Leopard's Kiss (Shadow Guardians) (Shadows Guardians Book 1) by Stephanie Rowe Read Free Book Online Page B

his face near the crook of her neck. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "Flowers," he whispered, as a sudden image flashed through his mind, an image from so long ago that it felt rusted and faded as it struggled to surface. "You smell of the flowers that my mother used to grow in front of our cabin in the spring when I was a little kid. They were pale pink, dozens of petals, thorns—" He realized suddenly he'd revealed personal details about himself, and he froze.
    Anya said nothing, but he felt her fingers slip into the hair at the nape of his neck, a light, tender caress. He closed his eyes, shocked at the sensation. He stayed utterly still, tracking every move of her fingers over his skin, memorizing the sensation so he could recall it at will in the future.
    "You were once a child," she said softly, "just like everyone else in this world. Once, there was a time when you'd never killed anyone." Her voice was soft, drifting over his flesh like a warm breeze. "That's why you can see me," she said, "because that part of you isn't dead. The part that cares."
    He ground his jaw and pulled back, glaring at her. "I don't care."
    "It makes sense why you're so closed off." She nodded, ignoring his statement. "How else could you do your job? Of course you can't let yourself feel anything. But why do you kill people for money? What took the boy who noticed his mom's flowers and turned him into someone who defiles the most beautiful thing in the world and uses it to kill people?"
    He stared at her, searching her face. "You think I defile the kiss?" Defile? That was such a brutal word. To defile was to take the beauty out of something that deserved to blossom and thrive. It was a word of judgement and emotion and disdain, and he hated it.
    She was still tracing her fingers along the back of his neck, her fingers moving almost absently, as if she wasn't even doing it consciously. "Yes."
    "I don't defile the kiss." Outrage poured through him, a need to defend the truth of who he was. "I use the kiss to make death beautiful. People spend every minute of their lives afraid of death and suffering, wondering if they will waste away in a horrific ending to their lives, or die too early from some shitty accident. I turn that hell into peace. I give them the great joy, their most glorious fantasies into their reality. I make death beautiful. If you think that's defiling a kiss, then that's your problem, not mine."
    Her fingers stilled on the base of his neck. "You kill with a kiss. How is that not defiling it?" She searched his face as she asked, as if she truly wanted to understand.
    "I bring peace with a kiss." He was pissed, so pissed right now. He had such a well-ordered, precise world. It had to be that way. Every emotion, every observation, every thought carefully processed or denied.
    She raised her brows. "The fact you give people peace with your kiss doesn't atone for what comes one second later. It doesn't work like that."
    "No?" He tightened his grip on her neck. "You don't think so?" He was too furious to think clearly, too angry to hold back. He hated that this woman had the audacity to condemn him, to try to strip away the foundation of what held him together. "You think this doesn't make it all worth it?"
    She frowned at him, "This what? What are you talking about?"
    "This kiss." He trapped her head with his grip on her hair and then kissed her. Not his death kiss. His pre-death kiss, the one where he poured everything that was good and worthy into the kiss, everything that made life worth living.
    He kissed her like there was nothing else that mattered except his lips on hers, and the connection between them.

Chapter 5
    T he Black Swan's kiss was like pouring boiling hot lava into her body, turning Anya into a cauldron of lust and desire so intense that she wanted to crawl up his body and lose herself in him forever. His mouth was hot and demanding, his lips like wildfire, his tongue a penetrating assault of skill and