by Hall, Linsey
Her face twisted. “You know what? Forget it. And forget you. I don’t know why I ever thought it would be a good idea to work for the university. You’re a bunch of bigots and I’m through with you.” She spun around and headed for the door, her cat hot on her heels. It looked back and hissed at him, citrine eyes all but shooting sparks.
“Where are you going?” After what she’d done—failed to do—could he stop her? Would he? Letting her run might be the kindest thing to do.
“Away. I’m done with the university. Fuck your world peace, fuck your departments and teams. Fuck all of it. I’m done.”
Leaving for good? She couldn’t. He charged after her, reaching out to grab her. He needed her to stop Aurora. He needed her… for himself. He ruthlessly crushed the errant thought.
Esha glanced back over her shoulder, then reached out for her cat. When she made contact, they disappeared. He thought he heard the words fuck this echo as she departed.
Eyes blurred with tears, Esha stumbled through the door of her tower flat.
“Pathetic,” she muttered. What kind of badass was she if she was crying over that stupid asshole and this stupid place. Gods, she was the stupid one. She hadn’t cried in years, not since she’d run away from school. She’d made herself tough, someone not to be fucked with.
And look at her now.
Esha’s heart clutched as she looked around at the flat that had been her home for a decade. The windows that she’d loved when she’d first seen her new home looked out on Scotland’s Lowlands. The hills and green forests had reminded her of her old life. They’d been her bail-out option.
Joining the university permanently had been a huge change from her solitary life as a mercenary, most of which she’d spent out in the Highlands, hunting the creepiest of crawly rogue Mytheans. The sight of the green hills out her window had initially reminded her that she could leave whenever she wanted to, return to her roots as a solo mercenary who didn’t need anyone.
Hell, that was what she’d been here all along. Mistakenly, she’d thought she was joining a team when she’d signed up ten years ago, but nothing about her lifestyle or work had really changed. She should have known something was up when they’d given her the tower at the farthest edge of campus, as far as possible from the other Mytheans.
She scrubbed the tears from her face again as she walked to the middle of the floor and sat. Her face was leaking, and it was embarrassing.
I’m not a freaking wimp. I’m a badass. The Chairman curled up next to her, so she sank her fingers into his warm fur, sighing at the comfort that rushed over her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stop the tears. He was her family. Her familiar was the only one who’d been at her side this entire time. She loved Ana too, but she could escape Otherworld so rarely.
Esha lay back on the wooden floor and stared up at the beam-supported ceiling. She’d loved this place at first, but all the shit that had happened recently made her realize that it had become a prison. A prison in which she accepted her outcast status. She’d thought it didn’t bother her, that she was above it.
But she wasn’t. All the little bad things—the glares, snide comments, loneliness amongst a sea of other Mytheans—were piling up until they became too much to bear. This last event pushed her over the edge. This place was breaking her apart.
As the fog of exhaustion crept across her mind, a glorious idea came with it. Esha didn’t have to stay at the university in hopes of finding a place to fit in. Another soulceress was about to arrive in Scotland.
Esha had been alive for more than three hundred years, and for the first time in her long life, she had a chance to meet another of her kind. Another soulceress wouldn’t cringe at the sight of her. She might even know things that Esha didn’t about being a soulceress. Maybe she could even teach her to control her power collection. If she could do that, then she could have a more normal life.
Best of all, she would know someone who would accept her for who she was.
CHAPTER NINE
Warren stared, slack-jawed, at the space that Esha had only recently inhabited.
She was gone. Totally out of reach. He’d been a bastard and had driven her away because he was so fucked up. Regret for the pain he’d seen in her eyes was a physical ache in his chest, but he pushed it aside for the bigger problems that loomed on the horizon.
There was no way to convince her to help keep Aurora imprisoned. He’d done everything he could, tried to follow the rules of the university, but she’d be getting out no matter what.
Sick joy dawned within him. His extremities tingled with it. He’d done everything he could, but Aurora was going to escape.
Which meant he could hunt her, his conscience clear. His mind spun with the possibilities, a tornado within his head.
Focus, you bastard. He began to breathe deeply, counting back from one hundred. By the time he reached the thirties, his breathing had calmed. By the tens, he’d gained control of his rampant mind.
First step, he had to go to the witches to learn the details of Aurora’s release. Afterward, he’d find Esha and apologize. But this had to come first.
Thirty minutes later, Warren strode into the witches’ part of campus. He reached the door, but the sound of arguing stilled his fist. Raised voices and sparks flew out the window, nearly singeing his cheek. Curious, and ever cautious of witches in an uproar, he sidled along the cottage wall until he reached a window.
What he saw within made his brows draw down. A dozen witches stood in varying states of disarray around the room, yelling at each other. One pulled at her hair in frustration, while another yanked books off the shelf so fast that they flew to the floor when she decided they weren’t what she was looking for.
Familiars in all shapes and sizes—cats, rabbits, wolves, snakes—prowled anxiously throughout the room, avoiding an area near the ceremonial table that glimmered like heat over the desert.
