Prince of Shadows Read Online Free Page B

kidnapping, had decided the Paladin leader actually had a damn good idea and forbade his headstrong daughter from ever leaving the base again without permission. Which, if Gabby had to guess, would be when Annie was fifty maybe?
    â€œHave fun tonight?” Annie asked from where she sat with arms folded on the bed.
    â€œNo, actually. Your uncle is a royal pain in the neck.”
    â€œAh…” She leaned forward, cocking her head as she looked Gabby over. “He give you that nice hickey then?” She pointed to Gabby’s bloody neck.
    â€œHa-ha.”
    Annie smiled, leaning back against the wall. “He get in the way?”
    Gabby grunted a noncommittal answer as she unbuckled her belt and dropped it, the knife and her axe on the floor to be cleaned later. Despite the fact that Aaron had put a nix on her feeding plans, he’d also probably saved her ass. Six vamps to one might’ve been slightly heavy odds even for her, especially in her current depleted state.
    â€œHuh. If I’d been there I bet we could have kicked some major ass.”
    â€œMaybe.” Gabby glanced over her shoulder at Annie, wincing a little at the pull on her wound. “But we also ran into two Paladin. And they probably would have kicked ours, staked me, then dragged you back by your hair to their cave.”
    Annie curled her lip back in disgust. “Doubt that. We could have run if need be, and then they wouldn’t have been able to find us.”
    â€œYou think so?” Gabby unzipped the hoodie, frowned as she pulled one of the disinfecting swabs from her pants, tore it open, and dabbed at the wound. And hell’s fire that hurt. Grimacing, she went on. “Then how is it that I can find you? How is it that I can always track you down, no matter where you are?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Annie replied a bit uncertainly. “Do I have some sort of scent that you can smell because of…well…”
    â€œMy senses are good, but not that good. Smelling you only works if you’re nearby and there aren’t a lot of other masking scents.” She tossed down the bloody swab—three of those weren’t enough anyway—and turned to Annie. “But I know you’re there from almost a full mile away.”
    â€œFine.” Annie folded her arms, taking on a distinctive pout. “I don’t know then. You going to tell me how?”
    Gabby tapped her head. “You’re not on my radar. And neither is anyone around you. All I have to do is look for the black hole and I know where you are. Do you think I’m the only one who might notice that?”
    Annie frowned, her brow drawing into a vee above her nose. Gabby watched as the new worry and concern warred with her frustration of being contained, her mouth finally thinning into a stubborn line. “Fine. I just won’t pull at all.”
    Gabby gnawed the inside of her lip. Not “pulling,” as Annie called it, was much easier said than done. A null, which is what Annie was, tended to naturally eliminate the magic energy around them no matter where they were or what they were doing. Even now, when she was obviously making a concentrated effort to choke it back, she couldn’t fully tamp the instinct. To completely stop took extreme willpower. And besides, to not use her gift meant that any baddy who happened to clue into her little oddity would be at their full power, leaving Annie to fight with wits and weapons alone unless she pulled, which again might draw more enemies. Definitely a catch-22. “That would probably be better, but maybe you should talk to Jacob. He might have another solution.”
    Annie huffed, flopping across the cot. “Yeah, wrap me up in foam and assign people to stand behind me with catcher’s mitts just in case I fall.”
    Despite herself, Gabby found her lips trying to creep up. Jacob was essentially doing that with his daughter. “Your dad cares