Bitten by Ecstasy: 2 (Dark Judgment) Read Online Free PDF Page B

measured up against that rejection, the others he’d received since were like playground taps after being K-the fuck-O’d by Mike Tyson.
    Lifting a hand, he poked a fingertip at the thick ridge of raised flesh on his chin. The unyielding tissue didn’t budge beneath his touch. He didn’t need a mirror to follow the path of the scar over the corner of his mouth, past his nose and under his eye where it abruptly broke off. His finger smoothed across the tapered end before continuing on to the slash that bisected his eyebrow and disappeared into his hairline. Two slightly less thick but just as obvious scars scored his cheekbone. As unsightly as his facial disfigurements were, the patchwork of damaged flesh covering his chest and abdomen was much worse.
    Those first weeks he’d studied the marks almost obsessively. As if the longer he analyzed and dissected the mutilated flesh, the scars would eventually disappear. Five months later, he still looked as if half his face had been just about ripped off, and the details of his near-evisceration were etched into his mind and flesh-like runes in prehistoric stone. Still, while the skin on his body may have stitched together, his soul remained as gaping, bloody and aching as the day he was airlifted from the boulders in those salty, rough waters.
    Shit . He speared his fingers through his hair, dragging the strands away from his face. But then he remembered. With another harsh curse, he finger-combed the shoulder-length waves forward until his damaged cheek was concealed behind a blond curtain.
    His lips curled into a silent snarl and the slight tug on the distorted corner of his mouth sent a hot spear of fury through him. Evander was dead, damn it. And though the bastard’s death hadn’t come by his hand but Nicolai’s, he was glad Evander had suffered before he gasped his last breath. Delighted the traitorous rogue had realized he’d been defeated and lost everything precious to him.
    The thought of another’s pain should’ve been abhorrent—after all he was a healer. His purpose was to alleviate suffering, not cause or condone it. But Evander’s death didn’t bother him at all. As a matter of fact, he took immense joy believing the rogue had endured agony of body and spirit, and if his fierce satisfaction made him as much a monster as Evander then hell, his conscience would just have to deal.
    Again that word brushed the inside his skull. Monster . Bastien gritted his teeth against the silken lure wrapped in the seductive whisper that assured him there was nothing wrong with being wild, raw…powerful. With supreme effort and a steadily weakening will, he forced the sweet and dark temptation into a compartment in his mind, shut the door and twisted the lock. But the door would creak open again. Tomorrow, next week, next month, and then the time would come when the accusation would seem less horrifying and all the more beguiling…
    He slammed to a halt.
    Cocked his head to the side.
    Something…
    His vision sharpened as he allowed his hippogryph to slide out, take over his sight and hearing. Without moving, Bastien observed and scrutinized the crowds of people flowing toward him, surging around his still frame. Nothing unusual about the native Dubliners and tourists snagged his attention. But that… something hadn’t been his imagination…
    There.
    On the wind. Hushed. Soft.
    But there.
    On a burst of inhuman speed, he shot down the sidewalk as if an expert archer had plucked him from a quiver and released him from a bow. Fast. Unerring. Deadly.
    The congested streets gave way to a less sparsely populated section of the quay. Inhabited by more rats then people, the dilapidated buildings and busted windows didn’t offer the same warmth and inviting hospitality as the pubs, shops and restaurants on the opposite end. He stepped into the shadows thrown across the cobblestones by the towering brick structures.
    There it was again.
    A grunt. Curse. Thud.
    Blood .
    He