You don’t stay alive for as long as he had without being immortal or at least competent enough to know how to not piss off the wrong people. James had cheated both of these things, and if asked, would deny knowing how he was alive and standing. As it was, he was convinced that while he had been born into the world at least mostly human, he couldn’t be sure how much of that humanity was left. He was a genetic fuck-up of his own devising, made messy from his own choices in the face of vanity. He was at least not stupid enough to deny that he had screwed up too many times to count. His sanity would have been in jeopardy if he focused too long and hard over the things he had achieved in his life versus the things he had lost. Adella was one thing lost out of too many; his had expanded over several lifetimes, after all, and he regretted each instance of loss like a prick of a million needles that stuck in his skin. It would never truly go away. Soulmates, children, were a crock of shit. There was not simply<i>one </i>right person for anyone.<br/><br/>“I think that you are the reincarnation of your ancestor,” he finally said, bluntly, with a hard grin on his face. “The tricky thing about that is that the host might not be aware that they came from a former life; you wouldn’t have her memories if you were unless you unlocked them like a secret diary. I’ve seen instances in people where the original soul inhabited the same body as a new soul – that’s where you get the more interesting cases of multiple personality disorders, though I can confirm that most of those are typically demons or true nutjobs.” He hesitated before he added, his eyes searching. “I can help you figure it out, if you want,” he said softly.<br/><br/>Reaching out, he took her hand in his and gave her knuckles a squeeze before they both stood from the booth to make their way to the door. He stopped, however, and trailed off their course toward the petite woman Lane knew as Vivienne. He grinned at her and leaned in, whispering a secret in her ear that made the other woman laugh and wink once more at his blonde companion. He did as she asked, too, and dropped a tip in the jar before they left. This time as they made their way down the road, he didn’t make any sudden stops to distract her on the way, but he did snatch her arm up to walk her along the inside of the walkway.<br/><br/>“Don’t tempt me,” he responded in a low voice to her tease, his fingers squeezing her arm. “And there are no spells about immortal life in your book, but there’s plenty about getting rid of unwanted demons. I taught her about<i>that</i>,” he added the last smugly, but didn’t go into any more detail than that until she led them to her apartment and through the door.<br/><br/>The cat drew his attention first as it darted across the room, and the man couldn’t help but chuckle as he crouched down to stare at the creature as it hunched underneath her table. “You do realize this makes you a stereotype, right? Having a black cat, potentially as a familiar, is the reason why Bewitched was my wet dream in the sixties.” He rose up and paced deeper into the small space, his wandering eyes taking in her belongings before finally settling on the book itself. It stirred something deep, an old ache and an older burn. His feet stopped him in front of the volume and his fingers took care with the yellowed pages as he cracked it opened to study the words within.<br/><br/>“Her name was Map, or Newt, or Nyx – but called herself Anastasia for mortal conveniences. She proved to me that red heads really are crazy, soulless bitches. We weren’t<i>married</i>; there was never any love between us, but she did find it amusing to toy with me for years. And she had a knack of holding grudges and dangling my flaws over my head. I have her to thank for one thing, however.” He tore his eyes away from the pages of the book so that he could glance back at the young woman whose space he occupied. “She brought me back from the dead.”<br/><br/>The sinister smile that curved his lips couldn’t mean anything good. He abandoned his post in front of the grimoire and stalked closer to where she stood, stopping dead in front of her. Green eyes with their flecks of gold danced dangerously as he scooped up her hand in his and guided it to his upper thigh, close to his groin, and just shy of being inappropriate. His hand smothered hers as he pressed her palm against his denim clad leg that did very little to muffle the heat that radiated from the spot. It wasn't like body heat, or even a fever; this was the kind of heat that scalded your hand if you accidentally touch a hot pan without protection, and even the small amount of pressure that he applied using her hand made him grimace.<br/><br/>“And gave me a present because I refused her a favor. If you want to know more, you're going to have to get me out of my pants,” he rumbled darkly and punctuated the words with a flirtatious wink. Despite the fact that he teased her, he seemed reluctantly to draw back away from her, and despite what he had just revealed, his eyes were distracted by her own rather than the pulsing heat-pain in his thigh. Olive studied golden brown for a long moment before he raised his hand to cup the side of her face, his thumb caressing her cheek.<br/><br/>“You are beautiful, you know that?” Then he dipped his head, lips sliding against hers in a gentle kiss. Because he couldn't help himself.