Braving Fate (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 1) (14 page)

“Warren, wrap your arm around my waist.” She shot him a look that said,
Do it or regret it
.
 

“You want to aetherwalk,” he said, wariness in his voice.
 

“Yeah, trust me, I’m the fastest way out of here and you
really
want to get out of here
right now
.”

Warren hesitated, but once again, her face must have spoken volumes and he wrapped his arm around her waist in a kind of embrace. Trying to ignore the feel of his arm around her because it would break her concentration, she closed her eyes and focused on her flat.
 

When her eyes snapped open, they were standing in the middle of the room. The Chairman untwined himself and sauntered off. Warren’s eyes were still closed and she took a second to appreciate the feel of his arm wrapped around her. Strong, but not bulky with too much muscle. Perfect. It felt so good just to be held.
 

Regretfully, she tapped his shoulder.

He stiffened and looked down at her but didn’t remove his arm from around her waist.

“Damn it, Esha, you scared the shite out of me.” His brow was creased, his eyes worried.

Concern? For her? Her chest warmed while her head reeled. But nay, that couldn’t possibly be right. He couldn’t be concerned for her. He didn’t even like her. She frowned up at him, confused.

Esha’s frown snapped Warren back to reality and he jerked his hand away from her waist, regretful and yet relieved to break the contact. He had been worried and having his arm wrapped around her made it all seem so much more real. So much worse, the risk she’d taken.
 

 
But his arm still burned with the memory of her. She had a long, lean, supple kind of strength, one that was suited to her work as a mercenary. Despite the feeling of being sucked through a straw while aetherwalking, the soft press of her breasts against his chest caught his mind in a snare. Their softness was a contrast to her lean, muscular form. The feel of them would follow him, of that he was sure. Straight into his dreams.

When he met her eyes, there was fear bright within. She worried her bottom lip with white teeth that contrasted with the red of her mouth. Her garnet lips and amber eyes were the only flashes of color in an otherwise pale face.
 

She looked like a sin he wanted to commit.

Bloody hell, celibacy had never been this hard. He hadn’t been truly interested in a woman in centuries. Why this one? She had the ability to really see him, and it freaked him the hell out. And on the whole, soulceresses shouldn’t be trusted. If only he could make himself remember that.

“Why did you go back there alone?”

“I already told you that.” The confusion cleared from her face and annoyance rang in her tone. “You weren’t doing your damned job. You were supposed to check out the tunnel, but I didn’t hear back from you for days.”
 

His mind buzzed with anger. “That’s what you think? That’s why you disobeyed me and went back to the underground?”

“Disobeyed?” She laughed. “I’m not yours to command. And you didn’t do anything about my warning, so I
had
to go back.”
 

He dragged a hand down his face. “Damn it, that’s no’ what I meant. I just doona want you getting hurt. I sent two guardians to the chamber to guard it and asked Lea to check if something like this has happened before. We haven’t learned anything yet, so I dinna call you. You’re jumping the damn gun on this.”

“I didn’t see the guards.”

“How do you think I knew you were there?”
 

“So they were hiding?”

“Of course. Do you think we advertise our presence when performing reconnaissance?”

“Fine. Whatever. You tried, but they can’t see what I can.” She inhaled deeply, then said, “It’s a partial portal to the fucking Roman afterworld.”

“As in, hell?” he asked.

She nodded. “Probably Erebus. It was pretty depressing, but it didn’t look as torturous as Tartarus or as nice as Elysium.” She described what she’d seen and he had to agree.

“Well, shit.”
 

She wouldn’t joke about this. Portals to the afterworlds opened rarely and were always bad news. Maintaining peace between the afterworlds was a primary reason the university had been founded. A big part of that involved keeping the denizens of the afterworlds where they ought to be.
 

Now that an afterworld was threatening to open onto earth, they had a real problem. It might have been easier if it had been a heaven, or even one of the middle-of-the-road afterworlds, but a godsdamned hell? Souls would flood out as soon as the portal was strong enough to carry them through the aether.

“Someone in Erebus wants out, and they’ve almost figured out a way to do it,” she said.

“How long?” He shoved a hand through his hair, and spun around to pace.

She threw her hands up, the international symbol for
I don’t fucking know
. The soulceress didn’t internalize her stress. “The barrier between earth and Erebus is much weaker than before, which is why there are more shadows of evil, but I don’t know how much longer it will take before it opens. Or what the final key is to open it.”

Mind whirring, he watched the cat settle on the rug in front of the hearth and look pointedly at Esha.
 

“Oh, all right,” she murmured, and directed an open palm at the fireplace. She blew lightly and it burst into flame. Logs had already been laid, so the fire had something to consume.

“Erebus, you say?” Roman. Then realization dawned and words spilled from his lips before he could stop them. “A Celtic warrior has been reincarnated. Diana, she’s called. She fought the Romans in her first life. She could have been reborn to deal with this.”

Esha looked at him sharply. “That’s got to be it, right?”

“Could be. But if we’re wrong, and we tell her, it could be disaster.”

