Underworld Queen Read Online Free PDF

arrested someone else for it at first. I couldn’t believe he’d done it. So when they arrested someone else, I just figured Burt had taken off on a bender.”
    “I want to know about my sister.”
    Her mother reached across the bed, opening a drawer in the built in cabinet, pulling out a fistful of yellowed photographs. She clutched them to her chest in her gnarled and reddened fingers.
    “She protected you. Protected you with her life. They found you wandering the park site, looking for me. She was babysitting you while we were at work.”
    “How old was she?”
    “Twenty-two. She lived up north, but was here for a few days, helping us out. We were in a real bind. She never liked Burt, just so you know.”
    She looked down at the curled photographs, tucked and cradled in her breast and drew a smile. Audray could see the beauty of her face at one time, at a glimpse of a woman who was happy before she’d succumbed to her addictions. “She was a sweet girl, and the apple of your father’s eye. She’d taken your father’s death hard, but had started a new life. I asked too much of her.” Large tears streaked down her mother’s cheeks.
    Audray wanted to see what her mother was hesitant to share with her. She wanted her hands on the photographs.
    “They could never prove anything, you see,” her mother began again. “Burt came back all healthy. Stopped drinking. Was helping me clean up too, but then we just—we just couldn’t stay that way.”
    Audray’s anger was tempered by the understanding her mother was just basically a weak person incapable of handling the double tragedy, let alone life itself. Her mother’s wounds were self-inflicted. Knowing what she did about the dark angel population, Audray realized she could become prey to some cunning dark angel looking for another convert. She vowed not to allow this to happen, though the taste of it was a bitter pill.
    “Let me see the picture. You have a picture of her?” Audray asked.
    Her mother handed her a faded photograph of her much younger and happier self, standing next to a handsome man in uniform, with a blonde young woman between them whose face she recognized.
    Claire.
    Her friend Daniel’s Claire, the Guardian angel that Joshua Brandon, Audray’s mentor, had fought with— that Claire stared back at her through space and time. Stunned, Audray realized Claire had become a Guardian angel by dying to save her.
    The Director of the Underworld’s own sister was a Guardian—a sworn enemy.

Chapter 5

    C arl set the large book down on the dark wooden table at his favorite Irish pub. He sighed, pulling back a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead, anxious to begin his research for the mysterious dark lady who paid him handsomely. Straightening his bowtie, he noticed a shadow fall across the table.
    The perfume cloyed his senses, and for a moment he thought of luscious Molly and her breasts offered him so shamelessly this afternoon.
    The barmaid’s name was Caitlyn, he noted as he looked up at her nametag. Probably not her real name, since the girl was Asian.
    “You’re new here, Caitlyn,” Carl said as he flashed her a quick smile she seemed to warm to.
    “Actually, I’m Caitlyn’s roommate, filling in for her tonight.” She smiled and shook her head.
    “Did I miss something?”
    “No, you didn’t miss a thing. You’re the first one who noticed.” She repositioned the brown serving tray under her arm and extended her right hand. “I’m Uma.”
    He took hold of her delicate fingers and a part of him wanted to kiss them, decorated with purple nail polish. But he shook her hand instead. “That’s a beautiful name for a lovely lady.”
    “Yes, and you’ll get me fired if you don’t order soon.”
    “I’ll have a Newcastle draft,” he said, adjusting his collar again and repositioning his lap.
    “Coming right up.”
    Carl thought perhaps he imagined she was intentionally exaggerating her tail feathers—until she looked