“Shut it, ladies! We need to get our shit together!” Cora’s voice broke out over the din. The fat marmot on her shoulder tried to hide under her pink hair but was too big.
“We’re screwed, Cora, she’s going to be here any minute!” A dark-haired witch gestured toward the shimmering area over the table.
“Do you think I don’t know that? Damn it! I never thought she’d be strong enough to break out this early. I swear all this mortal technology makes the aether thinner. We’re lucky she didn’t get out earlier.”
“Do you think…” a timid witch began. “Um, do you think she’s coming for vengeance?”
Cora groaned at the question. “I don’t know, Luca. Probably. Aurora didn’t exactly want to be imprisoned. But we only did what we had to do. We were right under the law.”
A flash of light. Howling wind so fierce that Warren was blown back a few steps. He leaped to the window again in a heartbeat once it died down. His heart plummeted and his fists clenched. Shite.
Aurora stood within the room, right where the shimmering air had been. Her short golden hair whipped about her face, set aloft by an unholy and unnatural wind. As Esha’s had done when she’d been angry. A sleek black cat sat at her heels, emerald eyes fierce.
Aurora’s eyes blazed black as they stared—straight at him.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?” Her voice echoed with evil, but Warren barely had time to process it.
He charged into the cottage, straight for the unholy bitch. Mine. Her death would be his, and with it, his soul. Rage propelled him forward faster than he’d ever moved.
Pain. He slammed into a force field and his body was thrown back, the shock of her power still echoing through his veins. The sounds of the other witches hurrying away from Aurora were drowned out by her laughter. It scratched over his nerves and plucked at his sanity. All the peace and control he’d worked so hard to gain slipped from him as his blood roared in his ears.
Kill her. Take back what’s yours.
“Stupid man. Do you think I’d actually come here?” she asked.
He surged to his feet to face her. Her form hovered off the ground, slightly translucent. The gray robes she wore floated unnaturally about her slender frame, a color so dense it sucked the light out of the room. It was dull as slate against her glowing golden skin.
“Where are you?” His breath came short with his rage, strangling his lungs like briars wrapped around a fence.
“Please. I won’t be telling you that. However, I will say that I’m glad to see you here. You’ll do just fine for my purposes.”
“You knew I’d be here?” There was no way.
“Nay. I came to ask these cowards for what I wanted.” She gestured to the cowering witches. “But your passion will ensure that I get what I want.”
Pride propelled Cora forward, but only a few steps. “You broke the law. We did only what was required when we locked you up for abusing your powers.”
“What do you know of my powers? You’re but an animus witch. Go talk to your marmot.” Aurora waved a dismissive hand.
“Bite me, Cruella. There are enough of us to stop you again if you pull a repeat of your past,” Cora said.
“You’re wasting my time,” Aurora snapped. She waved her hand and the witches were forced to their knees, struggling fiercely against her hold, their faces contorted with rage and their shouts echoing about the room.
Still on his feet, the strength leached out of Warren’s muscles and his stomach lurched. What the hell? He was never ill, and this wasn’t the same as what the witches were experiencing.
He swallowed hard, forcing the bile back, and said, “Where the hell are you?”
“What, you want to kill me to get your soul back?” She laughed.
“Aye.”
She rolled her eyes and his muscles bunched, prepared to launch himself at her even though it would be pointless.
“I knew that’s what you’d say. But you canna find me,” she said. “No’ where I’m going. The only one who can find me is another soulceress. And there’s one here at the university. I can feel her. Bring her to me.”
“Why?”
“I want a friend, that’s all.” Something swirled in her eyes, something dark and unreadable that took him back to the awful night when he’d traded her his soul. Her power seethed around her, so strong that he could almost feel it, though she wasn’t even truly in the room. She looked nothing like Esha, but the power was there. That similarity was impossible to deny.
“That’s no’ all you want,” he said. Bring Esha to her? Risk her like that?
“Either way, bring her to me. Then you can have your soul back.”
Nay. It was too good to be true. “That’s all? Why no’ just come get her yourself?”
“And let the university hunt me down? I’m no’ stupid. I want to meet her on my terms, where I make the rules and remain safe. Why would I give you the advantage by coming there?”
“How are we supposed to find you if you won’t tell me where you are?”
“She can find me. Bring her to me and your soul is yours.”
It was clearly a lie. And there was so much beneath the surface of her demands and her plans that he couldn’t identify.
“You’ve got one chance, Warren.” She waved her hand again and released the witches from their enforced submission.
As they stood, his muscles turned to jelly and his stomach revolted. What the hell?
“Bring her to me, Warren,” Aurora said. The air around her shimmered again, then collapsed in on itself until she disappeared with a pop.
He almost went to his knees with the sickness that surged through him. What the hell was wrong with him?
Once his stomach had settled a bit, he spun toward the witches and demanded, “That’s it? That’s all we fucking get?”
“Just a moment,” Cora said. She and the other witches were moving about the room, chanting spells and righting chairs that had overturned in the first rush of wind that had come with Aurora’s appearance.
Warren stumbled over to the area where Aurora had been floating but could feel no difference in the air. He breathed deeply as the sickness began to fade and some of the strength returned to his muscles.
