Howling Legion (Skinners, Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

added, “Or you could buy a watch, Mr. Moneybags. Show me a twitch and we can call it quits for the day.”
    “A twitch, huh?”
    “That’s all that stands between you and dinner.”
    Knowing it was useless to bargain with her, Cole extended both arms as though offering Paige his weapon. He tightened his grip around the spear and winced as the thorns dug into his palms. Even though the sharpened protrusions were less than half an inch long, they felt as if they’d bored tunnels all the way up to his elbows. In many ways they went a lot deeper than that.
    After a few quiet seconds, Cole glanced up to find Paige standing with her hip cocked and her hand resting upon it. Her hair was long enough to be pulled back in a tail, but several strands always came loose no matter how hard she tried to keep them under control. A single bead of sweat emerged from her forehead to trickle along the crooked side of a nose that still looked cute despite having been broken long before he ever met her. The sweat dripped off her chin and made a wet spot upon the inviting slope of her breasts. When she absently dabbed it away, he muttered, “I’m feeling a twitch or two right now.”
    “If I see anything other than that weapon move, I’ll put it down real quick,” she told him while slapping her baton against her open hand.
    Cole pulled in a breath and focused upon the forked spear in his hands.
    “Concentrate, young one,” Paige said in the bad kung-fu master impression she always found to be amusing.
    Just as Cole was about to chalk up his poor performance to being tired, he heard the spear creak.
    “That’s it,” Paige whispered.
    It wasn’t much, but the spear bowed inward just enough for him to feel the movement.
    Paige’s eyes widened and she moved in closer to him. “There you go. Just like that.”
    Cole’s mind drifted further away from what he was trying to do and ventured into the area of what he wanted to do. The spear in his hands creaked like a board getting ready to snap, but he couldn’t exactly appreciate it.
    “That’s the way, Cole,” Paige said encouragingly. “Keep doing that.”
    “Stop it, Paige.”
    “What?”
    “You’re making it hard to concentrate.”
    Smirking, she asked, “I’m making it hard?”
    After using the back of her hand to wipe the remaining sweat from her brow, she lifted her right leg so she couldslip her baton into the leather holster attached to her ankle. The moment her foot touched down again, she smiled and placed her hand upon Cole’s shoulder. “Sorry. You really are doing well.”
    “Better than the other eight people you trained before me?”
    “Yeah. Sure.”
    “Now you’re just jerking my chain.”
    “Maybe,” she said with a shrug while her hand slid down along his arm. “You’re putting on some muscle, though. I’ll get you into shape yet. Who knows? Before too long, I may not be able to resist.”
    As Paige spun around to head for the stairs, the weapon in Cole’s hand creaked again. The spear bowed, but it was tough for him to tell if the wood was changing shape or if he was about to snap it in half.
     
    It had been eight months since Cole first met Paige Strobel. In that time, he’d also met vampires, werewolves, and a few other things that he didn’t quite know how to categorize. He still had an apartment in Seattle, but was currently leasing it to one of the level designers at Digital Dreamers. The sporadic rent checks he received were enough to help pay for some expenses, but not nearly as much as his salary when he’d headed the team responsible for building video games like Hammer Strike and the ever-popular Sniper Ranger series. Digital Dreamers was also behind Zombie House, versions one through four, Puzzle Cube, and plenty of others. Although Cole never wanted to be one of the corporate guys, he would have picked that over getting beat up in a basement any time.
    On the upside, he’d definitely lost some weight. There was a mirror hanging