Free Soul Thief (Dark Souls) by Anne Hope Page A

fingers itch to brush the strands aside, to trace the gentle arc of her throat, to bury his hand in her hair and massage her scalp until she moaned with pleasure.
    She brought her palm to the nape of her neck, let it linger there for a second or two. Then she began to unbutton her top, slowly revealing the creamy skin the garment concealed. Adrian fisted his hands at his sides. His fingers shook with the desire to touch, to explore and caress. He clenched his teeth, desperate to taste every inch of her flesh with his hot, greedy mouth.
    Stop this. Stop it now.
    The shirt gently slipped from her body…
    “I know you’re guilty of many crimes, but I never took you for a peeping Tom.” The sudden sound of Marcus’s voice startled Adrian, and Angie’s image vanished like a soap bubble.
    Never before had someone taken him off guard like this. He hadn’t even sensed the Watcher coming. His fixation with Angie was clouding his senses, dulling his instincts, distracting him. “How did you find me? Did you track me here?”
    “No need. I figured this was where you’d be.” Above them, the streetlamp gleamed, outlining Marcus’s sharp features and casting a silver glow over him. “I came to deliver a message. Cal has agreed to cloak her.” He nodded toward the top floor of Angie’s building, where streams of light spilled from her penthouse windows.
    Adrian breathed a sigh of relief even as mistrust lurched within him. “And what has he asked for in return?”
    “For starters, he wants you to cease your nightly activities. If anyone dies at your hand, even among the scourge of society, all bets are off.”
    He’d expected as much. “Anything else?”
    “Not for the time being. But I’ll give you a friendly warning, Cal has ordered me to do everything in my power to recruit you. Now that he’s aware that you’ve found your old soul, he suspects you may be the one the prophecy speaks of—the one destined to take down Athanatos.”
    Adrian arched a stunned brow. “Tell him he’s barking up the wrong tree. If I do have a destiny, it isn’t to rid the world of old gramps.”
    Marcus fought not to smile, failed. The corners of his mouth twitched. “Time will tell.”
    “I’ll never join the Watchers,” Adrian insisted.
    “Don’t worry. Cal is a firm believer in free will. He won’t force you to make a choice you’re not ready to make. But if you do have a role to play in saving the world, he’s convinced one of these days you’ll find your way to us.”
    Adrian’s caustic chuckle perforated the night. “Then he’s in for one hell of a long wait.”
    An unsettling pause followed. The wind gusted, lifting a discarded wrapper from the sidewalk and sending it cartwheeling through the air. Marcus gazed up at Angie’s building for several strained seconds, then back at Adrian. “What’s it like?” His voice held a trace of wistfulness. “Finding your soul?”
    Adrian answered without hesitation. “It’s hell on earth.” There was no greater torment than wanting—needing—to be with someone, yet knowing you had to walk away. Even numbness was preferable to this raw, aching yearning.
    Marcus’s surgical stare cut into him. “Does she know about you?”
    “She did.” For a brief moment in time when Adrian had shed his loneliness like a wet coat. “But I wiped her memory.”
    Doubt ghosted over the Watcher’s face. “And it worked?”
    “Yes. Is there a reason it shouldn’t have?” He refrained from telling Marcus that he’d administered the kiss .
    “Not sure.” Silence swelled to engulf them again. In the distance, the rev of a motor roared. “Our experience with this sort of thing is limited, but I do know that a soul that once belonged to a Hybrid is unique. Usually, a human life-force can’t coexist with the darkness, but in a Hybrid’s case it can. The only way this is possible is if the soul develops some kind of resistance to its Hybrid host.”
    That would explain why Adrian had