Brighid's Mark (13 page)
Smiling, she cut through a few more side streets and made her way to the nearest tube station, in the opposite direction of the stragglers. Oversized advertisements continued their mocking dance overhead against the near invisible curve of the biosphere, lighting the iron cross above Saint Somebody-or-Other’s across the river. It had changed management once or twice. These days it was a nightclub so elite she was surprised they had any patrons to speak of. She supposed everyone needed a niche in such a competitive market.
Her world lay elsewhere. In the Burnout Zone, among the dregs. A thriving black market had sprung up among the piles of tumbled walls afforded by the disused Underground tunnels and fallen bridge. Blankets were spread on the ground, the more resourceful with overhead tarps and makeshift tabletops offering a variety of salvage, trinkets and handmade goods. The closer she got to her destination, she passed more amulets in the shape of crosses and stars crafted from twisted wires and knotted string, anything they could find.
One of her regulars waved her over to his blanket, a prime location along the main thoroughfare. “What’s on today, Carl?” She looked over the hodgepodge of questionable salvage. Only the very brave, naïve or strange bought from Carl, but she gave the sprawl a professional once over anyway.
He leaned forward on his rickety crate, ragged dog end trapped between his fingers like a fly in a Venus flytrap. It was difficult to tell the yellowed, smoldering rollup from his tartar-stained fingers as he wafted black smoke over his reclaimed treasures. “In the market for an upscale…whatever this is?” He prodded a misshapen object with his boot.
She stared at the…item, momentarily fascinated. “Unfortunately not.”
“No, I didn’t think so.” He shook his head. “Business could be better, what with the new cleanup initiatives. Folk don’t throw out anything worth having no more. How’s the old man?”
“I’m sure he’d love a chat,” she assured him. Regardless of his merchandise, Carl’s information was always good, not to mention identifiable. “It’s beef tonight.”
“I prefer squirrel.”
A man she’d die for, a world she was born to defend… Only one can survive.
Soul Chase
© 2013 Anne Hope
Dark Souls, Book 3
For twenty-five years, Adrian has mourned the loss of his soul mate, Angie. He’s content to live as an outcast…until a series of abductions forces him out of seclusion and into the arms of the very woman he loved and lost. Angie’s reincarnation, Emma.
Emma is on the run, hunted by soulless creatures whose one goal is to possess her soul. They have taken everything: her home, her identity, her mother. Left with no other choice, she must trust her fate to Adrian, the enigmatic stranger who comes to her rescue. An immortal being whose illicit touch makes her blood burn and awakens an inexplicable desire in her heart.
Emma follows Adrian to his isolated community in Arizona, where she is assailed by visions of a past life. As passion ignites and her enemies close in, Emma is drawn into a world where nothing is what it seems and where love could prove the greatest weakness of all.
Warning: Contains a dark, tortured hero, a hunted woman who can’t remember loving him, a nasty villain hell-bent on destroying the world, and a timeless love story you won’t soon forget.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Soul Chase:
“It’s Emma,” she spat through gritted teeth, then surprised him by raising a jackknife to his throat. He could smell the angel’s blood on the blade, and it froze him solid.
She was fast for a human. He hadn’t even felt her reach for it. Now he had to make damn sure she didn’t cut him. If the blade so much as grazed his skin it would burn straight to the bone and incapacitate him.
“Why are you here?” Wariness flattened her heart-shaped mouth.
“I told you, to help you.” He had to keep his cool. He couldn’t reveal the extent of his feelings for her or he’d scare her away. She wasn’t the woman he’d once known. She wasn’t
his
Angie. She was Emma now.
Reincarnation was a concept he understood well, being what he was. He’d lived for nearly two centuries and had seen countless souls reborn, including his own. But Emma was human, and the human mind wasn’t always open to notions that pushed the boundaries of its limited reality.
Still, long-buried emotions smoldered to life inside him, heating his blood, making his fingers burn with the forbidden urge to touch, to brand and possess. She felt so good trapped under him. After all these years of living without her, feeling her delicate form strain beneath his body was the sweetest of tortures.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t passion that clouded her gaze but mistrust. “You’re one of them. I can tell.”
I know what you are.
That was what she’d said to him when he’d first entered her motel room. Did she see the darkness within him, the emptiness? How? As far as he knew, no human possessed that ability.
But he could tell at a glance Emma’s soul was different, similar to Angie’s but brighter, more powerful. If he was a betting man, he’d say twin essences dwelled within her. He’d only come across a life-force this radiant once before—Ben’s, the young boy his father, Marcus, had brought to his doorstep eighteen months ago. The boy who’d mysteriously disappeared under his watch.
