Of Love and Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyes were wide and round again, an almost perpetual state since she spotted the dead Rakshasa on the ground near the convention center.
    With her flaxen blond hair and simple sweater and slacks underneath that Pillsbury Doughboy coat, she looked like a twelve-year-old girl. How the hell was he supposed to muster up the desire to bang a Chala who looked too damn young to even be able to produce children?
    William cut his gaze to Gavin, and the look he gave spoke volumes: I hate you .
    Gavin smirked. “Too damn bad,” he said to William. “She’s mine. I’ve already claimed her.”
    William threw a startled look at his charge. “You slept with him?” Shock and disapproval were etched into his words.
    “What? No! Are you kidding me? Gross!”
    Gavin gave her a disgruntled look. “Gross? Is that your favorite word? Do you have any idea how many females I’ve bedded in my three hundred and eighty-seven years? And not a damn one has ever used the term ‘gross’ in reference to what we did together.”
    “Luckily, I’m not one of those females and—gross.” She wrinkled her nose. It took another two years off her appearance.
    He was mated to a child. Lovely. He wondered if he would even be able to get it up enough to do what was necessary to plant a seed in her womb.
    “Wait. Did you just say you are three hundred and eighty-seven years old ?” Sydney’s tone held stark disbelief.
    “Yep.”
    She turned to William. “I told you he was crazy.”
    Gavin rolled his eyes and snagged another grape.
    William pursed his lips and said, “Sydney, sweetie, why don’t you go down to the basement and get us a nice bottle of pinot grigio?”
    “You’re trying to get rid of me.”
    “Yes. Now go get the wine.”
    A look passed between them, a look Gavin did not understand, and then with a huff, Sydney stomped down the stairs to the basement.
    William rounded on Gavin. “How did you figure out she was a Chala?”
    Gavin narrowed his eyes and studied the Fate for a moment before answering. “She was attacked. By a Rakshasa. He cut her arm.”
    A Chala’s scent was not recognizable until another shifter drew her blood. Most Chala lived among the shifters, the Light Ones, so their blood was drawn inevitably as a child, during any number of silly childhood games. But not Sydney.
    “How is it that was the first time a shifter drew her blood? She looks young, but not that young.” Gavin glanced at the stairs leading to the basement. “How old is she, anyway?”
    William closed his eyes and leaned back against the counter. “You’ve ruined everything.”
    “How so?”
    “I have kept her hidden—in plain sight—for the past seventeen years. Other—”
    “So she’s thirty?” Sydney had mentioned William came into her life when she was thirteen. Gavin continued to stare at the staircase leading to the basement, picturing the woman who had disappeared down there a moment ago. Chala aged well. She barely looked old enough to have graduated high school.
    William opened his eyes to glare at him for a few heartbeats before continuing. “Other than the attack that killed her father, we’ve managed to live a peaceful, quiet, shifter-less life. Until now. Until you came along.”
    That certainly explained why Gavin hadn’t recognized her as a Chala. “Hey, I’m not the one who cut her. Nor am I the one who let a Chala wander around the streets of Detroit alone. Do you have any idea how many Rakshasa live in Detroit?” Gavin’s voice was thick with accusation.
    “You’re one of them.”
    “Was,” Gavin admitted. “I’ve been cursed for two hundred years. I’ve killed more of my own kind than I ever killed Light Ones.”
    “You’re the one. I suspected as much when we spoke over the phone.” William sounded resigned.
    “The cursed Rakshasa? Yeah, I doubt there are very many of my kind out there.” If he sounded bitter, well, he was.
    “That curse is legendary, you know. No one has ever been able to