Free Courting Darkness by Melynda Price Page A

worse than her suffering right now? At least with time she’d be able to move on. If you asked him, it would have been the merciful thing to do.
    “—I mean how, if he really loved me, could he possibly do something like this?”
    Tate sighed, cursing the truth and its adage, for it did not always set you free. “He didn’t have a choice, Olivia. He had to leave and he did what he thought was best—for you. Do not think, for one second, that any of this has been easy for him. He wanted to spare you the grief of letting him go.”
    “Is that what he told you? Have you seen him?”
    He was reluctant to answer any more of her questions. He’d already said more than enough. But perhaps this was what she needed to hear, to understand the finality of her situation. Maybe then she would attempt to let Liam go, and Tate could finally bond to his ward.
    “I haven’t seen him since the day of his sentencing—when he lost his guardianship of you. You were right when you said I don’t understand. Because I don’t. And I won’t sit here and pretend that I do. I think only logically and am driven by duty, not emotion. If I seem crass to your plight, understand that my job is to protect you and keep you out of the hands of the Dark Court. If you truly want to get past this, then for the love of God, stop trying to remember him and quit reading that bloody journal.”
    A certain resolve stiffened her spine, notching her up a little higher. The stubborn set of her jaw told him he was wasting his breath. Liam had said the female was tenacious. Man, he wasn’t kidding. Olivia was an intelligent woman. She knew what was at stake and the dangers of shutting him out. Perhaps she’d consider what he said—perhaps she’d accept him before it was too late.
    Pushing his chair back, Tate stood and wordlessly exited the kitchen.
     

     
    Pat entered the kitchen and stopped at the table long enough to empty his pockets—keys, some change, and two spark plugs clattered into the catch-all bowl. So close, and yet so fucking far… The woman had been seconds from recanting and accepting a ride, when out of nowhere her “something like that” had shown up and ruined everything. How in the hell did that asshole get her car started with a dead battery and a missing plug?
    “Since you’re back so soon, I assume that means you failed.”
    At the raspy growl, Pat’s heart leapt into his throat as he spun around. “Jesus! You scared the hell out of me.”
    The sardonic chuckle sent a shiver of dread racing up his spine.
    “Oh, I highly doubt that, my boy.”
    He stepped into the living room to find his uninvited guest lounging in the recliner, a half-empty bottle of Absinthe in his hand.
    What the fuck… “What are you doing here? Don’t you have to be invited in or something?”
    The guy slowly turned his head and exhaled a cloud of smoke that billowed out from his hooded mantle. Pat couldn’t see his face, and frankly didn’t want to. Once was more than enough.
    “I’m not a goddamn vampire,” he growled.
    Well, then what in the hell was he? Scary as fuck, that’s what he was—with that creepy black cloak and those long, gnarled fingers poking out from his domed sleeves. Shadows surrounded him. The swirling mist hovering around his legs seemed to take on a life of its own.
    Maybe it was better the identity of his employer remain a mystery, rather than face the possibility he might have made a deal with the devil—literally.
    “Your stayin’ here wasn’t part of our arrangement,” he grumbled with displeasure, helpless to do anything else. Pat knew he was in over his head. If only he had any idea what he was getting himself in to. The guy had found him at his lowest of lows, seconds from getting curb stomped by a gang employed by a very powerful, very irate loan shark Pat owed a substantial amount of money to.
    The stranger had appeared from nowhere, much like Olivia’s friend tonight. At the time, an answer to Pat’s