Obsidian Prey Read Free Page A

card that had accompanied them was identical to all the others: “We were meant for each other.” There was no signature. There was never a signature.
    She had dared to dream these past few weeks, but she was forced to acknowledge that her lovely little fantasy involving the return of Cruz Sweetwater had a dark side. Part of her was terrified that the romantic scenario she had conjured was nothing more than a seductive new variant of the strange, waking nightmares that had been plaguing her recently. If that was the case, at least it was a far more enjoyable hallucination than the others she had experienced.
    The unnerving episodes were getting worse. She had not confided in anyone, including Nancy, half afraid that even talking about the strange visions would somehow make the awful dreams more real.
    “There he is,” Nancy said in a breathy voice. “He just walked into the room. I recognize him from the pictures in the newspapers. Wow. I see what you mean.”
    “I told you, the clothes are good.”
    “The suit is terrific,” Nancy said. “Nothing like black on black to bring out the best in the male of the species, I always say. But that wasn’t what I was talking about. It’s that cool, sophisticated hit man thing he has going. You’re right. Wouldn’t want to run into him in a dark alley.” She managed a slinky, theatrical shudder. “Now a darkened bedroom, on the other hand—”
    “Don’t go there,” Lyra warned.
    “You’re just saying that because you didn’t get there, yourself. I ask you again, as I have so many times these past three months. What were you thinking, woman?”
    “Gee, I don’t know. Maybe about self-preservation? What was I supposed to do, after I discovered that he was about to screw me out of the amber discovery of the decade, if not the century? Let him screw me literally? I don’t think so. Besides, I was reading that marriage manual at the time, and it strongly advised against going to bed with a man too soon.”
    She had bought Ten Steps to a Covenant Marriage: Secrets of a Professional Matchmaker immediately after meeting Cruz. She had been so sure he was the right man. She had not wanted to leave anything to chance. The Dore luck had a way of going sour when you needed it the most.
    But in the end, she had never had the opportunity to fall victim to temptation. And it was not Ten Steps to a Covenant Marriage that had saved her. The truth that she would never admit to anyone, not even her best friend, was that it was Cruz who had drawn the invisible line in their short-lived relationship.
    He had never even tried to lure her into bed. There had been plenty of torrid kisses and a lot of heavy breathing three months ago, but that was as far as matters had gone. How much worse would she have felt after the heavy boot of Amber Inc. had come crashing down on her if she had made the mistake of sleeping with Cruz?
    Then again, how much worse could she have felt?
    “Here’s a tip, friend,” Nancy said. “Next time you meet a really interesting man, you might want to wait until after you’ve had a little fun in bed before you file a lawsuit against him and his company. Guys tend to get annoyed when they get sued.”
    “For all the good it did me.” Amber Inc. had swatted her pathetic lawsuit and her even more pathetic lawyer without breaking a sweat.
    “How did you do that, anyway?” Nancy asked, her attention still riveted on the scene behind Lyra.
    “File a suit?” Lyra shrugged. “It’s not that hard. It just takes money. A lot of it. More than I had, as it turns out.”
    “I wasn’t talking about the lawsuit,” Nancy said impatiently. “I meant, how did you guess that Cruz Sweetwater was about to walk into this reception a few minutes ago? You knew he was here before he even entered the room. What’s up with that?”
    “Probably some sort of primitive survival instinct. Too bad it wasn’t working three months ago.”
    But the reality was that her para-senses