“We’re not all the same.” How could he make her understand that not all members of his race were evil? He ached to have her look at him the way Angie once had, needed her to see the man and not the monster.
“Get off me.”
The blade aimed at his jugular should’ve warned him to retreat, but part of him refused to believe Angie would harm him, whatever name she went by now.
A wave of black energy swept through the motel room, and Adrian stiffened, tension coiling through his body. The Kleptopsychs were here. He felt them. They’d probably followed Emma’s signature the same way he had.
He stood abruptly, grabbing her by the arm and dragging her to her feet. He had so much to tell her, but the time for small talk had passed. He needed to get her out of there. Now.
Emma struggled to escape his grasp, unaware that a much greater threat closed in on her. Desperate to break free, she sliced him across the hand with her bloody blade.
Adrian muttered a curse, releasing her. Red-hot agony speared through him. Weakness crawled through his veins, and his senses swam in and out of focus.
The muted thud of her footsteps as she raced to the door pounded in his head. “Don’t—” He reached for her again, but dizziness swept over him, and he dropped to his knees.
She directed an apologetic look his way, then grabbed the backpack by the door.
“You can’t go out that way. They’ll see you.”
She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “Who?”
“The guys from the apartment. They’re here.”
The color leached from her face. “You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
A slash of pain cleaved her features, and for a second he feared she’d bolt from the motel room, right into the Kleptopsychs’ waiting arms. “Is my mother with them?”
His senses were dulled thanks to the angel’s blood contaminating his own, but not so dull that he couldn’t feel exactly who approached. “No. There are six of them. And they’re headed this way. If you walk out that door, you’ll expose yourself to them.”
She ventured a glance out the window, closed her eyes and muttered under breath, “Holy goddamn hell.”
Sweat sprang from his brow, but he forced himself to his feet. The room wobbled and spun, then settled down. “Get behind me,” he told her.
She did as he commanded, and he couldn’t help but feel he’d taken his first step toward winning her trust. Concentrating, he scanned the motel room, x-raying the walls, cursing each time his vision blurred. He hated angel’s blood with a passion.
There had to be another way out of here. The door and window were out of the question, and the place didn’t seem to have an emergency exit. The ceiling snagged his attention. A network of vents snaked overhead, linking all the rooms together. The vents were made of copper, which meant the Kleptopsychs wouldn’t be able to see through them, nor would they attempt to search them. His kind was severely allergic to copper. It sapped them of their strength almost as effectively as angel’s blood did.
Adrian climbed up on the bed. Using his fingers, he pried the grate off the wall, tossing it aside and gesturing for Emma to join him. She eyed him warily, directed a glance at the door again, then decided to trust him. Clambering onto the double bed, she came to stand beside him. Only a breath of air separated their bodies.
Adrian briefly lost his train of thought. It was disconcerting, having her here beside him again, her upturned face watching him expectantly, her pulse racing to the beat of his. Before he could stop himself, he brushed a stray lock of hair from her cheek. Touching her strengthened him, chased the weakness from his limbs and heightened his determination. “I won’t let them hurt you. I promise.”
Brighid’s Mark
Cate Morgan
One chance for survival, and everyone’s rolling the dice. Even the gods.
Keepers of the Flame, Book 2
Callie Trevelyan, Keeper of the Flame, has a reputation as a highly effective demon hunter. So the SOS from New Orleans isn’t a surprise. What is? The news her mentor has been murdered. Keepers are nearly impossible to kill—Callie has the scars to prove it.
An even bigger surprise: her partner in the hunt for the murderer is Marked, like her, as a champion.
In two centuries of protecting Crescent City from supernatural threats and answering the occasional summons of the Loa, Liam Byrne thought he’d seen everything—until Callie and her entourage take over his life. Their hunt for the demonic killer leads them on a Crossroads journey to betrayals, Otherworld intrigue and, eventually, each other.
But the Demon patiently awaits Callie’s arrival on the battlefield. Callie is ready and willing, but there’s just one problem: Brighid’s Flame, the source of her power, is every bit as missing as Eva’s soul. And as the full truth unfolds, Callie realizes she’s in for the fight of her life.
If she’s lucky, winning will only cost her everything.
Warning: Contains magical tattoos, angsty demon hunters, tricksy Loa, smokin’ hot…jazz…in the Big Easy, and rum. Lots of rum.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Brighid’s Mark
Copyright © 2014 by Cate Morgan
ISBN: 978-1-61922-019-5
Edited by Holly Atkinson
Cover by Kanaxa
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: April 2014
