Soul Kissed (10 page)

But nothing was going to be okay.

He shook his head. “I can’t work for a House opposite my allies.” There. Was honor satisfied yet? He was no good at being a gentleman.

“Okay.” She took it with grace. Kept that Dolan chin up. Her eyes were hard, with sketchy Shadow in their depths.

He was actually afraid for her.

“My father built this house anticipating a siege or two.” The tone of her voice told him she was disengaging. “So there are entertainments—a media room, a gym. You’re free to use anything. My sisters won’t bug you, or not much. The rest of the family will keep their distance. You might keep an eye out for my stepmother, though.”

Mason made to draw a breath, but found he’d been holding it already.

It was only information. Lore, even. Not work. A way to pass the time.

He wouldn’t delude himself. It was a way to spend more time with
her
. Pretty Cari, who’d looked so hard to really see him. And him, looking back.

What was he doing?

“I’m not interested in being hired, but I do. . . .” His neck was tightening. This was a bad, bad idea. “But I need something to keep busy.” In addition to stealing her membrane concept. “I have an interest in faelore myself.”

She’d followed. He could see it in her eyes. “You’ll help. But I can’t trust you.”

He liked her so much. He nodded.

She laughed, and he actually thought her tension eased. “And I thought
I
had to walk a fine line. I don’t know how you do it.”

He didn’t know how either. But he knew why. Fletcher.

For Fletcher he leaned over and touched the back of the screen of Cari’s laptop. For Fletcher, he reached inside and left a stitch of his Shadow behind, so that he might access her computer from his later.

Cari didn’t seem to expect an answer. And he wasn’t about to detail how everything about his life was gray and growing darker by the day.

“Okay—” She seemed to be organizing his task in her thoughts. “I’m interested in any faelore that refers to the creation of the mage Houses, mine in particular. Specifically a fae named Maeve. You have contacts, access to resources that I don’t.”

 

 

You ask him for aid, a
human,
but not me?

The rabble of lesser fae behind Maeve screamed and quailed.

Ask me, need me, call upon me.

 

 

A chill rippled over Cari’s body, raising the hair on her arms. She’d fought the push and presence of Maeve for two days, each hour more difficult than the last, and was more tired than she had ever been in her life—but she was too stunned to smother the voice within her now.

Human?

She closed her father’s journal, losing her spot—she’d find it again, the day he’d inherited Dolan House from his father—and smiled up at Mason. The expression felt too sunny, too fake, so it withered on her face.

You lie, Maeve.

How, then? Mason had access to so much Shadow. A reputation that had earned him connections to great Houses. She’d witnessed his magic for herself. His hammer, how it had parted the way for them to escape.

“You don’t mind if I go through your library?” Mason asked. “See what you have?”

Cari drew a deep breath to concentrate on him. Mason. The man that had set the bar for all others. Human. And yet, Erom had never had a chance.

He’d mentioned the library.

There was nothing there that Cari didn’t already know—her father had insisted on a thorough education and she’d been up all last night re-checking. “Please, go ahead. But I was hoping for more first-hand knowledge.”

Mason’s eyebrows went up. “You mean Khan, at Segue.”

Thanatos.
Cari stifled Maeve’s groan.
He’s tedious and cold. Choose heat, dove. Choose Mason. He is right here and he’s playing with you.

Cari couldn’t have Mason. She’d learned that a long time ago.

But yes, Khan. That’s exactly who she thought might have her answers. Mason had a connection to Segue; he’d even mentioned it the other day to that girl at DolanCo. And Khan was associated with that place. Khan, Shadowman, the Grim Reaper—whatever he was called—was as old as the world. He’d know who Maeve was.

Did Khan know that Mason was human? That he had a soul? Cari couldn’t see his umbra because, according to Maeve, he didn’t have one.

Mason. Human.

Cari’s father had always said that time was the most powerful of the Order’s weapons against magic. Forget. Disperse. Intermingle. Houses, weaker ones mostly, forgot who they were and had intermingled with humans. Magic belonged in fairy tales with fairy godmothers and princesses.

And some Houses did mate with humans. Though, not Dolan.

Then magic stirred again within mage blood—her father said he could name the day, the very moment, when it quickened inside him. A thousand years, and finally the Houses remembered who they were,
what
they were. Under Ferrol Grey, Brand’s predecessor on the Council, the humans within each great House were rooted out, killed, the bloodlines purified for the coming Dark Age. There would be no intermingling of the races.

Seems he missed one: a mage with a soul.

Funny thing was, if Mason had actually been claimed at his birth, had been brought into his mother’s House, for example, he wouldn’t have survived long. Being a stray had saved him.

No need to kill them.
Maeve pouted, childlike.
Such a waste to douse the light right away. Just look at him.

