His Witch To Keep (Keepers of the Veil) Read Online Free Page A

mind. The dread circulating in her blood pushed her to get in motion. She’d check it out, or at least him. Just to make sure. She could go in invisible, assess the situation, then pop out of there if he was fine. Regardless of her simmering level of pissed off over his past treatment of her, she couldn’t stand the thought of him seriously hurt or dead.
    She ran for her go bag. Tactical vest? Check. Knife, Glock, suppressor, extra loaded mags, phone? Check. She focused on the man she usually avoided thinking of during a shift. She envisioned Alexi and flashed back to the other dimension.
    The moment she arrived, she made herself invisible. She wobbled, but managed to stay upright while dizziness spun her brain. Her stomach tightened with a pre-puke clench. Not the time for self-indulgence. No vomiting.
    The air reeked of burned hair, blood, sweaty body odor, and musty sweltering heat—the distinctive odors of torture, familiar from years in MI6. Dread settled in her stomach. She counted slowly through the long seconds of shift blindness while listening to her surroundings. The subtle shifting of feet signaled more than two hostiles. Heavy. Likely male.
    “ Perkelti į kair ę . ” Move to your left, Alexi ordered in Lithuanian.
    She stumbled left.
    An unfamiliar male with a heavy Russian accent asked very close by, “Why the fuck should I move left?” Then a grunt, probably Alexi.
    She squinted into the dimly lit, relatively furniture-free room. Her retinas burned. The pain was unimportant. Given the exposed overhead piping, she assumed this to be a basement.
    Alexi gazed at her from where his arms had been wrenched tight above him by a chain tossed over piping. A zip tie bound his ankles. His bloodied button-down hung loosely from his shoulders, exposing numerous lacerations through the beautiful stylized tattooed letters across his chest. To his credit he stood straight, but blood and swelling highlighted his face. His dilated, slightly unfocused gaze suggested he’d been drugged.
    How could someone get to him?
    A man dressed in a suit moved in front of her. The guy adjusted the wire frames across his nose. He untied his red tie and deposited it onto a side table that housed various metal torture devices. Old-school. With a twirl he picked up a scalpel handle missing its blade. “For once, I’m a step ahead of the legendary Shadow. Tell me how to contact her.” He strolled toward Alexi.
    The Russian snapped the blade onto the scalpel handle. “Why would this single devuska who is an agent of the enemy make you so careless?” He laughed low and menacing. “You must be fucking her.”
    Were they talking about her? Or was there some other agent Alexi was fucking? Her gaze snapped to Alexi. Jealousy seized her mind and took her to a vicious place.
    The Russian closed in on Alexi.
    Serenity targeted the Russian with her Glock.
    Subtly, Alexi shook his head. She scowled refusal. What if the Russian tired of this game and swiped somewhere lethal with that blade?
    The Russian teased the blade over the stylized letters on Alexi’s chest. “If you don’t tell me how to find her, I’ll carve you into little pieces.”
    Alexi double blinked as if processing everything slowly. He slurred, “If I do tell you about her, you will do it anyway.” He smiled coldly. “You really aren’t good at this. Let me show you how it’s done. I’m going to kill your men at the door, Lebedev, then I will put a bullet into every painful zone in your body until you give me the name of the other agent you contracted and the name of who ordered the hit.”
    “With what?” Lebedev twirled around with his arms wide to his sides. He bellowed out a laugh. “You are fucking that Serenity bitch, aren’t you?” He lunged forward and swiped the blade through Alexi’s cheek.
    A hiss escaped Alexi.
    No one messed with her family.
    He wasn’t family.
    He might as well be. She’d known him almost half her life. And, oh, God, what this