A Touch of Crimson Read Online Free PDF Page B

that a fight with me is one you can’t win.”
    It was the truth . . . albeit oversimplified. Syre lacked the formal combat training that honed the Sentinels, but he’d had centuries to perfect guerrilla tactics. He was also older and wiser for his mistakes, and growing as restless as the lycans. His vampires would follow him into Hell if he asked them to. All of which made him exceedingly dangerous. While Adrian knew he could best Syre again, it would not be as easily accomplished the next time.
    And Lindsay Gibson would be caught in the middle.
    “Maybe winning isn’t the goal,” Syre taunted.
    Casting a possessive glance at Lindsay, Adrian was acutely aware of the misery he was destined to bring into her life. But he couldn’t walk away. Between himself and Syre, he was the lesser of two evils.
    “If you’ve got a death wish,” Adrian said, as thunder rumbled across the sky, “pay me a visit. I’m happy to assist.”
    Lindsay frowned at something, and he followed her gaze. The woman with the antsy kids was still fighting with the elder. The boy’s voice rose to a volume that drew attention from everyone in the immediate area.
    The vampire leader laughed. “Not until I’m certain my daughter is free of you.”
    “Your death will take care of that.”
    Adrian would forever curse the weakness that had driven him to Syre when Shadoe was fatally wounded. He’d mistakenly believed the Fallen leader’s love for his child would ensure he would act in her best interests, but Syre’s thirst for vengeance was as all-consuming as his thirst for blood. He would do anything to prevent his daughter from bringing happiness to the Sentinel who’d punished him. He’d attempted to turn her into a vampire like himself—a soulless, bloodsucking creature who would have to live in darkness for eternity—rather than allow her to love Adrian with her mortal soul.
    Once Adrian had realized Syre’s intent, he’d stopped the Change, with unforeseen consequences—her body had died, but her naphil soul had been immortalized. The partial Change had caused Shadoe to return again and again in an endless cycle of reincarnation, because, unlike a mortal, her soul was half angelic but independent of wings. Mortal souls died with the Change and angel souls died with the loss of their wings, but the nephalim had neither vulnerability. When Shadoe’s body had been prevented from completing the transformation, her naphil soul survived to remain tied to the individual who’d sired her into vampirism. Killing her father should free her by severing Syre’s hold on her soul; only the vampire who initiated a Change could complete it.
    But time was Adrian’s enemy. He had only Lindsay’s uncertain life span in which to work. It was a terribly small window for an immortal.
    “Selfish bastard,” the vampire hissed. “You would rather Shadoe die than live forever.”
    “And you would rather she suffer your punishment, even though she doesn’t deserve it. You broke the law, not her.”
    “Didn’t she, though, Adrian? She lured you to fall as well.”
    “The decision was mine. Therefore the fault is mine.”
    “Yet you don’t suffer as we do.”
    “I don’t?” Adrian challenged softly. “How would you know what I suffer, Syre?”
    He looked at Lindsay again. She watched him from her seat with those dark eyes that seemed to catch everything. They were far too worldly for a person of her age.
    Her brows arched in silent inquiry.
    He affected a reassuring smile. She was as attuned to him as he was to her, but she couldn’t recall the history between them that had created the affinity. He would have to take care not to cause her concern or distress. His mercurial emotions were a sign of how far he’d fallen. They were a testament to how human his love for her had made him. The heavens lamented his mortal weakness through the weather—raining when he mourned, thundering when he raged, the temperature fluctuating with the heat or