Soul Thief (Dark Souls)

by Hope, Anne

  “Just trying to help.”

  She released his arm, her anxiety going down a notch. The truth was, he’d known exactly what to say to Eddie when she herself had been at a complete loss for words. A sigh trickled from her lungs, and the muscles in her back and shoulders relaxed. “I know. But you need to be careful. It takes time to get a handle on this whole counseling thing.”

  He studied her, his features softening. “Exactly how long have you been doing this?”

  “Nearly five years.” Ever since she’d inherited the reins from her dad.

  “And why would a young, attractive woman choose to spend her days courting danger?”

  A part of her wanted to be offended by the remark, but another part of her rejoiced that he thought of her as attractive. “I’m not courting danger. I’m making a difference.”

  Adrian didn’t look convinced, and his next words confirmed it. “Don’t you ever worry that you’ll end up getting hurt? That someone will follow you home? That you’ll be skulking around the subway one of these days looking to save some thug who doesn’t deserve it, only to find yourself pinned to the wall with a blade to your throat?”

  A shiver danced along her spine. The dream she’d had the other night lurched to life in her mind. For a second she wondered if he’d read her thoughts. “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Are you sure?” The certainty with which he spoke disconcerted her.

  He sounded like her mother. Tina would’ve gladly locked Angie in a tower if it meant keeping her safe, but Angie would have none of it. She had one life to live, however short, and she refused to live it in fear.

  “We can’t waste our life hiding.” Her voice dropped to a silky whisper. “Even if we do, death still finds us.”

  Angie had a pounding headache. She felt as if some sharp-toothed creature had become trapped in her skull and was trying to chew its way out. All she wanted was to take an aspirin or two, followed by a long, hot bath. Spending the day training Adrian had depleted her.

  Not that being around him was in any way a hardship. Tall, dark and dangerous was usually right up her alley. The problem was, something about him nagged at her. Why did he seem so familiar? Why did the mere sight of him make her mind throb? But more importantly, why did everything inside her hum whenever he was near?

  She turned the key and entered the penthouse, aching for that bath, desperate to chase all thoughts of Adrian from her mind.

  “Finally.” Tina’s voice jolted Angie from her heavy musings. “I was wondering when you’d get home. Please tell me you didn’t spend all day at that place again.”

  Angie stifled a groan. It looked like her headache was about to get a lot worse. “Yes, Mama, I spent the day at Reach. That’s what I do.”

  The disapproval on her mother’s face was unmistakable. “Why Frederic chose to sink half our fortune into that place—” She shook her head, not bothering to finish her sentence. Abruptly dropping the subject, she approached Angie and placed a cool palm on her cheek. “How are you feeling? You look pale.”

  “It’s just a headache, Mama. I’m fine.”

  Tina was a tall, lithe woman with elegantly styled black hair and an olive-toned complexion that hinted at her Italian heritage. Thanks to a strict regimen of facials and expensive face creams, she didn’t look a day past thirty-five. In truth, she was a decade older than she appeared.

  Pregnancy agreed with her. Her cheeks had a healthy glow, and her figure, although fuller, had yet to show that a child grew within her.

  “You have to be careful,” Tina admonished with a frown. “There’s a bug going around. If you were to catch it—”

  Angie walked past her mother, struggling to rein in her frustration. She opened her mouth to protest, then thought better of it. There was no use arguing with Tina Paxton when she was on a roll.

  “It’s important for you to do everything in your power to stay healthy, at least until the baby comes.”

  “I know, Mama. Stop worrying.”

  “How can I not worry? After what happened to your father—”Tina’s eyes misted. She walked up to Angie and drew her in a floral-scented hug. “I can’t lose you, too.”

  Her irritation dwindling, Angie returned her mother’s embrace, realizing how much she’d missed her. Half the time, her mom drove her crazy, but the place was undeniably empty without her. “I’m glad you’re back. It’s pretty lonely here without you around to nag me.”

  Tina made a sound that was between a chuckle and a sigh. “Always happy to oblige.”

  Tossing her keys on the coffee table, Angie let her body plunk onto the couch. “How was your trip?”

  Her mother came to sit beside her. “Uneventful. It gave me too much time to think.”

  Angie knew better than anyone that the mind could be a person’s worst enemy if left unchecked. That was why she devoted so much time to Reach. As long as she kept busy, she didn’t have time to dwell on everything she’d lost…or everything she could still lose.

