Stormfront (Undertow Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

tonight. I’ll make sure the fireplaces are ready to go, just in case.”
    “Mae will appreciate that. Thanks , Raef,” I replied as we finally made it through the side door to the house.
    Mae appeared from the laundry room, a basket of folded linens in her arms, her crazy red hair pinned up in a bun. “Hi Guys! How was the surfing?” she asked, sliding the basket onto the counter.
    “Excellent, Ma’am,” replied Kian, helping Ana to sit at the table. He knelt before her and started unstrapping the walking boot from her leg. Ana, never one to be pampered, immediately leaned forward to help, but instead cracked heads with Kian. She bit back a swear as Kian sat back on his heels, “Can you just sit still for two seconds?”
    “I can do it,” she demanded, rubbing her head.
    “I KNOW you can, but there is snow caked in the buckles. Just chill for one moment. Please.”
    Ana slouched, resigned, as Kian continued working on the boot. I hung my jacket by the door as Raef walked over to Mae.  He smiled at her as he reached for the basket. “The waves were terrific. Perfect swells. Do you want this on the second floor landing as usual, Ms. Johnson?” he asked, shifting the basket in his hands.
    “For the twentieth time, it’s Mae. Please. And you don’t need to do that. You and Kian have already done so much these past weeks. I would have been lost without you. All of you. Even Mr. Raines.”
    Ugh. The way the word Raines curled off her lip, I knew she had a serious crush on my soul-stealing, ultra-great grandfather.
    I laid down the law with Christian Raines weeks ago; Mae was off limits. And while Christian had obeyed, having him a few miles away at his new Torrent Road home was causing quite the kerfuffle in both our house and throughout the town. He was, afte r all, Newport’s Most Eligible Bachelor three years running, and now he was living in a massive stone villa known to the locals as the Island House, though we called it simply Torrent Road. Mae had no clue about Christian’s darker side – or mine for that matter.
    MJ argued that Raines should be disqualified from Newport’s hot-hunk competition, since he was a Mortis. Soul-sharks, he said, had an unfair advantage in the looks department and as I studied Kian and Raef, I knew he was absolutely right.
    Raef, with his very dark-blond hair, chiseled physique, flawless face, and stunning deep blue eyes, looked as though he fell off the front of a Hollister shopping bag. Kian, equally perfect, was taller, with blond hair that fell straight near his broad shoulders, as if he was a posterboy for a surfing company. Like Raef, his deep blue eyes hid a blackness that could blot out the blue, and his hands, so gentle with Ana, were capable of incredible violence. I saw him kill someone in front of me with those hands and witnessed the rage that encompassed his body when he did so. No remorse, no regret, but he saved my life and Ana’s.
    I wasn’t super keen on having Christian so close, especially with the adoring stars in Mae’s eyes. But Christian had helped us, enormously. He paid all my medical bills and he opened his house to both Kian and Raef, who needed somewhere to stay now that Cerberus was in southern waters for the winter.
    Christian had also managed to charm the crap out of MJ’s folks, convincing them that he would be an excellent silent partner at the Milk Way – basically he was their personal bank at a zero-percent interest rate. I’m pretty sure he did it to smooth over MJ’s mom, whose anger about her son being involved in my crazy life was still at Code Red level.
    Raines’s home was also where all the books and papers from Dalca Anescu’s shop, the Crimson Moon, were stashed. A shop that no longer existed, because Kian and Raef had burned the building to the ground, after removing any shred of evidence that could reveal our world to the FBI.
    Torching the building was a risk. FBI Agents Mark Howe and Anthony Sollen had visited me in