Huntbound (Moonfate Serial Book 2) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Sylvia Frost
comforter.
“I can get up myself,” I say. But I can’t. My bones turn to liquid the second his skin brushes mine.
He lets me go at that, leaving me to get up on my own, his jaw set in a determined line. “I’m going to go downstairs and evaluate the body. Get changed and meet me in the living room in five minutes.”
I step back away from him, looking at him warily. This is not the man I kissed in the dream. Not the one who looked at me with such vulnerable need.
Not waiting for an answer, he stalks toward the door.
“Wait,” I call.
But he doesn’t stop, leaving me staring at the place he once was. I could come up with a thousand explanations for his behavior, but I don’t have time to filter through them all.
So instead of ruminating on why Orion is suddenly all business, I tromp over to my duffle bag. With trembling fingers I remove my still slightly damp black ensemble and pull on a pair of wonderfully dry jeans and a baggy t-shirt. The whole process takes less time than I thought it would, and all too soon I’m staring at my bedroom door.
I tell myself my reluctance to go downstairs is because there’s a dead body down there, but the truth is I’m not afraid of the body, or even of Orion’s mercurial moods; what I am afraid of is the fact that I have no idea how to deal with either. I don’t even how we’re going to find Lawrence.
From beside the air mattress, my scuffed pink laptop beckons. One check of Tracker can’t hurt. Last night, I didn’t see anyone or anything on it that would’ve helped me find Lawrence, but maybe something’s changed since then.
I plop back down, the air mattress wheezing as I do. Then I turn over onto my stomach and grab my computer, pulling it in front of me. When I open it up, the screen lights up automatically. In the uppermost corner its battery status blinks at 15%.
I click the Tracker app icon in the corner of the screen, bringing my nails to my lips as it loads. Finally the app opens, showing a zoomed-in map of my street in Rochester, New York. I flinch when I see two dots hovering right over my location. Orion North and Cooper Dunham.
Just to be sure, I browse the backwards logs again, looking for anything at the timestamp around midnight or a little after. But nothing strange jumps out at me.
So I try something else. With a diagonal swipe of my trackpad, I both zoom out and navigate back to the present time, until I’m looking at a full map of Rochester right now. Most shifters don’t like to go inside cities because changing forms is illegal in high-density areas, so I’m not surprised by the lack of the red dots within the inner loop. But I am surprised by the lack of them outside of the city.
Only last night there were a hundred of them swarming the city limits, like some kind of siege. Now they’re all gone, replaced by the bland beige and white stripes of streets and city blocks.
I scroll out further.
Or not gone.
They’re just forty miles south. Still in the same formation. Out of curiosity, I flip back in time and trace their movements. Strange. They’re too big to be a pack of any one kind of shifter, but they seem to move like one. For the past two weeks they’ve been heading down from Canada. At least I assume they must have been, because they all appear at the border about two weeks ago. Before to that, there’s nothing.
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Artemis!” Orion bellows from downstairs.
Shit.
“Yes,” I call. “Coming.”
I slam the laptop shut. It feels slightly voyeuristic, knowing that I can find out where any werebeast is at any time. Whether they like it or not. And after everything Orion told me in his nightmare, suddenly I feel a whole lot less comfortable with it.
My mind still buzzing with the new mystery of the werebeast swarm, I head downstairs.
I can do this.
I have no choice.
Chapter
“I can get up myself,” I say. But I can’t. My bones turn to liquid the second his skin brushes mine.
He lets me go at that, leaving me to get up on my own, his jaw set in a determined line. “I’m going to go downstairs and evaluate the body. Get changed and meet me in the living room in five minutes.”
I step back away from him, looking at him warily. This is not the man I kissed in the dream. Not the one who looked at me with such vulnerable need.
Not waiting for an answer, he stalks toward the door.
“Wait,” I call.
But he doesn’t stop, leaving me staring at the place he once was. I could come up with a thousand explanations for his behavior, but I don’t have time to filter through them all.
So instead of ruminating on why Orion is suddenly all business, I tromp over to my duffle bag. With trembling fingers I remove my still slightly damp black ensemble and pull on a pair of wonderfully dry jeans and a baggy t-shirt. The whole process takes less time than I thought it would, and all too soon I’m staring at my bedroom door.
I tell myself my reluctance to go downstairs is because there’s a dead body down there, but the truth is I’m not afraid of the body, or even of Orion’s mercurial moods; what I am afraid of is the fact that I have no idea how to deal with either. I don’t even how we’re going to find Lawrence.
From beside the air mattress, my scuffed pink laptop beckons. One check of Tracker can’t hurt. Last night, I didn’t see anyone or anything on it that would’ve helped me find Lawrence, but maybe something’s changed since then.
I plop back down, the air mattress wheezing as I do. Then I turn over onto my stomach and grab my computer, pulling it in front of me. When I open it up, the screen lights up automatically. In the uppermost corner its battery status blinks at 15%.
I click the Tracker app icon in the corner of the screen, bringing my nails to my lips as it loads. Finally the app opens, showing a zoomed-in map of my street in Rochester, New York. I flinch when I see two dots hovering right over my location. Orion North and Cooper Dunham.
Just to be sure, I browse the backwards logs again, looking for anything at the timestamp around midnight or a little after. But nothing strange jumps out at me.
So I try something else. With a diagonal swipe of my trackpad, I both zoom out and navigate back to the present time, until I’m looking at a full map of Rochester right now. Most shifters don’t like to go inside cities because changing forms is illegal in high-density areas, so I’m not surprised by the lack of the red dots within the inner loop. But I am surprised by the lack of them outside of the city.
Only last night there were a hundred of them swarming the city limits, like some kind of siege. Now they’re all gone, replaced by the bland beige and white stripes of streets and city blocks.
I scroll out further.
Or not gone.
They’re just forty miles south. Still in the same formation. Out of curiosity, I flip back in time and trace their movements. Strange. They’re too big to be a pack of any one kind of shifter, but they seem to move like one. For the past two weeks they’ve been heading down from Canada. At least I assume they must have been, because they all appear at the border about two weeks ago. Before to that, there’s nothing.
“Curiouser and curiouser.”
“Artemis!” Orion bellows from downstairs.
Shit.
“Yes,” I call. “Coming.”
I slam the laptop shut. It feels slightly voyeuristic, knowing that I can find out where any werebeast is at any time. Whether they like it or not. And after everything Orion told me in his nightmare, suddenly I feel a whole lot less comfortable with it.
My mind still buzzing with the new mystery of the werebeast swarm, I head downstairs.
I can do this.
I have no choice.
Chapter
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