Read Online mythean arcana 06 - master of fate by Linsey Hall - Free Book Online

have loved him. She’d been young, but it had been real. 
    Now, she’d pushed that feeling so far down that it couldn’t possibly claw its way to the surface. She wasn’t willing to give it room to revive and perhaps he didn’t want to either. Perhaps he’d be up for something a little more casual. It was probably a bad idea to pursue anything, but she wanted him so badly she couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t admit to him how she really felt, but she didn’t have to take things that far.
    First, she’d ease into it with work. “I suppose you want to hear about the portal?”
    His gaze snapped to hers, distinctly uncomfortable. “We’re going to... we’re going to discuss that here?” 
    How could such a big man, who looked at her like he wanted to jump on her, also look so uncomfortable?
    “Sure, why not? We’ll head out at first light, and since shit has clearly gone really wrong up there since you saw it last, I figured you’d want to know more about it.” Not that the story put her in the most flattering light, but she wasn’t about to be embarrassed. You did what you had to in order to survive.
    “I do. What kind of portal is it? Who put it there?”
    “I did.”

    Felix’s head jerked. “You were here?” He hadn’t felt her.
    “Not on the glacier. I was in the city for a short time. I entered it through the portal I made.”
    “Why go to the trouble of making a portal? It’s no’ blocked from normal entry.”
    “I never wanted to enter the city in the first place. Have you wondered where I’ve been all these years?”
    “More than you know,” he muttered. For a hundred years, he’d searched the world and every afterworld he could get to, trying to find her.
    “What?”
    “Aye, I’ve wondered.” Dared he tell her how much? That in 1661, after he’d returned from his trip away to find her missing, he’d felt like his soul had been torn out? “What happened to you?”
    “You remember when my mother was killed.”
    It was more statement than question and he nodded. Avera had been captured by mortals during the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1661. It had lasted more than two years, but Avera was one of the first to be burned at the stake. Aurora, only nineteen, had disappeared the next day. They’d been together six months by that point. When Avera had been killed, he’d been away, trying to find his brother. He’d left for only a fortnight, but when he returned, she was gone.
    “In my grief, I lost my mind,” she said. “I went on what I suppose you would call a... rampage.”
    His brows shot up. He’d searched for her for so long, and though he’d come close to finding her, he hadn’t wanted to believe the rumors. “Rampage?”
    She shrugged. “Only word for it. I stole souls. Hundreds of souls. From Mytheans all over Europe. Even from some mortals. Like Warren, who is now the love of my sister’s life. His was the first. I did it because I was out of my mind with grief. I wanted to hurt him in the worst way I knew how. I didn’t intend to steal more. But it tripped a lever in my mind. Made me insatiable for power.”
    Holy shite. He’d had no idea. In 1661, it’d been hard to find information about anything. “What happened then?”
    “Having access to the constant stream of soul power made me immensely strong. And immensely mad. All those souls fighting to escape.” She shuddered. “I was a real nut job by the end. But my magic couldn’t have been stronger. I could do anything, and I was everything that Mytheans are afraid of. The sort of soulceress who gives the rest a bad name.”
    Understanding hit him in the gut. That’s why the Seer had been so insistent on finding her—her power. When the Seer had captured him, he’d finally had a real lead on Aurora’s location. But he’d never revealed it, no matter how many sick games the Seer had played with his flesh.
    “You weren’t always in Europe,” he said. 
    “No. Eventually, in 1705, I was