Soul Kissed Read Online Free PDF Page A

Brand’s angel consort, got out. Tall, well built, the man had a backbone like an arrow—and his mind was just as sharp, just as deadly.
    Mason cocked his rifle, hating the blare of the sun overhead. “Don’t come any closer!”
    How many times did he have to hang up his phone on Brand to make her understand?
    Jack Bastian looked over at him as he rounded the front of the car, a wry expression on his face, but his eyes hard. He didn’t stop to open the front passenger door, as Mason expected, but approached the house directly.
    “I’ll allow no mages here, Jack,” Mason called out. He’d shoot; they knew he’d shoot. “Not even her.”
    Jack stalked right up to the barrel of the gun. The angel had balls of steel. “You’ve made your point. It’s just me today.”
    Mason glared back at the car, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not sense any Shadow within it. He swallowed to ease the fist of his heart, then lifted the shotgun so the barrel pointed to the sky.
    Jack inclined his head in thanks as he bumped by Mason’s shoulder on his way into the cabin.
    Mason slammed the door shut behind him, forcing himself not to look at the false wall behind which Fletcher hid. Mason was glad he’d long ago sound-proofed the hidden room, a precaution taken when his son was a baby.
    “How’d you find me anyhow?” He’d chosen this remote spot on this scrub and scorpion-infested hill for a reason.
    Jack looked at him over his shoulder. “I’m an angel.”
    “Angels track souls, not Shadow.” It was how mages had hidden from the Order throughout the centuries. If angels could track mages, the war between them would have been long over, in favor of Order. “I ask again, how did you find me?”
    Because if Jack Bastian could locate him, then others might as well. Which meant this place wasn’t safe. Mason adjusted his grip on the shotgun, his mind racing through alternatives.
    “No one else knows.” Jack took a seat in the center of the old plaid couch that had come with the cabin. He winged his arms out to the side to rest on the back cushions, making himself very much at home. “Not even Kaye knows.”
    Mason felt his sarcasm rising. “You don’t share everything? No pillow talk?”
    The angel still hadn’t answered his question. How in Shadow’s pitch had he found him?
    “Have a seat, Mason.” Now Jack sounded tired. “It’s about to get worse, so save your anger for where it counts.”
    Mason cursed. “What has our High Seat done now?”
    Kaye Brand lived on the wick of danger. One scratch, and she and everything in her path would go up in flames.
    Jack closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his gaze was even harder. “She’s done you a favor.”
    “She does nothing for free.”
    “No, she doesn’t,” Jack agreed without humor, “but this time I think you’ll thank her just the same.”
    “Surprise me then.”
    Jack went very still, too still for Mason’s liking. This had to be bad if she’d sent her angel all this way to tell him, leaving herself vulnerable. “She’s arranged a place for Fletcher.”
    “I’m sorry, what?” Mason had heard his son’s name, but hearing it in this context made his brain flash cold. If Brand dared to meddle with Fletcher, she was effectively ending their uneasy friendship. She shouldn’t even speak Fletcher’s name. Not her business. Not her pawn.
    “Fletcher needs wards, does he not?”
    Since the May Fair all the Houses were hiding behind their wards. And those that dared to leave their safety did so at their peril. Jack had to be referring to Kaye’s newly built castle, Brand House, protected by the Brand ward stones lodged into its foundation.
    “No, thank you.” Mason waved away the offer. “Kaye has more enemies than I can count. No matter what protection she employs, Brand House is still the single most treacherous place on this planet. My son and I will not be sheltered there. Might as well put targets on our