Cari did; she couldn’t help looking at Mason. She’d always liked looking at him. Strong. Dark. Late at night, it was Mason’s image that came to her sleepless mind.

He said he’d lie if it suited him, and his being in her House was a lie. Did Brand know? With that angel for a lover, she had to. Typical.

Stop that.

Cari ignored the fae and focused back on Mason. “Do you know Khan?”

“We don’t go out drinking together or anything, but I think he’ll talk to me. His grandkids and Fletcher have played together.”

“His grandkids and your son . . . played together.” Mason never ceased to amaze her. How
had
he risen so high? “Well, then.”

“Might take a day or two to actually reach him and set something up for you. He refuses to carry a phone and comes and goes from Segue without warning.”

“We have other work to do with the plague, so a couple of days is fine.” Cari gripped her father’s journal.

Her father would tell her many things. But she did have to concede, once again, that Mason, even as a human, had his uses. At worst, the knowledge that he had a soul would be the way she could control him.

Such a
pretty
soul.

And, okay, maybe Maeve might just have her uses, too.

 

 

Erom Vauclain sat on a hard, low stool across from his father’s wheelchair. The old man had tubes up his nose and curd on his eyeballs and the corners of his slack mouth, but he was still technically alive. The wheeze of his breath made Erom feel oxygen-deprived.

Erom’s brother Francis came into the room adjusting his shirt sleeves so the cufflinks twinkled. He stood behind their father, a hand on his shoulder, the heir to Vauclain prematurely playing lord.

“This really isn’t necessary,” Erom said to Francis. His brother made Erom itch inside, annoyed. Made him hot enough to want to punch him in the face. Wouldn’t that feel good?

Francis tightened his hand on their father’s shoulder. “Father thinks it is.”

Francis had always been a dick, but never more so than when he’d started pretending to read their father’s mind.

Erom knew better than to roll his eyes. To irritate his brother, he dropped his gaze and spoke to his father directly. Even decrepit, their father was still the head of Vauclain House. Francis technically had nothing to do until the old man died, and he’d already made it to a hundred and eight. Francis would be very old himself before their father bit the big one. Rumor among the staff was that Francis had stopped feeding him. Old man must be living on Shadow alone. Shadow and spite.

“I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest,” Erom said. His father used to scare him shitless. Now look at him.

“We want to understand what happened with Dolan.” Francis’s voice.

“She’s grieving.” Erom shrugged, as much for air as to dismiss the question. His brother made him so fighting hot. “Needs some time to get over her loss.”

The old man blinked. Goop migrated across his irises.

Francis’s voice came from above again. “Are you or are you not in a relationship with Cari Dolan?”

“We have a long history, she and I.” Erom wanted to pull at the collar of his shirt, but recalled it was already open. Still couldn’t breathe with the old man sucking in and out like that.

“Are you still a couple?”

“I think so.” His father’s gimlet eyes forced him to add, “But we’re taking a break.”

“You knew it was essential to secure that alliance. It was the one thing you were good for.”

“Cari approves of the alliance as well,” Erom defended. She’d said she had. They’d started planning their future.

“Did you take care of her in bed?”

“I did the best with what she had to offer.” His shirt itched. “Believe me.”

“You, of all people, should know how to satisfy—”

Here he goes.
The tirade about another delay with Cari, this time mixed in with the number of other women he slept with and the danger of Cari finding out.

But Francis didn’t finish.

Erom forced himself to look up to see why Francis had broken off. He’d be enjoying himself about now, his big brother, some twenty years senior, who’d never said a word to him that didn’t mean,
One day I get to boss you around.

Francis had withdrawn his hand from their father’s shoulder. “Where did you go after Dolan House?”

Erom sneered. None of his business. A man had to get some relief; Cari sure wasn’t providing it.

“Where did you go?” Francis demanded again.

Erom felt a drop of sweat slide down his face. Made to swipe at it. Came back with Shadow-tinged blood.
Wha . . .?
His heart boomed as he felt for the itchy spot on his face. Found a mound that ached when his fingers probed it. The skin broke. More slimy blood.
Oh, please Shadow.
He couldn’t breathe.

Francis reeled back. “Where did you go, you stupid son of a bitch!”

He never should have lingered outside the wards. Never. A quick lay wasn’t worth this, no matter how many weeks he’d been cooped up.

The plague. Erom tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t hold him, so he went down on one knee with a crack. His back, his spine, hurt. The base of his skull was splitting.

“Help me,” he begged Francis. “Please, you’re my brother . . .”

Francis wavered for a moment and then did step forward. Lunged even.

Thank you,
Erom thought. He’d love Francis. He would.

Francis kicked the brake on their father’s wheelchair and pushed the handles, so that the chair rolled straight toward Erom.

Erom grabbed at the chair’s armrests, only to collapse into his father’s lap. The old man smelled sour, like dry urine.

