Heart of Stone Read Online Free PDF

before Corinne decides to toast you.
    She might be surprised .
    The decidedly masculine voice in her mind made her gasp.
    Corinne narrowed her eyes. “You know this guy, Faith?”
    Slowly Faith shook her head. “No.” Blue eyes. Brilliant, topaz-blue eyes, and he could hear her thoughts.
    Seer. Had to be. She’d never seen one up close before.
    She spoke directly to him. Go, Seer. She’ll kill you.
    A shadow appeared behind the Seer. Corinne smiled.
    â€œLook out!” Faith cried just as Corinne’s partner shoved the Seer into the shop. The Seer stumbled and caught himself on a display rack, and for the first time Faith noticed his cane as it clattered to the floor. Corinne’s partner followed him in, shutting the door behind him.
    â€œWe don’t have time for this,” Corinne snapped. “Take her, Erok, and I’ll clean up here.”
    Erok. Faith remembered him from the Atlantean orphan camp where she’d grown up. He’d come into his impressive size early in his teens and had enjoyed terrorizing some of the younger kids before he’d been enrolled in formal combat training. His penchant for killing made him the perfect soldier for the Mendukati.
    He pushed past the Seer and headed toward them, his gaze cold and black like an icy abyss. She shuddered. She’d had a close encounter with him once, caught alone in the woods when she was fifteen. She’d escaped then only because Michael had come looking for her. This time she wouldn’t be so lucky.
    Erok’s orders didn’t allow him to kill her, but she might wish he had.
    The Seer slowly bent down to pick up his cane. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but we’re all going to die of smoke inhalation if we don’t get out of this place.”
    Corinne came out from behind the counter and moved past Erok toward the Seer. “It’s all under control.” She raised her hands, energy crackling like a live thing up to her shoulders. “Just hold still, and this won’t hurt a bit.” She laughed. “Wait, who am I kidding? It’ll hurt … a lot.”
    With a whoop, she thrust her arms forward and fired the lightning at him.
    *   *   *
    The blonde was a nutcase.
    Darius didn’t need his empathic abilities to know the lightning lady was unhinged; the pure delight she took from his imminent demise said it all. But it also gave him something to work with.
    The lightning bolts curved past him as if jerked by invisible strings, striking a display of brochures behind him. She frowned and fired again. The same thing happened. The brochures went up in flames.
    â€œWhat—?” She scowled at him.
    He smiled, snaring the red whorls of her anger as if they were cotton candy and he were the candy maker, weaving them into something new and bending them to his will. He sensed when she realized what was happening, when she struggled to retain control of her own emotions. But she failed. He was an empath, and this was his domain.
    Now, now. This won’t hurt a bit .
    Her eyes widened at his telepathic taunt, then narrowed as she studied his face. He sensed her realization of what he was. Her fear. Her struggle to conquer that fear. He wove it all into the emotional cocktail he was brewing.
    â€œ Seer, ” she hissed, and dove at him with nails extended.
    Out of nowhere a song swelled in his mind, the same melody that had led him here. He fell, one arm blocking the blonde’s attack. He shoved her off him and rolled to trap her beneath him, snagging her wrists as she tried again to claw his face. Then he locked his gaze with hers and shoved her emotions back at her, amping up the wrath he had captured, turning up the heat on the fear, dosing her with the mickey of emotional poison he had conjured just for her.
    The music in his mind played harmony to his abilities, somehow enhancing them and honing his aim to perfect