The Fire King Read Online Free PDF Page A

thoughtful. She began to crouch, must have realized that would take her from his line of sight, and moved even closer, up his body, until she stood by his shoulder. Karr could see her better there. He looked straight up at her—and realized, stunned, that she was missing her right arm. He had not noticed before. She had kept that side of her body turned from him. But it was clear now; her sleeve was empty.
    Karr looked back at the woman’s face, and found her staring at him with a steely directness that sent a thrill of unease and confusion down his spine. Her scent altered, too. He tasted more of her anger.
    “I would like to know your name,” she said, each word spoken slowly, carefully, her accent unlike any he had ever heard.
    He almost told her. He came so close. It shocked him, the ease with which she made him want to talk. He had never given in so easily. Never.
    A trick,
he told himself.
Mind games. They have known how to speak to you all this time, and now they put on a performance. They give you a woman who is no threat, who fascinates you. Who can talk to you. Lull you.
    Bitter disappointment crawled up his throat. It was true. It had to be. It had been tried before in the first years of the war, but the human women tossed at his feet had been frail, timid creatures, shivering in his presence like newborn cubs. There was no fire in them. No strength and intelligence blazing in their eyes. Not a shred of defiance. They were nothing like this woman who stood above him.
    She is not false,
whispered his instincts.
Look into her eyes. She has never been broken.
    Neither had Karr. But he found himself close, in that moment. He wanted to be lulled. He wanted to be spoken to, so badly he could taste it. He was tired of fighting, then and now. He had been so disturbed by his own insanity that he had sought relief at the end of a sword; he had allowed himself to be buried alive for little more than the knowledge that he would never again be allowed to hurt the people he loved.
    Karr said nothing. The woman tilted her head, frowning, and sat beside him, so close that he felt the heat of her body against his shoulder. Her scent, so full of sunlight, filled him with another kind of warmth that he refused to dwell on.
    And yet … She rubbed her chin, silver and turquoise flashing along her wrist, and he found it impossible to look away from her face. He told himself it was for his own good, that he had to study her—divine her weaknesses, if he could—but the simple truth was that she intrigued him. And if he was going to die in this place, then at least it would be from torture and not boredom.
    “My name is Soria,” she said.
    And the rest was silence.
    The next time you see Roland,
Soria told herself, ten minutes later,
you are going to kick his ass.
    She already had it planned—a knee to his nuts and, once he was down, another good stomp. She was going to dance a goddamn jig on his testicles. Followed by a verbal browbeating that she hoped made his ears bleed.
    Soria managed to hold it together until she left the holding cell. For years she had been good at compartmentalizing her emotions, staying cool and calm, focused under any condition: bullets, fire, stampede. The past year had frayed her edges, but seeing that man—that giant of a man strapped inside something that resembled a medieval torture device—sent her back to fundamentals.
    Get the job done. Be calm. Focus.
    Then
freak.
    Serena McGillis waited in the hall. She had already slipped her sunglasses back on, which so far seemed to be her only weakness: a reluctance to show her eyes. One eye was missing, the other golden and inhuman. Soria understood, but that was the only thing about Serena that made sense.
    The shape-shifter was tall and sinewy, a cold blonde beauty who had to be in her fifties, though she hardly looked it. Her daughter, Iris, was married to one of Soria’s friends and colleagues. Everything else was a mystery.
    Soria had never met