The heat. The itch. They were coming together for a burn, but Erom didn’t have enough air anymore to scream. Terror wouldn’t let him pull a breath.

He looked up one more time to beseech his brother.
Please
. . .

And caught the flash of movement as Francis exited and shut the door behind him.

Cari paced the kitchen in the small hours of the night, sleep no longer just distant . . . it had become almost an enemy, refusing to have anything to do with her, no matter how tired she was.

She’d held out as long as she could. She couldn’t stop the constant flush of magic that roared through her. Every minute since her father’s death it was stronger.

At least no one was near to see her struggle. She had to be strong—the new, mighty Dolan. But she wasn’t so mighty, not like her father. She was just herself, cracking under the pressure.

A wave of heat rolled over her body, her skin flushing with prickles and tingles and deep, good aches. Her plague welts itched, but that’s because she was healing more quickly now, faster than she should. Air in her lungs felt potent, more invigorating, while her brain begged to shut down, just for a little while. But her senses were aroused by the mere thought of a stimulus. Chocolate—she could taste the dark, velvety sweetness. Silk—she could feel the cool slide on her skin. A man—she could scent Mason and feel the vibration of his voice within her. Her body didn’t care that he was human. Not in the slightest. She was drawn up tight inside, fisted. And eating a plate full of brownies did nothing to satisfy her.

She threw her head back to endure a roll of rough sensation.

She was changing somehow, and she knew it. And she couldn’t trust anyone enough to try to explain it to them. No, that wasn’t right. She could only trust certain people with certain parts of her situation. Her sisters were loyal, her stepmother concerned—but if they thought the House was compromised, they might “help” Cari by bringing in other members of the family to take over. And she didn’t want to disappoint her father that way. She, and she alone, had to be enough. She had to be enough.

If anyone could understand, it would be Mason, and without even being told. He spoke in parts himself: I’ll help you, but don’t trust me. It seemed like an impasse, but at least their positions were clear. Somehow he could sense what was going on, which made him dangerous enough to kill. Why then was it a relief that he was just upstairs?

Again. Just the thought. Heat crackled through her.

Was the fae Maeve manipulating her body? Was she responsible for this?

Or was this a side effect of being inundated by Shadow? Of becoming the Dolan?

And if it was just herself, losing control, wasn’t that more frightening?

 

 

Mason sat on a chair, his elbows braced on his knees, head low. Wan starlight filtered through the sheers on the windows and made the blue room glow. His head ached with exhaustion, but there was no way he could sleep with magic riding so high so close to him. It was potent, ominous, and worse . . . inescapably female.

His stray-honed senses told him it wasn’t safe to rest. His heart rate was up. Blood rushing. Skin prickling with sweat.

What in Shadow’s pitch was Cari doing now? Did the woman never sleep?

 

 

Rocking with sensations, Cari gripped her father’s journal for dear life. Had he gone through this? Had he known the fae named Maeve?

The journal volume was dated thirty years ago, during the period of time immediately following her grandfather’s death, before Cari was born. Her grandfather had died of a heart attack at fifty-five, survived by a large extended family, but only one son, Caspar Dolan.

Cari almost didn’t recognize her father’s scrawl. As a younger man, his writing was wilder than the precise script she’d come to know. The person on the page also seemed foreign to her. The journal was written by a man who was fraught with insecurity and pride. It took a while, but she found what she sought.

The fae voice had to be Maeve. Focusing on the text was difficult, with this restlessness under her skin. Cari paced from the kitchens to the large, formal sitting room, starlight lighting the pages.

“She” had to be her great aunt Florence Dolan, now dead. Her son, Cari’s uncle, was staying in one of the cottages at Dolan House now. He always had something to complain about, from how long it took for the water to heat his shower to his allowance from the Dolan trust. His attitude had to be rooted in the rift between her great aunt and her father, an old argument about inheritance that had never been settled. But that her father, the great Caspar Dolan, had ever been inept? Impossible.

The room was too still, so Cari moved again. She wished she’d changed out of her slacks and blouse and into something more comfortable, but she didn’t trust herself to go upstairs feeling this way.

Control. Her father had always advocated control.

Where in Shadow was hers?

Maeve had come to him, too. Had made promises. How had he handled her? Cari flipped through the pages more quickly. There was no mention of the fae for weeks. Then this:

Cari made a face. Shutting out the fae was hard to do, and near impossible while using magic. But yes, she could push Maeve away. Exhaustion did it too, which was why Cari thought her mind had been blissfully silent these past hours.

Cari paged through the journal, reading about the first allies her father had made—Vauclain House, Grey House—and the subtleties of the negotiations at Dolan and Company. But there was no further mention of the fae that they shared. It seemed her father had got rid of Maeve.

A few words scratched across the page made the act seem easy.

