The Fire King Read Online Free PDF

Serena before this morning. She was not a member of Dirk & Steele; she belonged to another organization, one that until recently had gone unknown, unnoticed, and well under the radar. Serena was not one of the bad guys, so the others said, but she was not so good, either. Unnamed, relegated to shadows, she and her group took a pragmatic approach to problems—and they were particularly handy for fighting and undermining yet another organization that
was,
in fact, evil.
    The Consortium: a criminal network made up of psychics engaging in everything from organized crime to human slavery and genetic experimentation. Because of them, Soria’s friends had been kidnapped and tortured. A lab in the Congo had recently been discovered full of human women impregnated with the sperm of captured shape-shifters. Serena’s own daughter had been targeted for capture and to become one of their breeders. Soria found the whole situation horrifying.
    But this … this was right up there. Worse, it was her own people involved.
    “You are so full of shit,” she said to Serena, who had seemed more bothered by the lamb chop served at breakfast than the wounded man imprisoned in the room behind her. Even now the shape-shifter showed nothing except a faint smile, more bitter than amused.
    Serena replied, “If you think I overstated the danger, you are mistaken. He has already killed ten of my men. He would kill you, given the chance. Those restraints are the only thing that can contain him.”
    “Funny you had them,” Soria replied. “You do this often?”
    Serena’s mouth tightened. “This, or death. For one such as him, there is nothing between.”
    Soria twisted her empty sleeve. Those golden eyes glimpsed inside that iron hood continued to burn through her; the entire memory of the man’s presence filled her with both unease and curiosity. She had felt something in his brain, felt his language move through her as though it could be held and tasted. It had taken her longer than usual to process that slow, steady feed, made her feel like a kid again, her brain thick with words, full and turgid as a water balloon just waiting to pop.
    Ghost fingers tingled. Soria gritted her teeth. “Then why am I here? Why bring me all this way to talk to a shape-shifter you think is too dangerous to live?”
    “What did Roland tell you?”
    “Not enough. Certainly not why we would partner up with people like you.”
    “And yet, you came.”
    Like a fool,
thought Soria, hearing the rich layer of contempt in Serena’s voice.
    She let it slide, kept her gaze steady and cool. For ten years she had stood toe-to-toe with kidnappers, hostage-takers, murderers, presidents, military commanders, every manner of man or woman, good, bad, and downright disgusting. All of them had thought they were more dangerous than Soria, and all of them were absolutely correct. She had few skills as a fighter.
    Yet, she controlled words. She was a link that bound strangers. She was the one who communicated needs and desires between parties. And that was a power all its own.
    Soria stared at her reflection in Serena’s sunglasses. “I came because a friend said I was needed.”
    “You are a convenience,” the shape-shifter replied dismissively, and brushed past to walk down the hall.
    Soria followed, dogging the woman’s heels, refusing to be intimidated by the lethal flex of the woman’s right hand, which remained more leopard than human. Dark curved claws extended from the tips of Serena’s fingers, and she moved like a cat—aggressively graceful, hips rolling. Soria wanted to plant a boot up her ass.
    The hall was short and poorly lit. Part of a maze. Soria had gotten off the plane in Beijing, China, only to be swept up by a portly little man who shuttled her north out of the city, driving through the entire night. Big, comfortable backseat, with a pillow and blanket. Soria had fallen asleep. Late this morning she had opened her eyes and found herself in a dusty