Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) (17 page)

“Fine. At least tell me why you couldn’t go into the
howf
.” When she’d asked if he’d wanted to come, he’d said he
couldn’t
, and with real regret in his voice, not that he didn’t
want
to.

“No’ going to happen,” Warren said. There was no way he’d be telling her about his soul.
 

Though the card game had been pleasant—hell, more than pleasant, sitting across from the soulceress with her gleaming golden eyes concentrated on the cards and her throaty voice filling the room—it would be a bad idea to share the real reason he was hunting Aurora.

“Come on, I’ll just keep asking,” she said, and dealt the cards. “Or maybe I’ll ask around the university.”

“The hell you will.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not above it. My life’s at risk in this search, and I want to know why it’s so important.”

He stayed silent.

“How about we play for it. If I win, you tell me. If you win, you can keep your secret.”

Warren eyed the cards she’d laid out.

“You know I won’t hesitate to ask around.”

He could probably beat her if she played fair. There was no guarantee she wouldn’t manipulate the cards with her magic, but there was also no guarantee that she wouldn’t ask around at the university. Part of him even wanted to lose, if he was honest with himself. He’d never told another what had happened to him, had carried the burden himself.
 

As he should.
 

But still.

“All right, lassie. I win, you drop it. You win, I’ll tell you why I couldn’t go into the
howf
. Best two out of three.”

She smiled, then dealt the flop.
 

Damn it.
His hand was shit and had little chance of improving when the next cards were revealed. He looked up to see her smiling at the cards, lush red lips parted in a grin that caught his breath. Silken black hair swept over her shoulder and hung down in waves, making him wonder what the strands would feel like between his fingers.

H stifled a frustrated groan and dragged his gaze away from her lips and his mind away from thoughts of throwing her on the bed and finding out just how good she tasted.

But he wasn’t able to get his mind back on the game. Within minutes, she’d won that hand with cards that would have beaten his no matter how good his focus. “That’s the best hand you’ve had all night,” he said.
 

“Lucky me.” She handed him the cards.
 

He accepted them and dealt out their hands, glancing up once to see her peering hard at the cards. Didn’t she trust him to deal fairly? He scowled.
 

He glanced at his cards, cursing silently when he saw a two and a nine against a flop that did him no favors. The next two cards laid upon the table didn’t help.

He’d lost.
 

Esha confirmed it by laying her hand upon the table and grinning at him. Her cat slinked around the feet of her big chair, peering up at him and flicking its tail.

“Well,” she said, letting the word hang in the air as she refilled his glass and her own with the bright amber liquid that so perfectly matched her eyes.
 

Carefully, he placed his cards on the table and leaned back in his chair. He focused on breathing in, then breathing out as a chill ran over his arms with little mouse feet. Was he really going to reveal to another how he had become what he was? To her?

She sat across from him silently, her eyes searching his as she waited for his tale. He’d made a deal, and he never went back on his word.
 

“I’m happy to wait all night,” she said. Instead of being challenging as he’d expected, her voice held an undercurrent of understanding. Patience. Considering what he’d put her through, she deserved to know.

“I doona have a soul.” The weight of a secret held hundreds of years too long lifted off his shoulders even as his breath stuck in his lungs and his head buzzed. What could she possibly think of him now?

There was nothing more important in their world than souls. They were the core of a person, the part that gave a Mythean immortality on earth or allowed mortals to pass on to their afterworld. Without it, he was a... thing. Not really a Mythean, not really a mortal.

When he caught her gaze, he saw surprise. Shock, even. Her lips parted on a wordless question as she searched his face, no doubt looking for the joke.
 

“You’re... serious?” she asked.

He nodded.

“How? How is that even possible?”

Possible?
How could she not know it was possible? She was a soulceress. Souls were her stock in trade.
 

She scooted forward in her chair and reached out a trembling hand to touch him. He shuddered when he felt the warmth of her hand against the side of his neck. It radiated through him, a brand that felt as though it would last forever. Unable to help himself, he reached up and pressed her hand against his unnaturally cold skin, reveling in the warmth of her.

He watched warily as her gaze searched his face and then traveled down his body to settle at his feet.
 

“So that’s why,” she murmured.
 

Cold returned to him when she withdrew her hand. He wanted to reach out and snatch it back, but resisted. He was stronger than that. He’d borne this alone for centuries, as he deserved to. Just because she now knew didn’t mean that he needed her any more than he had before he’d told her.

“Why, what?” he asked, grateful when her gaze returned to his. Maybe she’d see more than he wanted her to, but the connection he’d formed with her by revealing his true self provided desperately needed oxygen in an airless world. He could breathe better just by catching her gaze with his own.