“Damn it, Warren, we might not have that kind of time. The barrier is weakening and I don’t know how to fix it. Do you?”

“Nay, but I’m no’ joking when I say that giving the reincarnate the wrong hint could be disastrous.” And he knew. Doing so once before had been the first of many fuckups in his long life.
 

“As disastrous as this portal breaking open? This Celtic warrior is too much of a coincidence to be ignored. She’s got to be the answer.”

“I’m serious, Esha,” Warren said. “Meddling with a reincarnate’s memory can be disastrous. You are forbidden to tell her anything.”

She glared at him. “Forbidden? You can’t order me around!”

He sighed. “Maybe no’, because gods know you’ll do whatever the hell you want.” Which he liked about her, actually. “But maybe I can convince you.”

She walked to the kitchen island and leaned against it, crossed her arms over her chest, and gave him a
give it your best shot
look.

“I doona suppose you know about the plague that swept Edinburgh in 1645?” Horrifying visions of it still haunted him.

“The bubonic plague? Spread by rats and all that?”

“Fleas carried by rats, though we weren’t aware of that at the time. Had a lot of theories about how it was spread, but never the right one.”
 

The Immortal University might have the power of magic and the supernatural, but science had progressed no more quickly for them than it had for the mortals. Slower, even, since they’d tended to look down upon mortals.

“A reincarnate came into his consciousness right around then,” he said. “First one since I’d joined the university. We knew he’d been of the Beaton clan in his first life. Healers. But we didn’t tell him who he’d been, no’ at first. Even back then it was considered a poor idea to tell a reincarnate about his past. People older and wiser than I knew it. We waited, hoping he would discover his task on his own or experience a catalyzing event. But after two weeks of watching more and more mortals die of the plague, we became convinced that he’d been reborn to heal them. To put an end to it. It made perfect sense at the time. So bloody obvious to us.”

The angry light had begun to fade from her eyes as a hint of understanding crept in. Dread followed. Good. Horror was the only thing that had made him learn.

“I discussed it with his guardian and we decided to tell him our suspicions. He took to it like a fly to trash. And why would he no’? Reborn as a savior to the masses. What’s no’ to like? He strolled right into the worst of Old Town, down into the depths of Mary King’s Close, where the most direly ill were put.”

Her eyes widened as she waited, lips just slightly parted in horrified anticipation.
 

“Dead a week later.”

She blanched, but he could tell she’d expected it. “Maybe he did help.”

“With what? He had no magic, no antibiotics. Nay, it was meant to run its course without us.”
 

“Then what was he reborn to do?”

He laughed bitterly. “A couple of months later, a portal was created from an afterworld whose name we’d long forgotten. The university was attacked by demons. Poison arrows took a dozen of our men and women, some of our most powerful Mytheans. Mytheans with potential for the future. But no one recognized the poison, and within twenty-four hours, they were dead. Our reincarnate? He was an herbalist in his new life, a growing science at the time. Mortal, but gifted in his work. He was reborn to heal, aye, but not with skills from his past life.”

Esha tipped her head back and squeezed her eyes tight. “Damn it.”

Frustration surged through his veins as well, every time he thought of that awful year. He wanted to kiss her, to bury that pain and frustration deep inside once more and think only of the feeling of her against him.
 

Instead, he started counting backward in his head.

“Say I agree with you.” Her words stopped him at sixty-two. “How long would we wait before deciding to tell her?”

“As long as it takes,” he said. “I’ll call her guardian and warn him of this. Immediately. But we won’t interfere. We canna. Can I trust you no’ to jump on this too soon?”

She frowned at him, but eventually nodded. Whether or not he believed her, he wasn’t sure.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The moon was barely peeking through the clouds when the ferry finally docked at the Isle of Mull. Their car had been the only one, for which Cadan was grateful. They saw no living beings as they drove along the empty roads, save for another group of sheep huddled on the pavement to soak up the remaining heat from the day, their eyes reflecting an eerie green in the shine of the car’s headlights.

“We’ve been on Mull for ages. Are we getting close to your house?” They were the first words Diana had spoken in hours.

“Aye. There’s a left turn, about a mile up. My home is at the end of it. No one can see the road unless they know it’s there.” He squinted out of the window. Were there figures in the middle of the road? They looked to be about half a mile ahead, two of them standing in the middle of the pavement, like they were waiting for something.
 

Waiting for them.
 

“You do like your privacy, don’t—” She leaned forward to peer out the window at the figures. “What—what are they doing?”

“Waiting for us. Must know where I live, but they canna get past the barriers that protect my house. I’ve got to deal with them or they’ll lurk out here until they get you. And mortals use this road. We canna have demons hanging out on it.”

Her head whipped toward him, face stark. The dark landscape flashed by, barely discernible mountains rolling past like ocean waves. It was too late to slow down and stop far enough from them, so he barreled toward them. They scattered and he pulled to a stop thirty yards ahead.

“Lock the doors. The car’s reinforced, so they canna get in. If something happens to me, my house is the next left. Go there. Dial two on any phone and it will direct you to the university.”

“But—”

“Stay here,” Cadan said as he leapt from the driver’s seat.