Soul Weaver by Hailey Edwards Read Free Book Online Page A

Already the bond sought his new mark. She lived alone in an apartment over her bookstore, and she was sleeping soundly in the next room.
    The deeper he probed their connection, the faster his heart raced. Tension coiled in his chest. The heady thrum in his blood drew him from her cheerful sea-blue bathroom into the living room.
    Something about that brush of minds made his palms sweat, his throat tighten.
    The mark lay on her side, her face pressed into the back of a long couch. The setting sun’s rays poured through a small window behind her television and glinted off her chestnut hair.
    He paused, wondering why he even noticed. Marks were nameless, faceless to him. Their crimes rendered them inhuman in his eyes, so he stopped looking, ceased caring. Yet he couldn’t pry his gaze from her. He was mesmerized by the play of sunlight on her hair, the gentle rise and fall of her back as she slept. Peace enveloped him as he watched, utterly captivated by the mortal’s slumber.
    Chloe. Her name was Chloe. He wished their bond hadn’t supplied a name for her.
    At the edge of the couch, he knelt and pulled his pendant over his head. Tucking it safely away, he braced for what lay beneath her apparent innocence as their connection sparked to life.
    “What are you waiting for?”
    Nathaniel blinked at the unexpected question. Marked souls exhibited various levels of awareness. It wasn’t impossible for hers to recognize what his arrival meant.
    She reached through their bond and spoke again. “Get it over with.”
    His fingers rested above her spine, and he imagined the fabric gave beneath his hand. He shook his head. Forget Saul—he must have had too much to drink. Marks didn’t talk back, and the spiritual couldn’t touch the physical. Hadn’t he just proved as much with his earlier collection?
    Ignore her, do the job, then go home. Maybe when this was over, he’d ask Bran about taking some time off. Get his head on straight. The past several months had scoured his already-frayed nerves. The more he thought of it, the better he liked the idea. He doubted Delphi would care.
    Forcing his mind back to the task at hand, Nathaniel returned his attention to his sleeping mark. He sank his hand deep… with resistance.
    She tensed and sucked in a hard breath. “Just do it so I can wake up.”
    Her bizarre thoughts confused him, so he blocked her out and began his search. Her breathing turned shallow and her heart accelerated.
    Nathaniel’s fingers contacted the tendril of awareness nestled behind her heart. It felt strange. Slick but not in the way he’d come to expect. Almost like… silk.
    He snatched his hand back. “It can’t be.” Jumping to his feet, he leaned over her, staring. Flushed pink from sleep instead of pale from the cold, he recognized her face.
    With a much lighter touch, he located the root of her soul. It strained to escape him, the same as before. He slid his hand down its length and found a coarse patch marring its silken texture.
    “It hurts.” She stirred on the couch.
    He withdrew his hand and swiped it down his face. Heaven help him, it was the same woman who had consumed his thoughts since he left her by the roadside months ago. What he had meant as a gift had damned her. His spirit was stained with his guilt and his sins. Where their souls meshed, his had tainted hers over time.
    She would be barred from Aeristitia now. Only Dis accepted souls like his, like theirs , which meant she was Hell bound.
    “Thank you,” her mind murmured to his. “I was getting tired of dying.”
    His chest constricted. He chanced communication with her, uncertain why or how it would work. “What do you mean?”
    Her thoughts grew irritated. If he pushed much harder, she would wake. “I want to sleep.” She snuggled under her blanket and deeper into the couch cushions.
    “I’ll let you rest if you answer a question for me.”
    The mental equivalent of a sigh brushed through his mind. “All right.”
    “Why