Ruby Hill (Entangled Ever After) Read Online Free

back in his pocket.
    “You need to get back to your team,” he told Ashley.
    She didn’t speak, but she radiated refusal. His eyes had finally adjusted after the flash of light, gracing him with a view of her stubborn set jaw.
    He tried another tactic. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
    “Fine,” she said, a bit too easily. “You lead. I’ll follow.”
    Corbin opened his mouth immediately and snapped it shut. She had him, and she damn well knew it. No wonder she so readily agreed. She knew the asylum inside and out, and at the moment he didn’t even know the general direction of the front entrance, let alone how to get there. He knew the main corridor followed a predictable pattern of elbow joints, but in the dark a single missed turn could render him lost until dawn. And the debris littering the hallway made for a dangerous trek. He’d seen everything from fallen pieces of the ceiling to broken wheel chairs to mangled bed frames. Shattered glass—from windows, beer bottles, and light bulbs—would make for a nasty landing.
    He needed to get a message out to Joe, and his best shot of doing that was getting to the main entrance. His only shot of getting there was Ashley.
    “Point taken.” He chewed back a sigh, tasting defeat. “You lead. We need to get back up front. There’s bound to be a uniform around there with a radio or phone I can use.”
    She smiled—one laced with victory—and turned, walking away from him. It seemed only a couple of minutes passed when he realized he couldn’t hear her footsteps ahead. Bothered, he looked up from the ground where he’d sought a clear path, seeing nothing in the dark but shades of charcoal. Judging by how far he estimated they’d walked since the last turn, the next corner was another fifty feet away. She should be there. “Ash?”
    The word stuck to the end of his tongue. He hadn’t called her that—not even in his thoughts—since that godforsaken night Cash insisted on joining a ghost hunt. It had been a bad idea for a number of reasons, starting with the fact trespassing was illegal. That defied Corbin’s vow to uphold and protect, sticking sorely in his craw. But even if he managed to overlook that particular detail, sneaking into the asylum remained a bad idea—every one of which gave Corbin a compelling reason to go along. Ruby Hill attracted all kinds of crazies—Satanists, drug dealers and users, ghost hunters—and crossing paths with any one of them in the dead of night would likely result in a bad situation. Dismiss all of those possibilities and there was still the small matter of what abandonment had done to the place. Hazards were everywhere.
    People died.
    Dammit. Where was Ashley?
    “Ash?”
    A sound he couldn’t identify brushed his ears, immediately followed by a pinpoint flash of light. Corbin’s pulse quickened. He felt for his concealed weapon, comforted when his fingers closed on it but not yet ready to draw. With his other hand, he found the door frame. After a cautious look around—in which he found nothing more than shades of gray—he stepped inside.
    “Ashley?”
    The room slowly edged into focus. Moonlight softened the shadows, allowing him to see more than two feet in front of his face. The same noise whispered from across the room. As he sought it, his gaze tripped over something.
    Not another body.
    Most of the debris he’d seen thus far had the sharp angles of discarded beds and other furnishings, but the irregular shape lying on the floor appeared softer, its rounded edges hard to discern. With every step, it looked more like Ashley. He’d traced the sensual curve of her hip so many times he’d know it blindfolded. And that long blond ponytail. How many times had he taken down that hair and plunged his fingers through it?
    Corbin’s throat pinched. It couldn’t be her. She hadn’t been gone long enough—this had to be someone else’s tragedy.
    He approached, more rapidly now, not noticing a massive spider web