Beyond the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

torture devises hung on the cement wall.
    “You said you’ve been searching for me,” she rasped.
    “Si.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re a very special Were.”
    “Special?” Her sharp bark of laughter echoed eerily through the room. “Don’t you mean defective?”
    “You’re perfect,” he smoothly countered, his voice brushing over her skin like warm velvet. “Just as you were intended to be.”
    She abruptly turned back to stab him with a furious scowl. “As my sisters were before you killed them?”
     
    Salvatore flinched, feeling as if he’d just taken a punch to the gut.
    He’d been accused of a number of despicable things, many of them true. But this…
    “Dio,” Salvatore breathed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Did you think I didn’t know you hunted down my sisters and murdered them in cold blood?”
    Salvatore’s lips curled in a humorless smile, his shock being replaced by a grim comprehension. He’d wondered why Harley was treating him as the enemy rather than being desperate to flee Caine’s clutches.
    “Clever bastard,” he muttered, stepping close enough to the silver bars to feel the painful prickles crawling over his skin. Weres were deathly allergic to silver. In fact, it was one of the few things that could actually kill a pureblood. Silver through the heart, or decapitation. “I’ll admit there have been any number of occasions Darcy and Regan have inspired thoughts of homicide, but I’ve risked my life to protect them, even after they were stupid enough to choose vampires to act as their guardians. The only danger to your sisters is Caine.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
    “If you don’t believe me, then let me go and I’ll take you to them. Darcy is in Chicago with Styx and Regan was headed there to join her, the last I heard. I’m certain by now Jagr’s hot on her trail. Besotted idiot.”
    “Yeah, right.” She folded her arms over her chest, but Salvatore didn’t miss the uncertainty that flashed through her eyes. Her faith in Caine wasn’t absolute. “I suppose you also have a bridge you’re trying to unload? I’m not buying.”
    “I have no reason to lie.”
    “Are you frigging kidding me?” She deliberately glanced over her shoulder at the splendid collection of whips, daggers, swords, and even a good old-fashioned mace. “You have every reason to lie.”
    “Use your brains, Harley. If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
    Her lips tightened in annoyance. She couldn’t deny the truth. If he’d attacked to kill, she wouldn’t be standing there.
    “You murdered my sisters.”
    “Why the hell would I murder pure-blooded females I invested millions of dollars and decades of my life to produce?”
    “Because you didn’t want the Weres to know their king had failed in his Frankenstein experiments. You had to get rid of the evidence.”
    Salvatore had intended to kill Caine before ever arriving at the estate. Now he intended to kill him slowly.
    With as much pain as inhumanly possible.
    “My only failure was allowing you to be stolen from the nursery. You…” His gaze skimmed over her beautiful, heart-shaped face, his body humming with a constant awareness. “Are flawless.”
    “Bullshit.” Her expression hardened. “I can’t shift.”
    Her smoldering frustration filled the air. Ah. Now at least now he understood a portion of her thorny personality.
    “Is that why you overcompensate? Because you can’t shift?”
    Lifting her hand, she flipped him off. “Overcompensate this.”
    Salvatore chuckled. It was insanity. He’d allowed his hormones to overcome his common sense, and now he was locked in the cage of his archenemy with no immediate hope of escape. He should be infuriated. He should be using his powers to attempt to bend the female to his will.
    Instead, he was hot and bothered and barely able to think of anything beyond this female who was swiftly becoming an obsession.
    “To