They were able to see the wayward soulflies cut adrift from their haint husks, but a soul contained within its body should have been indiscernible.
Of course, Andre’s soul wasn’t entirely within his body anymore. And judging from the murky tatters drifting from him, she was only getting the nasty bits.
“Nim,” he murmured. “Put it back. That’s not a toy.”
“He treated it like one,” she replied. “No, worse. He valued most of his toys more than this.”
“Don’t judge,” he warned. He didn’t want to guess what his own soul would look like, with the teshuva threaded through the shards.
“I’m not judging. I like toys too. In fact, I might just keep this one.”
“It’s not yours.”
“Andre doesn’t mind. Do you, Andre?” She gave a little tug; Jonah could feel it through her body.
Andre’s soul stretched a bit more. “I don’t mind.”
Jonah’s throat tightened. “That’s something Corvus would do.”
“You’re trying to make me feel bad about myself, comparing me to a bad man.” Nim’s voice was dark, brooding. Andre whimpered. “But I never pretended this darkness wasn’t here. And now you want to control it, control me.”
“You’re not controlling yourself. Is this how you would dance? Destroying your audience?”
He felt another tremor go through her. “He took what was mine.”
“That’s the thrall talking,” he said. “Would you, Nim, take a man’s soul?”
“I’ve taken their money—all their money—and their time, their sobriety, their faithfulness, their innocence. . . .” But she shivered again, as if the cold burning him had finally penetrated her focus.
“Then tell me: If that boy stubbed out a match flame on his skin, wondering if there was someone inside him who cared, who would be left to flinch if you do this?” When she didn’t answer, he murmured, “You never let anyone take this part of you, not even at your worst. Give it back to him, Nim.”
The moment drew out, spun brittle and sharp like the old pane of glass that had severed his hand.
Then she turned and threw herself into his arms, unmindful of the point of his hook. He gathered her gingerly and buried his fingers under the fall of her dreads.
Andre tipped forward out of his chair and thudded to the floor. Ecco and Archer drew in ragged breaths, and Jonah realized there’d been more than one soul drawn toward her.
When he’d identified her as temptation, he hadn’t known quite how deeply the charm set its hooks.
He stroked his hand down the line of her back until the shivers eased.
Ecco knelt beside Andre and flipped the young man over. The punk’s eyes were open and fixed, but he took a shuddering gasp. As Ecco levered him up into the chair, he groaned a few words.
Jonah stared over Nim’s bowed head at the gauntleted talya. “What did he say?”
“That Blackbird always talks about flying free.” Ecco gave him a sharp grin. “And that if Nim is coming for him, he better fly faster.”
Jonah took her to his room. All the talyan kept rooms at the warehouse, even if they had private retreats hidden elsewhere in the city. And while there were unoccupied rooms in the building, with plenty of salvaged furniture to scavenge, still, he took her to his room.
From the sidelong glances that slipped away as he lifted her into his arms—her face buried in his chest, her hands locked behind his head—he doubted anyone would dare challenge him for the right.
He’d had opportunity before—after a long, ichorsoaked night of tenebrae slaughter—to be grateful for Liam’s foresight in retrofitting the warehouse with private baths for each room. But for the first time in a long time, his thankfulness bordered on a prayer as he awkwardly unlatched the door to his suite.
He let her feet slide to the floor but kept her tucked against his side as he cranked on the hot water in the shower.
“Please turn the light on,” she said. “The dark and the water . . .”
Too much like the tunnels. He clicked on the light. Shortly after his maiming, being none to eager to see himself, he’d broken all but one bulb in the old-fashioned vanity light bar. At least the muted light was better than the blackness under the city. Or the shadows that must be coursing through her mind.
He knelt at her feet. The laces of her sneakers were stiff and grimy and resisted his fingers. He sliced through them with the tip of the hook. He tapped her ankle to let him pull off her shoe, and she lifted her foot with a passivity that was starting to alarm him. “You didn’t do it,” he reminded her.
“I would have,” she said. “I wanted to. I was pulling his soul—his soul!—out of him. Like teasing a dollar bill out of a guy’s pocket.” She gripped his shoulder when he lifted her other foot. The skin above her sock was crusted with silt.
“A hundred-dollar bill, at least.” He tried to keep his tone light.
“No, he gave it up as easily as a single dollar. I don’t mind being a bad girl, Jonah, but I never wanted to be evil.”
He looked up at her and was shocked to see tears glistening in her eyes.
Something shifted in his chest. He remembered that moment himself, in a jungle less forgiving than this one of asphalt and concrete. He and the Naughty Nymphette were more alike than she knew.
He wrapped his fingers around her ankle and gave her a gentle squeeze. “Nim, Andre was a drug dealer before he fell in with Corvus. He’s one of the few humans to see a djinn-man—truly see, just like he saw the demon sign at the pawnshop—and it didn’t stop him from offering his services. He was leading a horde of demons to kidnap you after he let them butcher a dozen people. After all that, do you think he held his soul in any particular regard?”
One tear escaped and tracked over her cheekbone. “Maybe he was like me, and didn’t believe in it.”
“But you believe now.” He stood. Unable to stop himself, he reached up and thumbed away the tear. “More important, you’re trying to do the right thing now that you know.”
She sniffled. “The right thing? Like I just did?”
“I suppose there’s a learning curve,” he admitted. And apparently the league—male dominated for millennia—knew less than ever.
Her lip quivered, as if undecided between another sniffle and a smile. She echoed his touch, her fingers curving around his jaw. “Would you be so generous if it had been your soul I was stealing?”
“You can’t steal my soul,” he said. “You already have it.”
CHAPTER 12
Nim froze despite the steam starting to drift over the top of the shower, and despite the warmth of his touch. “I didn’t take your soul.”
“Before we even met,” he said. “I told you, your demon called to mine. That’s how I found you. Because our damage, the vulnerability that opened us to the demon, resonated and made us a matched pair, one fitting into the other.”
“You would not have chosen me.” The words hurt to say, so she knew they must be the truth. She was just a necessary evil in his fight. And after what she’d almost done, emphasis on the “evil” part.
She let her hand drop from his face, but he caught it. “Nim? I didn’t mean you’d taken my soul in cold blood. I know this is all still so strange to you. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Together,” she echoed softly.
“Now get in the shower before we use up all the hot water. And then go to bed. You need the sleep.”
She took a steadying breath. “That’s not what I need.”
“I can get you some dinner too. You hardly ate any breakfast. . . .”
“Not food.” She turned her hand to lace her fingers through his. With her free hand, she tugged down her bedraggled skirt. The skimpy denim snagged on her hips, then slipped free to puddle at her feet.