Raven (Kindred #1) Read Online Free

her brother too, so she knew what it was to be pushed around. As a grown woman, she didn’t have to tolerate that kind of behavior.
    “It matters to me,” she asserted, finding her grounding in outrage. “How dare you come in here like this! I can plug in my cell and call the cops, you know? So if I were you, I’d get out of here now!”
    Her threat didn’t concern him and neither did her tantrum because his tone remained unchanged. “I’m much faster than you, Ms. Bandini,” he exhaled and his tone morphed into more of a growl. “You’re gonna listen to me. If you don’t, I’ll take extreme measures and you really don’t want me to do that. I’m supposed to protect you. I’d hate to have to mess you up just to make you behave.”
    Calling the cops for a second time tonight wasn’t on her agenda, and it was obvious that this person could hurt her before she got near her charger. Either he’d kill her or he’d bolt, and the cops couldn’t do anything about a phantom who left no trace of himself. Rolling with it, Zara hoped listening to him might get her answers or would at least get him out of here faster.
    “Protect me from what?” she asked.
    “Many of your dates end up dead at the end of the evening?”
    Somehow finding out that the events were related rather than this being the mother of all coincidences reassured her. Statistics would suggest that two such bizarre events occurring on the same night were astronomical and she didn’t want to face the possibility that she was having some sort of aneurysm and this was all a psychotic delusion.
    “How do you know about that?” she asked, tightening the belt on her robe, which just grazed the top of her thighs.
    “I know everything about you, Zara. And you’re gonna know everything about me…you just don’t know it yet.”
    His cryptic confidence served to frustrate her and her hold on her patience began to slip. “I don’t have a clue who you are. You’re trespassing until you identify yourself and I grant you permission to be here, so I ask again: who are you?”
    Nothing that she said or did seemed to faze him. “I’m not ready to answer that yet,” he murmured.
    His audacity kept her off kilter. Breaking into women’s apartments must be a norm for this guy because there was no urgency to his words and he wasn’t at all concerned with her threats about the cops or her assertion that he was going to get in trouble for this infringement. “You’re not ready to—”
    “I don’t trust you, and if you mentioned my name to anyone, there could be trouble for both of us,” he said. “You’re not ready to hear the full story or prepared to deal with the consequences of our association.”
    Feeling like she’d walked onto a movie set as opposed to into her own apartment, Zara tried to remain calm. This man in her bedroom was a person, just the same as her, so she chose to treat him like one rather than a threat. Making friends with the hostage taker was the best way to stay alive.
    “So if you’re not here to hurt me or rob me and you don’t want to talk, why are you here?” she asked.
    He didn’t move. Nothing about what she could see of him suggested he was even talking, but his words were throaty and certain. “I’m here to tell you that you’ve stepped into the middle of a war. Now that they know who you are, they’re gonna try to get to you. Timothy was just the beginning.”
    “You know why they killed Tim?” she asked, taking a step in his direction. Her hope vanished as clarity slapped her. “Wait, who is they?”
    “You’re not ready to know that yet either.” This person was so frustrating that her hands balled into fists. Screaming at him might provoke him into hurting her and she didn’t want that. But she did want to know if Tim would get any justice and who might be interested in her now that she was associated with a murder victim. “What you need to know is that anybody new in your life is a potential