Soul Thief (Dark Souls) Read Free

that the Gucci purse her mother had bought her last Christmas would paint a big red bull’s-eye on her forehead and make her a walking target for muggers looking for an easy mark. Assuming the purse was what the men who’d attacked her had been after. She’d caught a glint of something in the big guy’s eyes when he’d pinned her to the wall. Something that had made her skin crawl and an oily feeling gather deep in her gut. If Adrian hadn’t shown up when he did…
    Angie chased the thought from her head. She couldn’t dwell on what-ifs. Nothing poisoned a person more than the bleak contemplation of a future that might never come to pass.
    Turning the corner, she dove into the velvet blackness of night, embraced by shadows and the cool, damp kiss of a spring breeze. The sky was deep and opaque, with no stars and only a slice of moon to cleave the darkness. A few streetlamps and the headlights of passing cars lit her way, but the night seemed blacker than it had earlier, more sinister somehow. Tall buildings hemmed her in, kept her from seeing what lurked around each corner or watched her from behind darkened windows.
    But that wasn’t what caused her heart to flutter or her throat to clog. It was the unsettling feeling that she had just witnessed something extraordinary that played havoc with her nervous system. She wasn’t sure what that was, why it had caused her skin to come alive and her pores to hum. Why her gut remained tangled in a painful snarl and her pulse refused to reclaim its steady beat. She knew only that it had something to do with the mysterious man who’d come to her rescue.
    Adrian.
    Adrian, with his ink-black hair and his penetrating navy-blue stare. Adrian who’d somehow instigated the murder-suicide she’d witnessed.
    The man was a walking contradiction. He had the face of a saint and yet he possessed the quiet confidence of a seasoned assassin. Hypnotic qualities aside, no ordinary person could’ve dealt with her attackers with such cool efficiency. Not once did she catch a flicker of anxiety or fear in his eyes. He’d even taken a bullet point-blank to the chest without so much as flinching. Bulletproof vest or not, getting shot at such close range had to sting.
    But that wasn’t what held her enthralled and compelled her to return to him. What fascinated her most was the broken quality she’d sensed in him. For some crazy reason, she was convinced he needed her.
    Why would she entertain such a notion, when he was the one who’d saved her ?
    And yet she did. She felt it deep down in her bones.
    Angie reached the intersection and halted. Several yellow cabs shuffled along Lexington. All she had to do was raise her arm and one would stop. Within minutes, she could be home, safe in her bed. Still, she hesitated, tossing a furtive glance over her shoulder at the gloomy road unfurling behind her. Biting her lower lip, she dug her hand into her purse and pulled out a Reach brochure.
    True, Adrian wasn’t a troubled youth. He had to be twenty-five at least, maybe older, a full-grown man by anyone’s standards. But he was definitely troubled. Hadn’t she sworn to help those in need, to offer guidance and support? What kind of person would she be if she walked away from the man who’d selflessly come to her aid? She had an obligation to reach out to him, the way she reached out to countless others day after day.
    Dispelling her fears, ignoring the garbled warning her mind issued, Angie spun on her heels and retraced her steps, heading back to the very place her rescuer had urged her to flee.

Chapter Three
    They were coming for him. They always did. What Adrian didn’t know was which of the two armies that hunted him had found him tonight, the Kleptopsychs or the Watchers. Given a choice, he would’ve opted for the Watchers because they were the more merciful of the two.
    Both wanted him dead, for different reasons. The Kleptopsychs pursued him because they knew the soul he no longer