The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series) Read Online Free Page A

from his hand and throwing it across the room.
    “Ms. Duncan, for me to help you, you have to be honest with me. Now, if the sex wasn’t consensual, we can get you any kind of help you need. But you must tell me the truth.”
    Not only was he lying about her on paper, he was calling her a liar to her face. Mackenzie’s temper flared and she jumped from the bed and knocked the file and pen right out of the doctor’s hand. The terrified look on his face snapped her back, making her realize what she had just done. Grabbing her coat, she hurried out the exam room door.
    “Sorry!” She yelled out just as the doctor made his way into the hallway to watch where the disturbed young girl had gone.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Three weeks had passed since Mackenzie ran out on the doctor. She still didn’t understand why she got so angry. The more she thought about it, the more she realized he was doing his job. She wanted to return and apologize, but she just couldn’t bring herself to face the embarrassment. She did, however, take Dr. Mallson’s advice and schedule an appointment to have her eyes checked, not that it was any help.
    The optometrist told her to see her general practitioner after testing her eyes and finding nothing wrong. Apparently he didn’t listen well either because she told him the doctor sent her to him. In fact, there was not only nothing wrong but her eyesight had improved to better than 20/20. She was now able to see at thirty feet away what people with normal vision had to be at twenty feet to see.
    With her eyes still the strange color, Mackenzie decided it was time for some real research. Being at Harvard had its perks besides a degree no one would turn away. The university had a library that held every law book, every medical book, and any other book one could think of. 
    Standing at her desk, she tripped on the strap of her purse that had been sitting on the floor. She threw her hand out to catch herself on the shelf, but when her hand grasped the wood, it cracked. Growling in frustration at the broken shelf, she cursed the old piece of furniture. She didn’t have the money, or the time, to deal with anything else.
    Losing her job after her two-day Sleeping Beauty act had hurt. No amount of begging received any sympathy from her boss, and no one else in the area was hiring. She knew because she had gone to every store, restaurant and bar hoping to find something but not one job was available. Her funds were dangerously low and while she knew she had enough for rent for the next month, she wasn’t sure if she would have enough to eat and she really didn’t want to have to call her mother for help. She hadn’t called once since she left home and calling to ask for money was not the best way to make contact. She had to fight her mother to convince her that she was responsible enough to attend Harvard. Her mother thought she should go to the community college down the street first to make sure she could cut it, as if getting into Harvard wasn’t an academic accomplishment enough. That was her mother, so very supportive.
    If she had been able to take her typical route to the library, the walk would have lasted all of ten minutes. Having to avoid the park all together added another twenty on top of that. She couldn’t bring herself to go back to the place that changed her life. She couldn’t handle the thought that the wolf was still there. She got the feeling it had been after her, that she wasn’t a random chew toy. It wanted to hurt her, to kill her. It might have been silly, as Jordon pointed out to her, but it was how she felt.
    By the time Mackenzie reached the library, she was pulling off the layers of clothing she wore. It must have been an extremely nice day, she was never hot after the leaves began to turn, and she was typically freezing once the first snowfall covered the ground. Both of those things had already occurred, yet here she was, walking into the building in a