Free Rhyannon Byrd - Primal Instinct 04 by Touch of Seduction

from
where he stood, only half of Gideon’s face was actually illuminated by the
moonlight, while the other half remained shrouded in the shadows. Darkness and
light. Although duality was a common feature among many of the clans, the trait
was especially strong within the Deschanel, whose very natures were a
dichotomy. A trait that made them complex friends…and dangerous enemies. “Are
you actually going to stand there and tell me that they used dark magic to make
the Markers?”
    Gideon shrugged, the casual gesture pulling the black
silk of his shirt tight across his muscular chest. “It’s all about compromise,”
he murmured. “Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you have to lower
your morals to get it.”
    “They wouldn’t have,” Kierland argued in a low voice,
the horrific idea burning its way through his brain like acid.
    “Oh, but they would.” Gideon’s mouth twisted into a
wry shape that didn’t quite make its way into a smile. “And they did.”
    “If you expect me to believe that, then you’re going
to have to show me proof, Granger.”
    “I have a feeling you’re going to have your proof soon
enough,” the Deschanel told him as he stepped back, retreating once more into
the thick shadows that blanketed the far side of the street. “Something is
coming, Lycan. Something that has the Deschanel Elders worried, and the
whispers are beginning to spread like wildfire. It won’t be pleasant, but I’m
willing to get you the answers you need, in exchange for Westmore.”
    “What do you mean something’s coming?” he snarled.
“The Casus are already here.”
    “Remember the murdered Watchman, Scott. The Casus
aren’t the only evil that wants a piece of this world. Not by a long shot. And
if you want to survive,” Gideon drawled from the murky shadows, the darkness
swallowing his form like an eager, hungry mouth, “you just might have to sell a
bit of your lily-white soul to make it happen.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    Kentucky, near the Ohio state line
    THERE WERE TIMES when “hell on earth” wasn’t simply an
expression. Times when a man created his own misery in this world, simply
because of the decisions he made. Decisions that led to circumstances that were
not only torture, but a painful, living extension of his nightmares.
    Kierland had given Aiden a book about it once, but
then that was Kierland Scott for you. The unofficial leader of their Watchmen
unit was always trying to help the others through the nasty minefields of their
emotional issues, without ever tackling his own. Personally, Aiden thought it
was an “avoid and deflect” instinct, but Kierland had just told him off when
he’d offered the advice.
    The Lycanthrope liked to dish it out. He just didn’t
like to take it. Still, Aiden had read the book and found a certain element of
truth to it. For the moment, his own personal hell was being stuck inside a car
with a human female who sorely tested his control and an adorable child the
monsters wanted to get their claws into. He could have passed her off to Kellan
and Noah, removing himself from the situation, but he hadn’t. No, he’d chosen
this version of hell, and now he was just going to have to deal with the
consequences.
    Of course, Molly was to blame, as well. He’d bloody
well known that having a woman for a friend was going to be trouble, and now
look at him.
    Friendship was something he never offered to women,
for the sole reason that friendship gave them ideas. The kind that could
seriously screw with a bachelor’s peace of mind—and ones that a man like Aiden
had neither the desire nor the intent to ever fulfill. That alone was reason
enough to keep his relationships simple and to the point. The point being that
he needed women for physical release, but had little use for them beyond sex.
While he might leave them humming with pleasure, it was a God-given fact that
he always left them.
    But it wasn’t just the ones that Aiden got hot and
sweaty with who