Eventually, Cora approached him and said, “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”
“Aye.”
Cora shook her head. “No, there’s something wrong with you. I can sense it.”
“I’ll be fine.” But it hit him again, a wave of nausea so intense that he almost stumbled.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she whispered. “It’s like Aurora had some kind of effect on you.”
“Nay. Of course no’.”
The confusion that creased her brow turned to shock. “Oh, shit. Of course. Hang on a second.”
Warren put a hand on the table to steady himself and watched her run over to a bookshelf in the corner. She plucked a volume from the top and leafed through it as she returned to him.
“Here it is,” she said, peering at the pages. “It says that every time she uses the power that your soul provides, it takes some of the strength from your body as well. It makes you sick.”
“Then why has this never happened before?”
“She was neutralized in the aether, so she couldn’t use your soul.”
Warren dragged a hand across his sweating face, the cramps in his gut like squirrels run amok in his intestines. How the fuck was he going to face her like this? “Is there any kind of spell that could cure this?”
“Cure? No.”
“What about neutralize it?” he asked.
Cora frowned, a thoughtful light in her eyes. “I’ll ask my sisters. Some of them work for the infirmary. There might be something you can take. Wait over there.”
“Thanks.” Warren stumbled to the chair that she indicated under the window. How the hell would he defeat Aurora if she had him crippled by illness?
Twenty minutes later—during which time he watched the witches put their cottage to rights while Cora and two of her sisters went to the infirmary—Cora returned.
“Here.” She handed him a clear plastic bottle full of neon-green pills. “These should keep the symptoms at bay. But you can’t take them forever. They’ll eventually become ineffective. Then they’ll kill you.”
Shite. “How long can I take them?”
She shrugged. “Two weeks, maybe? It’s different for everyone. One every twelve hours.”
He fumbled one out of the bottle and swallowed it dry. “How the hell did she get out so soon?”
“Too powerful, I think. She’s stronger than we thought. Stronger than any soulceress before her.”
“What the hell does she want with Esha?”
Cora looked away, hesitating. “I don’t know. But I’d guess that she wants her power.”
“Her power?”
“Yeah, they can steal each other’s power. Or their ability to absorb power, that is. It’s one reason that soulceresses can be so strong—they have a potentially infinite well of ability. And why we stay the hell away from them.”
Damn. He hadn’t known that. Esha could permanently steal another’s power, not just siphon it off temporarily? “Can they steal yours?”
“We don’t know. None have tried in our written history, but that doesn’t mean they can’t. It’s why we wanted Esha put on the other side of campus when she joined.”
“Does Esha know soulceresses can steal power?”
Cora shrugged. “Doubt it. She’d probably have taken ours if she knew, right?”
Warren wasn’t so sure. “How many soulceresses are left, if they’ve been stealing each other’s powers all these years?”
“I don’t know how often they do it. They used to be very loyal to each other, since no one else wanted to be around them. Aurora is one of the few who rampantly stole souls and power. The Burnings killed most of them. I think that Esha and Aurora are the only two left in Britain. She must want Esha’s to complete her collection.”
The idea of Esha’s power being i
n Aurora’s collection made his chest hurt. But if she didn’t have her power, then she’d be normal. The idea wasn’t wholly unappealing when he thought of it that way. Though he wasn’t a big enough arse to wish her power away. But how would he ever convince her to help him, especially after his first blown attempt?
CHAPTER TEN
“Come on, Chairman, we’re blowing this Popsicle stand.”
Esha swung her bag onto her shoulder and headed for the door of her tower apartment. This was it—she was leaving. It hadn’t taken but a moment to throw her valuables in a bag. A couple of goofy T-shirts from Ana, the Chairman’s fluffy green squeaky toy that was the only thing he deigned to play with, her journal, and a necklace that was supposedly from her dad, though she’d never met him, so she couldn’t be sure.
Her first stop would be to see the witches and check on where the soulceress might go when she was released. If they didn’t know anything, the second would be to the historian Lea’s office. She might know. Either way, the other soulceress would leave the university right away. Hence the packed bag.
She skipped down the spiral staircase, her dire mood improved by the possibility of what was to come. The brisk November air hit her face as she ran out the door at the base of her tower. Nearly all of the leaves were off the trees now. Snow would be here any day.
“New adventure, Chairman.”
He meowed, low and deep, as he trotted at her side.
As she was pushing her car keys into the door lock, a hand landed on her shoulder. Shocked, she spun around and threw a blast of power that put the assailant on his ass.
“Warren?”
He coughed and rose, shaking the dirt from himself. “Aye. Damn, lassie, what’d you pack in that punch?”
“You’re lucky that’s all it was. Only an idiot would sneak up on me.” She looked him up and down, letting the insinuation hang in the air. He might be an idiot, but not a bigger one than she. And he was a hot idiot. Golden hair that was such a contrast to the shadows at his feet whipped in the wind. “Why the hell are you sneaking up on me, anyway? I thought you’d be smart enough to leave me the hell alone.”