Read Online A Soul So Wicked (Moon Chasers) by Sharie Kohler - Free Book Online

and raw, exposed where the silver chains looped around him. Bile rose in the back of her throat. His head sagged, and for a moment she thought he was dead. But then his head lifted, slowly, as if the effort pained him.
    As though he sensed her, those startling pewter eyes locked on her. Well, at least one eye did. His right eye was badly swollen and sealed shut.
    She felt trapped, pinned beneath his stare. It was impossible to look away. His face revealed nothing, no expression, just the ravages of his beatings. A hot stab of pity twisted through her. And guilt, too.
    She inhaled a ragged breath. She shouldn’t feel guilty that the lycan who’d held her captive was in this predicament. He might deserve her pity, but she shouldn’t feel guilty . He’d heal. As much as he suffered, as bad as he looked, these weren’t mortal wounds.
    Her gaze drifted to the pistols the hunters carried, certain no ordinary bullets sat in those chambers. Who was she kidding? It was just a matter of time before they killed him with a silver bullet.
    He’s not your concern, Tresa.
    She squared her shoulders and told herself to forget the lycan. He was not her responsibility. She couldn’t save him.
    She reached for her bag, trampled and shoved against the wall, still near the door where she’d left it the day before. Had it only been hours? It felt like days as she’d sat in herroom listening to Darius’s cries. She fought the urge to look back at him again.
    Klonsky reached for the handle of her bag. “You sure you’ll be okay? I can take you into town.”
    “Klonksy,” another hunter called, his voice annoyed. “Let her go.”
    “I’m fine,” she murmured, reaching to take her bag from him, eager to be free of this testosterone-charged room.
    Klonksy ignored the other hunter and dipped his head to meet her gaze. He smiled. Charmingly, she supposed, if her heart weren’t pounding a hundred beats a second. Either he was flirting with her or he was sincerely concerned for her welfare. Whatever the case, she didn’t care.
    He took her arm as if she were something delicate. As if she required escorting. How quickly his treatment of her would alter if he knew what she really was.
    She slid her arm free. “I can manage. Thank you.”
    “You heard her, Klonksy,” the other hunter called out again, his blunt features reflecting his impatience. “Leave her be and get back to the job.”
    She swallowed against the thickness in herthroat. The job . The job of exterminating lycans. Mostly a good thing, except this one, Darius… he was different. She knew that.
    Picking up her bag, she moved for the door. All the while, she imagined she felt Darius’s gaze burning on her back from where he sat. A prisoner. Awaiting his execution.
    * * *
    D ARIUS TORE HIS GAZE off the door through which Tresa had just departed. With his one good eye, he’d observed her clearly as she strolled out of the house, out of his grasp, without a backward glance.
    The hunter Sam stared after her with a dazed expression. Taken in by a witch. He supposed he could understand that. She’d affected him, too. She’d made him question his conviction that she was every bit as bad as her demon.
    It was tempting to forget what she was, what she had done. Lucky for him, he was practiced at denying himself temptation.
    Tearing his gaze from the door, he commanded himself to forget her. He needed to focus on survival. He’d hunt her down again later.
    The pain from the silver was a constant now. Unremitting. A deep burning in his flesh.A sting that radiated through his body. If he moved, fresh agony would stab him, fresh smoke would waft from him. He inhaled thinly through his nostrils and let his head droop and loll. Best if they thought him weak and beaten.
    He surveyed them from beneath his lashes, taking a head count. Eighteen hunters armed to the teeth. Tough odds. One fatal shot from a silver bullet and he was finished. Not that he had anything to lose. He’d be