Blood of the Wicked Read Online Free PDF Page B

but it breaks into splinter cells to achieve whatever small goals they’ve got for the area.”
    “Mm-hmm.”
    He cracked open the freezer, grimaced when all he saw were bags of flash-frozen instant meals. “Cardboard for dinner, if you’re hungry.”
    “I’m not.” A grimace twisted her delicate features. “I ate at work.”
    Silas took out one plastic bag and turned back for the couch. The bones of his knee ground together with every step. Grunting with the effort, he sank into the thin cushions and set the frozen bag squarely over his left knee. “Damn,” he muttered, half in protest and half in relief as the icy burn spread swiftly over the swelling pain. He closed his eyes. “We’re meeting with more agents because there’s more of the bad guys. Trust me when I say that taking on an entire group of tangos isn’t a good way to live through the day.”
    “How many of them?”
    “The Coven? We’re not sure.”
    “No, I mean how many of you?”
    Usually at least four. A leader, a technical agent, two field agents. Silas didn’t think it had changed in fourteen years. Didn’t know for sure.
    He didn’t need to see them to feel the beads at his wrist. Dead weight.
    He cracked open an eyelid to find her staring at him. Patient. Calculating, unless he misread the gears grinding away inside that red-capped head of hers. “Probably about four, maybe five.”
    She pressed her lips together, watched him closely for a long moment. Stared at his knee. Asking her to dance for him, Silas reflected in grim humor, probably wouldn’t be the right thing to do.
    She studied him the same way she’d taken in the apartment, and he wasn’t sure she came away impressed now, either. Pride rankled about a split second behind resignation.
    “Why don’t you get some sleep,” he said. He didn’t bother making it sound like a suggestion. Her eyebrows furrowed, so he added, “You can have the bed.”
    This time, her lips curved in a way that reached her eyes. “That couch is pretty small.”
    It was. And by the feel of it, stuffed with rocks. But Silas closed his eyes again and shrugged. “I can sleep anywhere. You shouldn’t have to. I’ll wake you in the morning.”
    If silence had words, Silas figured he’d have been stuck with a monologue of annoyance. He kept his eyes closed, forced himself to look relaxed despite the weight of her gaze. His knee hurt like a bitch, the couch poked broken springs into his back with every breath, and that goddamned neoprene jacket would come off like gift wrap in his hands.
    Finally, when the quiet stretched too long, too taut, he sucked in a breath to—
    Something. Say something. Warn her. Demand her cooperation. Seduce her right the hell out of her clothes and onto this ugly, uncomfortable couch.
    What came out instead growled. “Jessie, I’m not in the mood to talk, so if you want company, you better be naked.”
    Her silence changed quality, shifted into something pointed. Barbed.
    He heard her feet shuffle over the carpet, heard hinges creak. The bedroom door clicked closed, not the slam he imagined any other woman would have chosen, and Silas breathed out on a long, frustrated exhale.
    Nice. Real nice. At this rate, it wasn’t the witches who would cost him the operation, it was his own damned impatience. He had to get a grip on himself, on this whole laughable joke of an operation, or the Mission would lose their only link to Caleb Leigh.
    And then Naomi would have his ass for target practice.
    Silas opened his eyes to study the pattern of water stains on the ceiling. Not a day in her company, and he’d already hurt a civilian. Maybe not directly, but it was his fault the scumbag had even been there to look at Jessie, much less put a hand on her. A fist to her lush mouth.
    She shouldn’t be a part of this.
    Just like another girl, another time. Another mission.
    Silas stretched out on the couch, wincing as his knee throbbed. Pain didn’t go nearly as deep as the