Nine Inches of Snow and the Ebony Princess Read Free Page B

go? Dumped for her stepdaughter?
    Philomena would not have it.
    She watched now when David crossed the street, sauntering in the general direction of Aziza’s apartment building, a confident and determined bounce to his step. She had a sudden bad feeling about where he was going.

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    Was it possible he knew where the girl lived? That one of those meddling guests or hospital staff members told him? She knew how those nurses and orderlies all stuck together, and Aziza had ingratiated herself with each and every one of them, even the egomaniacal doctors, with that bubbly personality and easy smile of hers.
    Was that all it took to lure a man like David Healey nowadays?
    No matter. Aziza would only have him over Philomena’s dead body. Or David’s.
    She started her Benz and slowly followed him, trailing at a good distance and waiting as he got several blocks from the hospital for the right moment to strike, until she was sure of his destination.
    She would repay him for his insult.
    When David stepped off the snow-encrusted curb onto the damp blacktop, Philomena revved her engine and careened towards him.
    She saw the look of shock on his face, emphasized by her headlights and instantly replaced with a look of recognition.
    No matter. He would not live to tell.
    Philomena’s heart pounded with excitement when she plowed her car into him. She heard the satisfying thud of his body when it flew into the air, skidded across her hood, up and over the roof, bouncing off the trunk and onto the pavement behind her as she sped away.
    That would show him she was not to be toyed with.

    * * * *

    “Someone call 911!”
    “Did you see that? The car just ran right over him and didn’t even slow down!”
    “Is he dead? He has to be after that.”

    20
    Gracie C. McKeever
    “Did anyone get the license plate?”
    David saw and heard everything clearly—the people hovering over his body, their words of concern and cries for help. He just could not respond.
    He was trying to figure out whether or not this was a bad thing when he realized he was in wolf form and outside of his body.
    Oh, fuck.
    Something had gone wrong, something he’d never encountered or heard of before.
    He’d started to shift when he saw the car coming at him and recognized Philomena behind the wheel. It was a natural reaction, his body instinctively changing to another form to avoid maximum damage, or at least trying to change. She’d come at him so fast, it was a wonder he’d had time to react at all. It was a wonder, too, that he’d seen her face. But he had. There’d been no mistaking that long, platinum blonde hair or hateful green-eyed glare.
    She’d meant to kill him.
    David trotted over to his body to see if she’d succeeded, nuzzling his neck and releasing a howl at the non-response. He gaped up at the spectators and realized when none of them reacted to his presence that they couldn’t see or hear him.
    Double fuck.
    Either he was dead, or he wasn’t. Either he was wolf, or he was man. He couldn’t be both, could he? David had never heard of a split or bilocation of this nature. He needed to get to his father or grandfather to find out what was going on.
    Would either of them be able to hear or see him any better than the spectators could?
    He glanced up at the nearby apartment building, drawn to his original destination, the question momentarily moot. Something beckoned him. Some one .
    Aziza was close. He could feel her.

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    David stepped back when an ambulance sped to a stop outside the circle of spectators and parked. The surrounding crowd opened their ranks to make room for the two EMS technicians who rushed to his body with a stretcher and other equipment. He stayed with his body for the several minutes it took them to stabilize and prepare him for transport and watched them head back to the hospital, sirens wailing and red lights flashing in the