Soul Deep: Dark Souls, Book 2 by Anne Hope Read Free Book Online Page A

run but only made it as far as the rippling fence of cottonwoods behind her. She stopped dead in her tracks, backed up. An army of Watchers poured from the trees to surround her and Ben. It looked like Cal hadn’t trusted him to retrieve the boy, so he’d sent out the cavalry.
    Regan scrambled around, looking for something she could use to her advantage. The trees began to shake as she willed them into motion. A shower of buds fell to blanket them, temporarily obstructing their vision. A few Watchers advanced on her, cutting through the swirling curtain of foliage, their weapons poised for attack. Regan tried to stop them by raising an invisible wall, but they quickly dismantled it and kept forging ahead.
    “I’ve got it covered,” Marcus called to the others, but they didn’t retreat. They had their orders, and they wouldn’t stop until they carried them out.
    The situation was quickly spiraling out of control and—short of outright mutiny—there wasn’t a darn thing he could do to stop it. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of. The fool woman was going to get herself killed.
    Regan put Ben down, pushing him protectively behind her as she retrieved her dagger. The silver blade caught the meager light, shot menacing white sparks. The boy began to weep, his sobs drowned out by the clash of metal striking metal.
    Regan put up a good fight. Engaged in a dance of attack and retreat, she was truly something to see. She vanished and reappeared at will, striking down her assailants without fatally injuring them, her goal only to incapacitate.
    Her opponents, however, weren’t as forgiving. Not even close.
    A flurry of punches and kicks ensued, with Regan generally flattening whomever she was up against. It looked like a regular day of training at the Watchers’ complex, with one difference. These blades weren’t anywhere near as benign as the ones they used in training. They were coated in angel’s blood, a substance that was lethal to their kind. If it as much as touched their skin, it burned straight to the bone.
    Marcus knew he should join the fight. Problem was, he wasn’t sure who he was rooting for. He couldn’t bring himself to fight against Regan, but fighting alongside her would imply openly declaring war on the Watchers.
    Regan did a great job deflecting the blows, until Thomas got lucky and sliced her across the ribs. Marcus couldn’t tell how deep the gash was, but blood instantly oozed from the wound to soak her white blouse, like a rose blooming in a field of snow. She fell to her knees, weakened by the angel’s blood quickly traveling through her system.
    “Regan?” Ben sobbed. “Regan get up!”
    With a grunt, she labored to her feet, swaying dangerously, her dagger trembling as she raised it. “Leave him alone,” she yelled. “Just leave him the hell alone.” Her voice broke, and something inside Marcus fisted in response. Her courage, her unflinching determination grabbed him by the throat and squeezed.
    The Watchers closed in on her. She was too weak to fight, so weak she could barely stand, and still she insisted on shielding the boy.
    “I’ll take it from here.” He stepped between her and those determined to bring her in.
    “Stay out of this, Marcus.” Thomas glared at him through narrow gray-blue eyes, two cold slits that made Marcus’s blood run cold. “We have our orders.”
    It didn’t take a mindreader to guess what those orders were. Their staunch expressions said it all.
    Sweat sprang from Regan’s brow. Succumbing to pain, she crumpled to her knees again. Her arms formed a protective loop around Ben, and she drew him close, an unspoken apology flooding her eyes. “Go ahead,” she told those crowding around her. “Stab me in the back. That’s the only way you’ll get to him.”
    Marcus had never seen Regan defeated before. The sight of her curled on the ground with Ben pressed to her chest completely unhinged him.
    He couldn’t let her die. To do so would be