Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2)

by Hall, Linsey

  “I couldn’t have borne watching you die, and then having to live so long without you,” she said against his neck.

  “I know. Because I couldn’t have borne it, either. I love you, Esha.”

  She pressed kisses along his neck, up his jaw, until she finally met his mouth. Perfection. It was perfection. He was perfection.

  She leaned away. “What do you want in exchange for your soul, if you sell it to me?”

  “Just your love.”

  “That, you can have.” She grinned up at him, hardly able to believe the life that lay before her. She threw her arms around Warren and kissed him, every sad or lonely moment from her past banished by the light of their future.

  EPILOGUE

  Immortal University, Edinburgh

  Christmas Eve

  “Can you believe it, Chairman?” Esha asked as she all but hopped down the hall of the Praesidium. Of all the buildings on the campus of the Immortal University, the Praesidium was the most decked out for the holidays, and it suited her mood perfectly.

  The Chairman meowed his agreement, the low yowl cutting through the sound of Christmas music echoing down the hall from the holiday party in the historian Lea’s office. Garlands of evergreen and strings of lights lined the hall, and Esha sent a zap of magic at one of the glittery red plastic ornaments. It fell off the garland and bounced across the floor. The Chairman chased after it, on the hunt.

  Esha laughed, joy as she’d never known filling her being. She swore it radiated out from her skin so that she sparkled like the Christmas lights above. With a bit of help from Aerten, she’d done it. Warren would never know what hit him.

  It’d be the best Christmas gift ever.

  The Chairman returned, the sparkling ruby ornament dangling from his mouth.

  “You’ve got your prize?” she asked.

  He made a low noise in his throat, and she grinned. She almost zapped him with a bit of magic to give him a festive green bow tie to match his eyes, but she resisted. He’d hate it, and he was so happy with his ornament right now. He normally only liked his fluffy green snake, but he made an exception for Christmas ornaments.

  “Come on. Let’s go to the party. We’re late.”

  He followed her down the hall toward the music and smell of food. The door to Lea’s office was open, and Esha slipped into the huge library-esque space. Mytheans from all departments drank and chatted and danced, the Christmas lights sparkling above.

  “Esha! Thanks for coming!” Lea, the nearly transparent hostess, gestured her farther into the room.

  Esha had always liked Lea, who’d never given her any shit about being a Soulceress. Esha had no idea what Lea was, but she knew the historian hated being called a ghost.

  “Thanks for having me. Happy Christmas!” She smiled at Lea and barely resisted dancing about anxiously. She really wanted to see Warren. “I’m going to find Warren. I’ve got something to tell him.”

  She ran off before Lea could say goodbye and slipped through the crowd gathered near the punchbowl. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of her sister shooting green sparks at some witches, but ignored her. They’d exchange gifts and celebrate tomorrow.

  There! By the towering Christmas tree stood Warren with his friend Cadan and Cadan’s wife, Diana. She hurried over and hugged Warren.

  “Hey.” He leaned down and kissed her, then smiled. “You’re late.”

  “I had something to do.” She glanced at Cadan and Diana, who were smiling at them. Diana was the reincarnate of the Celtic warrior Boudica, but she looked like the historian she was right now, wearing a red dress that somehow managed to look killer with her red hair and little black glasses. “Happy Christmas, guys!”

  “You too!” Diana said.

  Esha opened her mouth to make polite conversation, then realized there was no way she’d be able to stand still. She turned to Warren. “We have to go. I have something to tell you.”

  “Stay, the party just started. I’ll get you some mulled wine,” he said.

  She tugged on his hand and couldn’t stifle the huge grin that stretched across her face. She didn’t even want to try. “Really, Warren. Come on.”

  “You’d better listen to her, mate,” Cadan said.

  Warren grinned and nodded. “All right. Let’s get out of here.”

  Esha tugged him out of the room, catching sight of the Chairman making eyes at Aurora’s familiar in the corner. He still hadn’t dropped his ornament. She grinned and left him to it. He’d follow behind them shortly.

  “What’s this all about?” Warren asked as they made their way down the hall.

  “Let’s get back to the house first.”

  They pushed through the big wooden doors of the Praesidium and out into a winter wonderland of fat snowflakes and a full moon peeking out from behind clouds.

  “Let’s take the short cut.” Esha tugged Warren’s hand and they set off running across the lawn, now blanketed with white snow. She laughed and the sound echoed through the quiet night. Fairy lights twinkled in the trees and reflected off the snow.

  Panting, they climbed the spiral stairs to her tower. She pushed open the door and grinned at the sight of the Christmas tree in the corner. With Warren here, this place no longer felt like the outcast’s tower. She no longer felt like quite such an outcast, as if Warren and her sister had healed something in her.

  Now, she had something to give back to him. She turned and pushed his mussed hair off his forehead. His cheeks were red from the cold, and he was so handsome that her breath caught.

  “What is it?” he asked, then pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her lips.

  “I spoke to Aerten.” The words tumbled free. “She’s going to see if you can be made into a Mythean Guardian.”

