Soul Stealer Read Online Free Page B

still made money training fighters and teaching women’s self-defense. She’d met him through some of the guys on the force, all saying he was a good guy. He’d just made a stupid mistake when he was still young and aggressive.
    She held up her water bottle and he touched his to hers briefly. “To bitches,” she toasted.
    “To hot-ass bitches with tongue rings and ink, man.”
    Claudia laughed, nodding. “I’ll give you that.”
    They had a moment of comfortable quiet. Then he cleared his throat. “Is that all that’s wrong?”
    She sighed. “Basically. She left me a letter in my mailbox. It’s better than a text message I guess.”
    “Ouch, that’s tough, Chica .”
    “I’m getting too old to be dating. Maybe it’s just time to get a dozen cats and start collecting souvenir spoons. Or something. Shit. I don’t know.”
    The gym doors swing open and the next student walked in, a tall, darkly-tanned guy with short-cropped hair and a hawk-like nose. Those were the first two things she noticed. Then she noticed he must have been almost six and a half feet tall, and his strong neck was plugged in to wide shoulders that bunched under his tank top. His delts were insanely developed, veins stood out along his cannon-ball like biceps. His eyes were a dark brown, likely. It was hard to tell if he was of Middle-Eastern descent or Latino. Either way, he was incredibly handsome and built dangerous, although nothing about him seemed threatening. His dark eyes were downright warm.
    Claudia looked down at her hands, realizing her pulse had quickened at the sight of him. His lips were well-formed and heavy. Sensual. A lot like a guy she used to know. And that same man also had the identical proud posture of a thick chest and wide wing span.
    She got to her feet quickly and Jimenez was looking at her with worry.
    “Don’t want to make you late for your next student.”
    He stood too, that face too knowing and too concerned. She didn’t want his pity. She forced a brilliant smile at him. “I’m working in a couple hours anyway. Don’t worry about it.”
    Jimenez squeezed her arm, nodding. “It’s a good thing to want to talk. I’m here.”
    “I know. And thanks.”
    She gathered up her bag and stepped out of the ring as the next student crossed the training centre. He ducked his head politely in greeting, and she responded with a rapid, “Hi,” before rushing through the doors to the women’s showers as through she was in a terrible hurry.
    On the other side of the doors she stopped, a cold calm making its way up her legs from her feet, washing up her torso and calming her heart, hopefully getting rid of any color in her cheeks.
    That wasn’t Damien, she told herself over and over. Just some guy you don’t know.
    No, Damien Talon was dead. She had thought him to be a murderer and it turned out he wasn’t. He wasn’t a sadistic rapist killer. He hadn’t come from anywhere, a ghost really.
    Almost six months ago she’d let him into her bed. He’d been kind and generous as a lover, and from the dreams she’d been having lately, she’d become more and more certain he’d killed himself to save her and her darling neighbor Iola from some kind of nasty that she couldn’t remember.
    Claudia remembered Iola’s coworker, Jasper MacKay, trying to rape and kill her though. That was clear. He’d been arrested and was now languishing in a mental institution. She’d filed charges but there was no trial. Jasper MacKay said that a ward of the devil had told him to do those terrible things. Everyone had agreed he was crazy, so did Claudia. She’d looked him right in the eye and knew that he was undoubtedly insane.
    Then there was Charles Goodwin. She knew very damn well he was crazy. Claudia had seen his handiwork up close a couple times. And he’d tried a few times to kill her, too. The one murder she thought was Damien’s work was linked through DNA to Charles Goodwin. So Damien wasn’t a killer. Wasn’t