Free Soul Thief (Dark Souls) by Anne Hope

pitch. “Snap out of it. You’re scaring me!”
    A mad dash through Times Square, an old theater with velvet red drapes and copper doorknobs. A man with the face of an angel and the irresistible appeal of sin itself.
    Her dark angel. Adrian.
    Adrian carrying her through the subway station. Adrian holding her so tight, she could feel his heart drumming in perfect beat with hers. Adrian kissing her beneath a mantle of newborn leaves, amidst a wild flurry of falling buds.
    Angie clawed at her head, the splitting headache pounding behind her eyes increasing tenfold. “I need an aspirin.” She stood and stumbled to the bathroom, where she rummaged through the medicine cabinet.
    Her mother followed her, her youthful complexion now drawn and ashen. In that breath-smothering moment, Tina didn’t look thirty-five. She looked closer to a hundred. “I’ll call the hospital—”
    “No, don’t.” Angie swallowed two tablets without the benefit of water. “It’s just a headache. I’ll be okay in a few minutes.”
    Panic rearranged Tina’s features. She stopped arguing with Angie long enough to rush to the kitchen. Seconds later, she returned with a tall glass of water, which she offered to Angie.
    Grateful, Angie took the glass from her mom and greedily emptied it. “I feel better already,” she lied.
    Her mother visibly deflated. Helplessness swam in her gray-flecked hazel eyes. “You don’t have to put on an act for me. I can see you’re in pain.”
    “It’s just a headache,” she insisted, but a part of her knew she was lying, not only to her mother but to herself.
    Something had happened to her a couple of nights ago, something she’d forgotten. She had to find out what that was and how Adrian figured in. If she didn’t, she’d lose her mind.
    The question was, how did she ask a man she barely knew to help her unlock her memories? But more importantly, if her gut instinct was correct and Adrian really did know something about the missing hours of her life, why had he kept it a secret?

Chapter Thirteen
    Leaning on a streetlamp, which cast a sulfurous glow over the sidewalk, Adrian stood in the shadows, staring up at Angie’s building. Using his unique ability to see past physical objects, he secretly watched her. At the moment, she walked around the penthouse, followed by another woman.
    Had she been alone, he may have been tempted to bridge the small distance that divided them and knock on her door. He’d spent the entire day with her, but it hadn’t been enough. Something inside him craved her presence like a plant craves sunlight. He felt empty without her, swamped in darkness. In his cursed existence, her soul was his only light, and it called to him.
    He kept telling himself he should stay away from her. Being around Angie was dangerous. Not that he feared corrupting her—in the short-term at least. Over the years, he’d learned to control the black energy he emitted. It was this very skill that had allowed him to spend the day at Reach, surrounded by damaged souls, and not instigate a riot. Nor did he fear taking her soul. For a Rogue, Adrian had an inhuman level of self-control. He’d kissed human women before, had even made love to some without stealing their life-forces, an act usually guaranteed to kill. What he was afraid of was that he’d lead Kyros straight to her.
    But he couldn’t leave her unprotected. Not until he knew for a fact she was cloaked.
    Angie walked past the other woman and entered the bathroom.
    Stop spying on her.
    As much as Adrian told himself she deserved her privacy, he couldn’t bring himself to pry his gaze away. The manner in which she moved enthralled him. She started the bath, poured something pink and bubbly into it. With the grace of a dancer, she pinned her silky, golden-brown hair on the crown of her head. A few seductive tendrils slipped free of the bun and fell to graze the column of her neck. The sight of those errant curls caressing her skin made his