  “What? That’s not possible. They don’t take applications. They do the choosing. And they haven’t chosen a new guardian in centuries.”

  “They’re going to make an exception. It’s not a sure thing yet, it still has to be approved by the council, but there’s a good chance they’ll make you a guardian. You’ve been leading the guardians for so long that you’re an obvious choice. When you’re immortal as a guardian, I can give you back your soul!”

  It was the best plan she’d ever had. Mythean Guardians were immortal. Warren had never been made into one, even though he served the Praesidium because he’d already been immortal without his soul. It’d taken constant petitioning and not a little begging, but she’d convinced Aerten and the council to consider Warren’s application.

  “But I told you,” he said. “I don’t need my soul back. I have you.”

  “You might not need it, but you want it. And I want you to have it. This will work, Warren, I know it will.”

  He pulled her close and kissed her again. He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “I have what I want.”

  “I know. Me too. But you’ll have this too. There’s a first time for everything. This is my first Christmas tree—” she gestured to the sparkling tree in the corner “—and you’re going to be the first Mythean Guardian selected by application. It will work, Warren.”

  “I love you. With all my heart. If this works, that’d be great. If it doesn’t, I don’t care. I’m happy.”

  Esha’s body filled up with so much joy she couldn’t contain it. She threw her arms around Warren and kissed him. She had everything she’d known she’d been missing and more than she ever could have dreamed.

  -The End—

  Thanks for reading! Click here to get book 3, Rogue Soul.

  THANK YOU!

  Thank you so much for reading Soulceress. I loved writing this story and hope you enjoyed reading it!

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  If you liked Soulceress, the next book in the series is Rogue Soul. Book 4, Stolen Fate, will be available December 8th. More will come in 2015! If you’d like a peak at how Andrasta and Camulos are getting along, turn the page.

  ROGUE SOUL: EXCERPT

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Caipora’s Den

  Edge of the Amazon River, Brazil

  Present Day

  Andrasta, Celtic goddess of victory, swallowed hard, her gaze transfixed by the man in the makeshift boxing ring. Was he that handsome when I tried to kill him? Or that brutal?

  She honestly couldn’t remember. It had been more than two thousand years since she’d seen him last, and she barely recognized him. Dim spotlights gleamed off sweat-slicked muscles and highlighted the feral brutality with which he pounded his opponent. No gloves protected his big hands, just white fabric wrapped around knuckles. They were spotted with blood.

  She swallowed hard again, unable to look away.

  She’d known she would find him here when she’d strolled up to the Caipora’s Den, a little dive bar perched on the edge of the Amazon River. But she hadn’t expected the outdoor boxing ring surrounded by a horde of cheering Mytheans or that her prey would be inside it, pounding his opponent into a sack of broken bones.

  She’d never before been to the bar, which catered only to the supernatural beings who lived secretly alongside mortals. The building itself was ramshackle, and she had a feeling that it was just as run-down on the inside. The outdoor lot in which she stood was pressed between the building and the river. It housed the boxing ring and nearly a hundred Mytheans, most of whom looked human even though they weren’t. They screamed and cheered as punches landed with fierce smacks.

  “All right, that’s enough,” hollered the ref, a big ugly brute who stepped forward to end the fight. The man she’d come for stood over his collapsed opponent, his heavily muscled chest heaving. He was declared the winner—no surprise, considering his opponent didn’t look like he’d be getting off the floor anytime soon.

  She sank back into the crowd when he turned to exit the ring. Though she wanted to watch him, to devour every hard inch with her eyes, she didn’t want him to see her before she could approach him on her terms.

  Their past was a pit of snakes, so confusing that even she couldn’t figure head from tail though she’d lived through it. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was pissed as hell, considering the arrows she’d sent through his heart the last time she’d seen him. Not that he hadn’t wronged her. He had. He’d started the nightmare that had ended in her stealing his godhood for herself. Worse, they’d cared for each other. Until it had all gone to shit, at least.

  And now she needed his help.

  She turned and pushed her way through the crowd, toward the small bar pressed against the outside of the building. She needed to buy herself some time to recover from the sight of him but didn’t want to do it inside the bar where she might lose track of him. Seeing him again made her shaky, even though it had been so many years. She just needed a minute to catch her breath, that was all.

  She squeezed between two Mytheans of indeterminate species and reached the bar—which was more of a table with some liquor bottles and a cooler, but it would do.

  “A beer,” she said to the bartender, a beautiful brunette who had the slightly feral face of some kind of shifter. Ana had never been any good at identifying Mytheans since she rarely got away from her own kind.

  The bartender handed over a sweating glass bottle and hissed, “On the house.”

  Anaconda Incantada. The sound of her voice gave away what her features did not. She was a snake shifter.

  And it had better be on the house. There had to be some perks to being a god, since everything else had been a disappointment. Although Ana never tired of Mytheans fearing or bowing to her. Some watched her warily even now, and she appreciated it all the more for not having had it when she’d been mortal.

  “How often does this happen?” Ana asked the bartender, hiking a thumb at the ring.

  The shifter shrugged. “Every night.”

  “Know anything about the fighters?”

