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.”