in the misting sky. “Good-bye, Jonah.”

  And this time, she meant it. For once, finally, she would bury him in the past.

  His words echoed through her. Go. Just leave me alone and go. I never wanted you here. Those words permanently laid him to rest.

  The future yawned before her. Even if it was devoid of Jonah, it was far from empty. She had purpose, a goal.

  Tresa was still out there. And Gervaise still deserved vengeance.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sorcha wrapped her cashmere scarf around her neck twice and burrowed her head low against the brisk evening wind. “I think I would like to walk home from here, Richard.” She winced at the hollow sound of her voice. She couldn’t even seem to sound … alive. Not since Seattle, not since Jonah. Back in New York, she couldn’t shake off this melancholy. Blinking suddenly burning eyes, she forced a smile for her date.

  The blond, blue-eyed Adonis at her side pulled a pretty pout and mock-shivered into his coat. “Sorcha, darling, it’s much too chilly to walk. Besides, I thought we’d go to the theater.”

  Sorcha shook her head. “Dinner was lovely, but I’m still tired from traveling. A bit jet-lagged, I think.”

  “But you don’t go out very often.” True. She’d emerged from her loft in Soho hoping for distraction while she waited for the private investigator she’d hired to contact her with information on Maree.

  Since their last dealings, the witch had mysteriously vanished, packed up all her things and abandoned her apartment. Clearly, someone or something had gotten to her, leaving Sorcha without any leads on where to find Tresa.

  She usually avoided going out this close to a full moon, as lycans grew more aggressive then, but she couldn’t stand the silence or endless space of her loft. It felt too lonely, and her thoughts echoed loudly in her head. Thoughts of Jonah thousands of miles away, on the other side of the country and quite happy to be rid of her. His cruel words reverberated through her head in a t
errible litany.

  The city, activity, people, had seemed like a good idea, a good escape from the noise in her head. Only it wasn’t working. It was as though Jonah’s memory burned brighter, the echo of his voice rang louder, rising over the city’s restless purr.

  Richard seized her hand, lacing their fingers intimately. Before, she wouldn’t have minded the gesture. Before, she would have taken whatever comfort his body could give her. Only now his touch made her feel faintly ill, heightening the empty feeling inside her. She slipped her hand from his.

  His pout turned into a genuine frown. “I’m sure you’re starved for company. All your friends miss you. I still don’t understand why you had to sell your penthouse.” Jonah’s face flashed across her mind. She was starved only for him—damn his soul.

  Richard arched his eyebrows and used a coaxing tone. “Good times. Good theater. And afterward …” His eyes darkened to a deeper shade of blue. Afterward, good sex. That was his clear suggestion.

  She stifled a sigh. What else would he think? He was one of the two men she’d let in her bed. Gervaise’s estate attorney, he’d been invaluable to her. After Gervaise’s death, she’d accepted the invitation that had always been in his eyes. She knew he would like nothing more than to take their relationship to the next level. She’d entertained before the notion of them in a more permanent arrangement. But she knew it could never last even in those fleeting moments when she’d played with the idea. They could never have a future. She could never have a future with anyone.

  Her life loomed ahead of her … a string of empty encounters and empty relationships. She swallowed against the sudden thickness in her throat. At least she still had her mission. Tresa was still out there.

  Sometime in the next year she would have to relocate, move far away, hire a new firm to handle the estate. She was twenty-six, but looked more like twenty. She couldn’t stay any longer, couldn’t raise suspicions. She had to start over. Maybe this time out west. Nowhere near Jonah, of course. He wanted nothing to do with her. She would not be desperate enough to chase him around like a starved little puppy.

  “The night’s still young. And so are we, Sorcha,” Richard coaxed.

  She stepped back, edging away and laughing lightly. “Well, tonight I feel old.”

  “Oh, that’s tragic. You can’t call it quits after such a glorious dinner. Let me take you out. It doesn’t have to be the theater. There’s a wonderful new club in the East Village.” His eyes glinted and he leaned his golden head toward her. “Or we can be alone. Go back to my place. Let me make you smile again.”

  To oblige him she smiled, the curve of her lips brittle on her face. She reached out a gloved hand and stroked his cheek fondly, wondering why she couldn’t love someone like him. Someone handsome and uncomplicated. Kind and flirty. Then she remembered. Not that she ever forgot. He was human. She was not.

  He’d be terrified at the truth of her, at the sight of her in full shift … at what she was beneath her pretty, shiny exterior.

  “Good night, Richard. Another time.”

  He held his hands over his heart. “Please let me at least take you home in the car.”

  She buried her hands in her coat pockets. “Thank you, but I want to walk. It will do me good.” She blew out a gust of frothy breath. With a small wave she turned and left her blond Adonis standing alone outside the restaurant.

  Crossing the street, her booted heels clicked over the sidewalk, skillfully skirting grates as she weaved through people out for the night. She paused a moment outside the salon Gervaise had first taken her to when she was seventeen, shortly before they married.

  She sniffed and rubbed at her cold nose, determined not to cry, not to feel sorry for herself. There was nothing wrong with being alone. Plenty of people were alone. They led perfectly contented lives. And who was to say it would be like this forever? She shook her head, disgusted with her forlorn thoughts.

  Gervaise had thought her amazing, beautiful, in any shape or form. He’d insisted that she keep herself open to the possibility of love. He didn’t think it necessary for her to hide what she was, but then Gervaise never could see the existence of evil in others.

