Moonlight(Pact Arcanum 3) Read Online Free PDF

hope.”
    Collins shook his head slowly in disbelief. “Kevin, you’re gambling with your daughter’s life. Are you really that cold-blooded?”
    Daniels scowled at him. “My career already cost her a normal childhood. Should I take her youth, as well? She’s almost done with the school year. Once she finishes, I’ll give her the facts and let her make her own decision. That’s all I can give her—a few more months of being human before her life implodes. Until then, this is the best way I can think of to protect her.”
    “This is going to end badly,” Collins said. “You know that, don’t you?”
    Daniels picked up the file he had discarded and opened it again. “If it does, I’ll know exactly who to come looking for when it’s time for payback. Now keep your mouth shut and get the hell out of my office.”
     
    Armistice Embassy, Washington, D.C.
    Layla looked up when she heard a musical tone from her office door, followed by the voice of the security AI. “Sean Magister Jiao-long is requesting entry.”
    She turned away from the window. “Let him in.”
    “Order rejected. Adjust environmental controls to allow safe entry.”
    Layla blinked in confusion and then realized the windows were open and bright sunlight streamed into the room. Foolish woman. You’re so distracted that you would have let him walk into a deathtrap. “Activate flare shielding, then let him in.”
    An iridescent shield of force blocked the sunlight over the windows. Then the door opened, and two men walked in. They were a study in contrasts. Rory, his age frozen in his late twenties, had his long red hair tied back into a ponytail, eyes intent as they took in the scene, dressed in a black short-sleeved shirt and black jeans. Takeshi wore his five decades of life with quiet dignity, his spiky, black hair cut short without any hint of gray. He calmly absorbed everything and gave away none of his own thoughts to the casual observer. To the trained eye, however, there was no mistaking the bond between them as they moved forward in unison, each unconsciously guiding his steps to allow the other the widest view of the room and all lines of attack. Layla had been a student of the Sentinel Gift for millennia, and she knew how deadly the psychically linked warriors could be on the battlefield, notwithstanding the additional powers that Rory had acquired when he was corrupted into a Nightwalker.
    Together, the three of them had built an empire that spanned the entire continent in the shadow of human civilization, and they had only recently drawn back from ruling it to give up a measure of control to Nick as President. They remained the leaders of the Free People, however, and set policy throughout the Armistice.
    Layla sat up straight on the couch, and her visitors pulled chairs away from the conference table to sit in front of her. “Gentlemen,” she asked, “what brings you to Washington?”
    Rory smiled at her. “We heard you were terrorizing your staff, so we decided to stop by to see if there was anything we could do to smooth things over.”
    Take watched her carefully. “Nick told us you broke up with Toby.”
    She frowned at him. “And you came to console me? Or did you just want to catch up on the latest gossip?”
    “A bit of both, really,” said Rory, completely at ease in the face of her annoyance. “The two of you have been on quite a roller coaster in your relationship. It’s not the first time things between you have deteriorated into violence.”
    She sighed, conceding the point. “Tobias is a passionate man. He lets his emotions get the better of him on occasion.”
    “But the same can’t be said of you, Layla,” said Takeshi. “At least, not until you started seeing Toby.”
    “I have not changed,” she declared flatly.
    “Actually, you have,” Rory replied. “Your personality has always been sharp as a blade, but since the two of you began seeing each other, there’s been some softening of the hard