Storm Kissed Read Online Free PDF

the bonds melting off his ankles and the metal handcuffs arcing with blue-white flame. Then pain lashed, flesh burned, and the shackles sprang open. They hit the floor with a metallic clatter. And he was free!
    He lunged to his feet, roaring Reese’s name.
    Keban spun, eyes widening.
    “Wait,” said the winikin —because that was what he was, a winikin . It was all true, Dez suddenly realized as the lightning—the fucking magic —raced in his blood. Every last godsdamned story was true. He was a Nightkeeper. The last in an ancient line of magic users.
    Keban had finally made him into a mage . . . And he’d used Reese to do it. Blood sacrifice. Nearby, she lay far too still, her body a dark blur in the shadows.
    “No!” Pain and rage lashed through Dez, calling to something inside him, something that fed on the greed and hatred and then suddenly ignited. Power soared inside him, pressed on him, begged to be set free.
    Going on instinct, he pointed at the winikin , stiff fingered. The power surged, a vicious crackle split the air, and a bolt of blue-white lightning shot from his outstretched fingers. It nailed Keban in the chest, blasting him back.
    The winikin screamed and landed writhing, wreathed in sparks of blue-white electricity. His body arched; his hands and feet beat at the warehouse floor, and came away bloody.
    Magic flowed through Dez. He gloried in it, heart racing. He was a mage, like Keban had always said. He could do anything, be anything, become—
    Then, like someone had thrown a switch, the energy cut out, the crackle went silent, and his body shifted from fever hot to deathly cold in an instant. He sagged as fatigue hit him hard and he became, once again, just himself.
    What. The. Fuck?
    Weeping raggedly, Keban dragged himself to his feet and staggered for the door without a backward look, cackling a high, lunatic laugh.
    “Son of a bitch ! ” Yanking himself out of the last dregs of magic, Dez jammed the statuette into his pocket, lunged for the fallen .44, and came up to his knees firing. The shots pinged off steel, the noise disappearing beneath a crack of thunder as Keban vanished into the storm. On one level, Dez knew he should chase the bastard, finish him off. But on another, more visceral level, he had a different priority.
    “Reese!” He scrambled to his feet, bolted across the warehouse and dropped to his knees beside her. Ignoring everything he’d ever learned about first aid, he dragged her up off the floor and into his arms, cursing when her guns dug into him, feeling somehow more substantial than she did. Her body was limp and heavy. Deadweight that smelled of blood. “Godsdamn it, Reese ! ”
    She stirred, then squinted at him through pain-blurred eyes. “Jesus, don’t yell. My head’s killing me.”
    He shuddered, groaning her name and holding on to her for a long moment while his heart hammered in his ears. Then he tried to pull himself together, easing away far enough to check for injuries with shaking hands. He was bleeding from his shoulder and his wrists howled where the cuffs had burned him, but she was hurt worse. She had a raised knot on her head that matched her blown pupils, and a through-and-through in her upper arm, the wound wide and angry and weeping blood.
    She’d live. But they had gotten lucky.
    “He’s gone. I’ve got you. You’re okay. We’re okay.” He said it over and over, not really sure he believed it until he stuck his hand in his pocket and touched the statuette. And for a second he felt a trickle of the power—the magic—he’d tapped into before. He sure as hell hadn’t imagined the way his cuffs had come off, or the way he’d blown Keban off his feet. A guy who could do stuff like that could do anything.
    Pressing his cheek to her temple, careful of the sore spots, he tightened his fingers around the statuette, as he said, “I’m sorry about what I said before. I didn’t mean it—I love you. I need you. We’ll make it work.”
    But