“Your shadows don’t stick to you. They’re from the people you’ve killed, aren’t they?”

He nodded once, a sharp jerk of his head that connected to his heart and pulled at it the way it did every time he thought of that long-ago night. His cousins hadn’t deserved the death he’d delivered with a joyful heart, and now, because he’d sold his soul, the evil deed didn’t even have a way to haunt him properly.
 

“You have no soul for them to cling to, so they hover around your feet. I always wondered why that was.”

Not knowing what to say, he downed the rest of his whiskey. He met her eyes as he lowered his glass, surprised to see no judgment in their depths.
 

Damn her
. He should be judged, gods damn it, and found wanting. But in her eyes there was only curiosity. He shifted in his seat, poured another glass of whiskey, then completely ignored it in favor of staring at the complex woman sitting across from him.

“How did you lose your soul?”

The whiskey in his blood urged him to tell her, but more than that, it urged him to kiss her. Sitting across from her all night had made his blood hum. Even telling her his secrets hadn’t dimmed that. The opposite, really. It made him want to be closer to her—the only one who saw him for what he was. With every truth he told her, she saw him more clearly. First with her innate ability, then with the truths that spilled from his lips.

Her ability to see the truth of him had once unsettled him. It still did, but in a different way.

“How about another hand of cards?” He needed to change the subject before she changed too much of him. Being alone, presenting his facade to the world, was the way he’d learned to cope. She slowly peeled his facade away, but what would she find when she finished? What would he find?

She looked askance at him, obviously questioning his tactics in changing the subject, but agreeing nonetheless. “I don’t know. What are the stakes?”

“They ought to be higher, aye?”

She nodded warily, obviously still wanting to pry more information out of him.
 

“You win, I answer a question. I win, I get a kiss.” Had he just said that?

Aye, a kiss would distract her from her questions, and him from his painful musings. With bated breath, he watched her, wondering what she would say.

“Seriously?” Esha said, thrill and shock competing within her, each eager to be the victor.
 

 
He was trying to distract her. That was it. And it was working. With a shaking hand, she added her cards to the pile and shuffled them, embarrassed to see the deck falter in her hands.

She looked up from the cards, stunned to see the sincerity in his face. He’d had a couple of glasses of whiskey, sure, but not enough to affect a man as big as he.
 

He actually wanted to kiss her. But then, he had in the past as well. It was her species that repelled him. He objected to what she was, not what she could do to him with a kiss.

“I don’t know if I want a kiss from you anymore.”
I definitely do.
 

He made her crazy. Made her cry and be all weird and emotional and feel too much. It sucked and inevitably led to dangerous places where hearts were broken. Except, he had bared his soul to her. Told her truths that she doubted he’d ever told anybody. That had to count for something.

“I can make you want it.” His voice rumbled low, sending a shiver through her.
 

She reached down and sank her fingers into the Chairman’s fur, desperate to ground herself and steel her heart against Warren’s eyes, which tracked her movements with a heat that burned her to the core.
 

Slowly, he reached for the cards held loosely in her hand, his fingers brushing hers as he took the deck. She stifled a gasp at the spark that traveled up her arm. The Chairman stalked out of the room, clearly wanting no part of what he sensed was coming.

She watched Warren deal the cards, his big hands deft on the little rectangles of paper. He took her silence as assent, and by the time she had her cards in front of her and the flop laid out, she realized he’d distracted her from magically stacking the deck.

So this would be a true game of chance. Did she want to win, or lose? A glance at her cards revealed that it could go either way.
 

Warren’s golden brows drew together as he looked at the cards, but she couldn’t tell whether it was from worry or concentration.

Here goes nothing.
She nodded at him to lay down the next card, and when it still didn’t reveal her fate, she nodded again. When he laid down a jack, a shiver of anticipation crept along her nerve endings. She had a good hand, but not a sure thing.

With a bracing breath, she laid down her hand, looking up to see the light of triumph flash across Warren’s face as he laid down his own.

“Damn it,” she said, knowing from his look alone that she’d lost. Lost because she’d forgotten to use her magic to turn the tide, even after seeing the dismal flop. What had she really wanted if she was becoming so careless? Nervously, she rose and backed away from him. Only when her back hit the wall did she realize that she was making the situation worse. Nowhere to run now.

“So, tomorrow then?” she asked.

“No, lassie, I’ll be taking my prize now.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Esha’s eyes widened as Warren advanced on her with a prowling gait. He was huge, looming above her and stacked with muscle and masculinity that made her heart pound with nerves and desire.