Cari arched her back, as heat stroked her skin again. She craved—tastes, touch, and more.

Had he really shut Maeve out? Could she drive this possession from her life, too?

For the first time ever, Cari didn’t believe her father, the man who’d always told her the truth and had taught her to do the same.

And here he was, the great Caspar, the paragon . . . lying to himself.

 

 

The Twilight trees drooped, their leaves becoming jewel-toned tears, as Maeve wandered the unending forest, dragging her soul-heavy cloak behind her.

She was giving the Dolan girl’s body forever. Cari’s neck would not break at the gallows drop. This skin would not be broken by a blade. Her bones would not crumble with time.

Why then wouldn’t the girl welcome Maeve when she’d come bearing gifts? Did this age have no hospitality?

The creatures behind Maeve wailed a grievous sound.

How was she to cross, if the Dolan did not bid her come?

Maeve put a finger to her lips and wondered . . .

All her Dolan get were stubborn. They’d been born to rule, and their first subject was always themselves. Cari Dolan was no different.

What did the girl want?

Maeve smiled and the lesser fae laughed once again. Yes. Him.

Enough. He was tired.

Mason knew that Cari’s business was none of his, but if there was a fae bothering her, prowling around Dolan House, then he should check it out. Not knowing was dangerous, plus, he wanted his sleep.

Shadow hummed in his blood almost immediately upon leaving his room. The hum grew electric when he put his hand to the top of the stair’s banister. When he hit the main floor, his nerves were screaming Shadow in a mix of pain-pleasure, which wasn’t his thing at all. He’d had enough of pain. Now he was a pleasure man all the way.

Damn it, Cari.

Down a wide and high main hallway, a light gleamed from the bottom of a closed double doorway. It was queer, like silver, and dense like water.

He approached, then opened one side. “Cari?”

She turned to face him. Her face was streaked with mascara tears, but her eyes were clouded with Shadow. She pulsed with dark light, her skin glowing with the anti-luminescence of earlier that afternoon. She looked almost fae, though he’d never seen a creature of Twilight. But this Cari was not of this world. A leather-bound journal was clutched in her hands.

“I was just thinking about you.” She wavered on her feet, as if drugged. She bit her lip to ruby red, her wide eyes asking for help.

“
I
think it’s time to go to bed.” What had she been playing at, he wondered?

“I can’t sleep.” She was standing at a slant, holding on to a table to keep herself from falling. She’d found a new enemy—gravity.

He hadn’t thought she could get any worse, but then Cari had always surprised him.

“That makes two of us,” he answered, surly.

Since she was obviously high on Shadow, he had to be the reasonable one. He picked her up, and ignored how her soft, sweet body curled into his. It had been a really long time since he’d held a woman. The fact that he was holding this particular woman didn’t help matters. He powered up the stairs, grateful that the chugging of his heart fought the direction of his blood.

“Where’s your room?” he said low in her ear.

Her mouth moved to his jaw. “Any room.”

“I want
your
room.” She was not sleeping in his.

She straightened a leg, pointing with her toe. “That way.”

Good. He took her down the hall to that door. He tried to turn the knob with his arms full of Cari. Took three tries, increasingly loud in the echoing space. The statue behind him watched. Didn’t help his coordination that Cari was doing something to his shirt. “Stop it, Cari.” She found his skin—her touch sizzled, sending a current of magic across his chest.

He finally got the door open. Kicked it wide, he was so fed up. As he turned her body so she wouldn’t bang her head on the jam, he caught sight of her stepmother. Mage black eyes, like glossy coal. She looked like she wanted to spit. At him.

This was not what it seemed.

“Faster, Mason,” Cari whispered.

Apparently it was.

He swept Cari inside, his irritation making him stronger, and slammed the door shut behind him. Cari could correct mistaken assumptions tomorrow. If the stepmother was going to kill him in the meantime, he hoped she’d make it quick and clean.

Tucking Cari in bed was like peeling off a kitten. She was going to have a blister of a headache tomorrow. He covered her with the blankets, warning “stay.” But her gaze burned so hot that he didn’t trust she would.

And if she got up? Would a male member of her staff say no?

He wasn’t going to defend her virtue, regardless of how she’d mocked his—Cari could sleep with whomever she wanted—but he would see to her dignity. The new, mighty Dolan, undone by magic. Careful, controlled Cari would be mortified.

She was sitting up, pulling at the neck of her blouse. She couldn’t seem to understand how buttons worked.

Another man might tempt fate and try to “make her more comfortable.” He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t need to see her glowing skin to challenge his willpower. His mind was already stuttering with his response. He’d slept in his clothes many times. So could she.

His attention caught on a side table cluttered with small decorative bottles meant to hold scent. They gleamed in the late night like fat, gaudy jewels, and were stoppered by slivers of moonlight.