Jared Read Free Page A

caught it, muted it, and sent it back.
Not a newcomer to vampirism, either, if he was so adept at mind reading. Rats.
It would have made things easier if he were new.
    “I always have a choice,” she told him.
    He probably would have looked more convinced if she
hadn’t stumbled right then.
    With an easy tug that spoke of a man familiar with his
strength, he saved her from her own clumsiness.
    “Uh-huh. Well, not today.”
    Yes, today. Every day, for that matter. Until she
found the man she’d been sent to find, her only choice was to keep looking. And
to avoid being captured, either by the Sanctuary or the Renegades once she’d
“accidentally” wandered off the course set for her. Just twenty-four hours out
of the compound and she’d failed on that one.
    She tugged her hand. The man didn’t let her go, didn’t
even seem to notice she was trying to get free. She’d told Miri she wasn’t
going to be much good at this, that she needed to put her faith in someone
else. Miri hadn’t even hesitated, just gave her the “look,” told her the
information she’d needed, and then blithely pinned all her desperate hopes on
her. Raisa sighed. It sucked being a woman’s last resort.
    “I don’t have time for your ego trip.”
    That pulled the stranger up short. His eyes glittered
at her from beneath the brim of his. She had to tilt her head way back to meet
his gaze. Too many conversations like this and she’d develop a crick on top of
the other aches and pains that were her daily companions. The edges of his wide
mouth twitched. “You got somewhere else you need to be?”
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    He just had to be the type to pin a woman down. She
pushed her hair off her face, grimacing when her fingers immediately caught in
a snarl. The Sanctuary had been on her at the break of twilight, long before
she’d had a chance to braid it. “It’s not polite to pry.”
    His gaze followed her hands, lingering on the spot
where her fingers tangled. “Just consider me the rude sort.”
    This time the touch of his energy made her blink. Now
that she wasn’t fighting for her life, merely running for it, she could
appreciate it. It was deep and dense, very powerful, with a tendency to
wildness that intrigued her. She tested the imprint she had in her mind of the
man she had to find. It didn’t match. Thank God.
    The relief behind that “thank God” made her blink
again. She’d never had a “thank God” moment before, and that was quite an
admission for a woman who was 270 years old. She eyed the man again. Her
initial impression was still big, but now that she’d slowed herself down she
could appreciate the way those powerful shoulders sat atop an equally powerful
chest. Now, through the opening of his coat, she could appreciate the flatness
of his abdomen beneath the forest green of his shirt, not to mention the way
his denims show-cased, in loving detail, his lean hips and well-muscled thighs.
And what it did for everything in between . . .
    She licked her lips. One of the best inventions in the
last two hundred fifty years was blue jeans. There was nothing, absolutely
nothing, more flattering to a man’s physique than well-worn denim. A chuckle
drew her gaze up. The man was staring back at her, watching her admire him. The
blush started in her toes and kept climbing no matter how hard she tried to
suppress it. By the time he pushed his hat back, revealing a handsome, square
face with startling hazel eyes, her cheeks were on fire.
    “I take it you don’t find my rudeness objectionable?”
    The heat in his gaze slid into his energy. With a
pulse of power, it surrounded hers. Instead of finding the intrusion objectionable,
she found herself leaning toward it, embracing it. Raisa pulled herself up
short. She did not have time for this.
    “Your rudeness is objectionable.”
    “But my body isn’t?”
    There was no help for it. She was going to have to
bluff her way through the embarrassment. “You have to know