LITMIR.BIZ

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lovely. My flush deepened until I thought my cheeks would combust. He could see what I was thinking—what I wanted—in my eyes. But I could see what he wanted too …

      “Tell me the rest of it.” I turned toward the park with my hands still in my pockets. I wanted to know everything—but mostly I wanted to change the subject.

      Nash stepped over a parking bumper and caught up with me in two strides. “Human lore says that when a bean sidhe wails, she’s mourning the dead, or the soon-to-be dead, but that’s not the whole story.” He glanced up to study my profile. “I’ve seen you hold back your wail twice. What do you remember about the time you let it go?”

      I flinched at the memory, reluctant to revisit the event that landed me in the hospital. “It was horrible. Once I let it go, I couldn’t pull it back. And I couldn’t think about anything else. There was this feeling of total despair, then this awful noise that felt like it just erupted from my throat.” I stepped over a landscape timber, then onto the thick bed of wood chips carpeting the playground, and Nash followed. “The scream was in control of me, rather than the other way around. People were staring, and dropping purses and shopping bags to cover their ears. This little girl started crying and clinging to her mom, but I couldn’t make it stop. It was the worst day of my life. Seriously.”

      “My mom says the first time’s always rough. Though it doesn’t usually get you locked up.”

      That’s right; his mother was a bean sidhe too. No wonder she’d stared at me. She probably knew I had no idea what I was.

      When we got to the heart of the playground—a massive wooden castle full of towers, and tunnels, and slides—Nash stepped beneath a piece of equipment and reached up for the first monkey bar beam. “Were you watching the pre-departed when he actually …departed?”

      I raised an eyebrow in dark amusement, trying not to stare at the triceps clearly displayed beneath the snug, short sleeves of his tee. “Pre-departed?”

      He grinned. “It’s a technical term.”

      “Aah. No, I wasn’t looking at anything.” I sank onto a low tire swing held up by three chains, rocking back and forth slowly, trying to forget the words even as I spoke them. “I was trying to make the screeching stop. Mall Security called my aunt and uncle, and when I couldn’t stop crying, they took me to the hospital.”

      Nash let go of the bar and settled onto the rubbercoated steps of a nearby slide, watching me from a couple of feet away. “Well, if you’d looked at the other guy, you would have seen the deceased’s soul. Hovering.”

      “Hovering?”

      “Yeah. Souls are fundamentally attracted to a bean sidhe’s wail, and as long as it lasts, they can’t move on. They just kind of hang there, suspended. You remember sirens in mythology? How their song could draw a sailor to his death?”

      “Yeah.?” And that image did nothing to ease the apprehension now swelling inside me like heartburn.

      “It’s like that. Except the people are already dead. And they aren’t usually sailors.”

      “Wow.” I put my feet down to stop the tire from rocking. “I’m like flypaper for the soul. That’s …weird. Why would anyone want to do that? Suspend some poor guy’s soul?”

      Nash shrugged and stood to pull me up. “Lots of reasons. A bean sidhe who knows what she’s doing can hold on to a soul long enough for him to prepare for the afterlife. Let him make his peace.”

      I frowned, unable to picture it. “Okay, but how peaceful can it possibly be, with me screaming bloody murder?”

      He laughed again, and I followed him up the steps to a wobbly bridge made of wooden planks chained loosely together. “It doesn’t sound like screaming to the soul. Or to me either. Your wail is beautiful to male bean sidhes.” Nash turned to look at me from the top step, his gaze soft,and almost reflective. “More like a wistful, haunting song. I wish you could hear it the way we hear it.”

      “Me too.” Anything would be better than the earsplitting screech I heard. “What else can I do? Tell me the parts that don’t make me want to dig my own ears out of my skull.”

      Nash pulled me onto the bridge, which rocked beneath us until I sat in the middle with my legs dangling over the side. “You can keep a soul around long enough for him to hear the thoughts and condolences of his friends. Or say goodbye to his family, though they can’t hear him.”

      “So I’m …useful?” My pitch rose in earnest hope.

      “Totally.” He settled onto the next plank, facing my profile with one leg hanging over the edge of the bridge and the other arching behind me.

      My smile swelled, as did the warmth spreading throughout my chest, slowly overtaking my unease at the very thought of suspending a human soul. I wasn’t sure whether this blossoming peace stemmed from my newfound purpose in life—and in death—or from the way Nash watched me, like he’d do anything to make me smile.

      “So what can you do?”

      “Well, my vocal cords aren’t as powerful as yours, but a male bean sidhe’s voice does carry a kind of …Influence. A strong power of suggestion, or projection of emotion.” He shrugged and draped one arm over the rope railing, leaning back to see me better. “We can project confidence, or excitement. Or any other emotion. A bunch of us together can urge groups into action, or pacify a mob. That one was big during the witch trials, and public panics of old.” He grinned. “But mostly, we just relax people when they’re nervous, or upset.” Nash shot me a meaningful look, and I sucked in a startled breath so big I nearly choked on it.

      “You calmed me, didn’t you? In the alley behind Taboo.”

      “And behind the school, this afternoon. With Meredith …”

      How could I not have realized? I’d never been able to control the panic before, without putting distance between myself and …the pre-deceased.

      I blinked back grateful tears and started to thank him, but he spoke before I could get the words out. “Don’t worry about it. It was cool to finally get to show off.”

      “And there’s more, other than the Influence?”

      He nodded, and the bridge rocked as he leaned forward, eyeing me dramatically. “I can direct souls.”

      “What?” Chill bumps popped up beneath my sleeves, in spite of the unseasonably warm evening.

      Nash shrugged, like it was no big deal. “You can suspend a soul, and I can manipulate it. Tell it where to go.”

      “Seriously? Where do you send it?” I couldn’t wrap my mind around the concept.

      “Nowhere.” He leaned back against the rope and frowned. “That’s the problem. Your skills are useful. Altruistic, even. Mine.? Not so much.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because there’s only one place to send a disembodied soul.”

      “The afterlife?” I folded one leg beneath the other and twisted to face him, trying not to be completely overwhelmed by the possibilities he was throwing at me.

      He shook his head as a cicada’s song began in the distance. “A soul doesn’t need me for that.”

      And suddenly I understood. “You can put it back! Into the body.” I sat up straight and the bridge swayed. “You can bring someone back to life!”

      Nash shook his head, still somber in spite of my growing enthusiasm, and stood to pull me up. “It takes two of us. A female to capture the soul, and a male to reinstate it.” His hand found my hip again, and the heat behind his gaze nearly scorched me. “We could be amazing together, Kaylee.”

      My cheeks blazed.

      Then the reality of what he was saying truly hit me, like a blast

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