Sins of the Soul

That mark—cut into her skin, etched there by her own hand—claimed her as Otherkin, a Daughter of Aset. Its presence raised a slew of questions, including what she was doing taking contract kills for Xaphan or some Topworld grunt rather than pledging her skills to the Asetian Guard, the elite forces of the Daughters of Aset.

Aset—Isis—was an ancient Egyptian goddess. Her Daughters were born to females of her line. Few knew insider details about them. They were secretive and private. But thanks to his brother’s relationship with Roxy Tam, Alastor knew enough to recognize the mark, to know what it meant. Naphré Kurata wasn’t just a Daughter of Aset, she was a blooded member of the Asetian Guard. They were the only ones who carved the mark in their skin, the only ones who took first blood and became pranic feeders, sustained by the life force—the blood—of others. They could feed without killing. And they usually fed from humans.

The Otherkin had been Sutekh’s enemies for at least six thousand years, which by extrapolation made Naphré Alastor’s enemy.

“Not one for chitchat?” He dipped his chin toward the grave. “Get busy then, pet.”

“You’re an asshole,” she muttered.

“Blimey—” he layered his hands against his heart in mock dismay “—you cut me to the quick.” He dropped his arms and hardened his tone. “Dig.”

With one last, withering look in his direction she hopped into the grave and dug.

Her movements were spare and clean, and her running gear clung to her like a second skin. A good choice of apparel for her evening’s activities. It wasn’t confining. It’d be cool or warm as the situation demanded. She knew what she was about, this girl. She was prepared. He didn’t know why that surprised him, why she surprised him.

The bugger in the back alley behind the Playhouse Lounge had offered up Butcher, telling Alastor where to find him, and hinting that his sidekick might be hanging about. But he hadn’t shared all the information he could have because he hadn’t said a word about the sidekick being a dark-haired, sloe-eyed, lean, mean distraction who’d pegged her own mentor through the head and the heart.

Peering over the side of the grave, Alastor said, “You’re a cold-hearted one, you are. Figured you could kill him and take his jobs? Your own mentor? Or did someone hire you to do it?”

She stopped shoveling, but didn’t look up at him. “Who said I was hired to kill him?”

Alastor digested that. She’d been the mark, and she’d managed to turn the tables. Funny, Mick hadn’t said a word about that, either. “So the student surpassed the teacher. He ought to be proud.”

“I’m sure he would be if he wasn’t dead.” Flat tone. Harsh words. She gave nothing away, but something made him suspect she didn’t feel as unemotional as she appeared.

Then she went back to work, thrust and heft, her muscles moving with easy synchrony beneath her clothes.

He wanted to skim his palm up the swell of her calf to the curve of her thigh, and higher, to the smooth globe of her arse, and he wanted to do it skin to skin.

Bloody hell.

Glancing away, he scanned the vicinity, got his thoughts under control. The chook and shush of her shoveling provided a hum of background noise.

A couple of hundred years ago, he might have felt an avalanche of guilt for letting a lady sweat while he stood idle. He’d been raised in the sort of home where social calls and taking tea and handing a lady down from a carriage were the norm. The woman he’d believed to be his mother was the youngest daughter of a baronet; the man he’d believed to be his father was a baron. He’d sipped the milk of chivalry from a silver spoon, learned the intricate dance of upper-class manners when he was still in knee britches.

It was a world he’d left behind the day Sutekh blew in like a storm and tore it to shreds.

In this world, he felt not even a faint spark of guilt.

Taking his time, he studied the trees, the headstones and the narrow road as it disappeared over the hill. Then he turned to the cemetery gates and evaluated the road beyond. There wasn’t much to see. Nothing but flat grass on either side that eventually fed into mixed forest.

Good cover for whoever was out there.

And there was someone out there. A human. Whoever it was had been watching Naphré since before he’d arrived.

He’d lied to her, of course. When she’d asked why he’d let her bury Butcher if he was only going to make her dig him up again, she’d clearly believed that he had been the one watching her all along. But the truth was, he’d only just arrived when she started her bastardized recital of the Book of the Dead. Whatever she’d sensed or suspected, he wasn’t the cause of her hairs rising at her nape.

The human in question was perhaps a quarter mile off, settled comfortably in a tree, watching them through some sort of apparatus. Binoculars. Or a rifle scope.

Alastor wasn’t concerned. Bullets weren’t much of a problem for him, and as for Naphré, well, he could always get his answers from her darksoul if she were killed.

Oddly, the possibility didn’t appeal.