Sins of the Soul

She froze, spun in Alastor’s embrace, the rope that joined them tugging tight as it wound around her, his hands sliding free of her arms. She couldn’t see in this utter blackness, but she felt like she needed to face him.

Nausea churned in her gut. She didn’t mean to say anything, but almost against her will, the words spewed free. “I denied my duty to the Asetian Guard. I ran from all I was supposed to be, and ended up killing anyway. I consoled myself, convincing myself that I chose the jobs, that I only killed killers. I lied to my mother. I lied to my friends. I couldn’t trust anyone, not fully. Not ever.”

Until you. I almost trusted you. You bastard. You shiftless bastard.

“Sutekh? Sutekh is the demon that owns my soul? Sutekh is the one I’ve been killing for?” She felt dizzy, sick. So many thoughts collided at once. Alastor had known the name of the demon she’d described to him: Gahiji. He’d said she still owed her soul to exactly the one she’d owed it to all along.

“You knew all along. You lied to me. You tricked me. You—”

She stumbled away, but the rope that joined them pulled taut and let her go only so far. All her anger, her sense of betrayal swelled, aimed at that rope, that connection between them. She dipped, snagged her knife from her boot and brought it up in an arc, slicing herself free of him, severing the link.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE



ALASTOR CAUGHT HER wrist and wrenched the knife from her grasp. She spun away, but he was faster, closing his fist in the back of her shirt and hauling her up against him. Her rushing exhalation told him he might have been too rough.

Tough. She was his. She wasn’t going anywhere. Not until he had a chance to talk to her and explain. Explain what? That he was the exact bloody opportunistic bastard she thought he was?

Too bad. Not like he’d ever tried to hide the fact.

“Not so fast, pet.” He forced himself to speak in a low, even voice, though he wanted to snarl. “I told you I’m not leaving here without you, and I meant it.” Grabbing the severed ends of the rope, he wrapped one arm around her and held her close.

“I could remove her from you,” Izanami said.

“Try.”

Naphré was stiff and unyielding against him. He knotted the strips of cloth once more, but kept his fingers clenched in her shirt just in case.

Leaning close, he whispered against her ear, “Hate me. Leave me. But let me get you the fuck out of here first.”

She didn’t say a word, just stood there stiff as a fireplace poker. At least she didn’t pull away. Maybe she figured that of the two evils, he was the lesser.

He was a little startled that Izanami didn’t try to grab her. But then, they were on Izanami’s turf. She had all the power, and all the time.

“Men lie,” Izanami said softly, her words obviously aimed at Naphré.

“And cheat and steal,” Alastor cut in. “So do women. Make your point.”

“My point is that Sutekh claimed a soul that was never his to demand.”

“Right. Butcher’s darksoul. We’ve been through this.”

“Wrong,” Izanami said. “The soul of Naphré Misao Kurata. She belonged to another first. He has no claim.”

“I walked away from the Asetian Guard,” Naphré said, her voice taut. “I denied them before the dem—” She paused. “Before Sutekh tricked me into swearing my soul to him.”

Her word choice wasn’t lost on Alastor. He’d asked her before if she thought the demon had tricked her, and she’d said no, that he’d lived up to the promise to save her father that night.

She’d changed her mind now that she knew the true monster she’d promised her eternity to.

He couldn’t say that he blamed her.

“You may have walked away from the Asetian Guard, but that does not change your blood. You always were, and will be, a Daughter of Aset,” Izanami said. “But that is not the time of which I speak. I refer to a time before you belonged to the Daughters of Aset.”

Naphré tensed against him. “Before?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

Neither did Alastor, and he had the suspicion that whatever explanation was about to be forthcoming, he was not going to like it.

“I will tell you a story,” Izanami said in her beautiful, melodic voice. “There was a man. A handsome Japanese man, descended from a god who sprang from the loins of a goddess. He fell in love with a woman descended from a very different goddess. She loved him, but she loved her duty more.

“Twenty years, he begged the goddess. Let him love her for twenty years, and then he would let her go back to her duty. She denied him. And so he cried out to me. He beseeched me. And he promised me his daughter, if only I would give him those twenty years with his love.

“I granted his request. But as always, men lie. He lied. He beseeched me when his daughter was born. ‘Only let her be. Let her live. Let her know the sunshine and the rain. Only do not claim her, and I will promise anything.’”