Killing Time Read Online Free Page A

long-cherished plans.
    Struggling out of Koda’s arms and putting some distance between us, I made myself focus on figuring out why he’d saved me from a bittern’s fatal coma.
    He must have seen the suspicion in my face. Tossing the empty plastic bottle aside, he rose to his feet. “While such things are meaningless to fae, I gave my word I would spare your life. And my word is more precious to me than you could begin to comprehend.”
    “You know nothing about me.” My voice came out harsh and I cursed inwardly that the arrogant jerk’s low opinion of me stung.
    He shook his head. “I know enough to despise everything related to the fae.”
    Still weak, I rubbed uselessly at the braided leather band resting against my neck like a damned pet collar. “As do I.” From my periphery, I saw his startled expression as even I heard the corrosive bitterness in my tone. I breathed in and out a few times. “You’re not going to remove the bindings.”
    I’d made it a statement not a question, but he answered anyway. “No.”
    I gave him a look that said he’d won this skirmish, but the war was far from over. His glare challenged me to try something.
    Moving on for now, I asked, “Do you know where the vampires have gone?”
    “Why do you want to know?”
    Biting back a bitchy response, I struggled to keep my tone reasonable. “Because a phone call would work just as well. I have to talk with the one called Jack.”
    Studying me, Koda leaned his shoulder against a support column and looked sublimely unimpressed. “A phone call.”
    “Yes. Five minutes, that’s all I need. Then I’ll be on my way and we’ll never have to see each other, ever again.”
    He smiled and the expression was anything but pleasant. “You know as well as I do that phone lines can serve as conduits for supernatural attack. I won’t risk endangering—”
    “Dammit, it can’t wait!” I was in a filthy mood and his insouciance was making it worse. “You’re screwing everything up!”
    “It’s life’s little pleasures that make each day worth getting up for.” He lifted a black brow. “What do you want with Jack?”
    Stubbornness tightened my jaw and Koda’s arrogance made me dig my heels in. “Tell me where he is first.”
    “No way in hell. As I said, you stink of fae and the only time fae stop lying is when they’re dead.”
    “Does your lousy attitude come naturally? I can’t believe you’d intentionally apply the same racist bullshit against me that white settlers once used against your people.”
    One minute, I was sitting. The next, I was pinned against the wall. Koda’s face was drawn with fury, inches from my own. “The settlers were a willing tool wielded by manipulative fae bastards who wanted my people gone. They feared our connection with the earth and our ability to negate their control of the elements.” He shoved away from me and stalked to the other side of the room, taut as a bowstring and quivering with barely leashed rage. “Between the settlers, the cavalry, the U.S. government and the fae, we never stood a chance back then and we still have not recovered. I look around me now, and once again I see fae avarice focused on this continent. I see the fae king’s alliance with European supernaturals. I will not allow our native supernatural brothers to suffer the same devastation the nations did. I will not! I am done watching my kind wither and die!”
    I rubbed a hand across eyes that felt like half a desert was embedded in them. It had been far too long since I’d last slept, but this was more than physical exhaustion—this weariness went soul deep. “I guess it wouldn’t matter if I told you I hate fae more than you could begin to imagine.”
    He grunted. “As if I’d take your word for it.” I opened my mouth to protest and he held a hand up, silencing me. “Save it.”
    I let my gaze rove around the familiar room—the cobwebbed corners, the boarded-over windows and the faded walls with