Deliver Me from Darkness: A Novel of the Paladin Warriors Read Online Free PDF

poetically about the woman who should have been his with that wistful tone.
    Calhoun stared at the blank wall, the lines in his brow tipped into a V above his nose. The deep crease didn’t mar his features in the least, adding character rather than detracting from the harsh planes of his face. Like all Paladin, Calhoun’s age was indeterminate. Prime, some might have said, if not for the eyes. The eyes spoke of how old a Paladin really was, and Calhoun’s were harder than most—except now.
    Roland tried really hard not to obsess about what was making his friend soften. “So you’ve seen her little trick then,” he asked.
    Calhoun threw him a dark look—there was the steel. “You could have warned me she was a teleporter before you blew out of here.”
    “And ruin the surprise?” Roland smirked and ambled over to the study. He frowned as he took in the mess and had to further hide his emotions when the lingering scent of her fear punched him in the gut.
    “She was only pretending to have passed out,” Calhoun said from the kitchen. Mugs clattered as he grabbed another from the cabinet. “Tried to slip out behind you. Would have made it if not for the double entry. After that I chased her around a good five minutes before she eventually collapsed.”
    Calhoun sounded perplexed, as if he couldn’t fathom why she would have been scared of him. Gee, maybe because the man she’d run to for help had turned her over to a vampire?
    Stiffly, Roland sat in the ruined leather armchair. He didn’t like the scent of her fear, but he did like her scent in general and it was strongest here…and on the floor where he’d lain upon her. Damn. He jerked his gaze away from the area rug.
    “She’s a Paladin. Full-blooded, to have such power.” Calhoun followed him in, a new mug of steaming coffee in hand, and plopped down on the love seat.
    Roland cleared his throat, setting his coffee aside. “Do I need to remind you of the exact day when the last female Paladin died?”
    Calhoun looked up at him sharply. No wonder. Roland never brought up that day unless he was forced to. His coffee turned to a pool of acid in his stomach as memories flooded him. The blood. God. All the blood. It had been a massacre, and he’d been helpless to stop it.
    “You know as well as I,” Calhoun said, drawing Roland out of his true nightmare, “that a Paladin could be two hundred and look like they’re twenty.”
    Roland shook his head. “She doesn’t feel that old. She feels…”
    “What?”
    “Young, innocent.”
    Calhoun leaned against the back of the love seat, a scowl on his face. Roland could tell Calhoun wanted to argue, but he knew Roland’s gift would give him this kind of insight.
    “Possibly a half then,” Calhoun said after a long moment of consideration.
    Roland skewered his friend with a look. “Then who’s the father? Unless he died before he knew he’d sired a child…” He trailed off, knowing Calhoun would understand the implications. For whatever reason, there had always been more male Paladin. With nine out of ten births being boys, a female Paladin, even a half, would have been protected and cosseted by the entire council. Not left to flounder in a world full of dangerous creatures bent on her destruction.
    Calhoun pounded the arm of the chair. “She’s not a merker.”
    Roland remained silent. That she might be a merker didn’t sit right with him either. Merkers were the Paladin’s dark brothers. Fathered by Ganelon the betrayer and born of demon mothers, they were a mix of all things evil. Yet they could blend in perfectly with the human race. The only good merker was a dead merker. Which meant that if she was a merker, Calhoun would be required to kill her. There was no way Roland could allow that. No one would touch her.
    He pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed to focus on the matter at hand. The woman’s heritage was all that mattered now. As soon as they knew who her parents were, they could