Read When Passion Lies: A Shadow Keepers Novel for Free Online

right in front of his informant, a gun in her hand, a wound on her arm. And Reinholt had a hole in his head.
    Now she was smiling at him, trying to act as if nothing was unusual. The hell with that.
    “Goddamm it, Caris. What have you done?”
    “What I had to.”
    “No,” he snapped, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “You will not evade my questions. I want answers, and I want them now.” Behind him, Luke burst through the trees.
    Caris smirked. “Hold that thought,” she said as she ripped her jacket off then held it to her chest so that it partially covered her arm. At first, Tiberius wasn’t sure why she’d done that. Then he realized she was hiding her injury, and the portion of her jacket that had been burned away from the acid that had flowed from the wound.
    He tensed. He’d known for years what she was, but seeing the truth of it again so unexpectedly rattled him. He schooled his features into a mask of calm, but Caris knew him well. She would have seen his reaction. All he could hope for was that Luke did not.
    As if acknowledging his thoughts, Caris smiled broadly. “Lucius. Welcome to the party.” She shot a quick glance at Tiberius. “Well. This little reunion has been fun, but I think I’ll be on my way now.”
    She moved to step aside, but Tiberius sped forward and took her arm. She froze, then met his eyes. With a single, deliberate movement, she jerked her arm from his grip, and there was something so cold in that gesture, so final, that he felt the ice inside him crack.
    “Caris, the gunshots. The human police will arrive soon, as will the PEC. We need to go.”
    “Exactly what I intended to do,” she said. “You’re the one who stopped me.”
    “I had my reasons.”
    She glared at him with a defiant expression he knew only too well. “I’m waiting.”
    “Cyrus Reinholt was my informant,” he said. “You’ve caused me more than a little inconvenience.”
    “So sorry to put you out.”
    Despite everything, he couldn’t help but smile. She’d always been good with a comeback, and it was comforting to know some things hadn’t changed.
    A sharp snap rang out from beyond the line of trees, as if someone had stepped on a twig. Tiberius glanced at Luke, who nodded quickly, then slipped away to check it out. Tiberius turned back to Caris. “As I was saying, you killed my informant. Are you working for Lihter?” He didn’t believe it, but he had to ask.
    Her laugh seemed genuine. “Not hardly.”
    “Why, then? I want to know why Reinholt’s dead.”
    Her eyes were cold, emerald ice. “There are a lot of things I want, Tiberius. Right now, the most pressing one is to go home.”
    “We’ll go to London.”
    “
London
and
home
don’t go together anymore. Or had you forgotten?”
    He hadn’t, of course. He remembered that every single day. “I’ll have my answers, Caris. One way or the other.”
    Her brow lifted.
    “We have limited time until someone discovers us,” he added. “We should leave now.”
    “What will you do, Tiberius? Throw me over your shoulder? I’m stronger now. I’ve been training, working in the field.” She smiled sweetly, then glanced pointedly up at the moon, less than a week from being full. “In fact, I think it’s fair to say that right now, I’m strong enough that I could probably even take you.”
    He didn’t flinch, even though he knew she was probably right. He might have the strength of two thousand years to draw upon, but she now had the strength of two species, and that was powerful indeed.
    “Or are you threatening to hurt me some other way? Maybe you intend to share my secrets?”
    He met her eyes, gave her the tiniest shake of his head, well aware that with his vampiric senses, Luke could still hear them even though he was no longer standing nearby. And even Luke, his oldest friend in the world, didn’t know the truth about what she was.
    “But you couldn’t mean that, could you? After all, you made a promise to