  “Not the loser. But the winner, he’s never lost. Fights pretty often. Seems to like it. Keeps to himself otherwise.”

  Ana nodded and turned to look for her prey. The beer slid refreshingly down her throat, and she sighed in pleasure at the smooth taste of the infrequently allowed delicacy. Focusing on the taste helped calm her nerves just a bit. She was raising the bottle to her lips a second time when she spotted him standing off to the side of the crowd near the jungle that crept up to the dirt lot.

  It had been two thousand years since she’d seen him last, when she’d thought she’d killed him and taken his place as a Celtic god. Those years had been kind to him, considering that he was still alive. Almost as kind as the way-too-hot woman draped around him, sucking on his neck while he unwrapped the bloody cloth from his hands.

  Ana stifled the strange little twinge in her chest. She’d cared for him once, and he for her, but that was so long ago the memories had gone to dust. Or so she told herself. She took one last swig of the beer to chase them away.

  Now or never. If she wanted a permanent escape from Otherworld, the land of the Celtic gods and what felt like her eternal prison, there’d be no more dawdling, no matter how nervous she was about his reception or willingness to help her.

  She needed him. Admitting to it scraped something raw inside her. But after two thousand years, she wanted out more than she wanted her pride.

  Ana sucked in a deep breath and wound her way through the crowd. When a lobisomem got handsy as she passed, an elbow to the gut halted his straying paws, and a glare stopped another. Fancy Brazilian name or not, they were dogs like the rest of their werewolf brothers. Within moments, she’d reached the edge of the crowd and stood before the now-kissing pair.

  She squashed her nerves as she gazed at the strong profile of the man she’d never been able to forget—whose mouth was glued to the woman’s. He was a bruiser, even from the side, a contrast of hard features and short ginger hair. He looked rougher than she remembered. Bigger, too.

  “Camulos,” Ana said. She glanced dismissively at the sultry woman now trying to swallow his tongue.

  “Cam,” he said absentmindedly as he drew his face away from the woman’s to look at Ana. His brows shot up, his gray eyes widening the barest fraction. A scar sliced through one of the brows.

  “Recognize me?” she asked, absorbing the fact that he no longer went by Camulos.

  “Andrasta,” he rasped, shock plain on his face.

  Did she hear his breath catch?

  Hers certainly did. He looked every inch the god he’d once been—strong and powerful, with broad shoulders and big arms that looked like they’d been cut from steel. A man comfortable with the mantle of worship, even if he no longer carried it.

  Ana shot a pointed glance at the other woman.

  “Luciana,” he said, drawing the woman’s mouth away from where it had suctioned onto his neck.

  Ana’s eyes zeroed in on the huge hand that cupped the back of Luciana’s neck, then looked back to realize that he’d kept his gaze trained on her own face.

  “You need to go,” Camulos said to Luciana.

  Luciana pouted at him, then turned to look at Ana.

  “A goddess?” Her brows shot high. She no doubt noticed the small glow emitting from Ana’s skin and marked her as one from Otherworld. Her lips twisted in a sneer. “I thought you Celtic gods never left your cold realm.”

  She’d be right, Ana thought bitterly. Cold and emotionless, that was Otherworld, and she was trapped there except for a few times a year when she could sneak out without the other gods noticing. But that’s what she wanted to change.

  “Beat it, sist
er,” she said, trying out some earth slang she’d seen on a TV show. Sneaking a laptop into Otherworld and firing up movies with her magic was one of the few ways she stayed sane.

  The woman pouted, gave one last longing glance at Camulos, and then moved off into the crowd.

  Camulos gave her a hard, searching look, his shock now masked. He didn’t make a move to kill her—which was good. Not that she’d let him. But still, it was promising. He might have cared for her once, but after what had happened at the end, she wouldn’t be surprised if that had been pushed out by anger.

  “Come on. Let’s get a seat inside.” He jerked his chin toward the ramshackle bar.

  Ana nodded and turned to lead the way. This time, with the huge male of indeterminate species following closely behind her, the crowd parted in waves to let her pass. Camulos was so close on her heels she swore she could feel the heat of him. It made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. She tried to ignore it.

  The smell of sweat and stale beer assaulted her nose when she walked into the bar. It was even more crowded than the outside, with dozens of volatile Mytheans partying and fighting in the dark, smoky space lit only by bare, dangling light bulbs.

  She blinked. Wow. This was so different from Otherworld. Gross, definitely, from the smell to the cleanliness of the occupants.

  But it was great. It was nothing like Otherworld, and she loved it. There was one small unoccupied table in the corner, but it was far enough from the main crowd to suit her.

  They hadn’t so much as settled at the table when a beer appeared in front of Camulos, carried by a smiling waitress whose eyes didn’t stray from him. He ignored it and spared her only a curt nod.

  “How the hell did you find me?” he asked when the waitress slunk away.

  His rough voice sent a shiver down her spine. That first tingle of attraction hadn’t been a fluke, after all. Damn it. This was what had gotten her in trouble so many years ago. Insane attraction that had blinded her to the danger she’d stepped into.