Demon Marked Read Online Free PDF

head up on the memory she didn’t want, a memory of a memory, her first memory and it was of regret and terror—
    Burning cold, her body gone, she’d heard screaming and she’d been screaming but she didn’t have to return to the cold, that endless frozen agony, because she’d made a bargain and the dark figure said her name, Ash—and the rest of her ripped apart, was gone, gone
    Her stomach heaved. Doubling over, Ash braced her hands against the edge of the bed. She sucked in air that her lungs didn’t need, but the motion of her chest felt familiar. It felt right.
    But why didn’t she need air?
    Someone had to know. Someone had to know who she was. What she was.
    â€œRachel?”
    The man’s voice came from behind her, full of shock and disbelief. Ash whipped around. Nicholas St. Croix stood at the doorway, holding a crossbow aimed at her heart.
    Instinctively, Ash raised her hands to show him that she was unarmed. She didn’t know if Nicholas had killed Rachel, but she wouldn’t give him a reason to fire now. She doubted he would, anyway. Instead of aggression, she sensed faint hope in him, combined with ragged uncertainty.
    He couldn’t see her clearly in the dark, Ash realized, whereas she could see him perfectly. Shirtless, he wore only a pair of black trousers that hung low on his hips—zipped, but not buttoned. He must have yanked them on when she’d broken in. Had she woken him, or had he simply been lying in the bed?
    Lying in wait.
    As soon as Ash thought it, she couldn’t shake that impression. Nicholas St. Croix’s photos suggested he was a dangerous man, hard and emotionless—but the most recent picture had been taken more than three years ago. Instead of cold elegance, he appeared pared down and roughened. His dark hair had been cut brutally short. A few days’ worth of scruff shadowed his jaw, and his body . . .
    Ash’s gaze fell to his chest. In the photos, he’d obviously been well acquainted with a gym. But the taut, wiry muscles on display hadn’t come from a single hour’s workout followed by a rich man’s meal. His body reflected an obsession of some kind, one that ate away at him no matter how much he fed it—and Ash didn’t think that obsession had anything to do with his looks.
    Perhaps that obsession explained why he’d lain in wait at his mother’s house with a crossbow .
    Ash didn’t lower her hands. “I’m not her. But if you look at me, can you tell me who I am?”
    His aim didn’t waver as he flipped a switch on the wall. Light flooded the room. Ash blinked rapidly, adjusting to the glare. His eyes narrowed. Their icy blue focus shifted to the symbols tattooed over the left side of her face.
    The warm hope she’d sensed in him burst into a hot, swelling pressure. But even as she recognized the change, he began hiding it from her, somehow. The pressure didn’t vanish, yet he closed his emotions away, as if shutting them behind a door.
    Strange. No one had done that before. Everyone she’d met in London kept their emotions wide open, and had no clue Ash could sense them.
    â€œYou’re Rachel Boyle,” he said flatly.
    â€œNo.” Disappointment touched her, swift and light, but it couldn’t gain any traction and slid away. “I look like her, but that’s not my name.”
    â€œOh?”
    Now his voice softened, and though he lowered his crossbow, Ash’s wariness sharpened. He approached her on silent feet, and his movements reminded her of the predators she’d seen—not the agile cheetah or the majestic, powerful lion. Not any animal driven by hunger or a need to protect its territory, but the human variety driven by deadly intent. She’d seen many of them prowling the dark London streets, had sensed the malevolence they’d felt toward others. Often, they hid it behind bland pleasantries and smiles, but