Stone Cold Lover Read Free

sticking to the sides of the room, keeping the thick stone walls at his back. She realized that the faint rustling sound she heard from him came from the long, dark costume he wore, a fall of voluminous fabric like a monk’s robes. It disguised his shape and, Fil realized, could have obscured any number of things in its folds. Hell, the man actually could be packing a grenade launcher under that thing, and she’d never be able to tell.
    The madman moved again, and she ducked back behind her cover. The guy was getting closer all the time. Fat lot of good it did her, though. Insane the man might be, but he was clever enough to approach on the side closest to her hiding place. She still couldn’t get to the door without passing way too close to him for comfort.
    Bugger. How did she always manage to get herself into these positions?
    The man giggled again. “A little church mouse. That’s it. Mice don’t want candy. Church mouse wants cheese! Come out, come out, little mouse, and Henry will give you a nice big chunk of cheese to nibble on. Hee hee!”
    Fil shivered. This just kept getting better and better.
    She gathered herself into a crouch, keeping her legs under her so she could move fast if she got the chance. Up, down, sideways, through a dimensional portal, she didn’t much care which direction at the moment. The only way that mattered was away. Leaning forward, she reassessed the situation.
    She could see the man lit by his aura of twisted menace standing in front of an alcove approximately twenty-five feet ahead of her and to the right. The gargoyle loomed between them, offering Fil a decent amount of cover for the moment, but she knew it wouldn’t last, especially if the lunatic took another shot at her.
    Part of her wanted to pretend that the man had blasted in her direction with some kind of weapon, like a pistol or a sawed-off shotgun—or a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, given the crater in the windowsill—but she knew better. A couple of quick glimpses of that nasty light swirling around him told her that the only thing the crazy man had attempted to harm her with was magic.
    And wasn’t that just a kick in the teeth?
    Of all the special abilities Fil had glimpsed in the auras of the people she met, she’d never seen anything quite like this. She’d never seen energy used as a weapon before. She hadn’t known it was possible. Ella’s abilities might have been the closest to this stranger’s, but whatever Ella had, she’d never discussed it with Fil, and it had always appeared to come from inside her somewhere, as if it were woven into the fabric of her being. This man’s aura was rooted inside him, but like some kind of invasive plant species it grew out of control the minute it pushed past the surface. It twined around him, feeding not on the faint bits of rust-colored light that surrounded him, but on the darkness.
    The wrongness of it seeped into Fil’s bones and made her shudder. She had to get out of here. If the loon kept circling, she might be able to seize a second’s worth of opportunity. Gathering herself into a desperate ball of fear and muscle, she prepared to make a break for it.
    “Naughty, naughty, stubborn little mousy. If I can’t charm you out, I suppose I’ll have to harm you out. Ha!”
    Instinct sent her flying, helped along by a hefty shot of adrenaline. She leapt not back under cover but forward, throwing herself out of the firing line of the man’s next bolt of malevolent energy. She could almost swear she felt it singe the soles of her boots before it blasted off the corner of the gargoyle statue’s enormous pedestal.
    And then the world shifted, because the statue suddenly stopped being a statue. In its place stood a seven-foot-tall stone-skinned warrior with a spear in his hand and fire in his eyes. The creature spread his wings and let out a bellow that knocked Fil straight onto her ass and made the crazy stalker across from her scream like a little girl.
    Hm,