Silent Warrior Read Online Free Page A

head tipped to the side. She’d strapped the shield across her back. Her body was haloed as if by the bloody rays of a metallic sun. The men she’d fought were nowhere to be seen.
    “ Now you show up. Take down a couple humans, did you? That’s all? While I was out here on my own, making a full-grown Pendray pee his panties and run away.”
    She stepped out of the doorway. Without her silhouette, dingy light from the back of the bar spilled into the alley. She was ridiculously graceful. And calm. And self-possessed. Basically, despite the fact they’d been born to the same clan, they were entirely opposite. Manic to quiet. Blue eyes to black.
    Man to woman.
    Well, that had nothing to do with their shared clan.
    “Time for that steak,” he said. “Or pig. Or whatever dead animal we can scrounge. You up for it? Wanna troll these bright and nasty streets for something tasty?” He lifted his brows. “Or maybe you want to find a hotel and do something tasty?”
    She met him with as much arrogance and confidence as she had when facing Konnor. Her ankle must have been killing her, and would for at least another couple hours as supercharged cells and ancient magic took hold. Hark wasn’t hurting anymore. Damn, it was good to be a freak on the edge of extinction.
    She smelled as bad as he did, which wasn’t particularly sexy. Sawdust and blood and metal. Yet she kept her black eyes on him as if she could solve any puzzle simply by staring it to death. Maybe she could. He’d seen stranger things, but he didn’t feel like being her experiment. Neither did he want her to leave. Leading with his dick wasn’t usually his MO. Their fight, however, had started the launch sequence. As soon as he’d mentioned fucking her, he hadn’t been able to get his mind off thoughts of making her gasp, moan, cry out.
    The triumph of it.
    At last she dropped her gaze. It felt like . . . relief. She’d elevated that spooky intimidation thing to the realm of pure genius. Instead she studied the nighnor . It was stupidly heavy. He liked the surprise of using it against opponents who assumed a wiry fuck like him couldn’t hold it, let alone wield it with any skill. Those opponents were now cripples.
    She ran her hand over the weapon’s seductively glossy surface. A wistful look softened her angular features until she appeared less like an angered goddess and more like a woman, lovely and approachable. But if she was so approachable, why was he riveted to the spot, waiting for her to make the next move?
    He rolled the unique weapon in his hands, petting it as she did. The iron surface was worn smooth by countless palms over unknowable years. A family relic—in that it must’ve belonged to some family, at some time.
    Not his, naturally. His brother was long dead, and Hark’s only inheritance had been a bag of random junk and one fuck-you-up nighnor . Dragon damn, he hated being Sath. The other clans called them Thieves, but they might as well have dubbed them “Hoarders.” Trinkets, bobbles, artifacts—things he’d stolen and things he’d acquired legitimately, only to have a deal go through. He liked to reassure himself that his debts wouldn’t be debts anymore if he could bear to part with the junk. The truth was he owed more than he could pay without sacrificing life and limb. He hadn’t been fighting in that lowlife bar as a masochistic hobby.
    The woman’s fingertips brushed his. This was way better than trying to buzz each other’s limbs off while writhing among lowly deceased rodents. Most things were. But this was especially . . .
    Huh. The word was slow to come to mind.
    Pleasant?
    His thoughts had turned so damn syrupy that he expected a sweet taste when he swallowed.
    “You could at least tell me your name. In my head I’m just calling you her , she , that chick , and some shit you probably don’t want to hear. Or more like, I don’t want to say them because, at last, we’ve achieved peace and harmony. It’s