Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) (8 page)

His job—managing the Mythean Guardians and maintaining the balance between earth and the afterworlds—had been a form of atonement. For the last two hundred years, it had been more important than anything else in his life. With Aurora’s potential return, it was but an afterthought, and he despised that.
 

Footsteps charged down the hall, followed by the patter of smaller feet. He strode toward the door and swung it open.
 

Esha pushed through without slowing down. “Do you have any idea what you sent me to do?”
 

The cat hissed.

He wanted to growl back. “Your job. Why the hell are you so angry?”
 

Her eyes blazed, their amber ignited to fire, and her chest rose erratically with her heaving breaths. He dragged his eyes away to focus on her face.

“You sent me to bind another soulceress to eternal prison. Using magic that would forever forfeit some of my power.”
 

“Did you?”

“No!”

His head spun as he watched her fling herself into the chair across from his desk and bow her head into her hands. He took a step toward her, then stopped himself abruptly. She’d screwed him and hadn’t completed her assignment. Why was he walking toward her in comfort?

But the magic would steal some of her power? Shite. He hadn’t known that. “You can regenerate.”

“Yeah, unless I give it away freely through a blood ritual. Then I regenerate less.” She shook her head and dragged her hands through her hair. “But that’s not the point! You sent me to hurt another soulceress, Warren.”

“She’s a monster. You should be distancing yourself from her, if anything.”

She lifted her head from her hands and looked up at him, dawning horror on her face. “I’ve never met another one. I’m the only freak like me. Why would I do something to keep her locked up? Why would I want to stay away from her?”

Blood pounded in his head, and his fists clenched uncontrollably. “Because she’s fucking evil!”
 

Esha didn’t flinch, but her face paled.

“What the hell does that even mean? People say I’m evil too. How am I supposed to believe that in this case, she is super evil and not just like me?” Her hair began to float around her head, eerily juxtaposed against her pale, shocked face. Her anger and disappointment were so deep that they manifested themselves through magic.
 

“I’ve never said you’re evil. And despite the way I’ve put my foot in my mouth, I doona think it either,” he said.

Skepticism flashed in her eyes.

“I gave you this assignment for the greater good, Esha. If it were up to me, I’d kill her. You’ve got to trust me on this.”
 

“Trust you? That’s what I did when I went to help the witches. They’ve treated me like I’m nothing for ten years, but I went to help them because I thought you needed me as part of the team. Instead, you sent me to hurt my own kind—and myself! I trusted that you had the guts to get over what I am. I know you’re attracted to me, but you treat me like I’m some awful, untrustworthy jerk when all I’ve ever done is help you. Gods, I panted after you like a bitch in heat, thinking you were something different, something better than all the other Mytheans who reject me based on what I am.” She surged out of her chair. In her rage, she was a tempest.

“Helping the witches is your damn job!” He ignored everything else she’d said, knowing that she was right, that he’d put his foot in his mouth too many times and been an arse. But he couldn’t deal with such personal issues right now in the face of Aurora’s release.

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.