Ashes (Book 2 The Kindred Series) Read Free Page A

eyes
narrowed fiercely on Chris. “You don’t know what I am and am not!
But you keep pushing me and you will find out!” he spat.
    Chris’s eyes widened slightly, and for
the first time a bolt of fear flashed through them. “Easy, this is
not the place for this. I am sure that Devon will give us some
answers later, but Cassie will also want those answers. Now, let’s
just calm down. Fighting is not solving anything, and it’s not
helping Cassie any. He did save her life,” Luther
reasoned.
    Chris stared coldly at Devon, but
wisely kept his mouth shut for a change. “Have you called her
grandmother?” Devon demanded briskly.
    Luther shook his head, pushing his
glasses up his nose as he glanced worriedly at Cassie. “No, we had
to get Marcy to the hospital first, and in all honesty, we thought
she was dead. That’s something that is better to tell a loved one
in person.” All of their gazes were inquisitive, and doubtful, as
they studied Devon like an odd bug that they didn’t
understand.
    Devon nodded, his hand tightened
briefly upon Cassie’s. He didn’t take offense to the fact that they
had her thought her dead; it was the nature of most of his kind to
kill after all. And at one time he had not been the exception to
that rule. If it hadn’t been for Annabelle, he would still be a
monster, destroying and killing whenever the mood struck
him.
    “How is Marcy?” he asked
softly.
    “She’ll be ok,” Melissa whispered,
wiping the remaining tears from her cheeks. “She’s lost a lot of
blood but she’ll survive.”
    “Yeah, now we have to worry about how
we’re going to explain all of this to her,” Chris
muttered.
    “I’ll take care of that.”
    Their gazes flew back to him, their
eyes narrowed questioningly. “How do you plan on doing that?” Chris
demanded.
    Devon shook his head, not willing to
divulge any of his secrets before they agreed to divulge some of
theirs. And he knew that they would have secrets too. Hunter’s
possessed some of the same abilities that vampire’s did; he just
wasn’t sure which ones they had, and he couldn’t leave himself
vulnerable to them.
    “I have my ways,” Devon
murmured.
    Chris’s eyes narrowed sharply, his lip
twisted into a sneer, but he did not push further. “I saw you
coming, but I didn’t see you,” Melissa whispered, looking dazed and
lost.
    Devon started in surprise, his eyes
widening as he turned back toward her. She was studying him with a
deep, penetrating stare that unnerved him slightly. “Excuse me?” he
asked in confusion.
    She blinked in shock, shaking her head.
Her raven hair fell forward, shielding her pretty features as she
turned quickly back to Cassie. Luther moved to Melissa’s side,
resting his hand lightly on her shoulder as he lifted the phone and
punched in some numbers. Chris moved slowly to Cassie’s other side,
his gaze still weary on Devon as he rested his hand lightly on
Cassie’s arm.
    Devon bristled slightly, his eyes
narrowed as he fought the urge to leap over the bed at Chris,
knocking his hand away from her. Instead, somehow, he managed to
keep control of himself. Devon had suspected for awhile that his
feelings for Cassie were more than just normal, had feared that
they were more intense and binding than that. He was now beginning
to truly realize that he had been right. However, if he didn’t
regain firm restraint of himself, someone was going to get hurt and
that was something that he couldn’t allow to happen.
    Especially not now, not when Cassie’s
life still hung in the balance and her friends were surrounding
him. Friends that were also trained to hate him, fight him, and try
to kill him. Friends that wanted nothing more than to see him
dead.
    He glanced back at Cassie’s prone
figure. If she survived this, would she hate him too? Would she
also want him dead? A shiver racked through him at the thought. He
couldn’t stand it if she hated, or condemned him. He would not
survive it if she turned him