My Soul to Keep Read Online Free Page A

the lobby. For a time, Sorcha had been a suspect. The police finally gave up on her, unable to explain away the lack of blood anywhereon her body or the several witnesses who had seen her walking to the delicatessen.
    She shook her head. So much blood. More black than red. It covered the elegant pinstriped wallpaper, the windows, the furniture. Everything. She could still hear the staccato drip of it from the ceiling … could still smell the coppery tang.
    A lycan was the only explanation. The only thing that made sense. The creatures moved faster than the human eye could detect. Hell, they could scale the side of her building. A lycan had killed Gervaise. Or a hybrid like herself, but their numbers were small when compared to the lycans who roamed the world.
    Maree grew oddly quiet, her lids drifting shut over her bright blue eyes.
    â€œDo you see the killer?” Sorcha pressed, shaking the woman’s hands, determined to have the truth. She was close now. She could feel it just as she felt a telling heat building at her core. At that moment, Maree started to shake with great full-body shudders. The hair at the nape of Sorcha’s neck tingled.
    Maree’s eyes flew open then, and Sorcha gasped at the dark orbs—deep, black space, void of any white. Her eyes gleamed like twin marbles, polished to the point that Sorcha could see her reflection.
    She dropped the witch’s hands as if stung and leaned back. “Maree?” she questioned in a low voice.
    Maree cocked her head, the motion quick and birdlike. “You shouldn’t stick your nose into affairs out of your realm …
dog.
Or should I call you mongrel? You’re only a hybrid, after all. Not even a real lycan.”
    Sorcha dug her hands into the edge of her chair. The voice was Maree’s, but not. It was different, dead and hollow sounding. “My husband
is
my concern.” Her voice sounded far calmer than she felt, considering the sudden rush of searing blood in her veins. It was as though her body knew what her mind struggled to grasp.
    â€œYour husband is dead because of you.”
    Sorcha dragged a hissing breath between her teeth. She tossed her head, the dark strands of her hair slapping her cheeks at these words. Denial surged hot and heavy in her chest. Gervaise had
not
been targeted because of her. No way. He was all she had, all that was left after she’d lost her pack—lost herself. He was the one thing that had come close to filling the hole in her heart Jonah had once occupied. She sucked in another deep breath. It couldn’t be her fault.
    Maree continued, “I hoped you would be blamed for the murder …”
    Two things became instantly clear as that comment sank in. First, Maree was no longer speaking to her. But Gervaise’s killer was.
    The blood rushed to her head. She swallowed the dizziness and blinked past the sudden haze clouding her eyes. “What are you?”
    â€œSafe to say, I’m not some useless witch who only harnesses a fraction of her power by resisting possession.”
    â€œPossession?”
    â€œYou really are a stupid cow, aren’t you? Hard to imagine you could be any real threat.”
    â€œ
What
are you?” she demanded again, leaning forward. “Where’s Maree?”
    â€œCowering inside herself at the moment … like most white witches. Always running, hiding from my kind. If she knew what was good for her, she would give herself over to me.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œHaven’t you figured it out? I’m a demon. I possess witches … at least the ones who let me. You might have heard of one witch I own.” A heavy pause followed this. “Tresa.”
    Tresa.
The name struck a chill in Sorcha’s heart. “The witch who started the lycan curse?” Her lips moved numbly around the question. Tresa was the reason Sorcha existed … the reason any lycan or dovenatu existed.
    Maree