Turn to Darkness (Offspring 5.6) Read Online Free

Melina understood even as she’d ached to be with him. Of course, he could not tell her the truth—that he was not entirely human.
    He found a collection of framed photos on her bookshelves. This was what he’d come for.
    “What are you doing?” she asked in a terse voice. She did not look friendly now as she came out with a mug.
    He took it with both hands, letting his fingers brush hers. When the three men had been caught, and castrated in punishment, Graves had ended things with Melina before he, too, was found out. A sorrowful goodbye, saying that he could no longer cheat on his wife, no matter her illness. His infidelity weighed heavily on his heart.
    In truth, he’d missed this woman, and their fun. But he wasn’t here for her or fun.
    He turned back to the pictures. “I wondered what you’ve been up to.” He took in several pictures of a girl with blond curly hair and violet blue eyes. Like his. The most recent picture showed her to be only a teenager, though, so maybe he was all right. “This girl . . .”
    “My daughter.” Again, the words snapped out.
    He met her eyes, brown and full of indecision. “How old is she?”
    “Twenty . . . twenty.”
    He saw her lie. “She’s mine, isn’t she?”
    She released a breath. “I didn’t know I was pregnant when you came to say goodbye. I had no way of getting in touch with you, and I wasn’t sure you wanted to know anyway.” She rubbed down the front of her dress, the apron now gone. “Cheyenne. Her name is Cheyenne.”
    He studied the picture, again unsure what he was feeling. Were it not for the recent trouble, he might be pleased. “She’s beautiful. Where is she now?”
    “South Vegas. I . . . I don’t know where exactly. I hear from her from time to time, but we’re not close. She’s been out of the house since she was seventeen.”
    “She on drugs? In trouble?” That would make it easier.
    “She got into her share of trouble, but nothing major. It was hard, working two jobs and raising a daughter on my own. Something terrible happened to her, and I wasn’t there to support her. I let her down.”
    Melina’s eyes were wet as she, too, stared at the picture of her daughter.
    He wished he didn’t know. Why had he thought it would be better to know for sure than to wonder? It was his obligation to terminate her.
    Melina’s gaze went to the television. When he heard the word “mauled,” he turned, too. The news station was updating the supposed animal mauling that had started this whole directive. A man had been killed by someone holding Darkness, though of course the authorities didn’t know that. All they had was some crazy woman’s account of seeing a man morph to something dark and beastly. But their group knew what it meant.
    The reporter was standing in front of the house where the attack had happened, the crime scene tape still drifting in the breeze. “The police have what they’re calling a person of interest in the case. Frederick Callahan, seen here in a picture obtained from family, was the victim of the mauling.” The screen briefly filled with a picture of a nice-looking, dark-haired man. “But according to our source, he’d been stalking a woman who had brought—and then dropped—a rape charge against him and two other men six years earlier.”
    Melina gasped, her hand to her mouth. She ran to the kitchen, where she grabbed her phone and looked at a board on the wall.
    “Is everything all right?” he asked, following her. What could she possibly know about this?
    She dialed and waited a few seconds. “Cheyenne, it’s your mother. Have you been watching the news? . . . Well, they just had an update on that man who got mauled. He’s the one who . . . well, you know. His name didn’t ring a bell but I saw his picture and it hit me, that’s him! They said he was stalking a woman who brought charges against him.” She nodded as she listened, the voice on the other end too low for him to hear the words.