Read Online Instinct by Sherrilyn Kenyon - Free Book Online

him.
    Bile rose in his throat as he remembered the warnings Caleb had given him about saving Xev and taking him in. He was the only “enemy” who knew all about Nick and where he lived and breathed. How to “cripple” him. Xev had betrayed the good guy side to Noir once before. He’d supposedly led their enemies straight to his own family to be slaughtered by Noir’s army. It was why Caleb had refused to allow Xev to live in his home, even though they were brothers. Why Nick had been forced to keep the Å  arru-Dara—the Malachai’s blood general—in his condo. Caleb wouldn’t allow Xev anywhere near him without viciously attacking him.
    If Xev could do that to Caleb …
    Xev’s betrayed me. Just like Caleb had said he would.
    No good deed goes unpunished . It was something both his boss, Kyrian, and Acheron had said to him, repeatedly.
    Kody bit her lip. “Nick? What are you thinking? What’s that look mean?”
    Furious, he ignored Kody as he teleported into his room. With his vision darkened by Malachai bloodlust, Nick found Xev right where he’d left him when he headed off to school. Asleep in his bed as if everything was right in the world. Like nothing bad had happened.
    That only added to his rage. How dare the ancient being lie here as if the world wasn’t in chaos! As if his mother hadn’t been taken by God only knew who or what. She be could dead already.
    Tortured …
    Wanting blood and vengeance in the worst way, Nick growled low and yanked the blanket off him.
    Xev came awake with an equal amount of defiant fury. Turning and flipping into a crouch, he hissed like a cat, exposing a set of jagged teeth. His rusty-sea-blue eyes held a diamond-shaped pupil as he angled his arm up to blast Nick, only to realize who his attacker was. Since he was enslaved to the Malachai, he couldn’t physically hurt him. So his eyes and teeth returned to normal while he braced himself for Nick to beat him. It was what Nick’s father would have done to him for the affront.
    But as Nick saw the deep, vicious scars that marred every inch of Xev’s lengthy body, and in particular the two that marked where his wings had been savagely ripped off his back as punishment for his crimes, he calmed down.
    While Nick had no doubt that Xev was a fierce, deadly creature capable of ruthless violence and betrayal, he no longer thought he was responsible for his mother’s abduction. Surely Xev wouldn’t have gone back to sleep after taking her. That would have been all kinds of stupid.
    And Xev was anything but dumb.
    Had he taken his mom, he’d have known to run to the highest hills he could find for fear of what Nick would do to him once he found out about it.
    Kody drew up short as she entered the room behind Nick and saw Xev huddled naked on the bed. Squeaking, she quickly turned around and dodged back into the hallway. “Sorry, Xev.”
    Still Xev didn’t move or speak as he stared up at Nick with a brutal intensity that waited for Nick to unleash his worst wrath on him.
    And that, too, drove the last of the Malachai anger out of Nick. Having been misjudged by most everyone around him, he wasn’t real big on doing that to others. He handed the blanket back to Xev. “Didn’t you hear the thunderstorm?”
    Xev covered himself. “What storm?” He scratched at his ear, then raked his hand through the garishly bright red and yellow hair he’d been cursed to bear, trying to smooth it down.
    â€œThere was hail, pounding thunder … a blood rain,” Kody said as she came back into the room. She eyed Nick suspiciously. “Are you okay?”
    Not really, but Nick nodded anyway since he was no longer on the verge of ripping Xev’s throat out, or shifting into his Malachai form. “My mother was kidnapped from the parking lot outside.” He glared at Xev. “Did you not hear it?”
    Xev