Sins of the Flesh

Only years of training allowed her to muffle her panic and continue to note the details as he stepped forward into the narrow band of light.

He was night, his hair so dark it was almost black, falling sleek and straight just past the hard line of his jaw. His eyes were bright, glittering like stars, pale gray, almost luminescent against dark, curling lashes. Straight brows. Straight nose, with a slight bump at the bridge. A thin scar slashed his chin from the edge of his lower lip to his jawline, white against the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw.

Two hoops in each ear. A platinum ring on his right baby finger, and a solid, plain band on his left thumb.

With that one glance she learned a great deal. He liked pretty things. Expensive things. He enjoyed what the mortal world offered.

Not only was he more than human. He was a soul reaper, a breed of supernatural both powerful and vile.

And still, she found him beautiful.

Shame twinged. Anger followed. At him. At herself.

Angry is better than afraid. Cunning is better than angry.

She folded away all emotion and stored it in the neat little corner of her mind that she held at the ready for just such occasions. Emotion was valueless at best, dangerous at worst. She’d be wise to keep it under tight rein. Best way to win against an enemy was cool, calculated logic.

He was a soul reaper, the embodiment of all that was evil. He was the enemy of her kind.

More than that, her enemy.

One such as him had taken everything from her. Memories slithered deep in her thoughts, and she held them back, refusing to set them free.

He was looking at her, with that same puzzled expression he’d worn last night. As if he thought he ought to know her. She could only pray he didn’t recognize her, that her disguise last night, combined with the darkness of the club, had been enough.

“Instinct warned me I was not alone,” she replied at last, keeping her tone utterly composed, betraying nothing. Because he didn’t deserve to know he’d surprised her, and because she wasn’t foolish enough to add that knowledge to his arsenal.

His lips curled in a lazy smile. Her gaze lingered for a second on his mouth.

At her feet, Kuznetsov twitched.

“He’s alive,” the soul reaper observed.

“You sound surprised.”

“I am. Between the twist and the crackle, I thought you’d broken his neck.” Cold anger touched his words.

“What would have been the point in that?” What would be the point in killing Kuznetsov before she could get him to the Asetian Guard and get answers.

“The point?” He stroked his hand along his jaw. “Tough question, given that I’m not privy to your goals.”

“Privy,” she echoed, surprised by his word choice. It sounded a bit formal, and he didn’t look like the formal sort.

He shot her a calculating look, measuring her as surely as she was measuring him.

“What do you want?” she asked, her gaze steady on his. She was focused now, centered. She was a calm lake beneath a cloudless sky.

And he was nothing more than the supernatural version of a worthless thug in Sutekh’s ranks.

His gaze lowered to Pyotr’s unmoving form then lifted, his gray eyes bright against his dark lashes. “The same thing you want, darlin’.”

“I doubt that.”

Where soul reapers went, violence and a river of blood followed. She knew what they did. She’d lived it firsthand, not only once, but again and again in her nightmares. For many years, the horror of what they had done had leached from her nightmares into her waking hours, grabbing her by the throat whenever it chose. She would be doing the most mundane task, and suddenly, she would be dragged under by a sucking tide of memories and fear.

It hadn’t happened for a long while. It wouldn’t happen tonight. She wouldn’t let it.

The soul reaper took a single step closer, doing nothing more threatening than letting his lips curve in that lazy, bad-boy smile.

It was enough to raise the fine hairs at her nape. She trusted his smile about as much as she’d trust an asp rising to strike.

“That usually work for you?” she asked.

“Work—” He shook his head. “What?”

“The smile.” Her tone was flat.

“The—” He gave a low laugh that reached inside her and twisted her up in a way she didn’t like. “Yeah, it usually does. Not this time though, huh?”

It had worked on her last night. She could only hope he wouldn’t realize that.

“You are too late, soul reaper. I claim him in Aset’s name.” She paused, enjoying the telltale widening of his pupils. She had him. He wouldn’t dare challenge her, not this close to the meeting of allies. Stealing a prize marked for Aset would stir up a hornet’s nest he could have no wish to disturb.

“And if I ignore your claim?”