Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers Read Online Free

looks like a Navy SEAL Ken doll.
Blond hair, gold eyes, and an ouroboros tattoo on his tanned forearm.
    How the fuck does something that can’t walk in daylight manage to get a tan?
    “It is merely a reference, ‘your host’ is used much in the way ‘your brother’ or ‘your sister’ would be used. But if it makes you uncomfortable I will keep it to proper names.” He turned back to Jackson. “Jackson can call on the power you have to react to things emotionally. He doesn’t have your mental discipline.”
    “Jackson probably has more discipline in his little finger than the two of you together,” Leo scoffed. “He’s a cop. He confronts the possibility of death every time he makes a traffic stop. He faced down a meth head tweaking so bad that he shot down his K-9 partner and yet Jackson proceeded to shoot the fucker in the kneecap and the hand. Do you have any idea what it takes to remain calm enough to make those two shots that quickly? Do you know what it took for him to not kill the bastard? Outside of Docia and me, that dog meant everything to him. So don’t sit there and act like he’s some kind of unruly child knocking around in there getting in your way.”
    “That wasn’t what I meant in the least,” Ram said softly. “I know he has discipline. I know he is capable of a great deal of self-control and has the ability to act decisively in dire circumstances. But he trained with that firearm day after day after day and learned how to use it to the best of its ability. If we did not train him with this weapon that has the potential to level a city block,
that
would be the irresponsible thing to do.”
    Well, shit.
    “Anyway,” Ram tried again to address his superior, “we need to practice and there’s no better place.” He indicated the wide, flat wasteland that stretched out beyond the cultivated landscaping of their property. The house stood alone, a single road leading in to it and miles of land in every direction. Even sitting on the porch you had the sensation of sitting in an oasis at the center of a vast desert. “Nothing but the coyotes to see us.”
    “All right. When would you like to start?”
    “Next eve. Marissa is settling into herself now. Hatshepsut and she are Blending well together. She seems genuinely happy.”
    Three male heads turned to look at the woman in the garden. She was literally playing in the dirt, making little mountains of rich black topsoil from a gutted bag of it. She was smiling, clearly enjoying herself. Leo frowned. He couldn’t say he knew Marissa Anderson well, but from what he’d gathered she was as uptight, polished, and sophisticated as any psychiatrist could be. She probably would have died first before being seen in jeans and bare feet, like she was right then.
    Oh. Hey.
    He wasn’t really amused when he realized that was exactly what she had done. Died. Or just about. He was a little fuzzy on the hard details of how exactly one became a Bodywalker, and frankly he wasn’t all that interested. It wouldn’t change the way he felt. It wouldn’t bring comfort.
    “I’m out of here,” Leo said, derision in every syllable of his words. He pushed between the two men and went inside the house.
    Ram watched the other man Jackson considered his closest friend leave, and waited until the door shut behind him before saying, “He’s going to be a problem.”
    “You’re wrong,” Jackson countered. “He’s going to be difficult, but he wouldn’t do anything to endanger me or Docia.”
    “I’m keeping a guard on Kamenwati twenty-four hours a day, but it’s not safe to have the two of them in the same house.”
    “I don’t see how we have much of a choice,” Jackson said with a frown. “Leo is nowhere near ready to leave, no matter what he says, and Kamen needs to be under our close control. He may have used Leo as an olive branch to get to us, but that doesn’t mean I trust his motives entirely.”
    “Nor do I,” Ram agreed. “Let’s make