Read Online Heart of Stone by Debra Mullins - Free Book Online

“why you failed to recover the Stone Singer.”
    â€œWe were ambushed,” stammered the one called Erok. The youth tended to emphasize his own importance in a loud and frequent manner, but had seemed competent enough—at first.
    â€œExplain,” Azotay said. The young pup had bungled badly, but Azotay did not betray his growing ire in either voice or body. Control of oneself was a path to power too often overlooked by most.
    â€œIt was Seers,” the whelp spluttered. “They did something to Corinne.”
    Azotay glanced at the female. She’d serviced him with great enthusiasm his first night here with the Western unit. He knew well that most of her hunger had stemmed from who he was more than physical attraction, which pleased him. He stroked a hand over the carefully groomed stubble that couldn’t quite hide the thick scar beneath his jawline. They’d both found release and had gone their separate ways, satisfied.
    But this … The whimpering creature with matted hair and broken nails crouching on the floor, rocking back and forth with her arms wrapped around her bent knees, bore no resemblance to the sexually adventurous wildcat who’d left bite marks on his thigh.
    He walked over to her and lifted her chin, peering into her wild eyes despite her futile struggles to smack him away. He speared both hands into her hair. “How many?” When no one answered, he turned his gaze on the cowering cub. “I said, ‘how many?’”
    The young man startled, paling. “Sorry, sir. I thought you were talking to Corinne.”
    â€œHardly.” With a quick twist, Azotay snapped the female’s neck. She crumpled into a heap. Azotay spared her a glance, one second of regret for the waste of future raunchy sex that would never come to pass, then signaled to one of his guards to remove the body. When he turned back, the runt was, literally, shaking.
    Azotay smiled, wondering if the kid would piss himself before the night was through. “Now,” he said. “You were telling me about an ambush.”

 
    CHAPTER THREE
    Darius hadn’t said a word the rest of the flight, not when they were in the air and not when they’d climbed into the chauffeured black SUV that picked them up at the airport.
    Maybe it was better that way. After she’d charged his healing stone, Faith had sunk into a light doze, recharging her own energies. She couldn’t imagine what waited for her at the other end of this journey, but the money and the opportunity to finally escape the Mendukati could not be denied. Besides, Ben trusted these men, so she would go along with it. Unless they proved themselves untrustworthy.
    She hoped that day would never come.
    The SUV wound its way upward, the mesas of Sedona masked by the inky night, mere hulking shadows against the stars. Around them pine trees stretched to the skies, at times hiding the heavens from view. They turned left into a well-concealed driveway, passing a pair of stone pillars as they continued up the mountain. The road curved right, and suddenly iron gates blocked further progress. Their driver stopped, lowered the window, and reached through to hit a button on the speaker box outside.
    â€œYes?” came a disembodied voice.
    â€œDarius Montana,” the driver replied.
    The gates rolled slowly, silently, open.
    Faith tensed as they passed through the portals, her stomach sinking as if she were entering somewhere from which she would never return. She glanced back over her shoulder and watched the massive gates close behind them.
    â€œDon’t worry,” Adrian said from beside her in the backseat. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
    She gave a rough laugh. “Then why do I feel like the fly walking into the spider’s parlor?”
    The Warrior’s teeth flashed white in the darkness. “Could be worse.”
    â€œSays you.” She caught her first glimpse of the