Daybreak Read Online Free Page B

to his majesty. Dark hair tumbled across his forehead as if blatantly disregarding his hard facade.
    Tru Daugherty had matured into a stunning man, and he eyed Calla’s return with unabashed lust.
    Pen had got him wrong. He wasn’t a predator. Not really. Predators protected their territory and battled enemies that would do harm to their kind.
    This man was a vulture. A beautiful one, to be certain, but picking at carrion on the edges of civilization. Pen found herself oddly . . . disappointed.
    “I found these,” Calla said excitedly, meeting them at the back of the truck.
    She knelt beside Pen and laid out a selection of foods, mostly fruit. Malformed things that looked like bananas, or maybe plantains. A few small, hard oranges. Like the roadside foliage left to grow wild, no one remained to tend fruit trees. She’d also found a hunk of what looked like unleavened bread.
    But no protein. It would have to do. Pen ripped the skin off the banana and forced the dry, sticky fruit into her mouth. Bite after bite restored balance to her brain, even if the mush tasted like bitter sawdust. Pen finished the hunk of bread and swallowed thickly, sharing with the worst of the malnourished prisoners.
    She tried to get a sense of where they were. Still in Florida. Or close to it. The trees along the roadside were fat with clinging moss. With few people left to indulge in things like trimming branches, nothing restricted the swamp’s rabid growth. Just heat and greenery and a cloying humidity that made her dizziness no easier to handle.
    Adrian stayed by her side as she worked, helping the others collect their belongings from the heap of clothes. She reclaimed the guard’s weapon in order to break up a fight between two emaciated, foulmouthed women who looked alike enough to be sisters. Maybe they were. Desperation weakened even bonds of blood.
    Prisoners fled into the swampy overgrowth. Unable or unwilling to free themselves, they certainly had no problem fading into the wild when given a split-second opportunity. Adrian stayed. Calla stayed. Most of the others were gone before the sun pulled fully over the horizon.
    Pen watched the bickering sisters disappear over a distant crest of road. Just like that.
    “Were you expecting thanks?”
    Tru’s voice was low, but not like her memory of Mason’s. The grizzled warrior who’d raised her since her mother’s death had sounded oddly broken, as if his vocal cords were damaged. The deep rumble had more power because he never quite seemed in control of it.
    With Tru, however . . . his voice was just as deep, but with the mesmerizing daze of a snake’s hiss. Fascinating and dangerous. No syllable out of place.
    “No, of course not,” she said, still watching the now-deserted road. “That wasn’t why I was there.”
    “No, the divine Orchid rides with O’Malley scum all the time.”
    Her attention caught on the cynical twist of his lips. Did he ever speak to anyone without condescension? Had he ever? But thinking back to when they’d both been under Mason and Jenna’s care was painful. She had been . . . broken. Shattered by her mother’s death. The little comfort she found in the following months had been with Tru, but those instances were so rare as to be priceless. His reluctant laughter and stupid jokes, always quoting words that made little sense to a lonely nine-year-old. Hadn’t needed to.
    But then he’d left. Just when her thoughts had started making sense again. Gone.
    She took a breath. Memories locked away. Where they belonged.
    “I was trying to infiltrate the nearest O’Malley camp.”
    Those pale, pale eyes bored into hers. “And why would you want to do that?”
    “To learn the exact location of O’Malley’s fortress, helping as many as I can along the way. Ultimately, I’d like to see the whole damn organization dismantled.”
    “By yourself ?”
    No, never by herself. She couldn’t be trusted to lead, not when her powers made her so