Sins of the Soul

“Come on. Help me out,” she said, impatient. She extended her right arm toward him.

“’Fraid not, pet.” He was genuinely regretful. The confines were tight, he’d be the first to admit, and he had a feeling that getting all up close and rubby against her was a very bad plan. But he couldn’t see an alternative because it was a given that the second he hauled her topside, she’d be out of here like a bat out of hell, and he wasn’t quite ready to send her on her way. “No doubt you’ll just give me your word that you’ll wait up here like a good girl while I finish my business down there. But I have a bit of a problem with trust. Especially when it involves one of Aset’s Daughters. You’re a tricky lot, you are.”

At his mention of Aset, she slapped her palm against her left shoulder.

“How—” Cutting off her own question, she composed her expression to give nothing of her thoughts away. He found her startlingly adept at that.

It clicked then. She wasn’t pleased that he’d recognized her for what she was. Interesting.

“What do you know about Aset’s Daughters?” she asked.

“Not a great deal, other than that you’re enemies of Sutekh.” He studied her expression for any reaction to that, but she offered none. “Oh—” he snapped his fingers “—and my brother’s bloody well shagging one of you.” She winced. He supposed she wasn’t fond of his word choice. “Her name’s Roxy Tam. Know her?”

“No.”

Now why did he think she was lying? He’d barely gotten the question out before she’d rattled off her answer. “Maybe know of her?”

She said nothing, which told him he’d hit the mark.

Distant, muffled footsteps alerted him that their mysterious voyeur was on the move, and trying to be subtle about it.

Naphré’s posture tensed, her chin kicked up and she turned her head slowly from right to left. He wondered if it was just gut instinct making her wary, or if she was actually able to hear the footsteps. As a soul reaper, he had all sorts of tricks up his sleeve. As an Otherkin, did she?

He glanced over his shoulder and caught a split-second reflection of moonlight on metal. A gun, a zipper, a knife. The source didn’t matter, the fact that it gave away the location of their uninvited guest did.

“I asked you earlier who knew you were here,” he said. “You weren’t exactly forthcoming, but it looks like whoever it is, they’ve decided to move. Which means I’m about ready to wrap things up.”

With a pang of regret for his shoes—they were less than a week old—he leaped into the hole, crowding Naphré to one side, his chest to her back, her wonderful arse pressed against his groin.

She made a strangled sound of affront, which only goaded him to loop his arm around her ribs, just beneath the swell of her breasts, for no damned reason, other than he wanted to.

He expected a struggle, but what he got was the reaction of a professional. Tension hummed through her body as she stood rigid against him, waiting for his next move so she could counter with one of her own. Her head was cocked, as though she listened for any sound. Same as him.

But there was no sound. He hadn’t expected any. Whoever was out there was in surveillance rather than attack mode.

He could feel the steady beat of her heart against his wrist.

He could smell her hair.

Leaning closer, he inhaled. Floral…but not really…. He brushed his cheek against the top of her head and breathed in again. Maybe fruity…it made him want to bury his face in her hair and just smell her for a while.

The urge passed when her head snapped back toward his face. He saved himself from a bloody nose only by the grace of inhumanly fast reflexes. But the head-butt was only a distraction. She pumped her hips forward, then back in a move that might have been construed as suggestive except for the fact that she employed significant force, akin to a battering ram. Her bum slammed him hard enough to shove him back against the earthen wall of the grave. He bit back a curse as he felt the earth’s moisture seep through his clothing, ruining his suit.

But she wasn’t done with him. Her heel hit his instep like a sledgehammer.

Damn it to bloody hell.

“Do whatever the hell you need to do,” she ordered, her voice low and diamond hard. “Then get the hell out of here.”

“Giving orders, pet?” he whispered against her ear.

“Tired of taking them. You want me dead, kill me. You don’t kill me…then get the fuck out of my space.”

“Such a potty mouth.”

“Potty—” she turned her head to glance at him over her shoulder “—asshole. The two seem like a natural fit.”

He could think of other things that would be a natural fit.

“Right, then.” Catching hold of her wrists, he shifted her away from him. Earth sifted from the wall and pattered down as her shoulder hit the side of the grave.

“Squat,” he ordered, his voice low.