Wicked Souls by Misty Evans Read Free Book Online Page B

large, male and very warm. He smelled
like burning wood.
    Alarm ran through me. My stomach clenched. Satan’s balls, I was sleeping with the Devil again.
    What had Lucifer done? He’d said he’d handle
everything. Looked like he’d handled it all right.
    I jerked away from the male body next to
mine, disturbing Abel who was sleeping at my feet, but in the next
instant I realized there was no energy crackling along my nerve
endings. No fire magic calling to my air magic. The burning wood
smell was faint, as if he’d tried to wash it away but it still
lingered in his hair and on his skin.
    Adam.
    My stomach unclenched and I let go of a deep
sigh. I wasn’t sleeping with the Devil after all, although the
orgasmic experience I’d had in the hall earlier with Luc might
still qualify.
    I shoved that thought away. Better to deal
with that in the light of day. I scooted back over to Adam and
closed my eyes. Better to deal with everything in the light of
day.
    While my body was ready for more sleep, my
brain refused to let it. It ran circles around the day’s events,
skidding and tumbling over everything, posing questions I couldn’t
answer and loading me down with guilt. Every once in a while, when
I thought about my ridiculous reactions to Luc and negligent
reactions to Adam, that irritating pressure would increase in my
head and slap my brain, and I’d find myself distracted by thoughts
of new ice cream concoctions and purple stilettos.
    A tingling inside my chest brought my mind
back to center stage. I hadn’t used any magic to cast a spell or
create a potion. I had, however, been a party in a magical
experience. Did that mean I had blown my six month magic-free
goal?
    Did it matter if Gabriel was going to kill
me?
    Answers eluded me. My logic was blocked. In
the middle of stewing, I noticed behind my closed eyelids, the room
was growing lighter. Not just a little, like from the sun rising
outside, but glowing bright enough the sun could be rising in my bedroom.
    Cain and Abel both hissed and jumped off the
bed. Oh, fudge. That kind of light was only generated by one
thing.
    My pulse shuddered and jumped. I peered
under one eyelid, hoping against hope I was wrong.
    I wasn’t.
    Gabriel stood at the end of my bed, glaring
at me from under heavy blond eyebrows. Even though he was lighting
up the room, his jaw line was shadowed with several days’ growth of
beard, his blond curls hung limp, and his wings looked dirty and
tattered.
    “What happened to you?” I sat up, drawing
the sheet with me.
    “You,” he snarled.
    Great, we were back to that. I’d hoped he’d
figured out I had nothing to do with the spell on him. Obviously,
he hadn’t, which meant we were about to go a couple of rounds
again.
    I glanced over at Adam, who continued to
sleep deeply, his naked chest rising and falling rhythmically and
causing my mind to lose track again. With Gabriel’s glow
surrounding him, Adam looked much like an angel himself, and my
heart skipped a beat with love. Again I asked myself how I could
possibly have thought of Luc right before I was about to die, when
Adam held my heart.
    The steel door I’d been fighting all
afternoon tried to slam shut on that thought. This time I fought
it, mentally wedging my foot between the door and the door
frame.
    Protect Adam .
    Coming up on my knees, I released the sheet
and threw out an arm, blocking Adam from Gabriel. “I told you, I
had nothing to do with any spell. I’ve been magic-free for almost
six months and I intend to stay that way. You can check with
Witches Anonymous or even Father Leonard. They’ll all tell you the
same thing.”
    Gabriel cocked his head to the side, his
wings fluttering, and all of a sudden, my head hurt as if he were
pinching it in a vice grip. “You’re not free of magic.” He sniffed
the air. “I can smell it on you. I can see the traces of it on your
skin. You and my brother have exchanged enchantments, shared dark
delights. Recently, I might