Read Online Soulceress (The Mythean Arcana Series Book 2) by Linsey Hall - Free Book Online Page A

rushed over her. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to stop the tears. He was her family. Her familiar was the only one who’d been at her side this entire time. She loved Ana too, but she could escape Otherworld so rarely.
    Esha lay back on the wooden floor and stared up at the beam-supported ceiling. She’d loved this place at first, but all the shit that had happened recently made her realize that it had become a prison. A prison in which she accepted her outcast status. She’d thought it didn’t bother her, that she was above it.
    But she wasn’t. All the little bad things—the glares, snide comments, loneliness amongst a sea of other Mytheans—were piling up until they became too much to bear. This last event pushed her over the edge. This place was breaking her apart.
    As the fog of exhaustion crept across her mind, a glorious idea came with it. Esha didn’t have to stay at the university in hopes of finding a place to fit in. Another soulceress was about to arrive in Scotland.  
    Esha had been alive for more than three hundred years, and for the first time in her long life, she had a chance to meet another of her kind. Another soulceress wouldn’t cringe at the sight of her. She might even know things that Esha didn’t about being a soulceress. Maybe she could even teach her to control her power collection. If she could do that, then she could have a more normal life.  
    Best of all, she would know someone who would accept her for who she was.

CHAPTER NINE

    Warren stared, slack-jawed, at the space that Esha had only recently inhabited.  
    She was gone. Totally out of reach. He’d been a bastard and had driven her away because he was so fucked up. Regret for the pain he’d seen in her eyes was a physical ache in his chest, but he pushed it aside for the bigger problems that loomed on the horizon.  
    There was no way to convince her to help keep Aurora imprisoned. He’d done everything he could, tried to follow the rules of the university, but she’d be getting out no matter what.  
    Sick joy dawned within him. His extremities tingled with it. He’d done everything he could, but Aurora was going to escape.
    Which meant he could hunt her, his conscience clear. His mind spun with the possibilities, a tornado within his head.
    Focus, you bastard. He began to breathe deeply, counting back from one hundred. By the time he reached the thirties, his breathing had calmed. By the tens, he’d gained control of his rampant mind.
    First step, he had to go to the witches to learn the details of Aurora’s release. Afterward, he’d find Esha and apologize. But this had to come first.  
    Thirty minutes later, Warren strode into the witches’ part of campus. He reached the door, but the sound of arguing stilled his fist. Raised voices and sparks flew out the window, nearly singeing his cheek. Curious, and ever cautious of witches in an uproar, he sidled along the cottage wall until he reached a window.
    What he saw within made his brows draw down. A dozen witches stood in varying states of disarray around the room, yelling at each other. One pulled at her hair in frustration, while another yanked books off the shelf so fast that they flew to the floor when she decided they weren’t what she was looking for.  
    Familiars in all shapes and sizes—cats, rabbits, wolves, snakes—prowled anxiously throughout the room, avoiding an area near the ceremonial table that glimmered like heat over the desert.
    “Shut it, ladies! We need to get our shit together!” Cora’s voice broke out over the din. The fat marmot on her shoulder tried to hide under her pink hair but was too big.
    “We’re screwed, Cora, she’s going to be here any minute!” A dark-haired witch gestured toward the shimmering area over the table.
    “Do you think I don’t know that? Damn it! I never thought she’d be strong enough to break out this early. I swear all this mortal technology makes the aether thinner. We’re lucky she didn’t