All Things Wicked by Karina Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

located his leg by touch and slid both hands down his calf. His muscle jumped under her palms, tightened, but he said nothing as she hiked up the frayed hem of his jeans and found the knife tucked into his boot.
    She withdrew it, clenched it tightly in one hand, and blindly groped for his arm again. Her fingers clanged against the metal chair, and she yelped.
    “Careful,” he murmured. “It’s dark.”
    No shit danced on the end of her tongue, but simmered to bruised pride instead. She almost stuck her stinging fingers into her mouth, smelled the nose-curling fragrance of drying blood and whatever filth infested the rough ground, and thought better of it.
    “Don’t move,” she snapped instead, opening the folded blade by feel. “I’d hate to accidentally cut off a finger.”
    He chuckled, but there was no heat to it. Only something dark, something grimly reserved and hurting.
    Juliet found the edge of the rope and very carefully placed the blade underneath it. The bindings unraveled with ease.
    The metal chair creaked. Air wafted across her face, and the solid heat of him was suddenly gone. She fumbled the blade closed and shoved it into a pocket, shutting her eyes before they widened any farther and strained out of her sockets.
    Sweat clung to her back. Her chest. Nerves. “Now what?”
    “Over here.” The voice came from her right, not where she’d imagined him standing. “Follow my voice. I’m not that far.”
    She thrust out her hands and took three steps before something grazed her arm. Fingers curled around her wrist, pulled her flush against a wall, and she gasped as a broad hand flattened over her chest.
    She stared down at it, seeing nothing, feeling, oh, God, everything. The warmth of his palm. His body heat pressed against her shoulder, so contrary to the cool, dank slab of concrete at her back. He smelled like sweat and blood and something indefinably him, and even as she thought it, she realized that the hand plastered against her sternum was shaking.
    How badly was he hurt?
    “Caleb—”
    “Be quiet,” he whispered. Wood grated. A seam of light speared through the absolute dark, and Juliet flinched. “Follow me.”
    He slipped through the open door and Juliet wordlessly obeyed, stumbling over the uneven stairs. His hand shot back again, gripped her upper arm as her eyes struggled to adjust.
    “Okay?”
    “Fine,” she muttered, shaking his grip off with—she could admit it, if only to herself—childish pride. His smile flashed in her spotty vision as he turned away. He crept up the stairs with more grace than she would have given his battered body credit for, ducked low and peered around the open corner.
    Nothing moved. She didn’t so much as breathe.
    Where were they? The walls flickered, painted in orange light and dull brown shadows. That meant fire, real fire. The underground was the only safe place to light anything short of a cigarette, and they made special tools for those.
    New Seattle cops wrecked anyone caught lighting fires, even for warmth. Down in the bowels of the city, the police didn’t care all that much if a family froze to death in the winter. But God forbid the wealthy upper city burned.
    Her fists clenched, and she tucked them hard against the wall as Caleb watched whatever claimed his attention around the corner.
    He was a pale blur in her watering vision, and she still couldn’t ignore how badly her guts twisted up at the sight of him.
    How long had she nursed a crush?
    At least two years. Since the day he’d shown up at Curio’s side, a serious-faced witch with cool blue eyes. Juliet had been twenty-three and high on the coven master’s promises of family. Of commitment and safety and home.
    Caleb had been quiet and cold, even then.
    Two long, bloody years later, and nothing had changed. Except, she reflected, throat aching around a sudden stricken knot, all the family she’d ever known was gone. Dead, disappeared, or worse. And it was all Caleb Leigh’s