Of Love and Darkness Read Online Free PDF

duplicate it since. Prim is one of the most brilliant Fates I have ever encountered.”
    “Brilliant. Not exactly the word I would choose to describe her.” Raving bitch. Evil woman. Manipulative, conniving . . .
    “You cannot say you didn’t deserve it. As I understand it, you singlehandedly very nearly decimated our Chala population before she finally cursed you.”
    The guilt flooded his senses, like it always did. The urge to rush out the door, head back to Detroit, and destroy a few Rakshasa rode him hard. Even as he mourned the loss of those he had already killed over the past two hundred years.
    “Yeah, well, water under the bridge and all that shit.” Gavin strode back into the dining room and poured another shot of whiskey. He drained the glass and thought about his curse.
    He wouldn’t wish this curse on his worst enemy. Well, maybe his worst enemy. It was a heavy burden to carry, these urges that were so normal for his kind, yet overridden by an insistent need to actually destroy them. His brothers and sisters. His sire. Laden with guilt didn’t begin to explain it.
    William looked so damn smug about Prim’s handiwork that Gavin felt obligated to burst his happy bubble. “I’ve had her blood.”
    William’s lips thinned and Gavin noticed they were painted pink, to match the robe and slippers. A coordinated, cross-dressing Fate.
    After a moment of silence, William spoke. “She doesn’t know. Anything. I’ve kept it all from her.”
    “Why?”
    “Her father’s last request. I was honor-bound to obey.”
    “So her father was a Light One?”
    “No. He was human. Basically.”
    Gavin glanced at the basement stairs again. “But she’s a Chala. I tasted her blood. I know what a Chala tastes like.”
    “Rakshasa don’t mate with Chala. I was under the impression you rather preferred to kill them.”
    “ Cursed Rakshasa. I might as well be a Light One.” Except for the Rakshasa urges that were still there, yet he could do nothing about.
    “You’ll forgive me if I inform you that you cannot have Sydney.”
    “Too late.”
    “You haven’t claimed her. Not fully.”
    “I ingested her blood. Close enough. The rest will come naturally.”
    “Not if I have anything to do with it.”
    Unfortunately, he had a fair point, which irritated Gavin. Fates had a lot of powers even they didn’t realize half the time. Prim had been a perfect example. Even she hadn’t expected her spell to work, at least not to the extent that it had.
    “So explain how Sydney came to be a Chala, if her father wasn’t a shifter. Did her mother mate with a human? I’ve never heard of that before. Does that mean there are more Chala hidden in plain sight? Actually, that would be pretty cool. Why don’t you introduce me? Maybe I’ll meet one I like better, and you and Sydney can go about your merry way.”
    The look on William’s face was pained. “Her mother was human.”
    Irritation washed over Gavin as he forced himself to ask the Fate for more information. Fates and Rakshasa had had a contentious relationship since the dawn of time.
    Fates were created as guardians to the Chala, who were rare even in the very beginning. Shifters had been created from wolves, but as time passed, they evolved and learned how to shift into the form of humans. It was, generally speaking, easier to get along in the humans’ world when one looked and acted like them. In the beginning, shifters and humans co-existed without issue. Shifters were carnivores, but they preferred to eat four-legged mammals instead of humans.
    But as often happened in life, a bad seed was born. A shifter discovered he preferred the taste of human flesh and blood to the deer, antelope, and buffalo his fellow shifters ate. He was expelled from the pack, but he took his mate with him, and over the course of the next several centuries, they begat many offspring, all of whom were taught to crave human flesh instead of other, more natural prey.
    Eventually, the Light