Destiny Kills Read Online Free Page B

surprised.”
    “That’s no damn reason to try and run me over,” I muttered, tucking thick strands of matted hair behind my ear.
    A smile tugged at his lips, and it transformed his face, lending his aristocratic features a brief moment of warmth and compassion.
    Then the warmth faded and he considered me, his gaze lingering on the bruise marring my forehead before moving down. It was deliberate, that gaze, designed to tease, to arouse. To scare, even. Like he was testing me. Testing my seriousness. Only it stopped abruptly when his gaze reached my hands. “Nice ring.”
    The sexiness had fled his voice, replaced by a flatness that made my toes itch with the need to run. I resisted the urge to tuck my hand behind my back, and said, “It’s a friend’s.”
    His gaze went past me, searching the trees. “And where is the friend?”
    I hesitated. “Elsewhere.”
    The baying of a hound ran across the brief silence, and I glanced over my shoulder. I couldn’t see any movement, but those barks—and obviously my hunters—were getting closer.
    His gaze came back to mine. “Then why don’t we go find him?”
    Wariness swirled through me.
Don’t trust, don’t trust.
The mantra ran through my brain, words from a past I had yet to remember. “And why would you want to do that?”
    “Because if you’re willing to risk your life standing in front of a speeding car to get help, your friend obviously needs a lot of it.”
    I studied him, not entirely sure what to do. True, I needed help, but did I need it badly enough to trust a stranger who suddenly seemed overly eager to help out two people he didn’t even know?
    Of course, Egan was beyond anyone’s help—and I might just suffer the same fate if I wasn’t careful. They were out there, and they were hunting me.
    And this stranger could be one of them, for all I knew.
    Suddenly my idea of stopping a car to get help didn’t seem so bright after all.
    “I don’t think—”
    He laughed, a sound so soft, and yet so cold. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”
    Meaning I should? “Other than the man who just tried to run me down, you mean?”
    He snorted softly. “Yeah.”
    I frowned and tried to force a memory through the fog. He
did
remind me a whole lot of Egan—he had the same broad-shouldered, athletic build and shaggy, sun-kissed hair. But this man’s face was more aristocratic and a whole lot handsomer. And there was an odd sort of grace and elegance to his movements. Egan, for all his gentleness, had often resembled a bull in a china shop.
    But then, in all the time I’d known him, he hadn’t really seemed to care about anything at all.
    Except for me.
    And the kids.
    Tears touched my eyes again, but with them came anger. And I had no idea why, because the answers to all my questions were still locked behind the walls of forgetfulness.
    I glanced down at my somewhat bloodied feet and blinked the tears away. Whatever the reasons behind the anger, it was an undeniable fact that I hadn’t deserved Egan’s caring. I’d liked him, I’d enjoyed being with him, and I’d slept with him—but it had never been anything more than that. Not for me.
    And not for him.
    Yet he’d still given his life for me.
    Nothing could ever repay such selflessness.
    Nothing except stopping this. Stopping Marsten.
    I looked back at the stranger. “No. Who are you?”
    “Egan’s brother.”
    I blinked. Of all the answers I’d been expecting,
that
certainly wasn’t one of them. And it made me even more wary. “Egan hasn’t got a brother.”
    “Egan has three brothers, two sisters, and one half brother. That last one’s me.” His gaze went past me again as the hound barked, closer than before. “That dog seems to have found the scent of whatever it’s chasing. You want to stay, or do you want to go?”
    I hesitated, but really, what choice did I have? It was either stay here and confront the police—try to explain why I wore stolen clothes, and had no ID and no