Night Angel Read Free Page B

build in his gaze, flooding her mind and mesmerizing her to his will. He wiped the nasty incident from her memory, replacing it with a bad fall that caused the bump on her head. He walked her to her car and released her from his spell.
    “Goodnight, Penny. Take care of yourself.”
    She clicked the locks on her car and nodded. “I’ll have ice on it as soon as I get home.”
    “See a doctor if you start feelin’ ill.”
    She nodded and got inside, and Colin went back to the alley to clean up his mess. He bent to lift the man into his arms, a simple task with his inhuman strength, but his left arm made it difficult to maneuver and support the other half of the body.
    “Dammit!” He growled, anger flaring at the reminder of his permanent injury. His eyes burned. They’d be crimson red if anyone came around the corner, but at this point he didn’t care.
    Once he had the body settled in his arms, he ran for the coast and threw the body off the cliff to the sea below. He stared up at the stars. He used to love to shift into a huge red-tailed hawk and soar off of these cliffs up to the stars, skimming over the water, and glide over his farmlands.
    Never again. Now the stars just taunted him.
    Deep inside, his hawk stirred. He closed his eyes, forcing the desire back. He hadn’t shifted since the night when the Night Demon had captured his hawk and ingested part of his left wing. His Night Walker blood healed the wounds, but regeneration wasn’t possible.
    How could he make the animal spirit within him understand he could no longer fly? The thought of shifting and fluttering about, unable to take off, chilled him. It made eternity too bleak to face.
    Best not to think about it.
    Walking off his frustration, he continued along the coastline and down the hillside until the wind cooled his temper. The cliffs gave way to a gentle slope down to the shore. He jogged down to the sand, and a crease marred his brow.
    Abandoned on the rocks were scattered red roses.
     

     
    Juliana gave Muriel a hug and promised to text her when she got home. The wind pulled at her hair, and she tugged her coat tighter around her. Although she couldn’t hear their voices, she caught a few words from reading the lips of the couples passing by. Mostly questions about where to eat or inquiring about each other’s days. No depth but the simple pleasantries still made her sigh.
    She’d had a couple of relationships after she’d graduated high school, but it hadn’t worked out. One boyfriend could hear and had never seemed to get past the idea that she never would. He’d kept encouraging her to seek more doctors and to try expensive surgeries with no guarantee of success. He saw her as handicapped, and that was something she couldn’t tolerate.
    Being deaf had changed some parts of her life, but it didn’t make her any less of a person.
    Her other long-term relationship had been with a man who shared a hearing impairment. She’d thought they’d have a better connection, but in the end, his bitterness over his “disability” soured her infatuation with him.
    Revisiting past relationships wasn’t a usual pastime for the walk back to her little stone cottage next to the flower shop. She’d actually spent this last year enjoying the freedom of being single. Her two-bedroom, one-bath home was just the right size for her, and she could come and go as she pleased.
    But tonight she’d met Colin. And he’d written his name on her pad.
    Reading lips was simple—she did it without even thinking now—but something about him lifting her pen and writing it down had touched her. As if he’d wanted to be certain she had his name correct, a promise their paths would meet again.
    She rolled her eyes at the romantic rubbish running through her mind and unlocked her door. Brian, her orange-and-black Tabby cat, met her in the entryway, making a serpentine path around her ankles. He was named after the first High King of Ireland, fitting for the cat who