Read Online My Soul to Keep by Sharie Kohler - Free Book Online Page B

hunted down the one responsible for the explosion. Almost killed him. Until he realized it wouldn’t fix anything. It wouldn’t bring Sorchaback. He’d needed an outlet for his grief, for his helpless rage. He had only ever wanted the best for Sorcha, to protect her from her father … from himself. He’d refused taking her to mate because he quite simply wasn’t good enough for her. There had been something so pure about her. So innocent despite being Ivo’s daughter. Clearly that innocence was gone.
    In the end, it hadn’t mattered. For all his care and caution, he’d lost her anyway.
    He greedily drank in the sight of her, searching for glimpses of the girl he remembered, the girl he mourned, but seeing little evidence of her in the jaded expression of the woman staring back at him. “You’ve changed.” Staring at the hard-eyed female, he recognized the fact that the sweet girl was gone. This wasn’t the Sorcha he’d known.
    â€œYeah, I’m not dumpy Sorcha anymore with the unfortunate acne who trailed after you like a lost little puppy.”
    His chest tightened. “I never saw you that way.”
    â€œDon’t worry. I have no intention of picking up where we left off with me stalking you.”
    â€œYou never stalked me,” he quickly inserted even as he admitted to himself that she had come close … well, shadowed would be a more apt description.
    She snorted. “I was pathetic.”
    â€œI always liked you, Sorcha.”
    Her eyes widened. “Now who’s lying?”
    He opened his mouth to argue, but from the cold bend of her lips he saw that she did not want him to—nor would she believe him.
    Her eyes flickered for a moment, shadows shifting through the brown depths, and for a second he thought he read something there. A hint of the vulnerability that she used to possess. The sight softened him, made him want to fold her in his arms in a comforting hug.
    Then, it was gone. Nothing but coldness frosted her gaze now. Where had the girl he remembered gone? It had been so easy to earn her smiles back then. To make her laugh. This Sorcha would just as soon use her sword on him as smile.
    He cocked his head, studying her.
    She mimicked the motion, watching him as he watched her beneath the choppy fringe of her bangs.
    â€œI don’t remember your hair quite so dark.”
Or your face so beautiful.
His blood pumped faster as he assessed her.
    â€œLike I said, a lot has changed.”
    He reached out to touch her face, stroke her cheek.
    She jerked back from him, knocking his hand away as if stung. “I’m not yours to touch.”
    In response, a low growl rumbled in his throat. The old Sorcha would never have slapped his hand from her. Would never talk to him as if she couldn’t stand him. The beast stirred in him, intrigued and hungry, excited by the challenge of her.
    Her pretty lips curled back, revealing a flash of white teeth. “You may have had that chance once, but that was a long time ago.”
    Her words burrowed deep, and he knew what she was talking about. He remembered their last night. The night the building blew up. When a fifteen-year-old Sorcha had looked at him with such hope, the hunger for him bright and desperate in her gaze—banked the moment he turned away from her.
    He dropped his hand to his side, curled his fingers into a fist. He couldn’t explain it, couldn’t make her see that he would have been wrong to take her then, would have been nothing more than an animal destroying something innocent and pure. She clearly didn’t understand. Only remembered the rejection. “Yeah. A long time ago.”
    â€œA lifetime,” she shot back.
    He nodded. She wasn’t innocent anymore. No pure girl’s body molded against him. While he mourned that, he also craved her now, as she was.
    It was as if looking at her reawakened a missingpiece of himself. A piece he had