Prince of Shadows Read Online Free PDF

her expression of shock and abhorrence.
    She thought he was an animal. And she was right. There was nothing civilized about the pressure cooker of violence steaming inside him. This wasn’t how he wanted her to see him, out of control and dangerous. If he continued to annihilate his brothers to prove his point, he risked pushing her further away.
    Time for a little finesse, instead of brute force, to catch his lady’s eye. His father’s idea. It was time to show off.

    Though outwardly composed, Kendra was devastated.
    He was everything rumors claimed.
    She hadn’t wanted to believe it. She’d desperately hoped there was some remnant of the boy in the man Cale had become. But as she watched him destroy his brother with a brutally efficient blankness, she knew Bram had ground out all decency beneath his heavy heel. What was left of Cale Terriot was a ferocious replica of his father.
    Seated between Rosie and Sylvia, Kendra shut out the younger girl’s excitement to imitate the elder. Be indifferent, Sylvia had advised. Show no reaction, no interest, no favoritism. But stoicism was difficult. Kendra despised violence and couldn’t imagine finding pain entertaining. Watching the combatants purposefully injure each other, even though she knew they’d quickly heal, left her stomach knotted with shaky sickness.
    With five of the princes left to prove their mettle, Kendra wasn’t sure she could sit through much more, especially when Cale made an unscheduled return to the court. She glanced at Bram, who appeared equally surprised, though curious.
    Cale took off his MP3 player and tossed it to Kip with a call of “Plug that in for me, brother.” He crossed to the weapons bar, forgoing bold aggressive moves for sleek athletic grace. He stripped out of his jacket and gave it a toss, then selected a staff, moving to center court to glide through an elegant kata of positions.
    Kendra’s breath caught involuntarily.
    There was nothing weak about Cale Terriot now.
    He wore the same loose tech pants as the others, tucked into black high-tops. An olive-drab tank hugged his muscle-sculpted chest, delineating abs as rugged as a series of foothills. What that tight shirt left bare truly amazed her. His arms and shoulders were wickedly cut perfection, all bronzed skin contoured by powerful swells, accented by the Terriot clan’s snarling rampant wolf tattoo on one shoulder. Though he still wore impenetrable dark glasses, his features were relaxed, confident.
    He was simply the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
    “Cale,” Bram called down indulgently. “What’s this about?”
    “You wanted a demonstration, my king, and you’ll have one.” With the bow resting across the back of his shoulders, he gestured to Kip. “Give me a beat.”
    The sexy dance tempo of Madonna’s “Music” wasn’t something Kendra would expect from his playlist, but Cale picked up its infectious pace with a thirty-second warm-up. Fluid, strong, his demonstration was sinfully seductive as light gleamed off those glorious arms. Then he struck an en garde to face his brothers.
    “You have four minutes to take me. Let’s do this.”
    The foursome grinned in response to his challenge and stepped out onto the floor.
    Cale let them come to him, timing his movements to the rhythm of the song with easy bounces of his feet. He met Rico’s charge with a quick spin of the staff, whapping the side of his head with one end and cracking into his ribs with the other. A kick to the sternum took him down. Wesley and Colin chose to meet him armed, the older brother with a staff and the younger with a pair of batons.
    Planting his staff, Cale swung around it, landing both feet in Wesley’s chest, then, as his brother tumbled backward, spun down to the floor to sweep Colin’s feet out from under him with a twirl of the bow. Rolling up to his feet, he executed a series of spins, meeting their strikes in a lethal blur before his own effectively stopped them