Love Beyond Sight Read Free Page B

grinned and paid for his paper. The hung-over man would have a headache for a few hours, but maybe he already did. As for Samuel, he'd have a face for the next week that would allow him to walk the streets undisturbed until it faded.
    He exited the coffee shop, his cheeks already tingling. His Outsider magic wanted to make the shift right away but that wasn't going to work for him this time. He needed to be far far away from the man whose face he now copied. Best-case scenario, he would be home. But at the very least he needed to not be the same room with the owner of his new features.
    Samuel picked up his pace. The wet ground beneath his feet splashed as he moved. Each step taking him closer to his goal of finally getting some relief from his agony. He rounded the corner to his apartment building and looked down at the ground. The skin on his face had started to peel. Soon, the old layer would disappear revealing his new look underneath. It was absolutely pivotal none of his neighbors ever got a really good look at his face.
    He pushed his baseball cap farther down on his head. When he'd left his home, he'd been a brunet and he was coming home a blond.
    Rushing around the corner, he got his key in the door and his body inside of his apartment in record time. In two seconds, he'd thrown the hat onto the couch as he rushed into the bathroom. It helped if he scrubbed his skin while the change happened. Somehow, it made it less gross to peel the dead skin off his face with warm water instead of by ripping the skin from his face.
    Grabbing the unscented soap from the side of the sink, he splashed himself with the hot water before lathering up his face. The skin started to peel the second he touched it. Goosebumps broke out on his arms, and he tried not to wretch. He hated this feeling more than anything else about his situation.
    Piece-by-piece, inch-by-inch the fake skin his magic had created began to slither off his face and deposit in the sink.
    "Shit."
    No one was in his apartment, ever, so it wasn't like he couldn't curse all he wanted. But his mother had raised him to be a gentleman. Swearing like a sailor still made him feel like he was about to have his mouth washed out with soap.
    Finally, the constant peel stopped. He stared down in the sink to see what damage he'd done. His hands shook as he opened up the drain to let the discarded skin swish down the pipes.
    This had been a close one. He should have switched his face before he'd let his mind travel into Eden's. That would have been the smart thing to do. Except that Eden had needed him. He'd barely gotten to that demon in time as it was.
    Grabbing a towel, he forced his eyes to meet his reflection in the mirror. Once every seven days he got to meet a stranger in his bathroom. The man in front of him, minus the red eyes and sour expression, resembled his co-customer from the coffee house exactly.
    With pressure to change gone, he let himself examine the features he would have as his own for, hopefully, a full week. Unless he had to use too much magic again and then he'd be replacing the current ones for a new set in less time. The thought exhausted him and he ran his hand through his now blond hair. Before the fire he'd had what his mother had called golden-brown hair. Basically, it had been brown with streaks of blond intertwined with the strands. It had been so long since he'd seen it; he couldn't remember the exact color anymore.
    Oddly enough, he'd been coping with this problem for so long that the thought that he'd never see himself again as he'd once been didn't even make him sad. He just felt… nothing.
    But his new features were fine. They'd be pleasant to look at for a while, not startling or disturbing. His nose was long but not so big that it looked like it didn't belong on his face. Not like the time he'd taken the face of someone who'd had a nose job and scared the crap out of himself when he'd seen the dude's old, hawk-like nose staring back at him. His