Sins of the Soul

He’d been shot, again. She could smell the metallic tang of his blood, calling to her, beckoning. Luscious. Like nothing she’d ever smelled before.

Not now. She almost snarled the words aloud as she battled her nature and the lure of his blood. Soul reaper blood. The scent made her mouth water. She’d been fighting what she was for years, but she’d never been quite this tempted.

Just a little taste and she would feed off his power. Just a little taste and she would step beyond her humanity.

Just a little taste and she’d give the demon that owned her far more than he’d paid for.

Another fireball sailed over them, so close she could feel the heat on her skin.

Frantic, she looked right, left. No way out.

Then she saw a woman behind the group of fire genies, walking toward them. She was completely enveloped in flowing, undulating gray cloth. Her hands. Her feet. Her head and face. Not even her eyes were visible.

Naphré froze and stared. There was something not right. Something—

“We need to leave. Now.” Geniality evaporated. Alastor’s voice was taut as an overwound guitar string. She glanced at him to find him staring hard at the woman in gray. The expression on his face was chilling.

He yanked her toward the gaping black hole.

She didn’t know what she ought to be more wary of. The guns. The fire genies. The woman in gray.

Him.

She balked as he dragged her forward.

The frigid temperature of the black hole slapped her and she twisted away on instinct, but his grip was impossible to break.

Alastor stepped into the darkness, taking both her and the unconscious girl with him. The cold was worse than she’d expected, so bone-numbingly bitter that she felt like the skin was being flayed off her body. She tried to take a breath, but there was no air, only shards of ice, shards of glass, brutal cold that tore at her airway and lungs.

By comparison, Alastor’s grasp on her felt like a tropical sun. She instinctively leaned toward him. The movement was a bad idea. Vertigo assailed her. She couldn’t feel the ground beneath her feet, or even the weight of her limbs. There was no sensation of gravity. Only nothingness.

She didn’t know where they were. Didn’t know where they were going. Wasn’t certain she would survive the trip.

The world tilted crazily to one side, then the other. She lost her sense of which way was up, lost any balance or coordination. Her stomach churned. Her head ached. Bile crawled up her throat.

She had the fleeting thought that she would never eat edamame, cheesy fish crackers or chocolate-covered raisins again.

And then came the sound of the unknown girl, barfing her guts out, doing exactly what Naphré felt like doing.

“Sodding. Bloody. Hell,” Alastor snarled.

Yep, that about summed it up.





CHAPTER TEN



“SHE BARFED ON MY Berlutis.” Alastor stared woefully at his once pristine three-eyelet lace-up court shoes, now speckled with either the detritus of digestion or water droplets from one of the puddles that had dotted the alley. He could only hope it was the latter.

He glanced at Naphré, who was looking a bit peaky, and said, “I’m rather impressed that you didn’t follow suit. I well recall the…unpleasantness I experienced the first few times I opened a portal.” It was something that one had to acclimate to slowly. Naphré held out a hand, palm outward, as though warding off even the sound of his voice. “W-w-w-whatever the hell you j-j-j-just did to me,” she croaked, teeth chattering. “Do not do it again.”

“I saved your arse, pet. Be thankful I did.” She had no idea how thankful. Only two human days had passed, yet it seemed the Shikome had gotten tired of waiting for him to bring Naphré to Izanami. Or perhaps she had gotten tired of waiting for him.

Either way, her presence in the alley had been, in his opinion, the biggest threat of the evening.

Naphré’s fingers curled into the fine wool of his jacket as she clutched at him for support. He gave her a minute, letting her lean her shoulder against him—liking the feeling of having her close. He suspected she didn’t even realize she was doing it.

She was competent. Strong. Intriguing—

She pressed her lips together, closed her eyes and inhaled sharply.

—and possibly about to hurl.

He took one giant step to the left. Just in case.

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a toffee caramel, unwrapped it one-handed—the other being full of unconscious female—and popped the candy in his mouth. He needed a sugar rush.

After a moment, Naphré squared her shoulders. She dragged her hair back from her face and turned her head to glare at him.

“Not an experience I’d ever want to repeat,” she muttered.