Closer: A Novella Read Free Page B

cheek and pooled on the floorboard beneath her head. When his eyes slid over to the tire iron lying at her feet, Kane suddenly wanted to kill the sonofabitch all over again.
    A rivulet of blood snaked across her nose and Kane reached down with his bare hand to feel for a pulse.
    For just a split second, a brilliant light blinded him. When he opened his eyes, he unexpectedly found himself standing in a spacious, unfamiliar room. Sunlight poured through the windows like water from a pitcher, but not the morning sun; it was a beautiful shade of afternoon gold. A snowy white floor gleamed below his feet and the dim walls hovered like a thick blanket of fog.
    It was so startling that it took several seconds before he noticed the transparent image of a woman before him, one whose slender neck his outstretched arm was touching.
    “Who are you ?” she asked in a voice edged with fear.
    Kane snapped his eyes open and hit the back of his head on the trunk lid as he stood up.
    “What the hell was that?”
    He clutched his chest, staring down at her fragile body. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. Ignoring his throbbing head, Kane leaned against the garage door and cursed.
    She was alive .
    It wasn’t the faint tick of a heartbeat against his fingertips telling him that, but the flicker of life that reached out to him through their link. That touch was dull in flavor, but it left a taste on his palate that incited his curiosity. There was an absence of background noise—no emotional turmoil of past deeds, anxiety, or other feelings that consumed people.
    Kane could touch without feeling.
    There was also something else. She wasn’t human; she was Breed . The emotional energy between a supernatural and a human was different, like comparing decadent chocolate to a peanut.
    God, what did that bastard do to her? The hem of her dress had a piece torn off and she wasn’t wearing any shoes. Long brown hair covered her shoulders and spread across her bloodstained dress. Strands of it stuck to her face and the roots were a rich shade of mahogany at the site of her injury.
    Still alive.
    Kane paced in the confined space of the garage, heart racing in his chest. He retrieved his black glove from inside the car and slowly stretched his fingers into it, giving himself a minute to think. What was he going to do with her?
    Had she been a human, he could have dropped her off in the emergency room, but Breed didn’t allow one of their own to be kept by human prisons or hospitals. Too risky.
    Maybe a Relic could help. Knowledge of value was passed down genetically through their ancestors, which gave them unique information about different Breeds. That was their gift, and most became consultants or healers of some kind. Kane didn’t know any Relics, let alone someone who wouldn’t turn him into the authorities in a heartbeat for his crime.
    He tugged at his left earlobe and leaned against the dirty car. The thought of leaving her entered his mind and quickly evaporated. Kane wasn’t that kind of guy. Taking her to his house was out of the question because parking a stolen car outside while he carried an unconscious body upstairs would only guarantee him a stupidity badge. And then what would he do with her?
    “ Shit, shit, shit ,” he muttered, kicking his heel against the tire.
    Kane walked around the car and raised the trunk lid. It took him a minute to get a firm hold, and then he lifted her gingerly into his arms. A strange thought entered his mind that he’d never carried a woman before. Guess he was never the kind of guy who swept a girl off her feet.
    He was gentle and her head rolled against his chest, making him grip her a little tighter. His biceps firmed into hard muscle as he carried her through the house. Kane shouldered the door open to a small guest room and placed her slender body on the dark green bedspread, careful not to jostle her wounded head.
    “Hey,” he said, lightly shaking her shoulder. “Can you