Animal Instincts (Entangled Ignite) Read Online Free Page B

his partner and best friend, Ethan Grainger.
    “Isn’t Shade answering his door?” I asked over the intercom.
    I could hear Shade’s dog Boomer barking downstairs. We lived in a two-flat we’d inherited from our grandmother, Shade in the first-floor apartment, me in the second.
    “I need to talk to you.”
    At four in the morning? He sounded so serious. Of course he wouldn’t wake me in the middle of the night if it wasn’t something serious.
    “Okay.”
    I pressed the buzzer that let him up. Spotting a long-sleeved shirt I’d left on a dining room chair, I grabbed it and pulled it on before unlocking the door. Ethan’s short, light-brown hair accentuated his broad cheeks. His blue eyes had gone all eerie, filled with something that went beyond simple grief.
    My heart thundered.
    “What is it?” I was fully awake now and filled with unease. I’d heard too often about official visits to relatives of coppers when something bad had to be reported. “What’s happened to Dad?”
    “Not your father.” Ethan shook his head. “It’s Shade.”
    My world suddenly got smaller. Tighter. My eyes began to sting. I knew. But I wouldn’t believe it.
    “Where is he?” I demanded, my heart thudding against my ribs. “What hospital?”
    “I’m so sorry.” Ethan pulled me to him and held me so tightly, I couldn’t move.
    “No!” Tears flooded my eyes and I awkwardly struck him in the chest. “No.”
    “I’m so sorry. You know I loved him like a brother.”
    I was in the midst of a nightmare, but I was truly awake.
    Shade, my twin, my other half, was gone.
    Ethan let me cry until there were no more tears. Until my eyelids were so swollen I could hardly see. Then he led me to the living room where he sat me down in a chair and found a box of tissues so I could get myself together.
    He waited for me to ask “Wh-what happened?”
    “Shade was a hero again tonight. He was shot saving a woman’s life.”
    “Who?”
    “Her name is Elizabeth Reyes.” Ethan shook his head. “I don’t know why, just that he was on her porch waiting to talk to her when she came home around midnight. She took the first bullet before Shade pushed her out of harm’s way.”
    I tried to take it all in. “He was on the job, then. Alone.” Shade never worked without backup. At least, I didn’t know about him doing so.
    “Apparently. He didn’t confide in me. Not in a while.”
    Shade had been acting odd lately. Secretive. Argumentative.
    “And he was shot saving her?”
    “Right. She said they’d hardly spoken for a minute before the first shot rang out. She was winged as he pushed her out of the way and took a bullet himself.”
    “One bullet? That’s all it took to kill him?”
    He nodded. “I’m sorry to have to tell you he was shot in the head.”
    “Oh, my God.”
    The last thing I had done was turn my back on my brother.
    To never see him alive again.
    I had to live with that.
    Forever.

Chapter Four
    My brother was buried on a day with no sun. Appropriate, for I felt the sun had been snuffed out of my life.
    The mournful sound of bagpipes made my chest squeeze tighter.
    Literally more than a thousand people had shown up at the cemetery, as they always did when one of their own was murdered on the job. In addition to the Chicago Police Department chiefs, the mayor, and other local and state politicians, there were the uniforms, mostly from Chicago, but many from the suburbs and neighboring cities and states, some from as far away as Minneapolis and Florida and New York.
    Facing tragedy, they were all so stoic.
    I remained outwardly stoic, too.
    His graying red hair perfectly groomed around his florid face, Dad was surrounded by men in uniform at the other end of the coffin, including Shade’s partner, Ethan, and his lieutenant, Ryan Connelly. Dad kept looking at me. Any weakness on my part would reflect badly on him, so I choked back my tears.
    I wanted to pull Shade’s body from the coffin and somehow breathe life