  Helping others kept her sane. Too bad her mom couldn’t understand that.

  “The doctor’s office called. They’ve booked my amnio. In a few weeks, you’ll see I’m right. About everything.” Tina’s throat worked as she swallowed, and she fisted her hands in her lap, her anxiety palpable.

  Angie’s heart performed a series of cartwheels in her chest. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, Mama.”

  “I’m not. I know everything will work out the way we want it to. And soon, you’ll know it, too.”

  Angie hated having to be the voice of reason, but she’d seen too many people destroyed by delusional hope to allow her mother to fall victim to it. “The odds are stacked against us. Even if Dad were the father—”

  “When did you become so jaded?” Her mother refused to listen to reason. “Why can’t you just have faith for once?”

  Angie’s shoulders sagged, an old, deep-seated bitterness rearing within her. “Maybe if I knew who fathered the baby…” She let her sentence trail off.

  Tina hadn’t had a serious relationship with a man since her husband died. So how had she ended up pregnant, and why did she refuse to tell Angie who had impregnated her?

  “That’s not important. What’s important is that the child I carry could very well be a genetic match, which means she can save you. Think about it, sweetheart. Soon, this whole sordid ordeal will be behind us. You just have to be patient.”

  “She will not save you. Nothing can.”

  The thought popped unbidden into Angie’s mind. She didn’t know where it had come from or why it had the power to shred her insides. Never before had she experienced such a sense of utter hopelessness. All of a sudden, she felt lost, beaten and broken, the future she so desperately clung to slipping effortlessly from her grip.

  “Angelica?” Her mother clutched her shoulder, gave her an affectionate squeeze. “What’s the matter?”

  Angie couldn’t find her voice to answer. A medley of incoherent thoughts and flashing images assailed her—a gleaming knife, a flying subway car, a creature with pale blue eyes…

  “Angelica!” Tina’s voice reached a frantic 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’l
l 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 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 failed to plant a suggestion in Angie at the subway station, why she’d appeared to recognize him when she’d walked in to find him standing in the reception area at Reach yesterday.

  “Which means,” Marcus continued, “whatever memories you suppressed could eventually reassert themselves. Especially if you stick around.”

  Adrian couldn’t allow that to happen. Angie couldn’t remember the things he’d told her, the way Kyros had raped her spirit, the impossible feats she’d witnessed. Now that Angie had been cloaked, there was no reason for him to remain in her life.

  He gazed up at one of the penthouse windows, beyond which she lay soaking in the tub, completely oblivious to his presence. Something warm and cloying lumped in his throat. Unfamiliar pain sliced through him, more searing than a blade soaked in angel’s blood.

  Somehow, he had to find the strength to let her go.

  Adrian didn’t show up at Reach the next day, or the day after that. By the third day, Angie was ready to crawl out of her skin. She sat behind one of the desks in the hotline room, starin
g at the unnaturally quiet phone, listening to her heart break.

  The inexplicable sense of loss that gripped her, the desperation she felt deep in her gut to see Adrian’s face one more time, made absolutely no sense. The man was a stranger, just another volunteer. How many people had she known who’d quit after a single day of work at Reach? Adrian’s absence was nothing new, nothing surprising.

  Why then did she feel she’d just lost something immeasurably valuable? And she wasn’t just talking about the key to her memories. It was as if a chunk of her soul had been ripped from her chest. Based on the way she was brooding, one would think she’d lost the love of her life or something, which was impossible. A woman didn’t fall in love with a man she’d only known a day. Did she?

  Sure, she’d heard of love at first sight but—as romantic as the concept was—she’d never really believed in it. Love wasn’t a bolt of lightning. It was something that grew from a seed of attraction, a bud that needed to be nurtured in order to bloom. And yet here she was, completely flattened by emotions she was helpless to understand.

  The shrill ring of the phone rescued her from her contemplative misery. She grabbed the receiver and brought it to her ear. “Reach hotline.”

  “You didn’t keep your promise.” The voice on the other end of the line was familiar.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You told me you’d help my brother, but he’s still sleeping in the subway, curled up in a dark corner like a rat.”

  Recollection sparked to life in her mind. “The Green Line, corner of Lexington and 59th Street. You’re Max, right?”

  “That’s right. You were supposed to bring my kid brother to that halfway house of yours. I’ve gone to see Ricky, talked to him, but he won’t listen to reason. He ain’t never coming back home. He and my old man, they don’t really see eye to eye. You’re the only hope he’s got.”