Read Online Poison Kissed by Erica Hayes - Free Book Online Page A

course he does. Tell him I’ll be by Saint Patrick’s tomorrow afternoon.”
    And Shadow hangs up. Just like that.
    Rainbow flicks the call screen away, confusion wrapping cotton wool around his thoughts. No argument. Shadow didn’t sound surprised. Or scared. Maybe he really is up to something. Plotting, scheming. Planning another war . . .
    Whatever. Rainbow doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to answer the question festering in his soul, the horrid uncertainty about whose side he’d be on if it came to another fight.
    Sweat trickles in his hair, the heat scorching his breath a dark reminder that he’s only one step away from hell. He lifts his face to the heavens, searching, but the demonblack sky offers no answer.
    Frustration cracks his knuckles. He’s happy here—isn’t he?—and before, Shadow gave him nothing but crisp orders and an inferiority complex. But still, somehow, he longs for home.
    He taps a quick text to Kane, not expecting a reply, and hits another speed-dial. “Mel, hi. Yeah, sorry it’s so late. . . . Well, thanks, I miss you, too. . . . No, I’ve got the night off. . . . Sure, I’ll come to yours. . . . Huh? No, everything’s fine. See ya soon. . . . Yeah. I like you, too, darlin’.”
    Beneath an endless, mind-twistingly blue sky, Shadow kneels in warm sunlight on a broad green lawn, his frosted white wings stretched out behind him. Before him, a deep blue pond lies still, its grassy edges neatly trimmed. The water’s surface shows Rainbow, reflected perfectly as if he stood before a mirror, a blond strand falling in his eyes as he talks on his phone. His voice rings through clearly— like you, too, darlin’ —and as he hangs up, Shadow sets off a ripple with the tip of his finger, and the image shimmers and pops away.
    Shadow chuckles, and lights to his feet with a sweep of snowy feathers. “It worked.”
    His breeze swirls Whisper’s simple white dress around her ankles. She stands back from the pool’s edge, wary, nervous hands folded in front of her. She smiles, and the radiance glints in her golden braid, wrapped thick and hanging over one shoulder. “Of course it worked, Seraph.”
    Inwardly, Shadow rolls his eyes. The way she worships him is appropriate, but irritating. “Don’t flatter.”
    Whisper’s face falls, and her oceanblue gaze slips away under modest golden lashes. “I only meant—”
    “It’s all right.” He smiles coldly. No need to let minions get comfortable. He slips his hand into hers, and they walk together across the leafy garden, their wingfeathers almost but not quite touching. Pale flowers grow in neat rows, the gardens tended to a minute perfection that pleases his eyes. Bees buzz and dart, orderly. The sun is warm and bright, its very sameness a comfort. A child treads past with neatly folded wings and nods respectfully, a book open in clean white hands.
    Whisper clears her throat nervously. “So what now?”
    Shadow plucks a mauve daisy and hands it to her with a smile. “I’ll talk to Kane. Put him off the scent. He’s too arrogant to figure out it’s the dissent in his own ranks that’s breaking his barriers.”
    She takes the flower, solemnly sniffing its perfume, and her shy gaze tilts upward. “You are . . . most courageous, Seraph.”
    He stops beneath a weeping willow, examining the small pale female hand in his. It feels cool, smooth. Neither pleasant nor unpleasant. How it should be. Coldly, he imagines kissing it, touching her, taking her in his arms and pressing his lips to her skin. Not a hair of arousal in his blood. Nothing. No reaction.
    Kane tried to tempt Shadow, last time they met on the field of battle. Lured him with pain and pleasure and secret desires, the way he tempts them all. It didn’t work. Shadow has no desires, except power and amusement.
    But not all Shadow’s children are as strong as Shadow.
    His grip tightens around Whisper’s fingers. “Courage is irrelevant. Kane is weak. I can