  She dare not expose herself. Ever. Mankind had a history of persecuting anyone deemed “different.” She couldn’t bring herself to trust a human. She couldn’t bring herself to trust anyone. She’d stumbled upon Gervaise quite accidentally. She didn’t count on that kind of tolerance from anyone. Hell, she hadn’t even found it with Jonah.

  Moving away from the salon, she hurried from the familiar sights that reminded her so much of Gervaise, eager to return to her loft.

  The waxing moon followed her, peeping out between bony tree branches.

  She thought about the tundra again, about Tresa’s comfortable lodge there, a haven nestled within that hard, relentless ice world.

  She’d lost her chance to kill the witch. And her demon. Jonah believed the risk of freeing Tresa’s demon was too great. He was wrong. Still living, she wrought her evil at the behest of a demon. How was that any better?

  Suddenly Sorcha stopped, stared ahead unseeingly in a sudden moment of clarity. Maybe she hadn’t lost her chance entirely. Surely Tresa would return there. She’d left her life there. Her clothes, her belongings, everything. And she felt safest in the cold, where she had more autonomy from her demon. Even if Tresa didn’t return, maybe there were clues. Something that indicated where she might go next.

  Sorcha’s pace quickened, her heels clicking sharply, matching the sudden racing rhythm of her heart. A renewed purpose flowed through her, fortifying, heartening her as nothing else had since she’d left Jonah.

  She knew exactly what to do.

  NINETEEN

  If possible, the tundra seemed even more desolate the second time around. Sorcha’s wind-chapped lips twisted in the cold-burned air. But then, it hadn’t been too desolate the last time. She’d confronted all manner of life: Tresa, Jonah, a lycan and his mercenaries.

  She approached the lodge slowly, her boots crunching over dead, ice-singed earth. Subarctic wind whipped over the ground in curling drafts the color of smoke. She bit back the guilt rising inside her. She owed Jonah nothing. He’d sent her packing with no thought. So why did each step she took toward Tresa’s lodge feel like a betrayal of him?

  Shaking her head, she cleared it of thoughts of Jonah. This was for Gervaise.

  A tarp covered the lodge’s broken door. Pushing it aside, she entered the dim confines and saw that the fabric had done little to shield the structure from the harsh elements. Ice covered almost every surface. Even snow had managed to gather and pile up in the forgotten corners.

  “Guess Tresa didn’t come back,” she muttered to herself, disappointed even though the hope had been slim.

  Undefeated, she walked into the deep shadows, determined to unearth something, some clue that would lead her to the witch. Her tread rang hollowly in the house as she strolled over the hardwood floor. She eyed her surroundings, looking at everything with fresh eyes, trying to see the house as a home, as Tresa had seen it.

  In the bedroom, she inhaled and caught a faint whiff of the cursed witch, a lingering earthy aroma, woodland grasses and fresh-tilled earth. The wind howled outside, a forlorn sound, like the howl of some beast haunting the snow-craggy terrain. She approached the bed, brushed her gloved fingers over the bedside table, leaving a streak in the layer of icy frost. Shaking her head, she forced herself into action. She lifted the small pile of books on the bedside table and examined them, flipping through the pages of each one. Tresa was a reader. Mystery, nonfiction, the occasional biography.

  Sorcha slid open the drawer and thumbed through two journals, each written in a language she was not familiar with. She tucked them into her large coat pockets for later dissection. From there, she moved on, searching the rest of the bedroom.

  She was rummaging in the closet when she stilled. Cocking her head to the side, she listened. Nothing. Not a sound. And that was the
trouble. Even the wind seemed to have slowed to a stop. She dropped the clothing in her hands and turned, facing the open door. Slowly, she stepped over the threshold.

  Had Tresa returned, tamed the winds with her corrupt magic? Or could it be Jonah? Her lips wobbled, tempted to smile if it was him. Heart hammering in her too-tight chest, she peered into the dark bedroom.

  The empty bedroom stared back at her. Bit by bit, the tension eased from her shoulders. No Tresa. No Jonah. Something closely resembling disappointment settled in her stomach. Still, the quiet was oppressive. She walked through the bedroom and into the living room. No howling wind.

  Shaking her head, she turned to finish searching the bedroom and stood face-to-face with a total stranger. Beyond him loomed three others, dark-swathed figures with an aura of menace, of barely leashed violence. Their pewter gazes drilled into her, marking them instantly.

  She held herself perfectly motionless, shoving down the rising tide of panic. Her skin tightened and her core heated, vibrating. She smelled them then. A subtle, distinct odor, as coppery as fresh-spilled blood. The blood of their kills coursed through them. They smelled of evil.

  Alone, facing the four lycans made her feel small and weak. Defenseless. They were big, well-fed males who dominated the room, ate up all the space.

  “What do you want?” she asked in a surprisingly steady voice.

  They exchanged looks.

  “We’ve come for the witch,” a gravelly female voice announced. A woman stepped forward, her voice ringing with authority. “Where is she?”

  Sorcha turned, eyeing the older female. With gray-streaked hair, she looked more like a librarian than anyone who hung around these killers. Inhaling deeply, Sorcha immediately picked up on the fact that while she wasn’t human, she wasn’t lycan either.

  “I’m looking for her, too,” Sorcha said, hoping to position herself as an ally—not an enemy. They outnumbered her. Her best chance of getting out of the situation unscathed was to let them think she was useful.

  The female looked around again, assessing, her keen eyes missing nothing. The motion stirred the air, kicking up a pungent aroma of loamy woods. “Appears she hasn’t been here for a while.”