Fated: Karma Series, Book Three by Donna Augustine Read Free Book Online

cart down the meat aisle, swerving to avoid two men about to fist fight over a shank of beef. “Is it that you like to be involved in everything or do you just think that I’ll end up dead if you don’t get involved?” And as I said it, I realized that question was my biggest problem with his attentiveness lately. What if he had some sort of savior hang up and that was all this was? He felt good about saving the helpless girl who couldn’t save herself.
    “Why are the two exclusive?”
    “Be at my house at seven thirty.” Sometimes I wondered why I gave him a hard time. In all honesty, I wanted the help and I didn’t particularly care for having my entire existence wiped as if I’d never existed.
    It also wasn’t going to be a lot of fun trying to kill the people who should have died, but it needed to be done. I’d already chickened out on a previous attempt. I’d had the guy in my aim but I hadn’t been able to go through with it. Maybe if Fate were there with me, having a witness would literally force me to pull the trigger.
    Fate tossed a bag of salt and vinegar chips into my cart, highly unusual for his diet but not such a shock to see in my cart. Fate actually preferred healthier food. He had to, since it didn’t matter that much what we ate.
    “Comfort food? Afraid Mother didn’t like her gift?” I hope that didn’t sound as bitter as it had tasted crossing my lips.
    He smiled. “They’re not for me.”
    “For who then?” It didn’t matter. They’d be eaten, and most likely by me, but I liked to downplay my junk food tendencies around him, shamed into silence by his salads and tuna tartar. I wasn’t even human, the world was falling apart and a maniacal lunatic wanted to kill me, but I was still closet-eating bags of chips?
    He looked at me like I had a screw loose. “For you. You might need them after you shoot someone tonight. If you shoot someone, that is.”
    I pushed the cart forward, having no idea why him thinking I might need comfort food after my possible kill tonight made me soften toward him. And wasn’t there something integrally wrong to that entire train of thought?
    “I have killed someone before.” And not just one, but he knew that. He’d been there each time. “I had no problem then.”
    He didn’t know about me chickening out a couple nights ago. I’d bribed the Jinxes with more booze to keep their mouths shut after they’d stopped laughing long enough to hear me speak. I was going to have to buy them an entire distillery soon. Those three knew how to negotiate.
    An image of the wad of cash they’d had on them when they were buying their smokes came to mind. “They told you.”
    “What did you expect? I pay better. Plus, I’m me. It’s natural. The problem is that cold blood is a whole different game. You had strong motivations with all the others. You were protecting either yourself or someone else.”
    He was right. It was why I froze last time as well. I hadn’t been able to do it but I had to. The idea of those people walking around and becoming Malokin recruits drove me on, whether I wanted to turn down that road or not. There was no choice. Savior had become assassin.
    I turned down the shampoo aisle, already feeling the need to cleanse myself of the blood soon to come. This aisle also had the added benefit of being devoid of any comfort food he might feel the need to get me.
    I looked at the bottles, wanting to change everything in my life right now but only having the ability to change my soap. Fate was popping caps and bringing them to his nose making it obvious which ones he preferred.
    “You know, I can finish shopping on my own,” I told him. He was getting as distrustful of the crowds as I was but the people today seemed to be a relatively harmless bunch. It was still manageable at this point.
    “I’ve got nowhere to be.” His face froze as I grabbed shampoo and conditioner off the shelf and threw them in the cart. I decided peaches and apricot