Read Online Heart and Soul by Shiloh Walker - Free Book Online Page B

from his eyes, the midnight blue nearly black as he brooded into the night. The stink of evil had thickened until it all but choked the oxygen from the air.
    “Have you sent anybody?”
    Eli flicked Malachi a glance. “Why, yes, Father. I have.”
    Malachi chuckled as he turned away. “He’s been in America far too long, Nessa. See how sarcastic he is? No respect. None at all.”
    Agnes just smiled. “At least he has a reason. What is your excuse, dearest?”
    Malachi smiled angelically and gestured toward Leandra. “I need no other.”
    Leandra bared her teeth in a smile as she flipped Malachi off. “Don’t blame me, old man.”
    “See? No respect.”
    Agnes chuckled. “And what should she call you? Young lad?” She lifted one shoulder. “Seeing as how you passed a millennia quite some time ago, I’d say old man is accurate.”
    “And at more than a thousand years, you’d think I’m entitled to respect.”
    Leandra rolled her eyes. “Respect—if people cower around him, that makes him brood. Treat him like a normal person, and he thinks it’s demeaning.”
    Malachi shot Leandra a grin. “Well, I’m not normal.”
    She snorted as she dropped onto the couch, sprawling her long legs out in front of her and crossing them at the ankle. “Believe me, Malachi, I am well aware of how ab normal you are.”
    With a chuckle, Agnes murmured, “Oh, it’s a good thing you took her on, Mal. She’s good for you. You’re getting stuffy in your old age.”
    Yes . . . a good thing, Agnes mused later as she left the vampires alone. Malachi was ancient, and the past few centuries, he’d begun to worry Agnes. He withdrew more and more, becoming so damned solitary, he often went years without talking to anybody. For a time, the Council had been forced to consider asking him if he was ready to step down.
    He’d finally resurfaced, yet many of the people who had once called him friend looked at him differently. With every passing year, he grew more powerful. And power in a vamp as ancient as Malachi often translated to something that made many, many people uncomfortable.
    The aura of menace he exuded had become a part of him, like the color of his eyes or his hair. Once, he’d been able to shield it, but as he aged, it became harder and harder for him to mask it completely.
    And those who didn’t have to fight the need to cower in front of him too often were overcome with an urge that was just as basic: lust.
    Most women were powerless against it. The sexual beckoning that emanated from a vampire was known simply as the call . It increased with age, and Malachi’s . . . well, Agnes had been around him, just once, nearly three centuries ago without her shields up. Simply being near him had been almost orgasmic. She never went around him again without low-level shields in place.
    Unless a woman was bonded, a true soul bond, like the one Jonathan and Lori shared, or Eli, with his warrior witch, Sarel, she was almost helpless in the face of it.
    Unless, of course, she knew to shield against it.
    It must be lonely , Agnes thought, having damn near everybody regard you as either death incarnate . . . or sex personified .
    So, yes. Leandra was definitely good for him.
    Before she had been Changed, she’d been a witch. Usually, the two canceled each other out. A witch rarely survived the Change. Leandra had, though. A strong woman, Leandra was. She’d come through the Change not only intact, but powerful. Even as a vampire, she wasn’t cowed by Malachi. Many vampires couldn’t stand to be around the bastard, simply because of the power he exuded.
    There were a select few, but Leandra, newly Changed, should have been more susceptible. Perhaps it was the magick in her veins that made her different. Not only was she mostly unaffected by his presence, she completely lacked the deferential attitude he had become accustomed to dealing with.
    Leandra was exactly what Malachi needed.
    A friend. Somebody that wasn’t intimidated by