Alabaster Nights (The Josie Hawk Chronicles) Read Free Page B

wait to get his hands on her. All in due time. She played the role of the tough guy fairly well, but he noted both interest and wariness in her eyes.
    Sage laughed, the sound a bit nervous. “Yes, this is Keller. I’ve told you all about him. Remember?”
    Josie gave an easy nod that contradicted her icy tone. “Sagey Sage, I think you forgot one very important detail.”
    Keller watched as Josie’s right hand slid beneath her waistband, no doubt going for a weapon. He had to give her credit. Most weren’t brave enough to pull a knife on a vampire. Especially in a bar full of witnesses.
    “What detail?” Sage and Keller asked simultaneously. He quirked a grin at Sage.
    This would be rich. While Josie was focusing on one detail, Keller was memorizing every facet of her body, from her fiery hair to her tapered waist to her muscled thighs. Her body was the definition of curves. Her words, on the other hand, were as sharp as the knives she carried.
    Josie scanned the growing crowd, and then leaned in and said in a quick whisper, “Your brother is a blood-stealing monster.”
    Sage paled as if she’d been stricken, then a sudden splash of red rushed her cheeks. “Not cool, Josie.”
    Would Sage ever learn to mask her emotions? Vampires shouldn’t be able to blush in anger or embarrassment. But Sage did both and more. A short-circuit of sorts during her turning, perhaps. Why not? Keller had long suspected something had gone wrong during his own. Why else would he have power that took others decades and sometimes centuries to hone? And yet, their defective sire continued to build an army disguised as family. Keller hadn’t figure out his sire’s purpose—the end game —but he would. Once that happened, Keller would destroy his sire’s power over those he’d created. The summoning would finally end.
    Keller placed a hand on Sage’s arm. “It’s all right. No need to defend my honor. Ms. Hawk is entitled to her opinion.” Though he had to wonder, if Josie was that against vampires and their need for blood, how was it that she and Sage were friends? It bothered him that he couldn’t tell exactly what Josie was. Some beings could shield their true identities from others. That possibility made her all the more intriguing.
    “How kind of you,” Josie said, batting her eyelashes. Then she stopped, and her face turned hard and cold like a statue of the goddess Artemis. “My opinion is based on fact. You’re lucky I didn’t kill you last night.”
    “Everything okay over here?” the bartender interrupted.
    Keller nodded. The bartender’s veins no longer appealed to him in the least. He did, however, picture all the places he’d like to bite Josephine Hawk. If she knew what he was thinking, he’d probably already have a blade embedded in his heart.
    “Fine,” Sage said in answer to the bartender’s question before nailing Josie with wide eyes. “I think we need to take this conversation somewhere else.”
    Keller agreed. While he cared not for what others thought of him, Sage was a sensitive sort and worried about appearances.
    The music swelled from the stage and the crowd sang.
    Keller filtered through all of it until he heard nothing but the sounds of Josie’s heartbeat and her quiet breaths. For a moment, a feeling reminiscent to serenity settled over him. Closing his eyes, he rolled his shoulders as his muscles released their knots. An elbow jab to his side had him pulling himself back to the conversation and inching closer to Josie and away from the overcrowded bar.
    She immediately stepped away. Keller smiled.
    “Your place is closest,” Sage said to Josie. “Can we go there?”
    Josie shook her head. “I’m not inviting him into my home.”
    Keller held his laugh. He’d be in her home sooner or later and her breathing wouldn’t be quite so subdued then.
    Sage crossed her arms, then uncrossed them and let them fall to her thighs with a slap. “I’ll remind you again that he is my brother.