Read Online Passion by Lauren Kate - Free Book Online Page A

sunshine beating through the pane. For a moment, al was quiet. Then the chat er of memories rushed in.
    Milan.
    He was back in the hospital where she had been his nurse during the rst of the mortal world wars. There, in the bed in the corner, was Traverti, his roommate from Salerno who’d stepped on a land mine on his way to the canteen. Both of Traverti’s legs had been burned and broken, but he was so charming he had al the nurses sneaking him bot les of whiskey. He’d always had a joke for Daniel. And there, on the other side of the room, was Max Porter, the Brit with the burned face, who never made a peep until he screamed and fel to pieces when they took his bandage of .
    Right now, both of Daniel’s old roommates were far gone in morphine-induced afternoon naps.
    In the middle of the room was the bed where he had lain after that bul et found his neck near the Piave River front. It was a stupid at ack; they had walked right into it. But Daniel had only enlisted in the war because Lucia was a nurse, so it was just as wel . He rubbed at the place where he’d been hit. He could feel the pain almost as if it had happened yesterday.
    If Daniel had stuck around long enough to let the wound heal, the doctors would have been amazed by the absence of a scar. Today, his neck was smooth and flawless, as if he had never been shot.
    Over the years, Daniel had been beaten, bat ered, ung over balconies, shot in the neck and the gut and the leg, tortured over hot coals, and dragged through a dozen city streets. But a close study of every inch of his skin would reveal only two smal scars: two ne white lines above his shoulder blades where his wings unfurled.
    Al of the fal en angels acquired these scars when they took their human bodies. In a way, the scars were al any of them had to show for themselves.
    Most of the others reveled in their immunity to scarring. Wel , except for Arriane, but the scar on her neck was another story. But Cam and even Roland would pick the most gruesome ghts with just about anyone on Earth. Of course, they never lost to mortals, but they seemed to like get ing a lit le bit shat ered on the way. In a couple of days, they knew they’d look flawless again.
    For Daniel, an existence without scars was just another indication that his destiny was out of his hands. Nothing he did ever made a dent.
    The weight of his own futility was crushing—especial y when it came to Luce.
    And he suddenly remembered seeing her here, back in 1918. Luce. And he remembered fleeing the hospital.
    That was the one thing that could leave a scar on Daniel—on his soul.
    He’d been confused by seeing her back then, just as he was confused now. At the time, he’d thought there was no way that the mortal Lucinda should be able to do this—to run pel -mel through time, visiting her old selves. No way she should be alive at al . Now, of course, Daniel knew that something had changed with the life of Lucinda Price, but what was it? It started with her lack of covenant with Heaven, but there was more—
    Why couldn’t he gure it out? He knew the rules and parameters of the curse as wel as he knew anything, so how could the answer elude him—
    Luce. She must have worked the change into her own past herself. The realization made his heart ut er. It must have happened during this very ight of hers through the Announcers. Of course, she must have shifted something to make al of this possible. But when? Where?
    How? Daniel could not interfere with any of it.
    He had to find her, just as he’d always promised he would. But he also had to make sure she managed to do whatever it was she had to do, worked whatever change into her past she needed to work so that Lucinda Price—his Luce—could happen.
    Maybe if he could catch up with her, he could help. He could steer her toward the moment when she changed the rules of the game for al of them. He’d just missed her in Moscow, but he would nd her in this life. He just had to gure out why