Taken By Storm Read Online Free Page B

across the sky like snakes.  
    I know the Summit has witch-tech and gadgetry to help rural Mediators track demons, but since I no longer have access to so much as an Oh Shit Beacon — and even if I had one, I probably wouldn't like who showed up — that doesn't do me any good.
    Demons want meat, and barring the splatting of humans, they'll eat squirrels and cats and other fauna. Up in the hills here, there are definitely deer and maybe an elk. I might not be able to scan the area for hellkin hotspots, but I'm a decent tracker and even I know what fresh deer pellets mean. I follow the dear trail southward down the hill, listening to the sleepy autumn chirp of crickets and a very late cicada that tell me I'm still in the safety zone. The forest here sounds different than the parks and forests of Nashville, like the sounds have farther to travel and have to make themselves louder. An owl hoots in the distance, its call lighting the air.
    I walk for almost an hour, always listening.  
    The forest around me continues to sing.  
    Instead of assuaging my nervousness, the crickets and owls pull anxiety tighter within me until the walk back feels twice as long and my swords seem to hum in their sheathes, unused.
    No hellkin for me to kill tonight.  
    It's like I can see the shore where the sea has pulled back, but I cannot tell when the tidal wave is going to hit.

    I wake the next morning to Jax's face directly in front of mine. I think I smelled him before I opened my eyes, but I'm too groggy to sort out that timeline.
    Blinking, I grimace and swat at him. "Jax, watching people sleep is creepy."
    "I was going to wake you up," he says.  
    His skin is warm like the sun, giving off heat like all the shades do. I don't think my basal temperature has risen with the new changes, and I'm not sure what to compare it to. I yawn in Jax's face, and he doesn't even cringe at my morning breath.  
    "What do you want?" My jaw almost unhinges with the yawn and pops when I close my mouth.  
    "Mira called twice. Carrick didn't want to wake you up."
    Shit. My whole body tenses, fully awake. "For the future, if Mira calls, wake me up. I don't care if I just fell asleep."
    She's not here to appreciate that honor, but I'll have to make sure to tell her she's welcome sometime in the future.  
    Jax nods very seriously. "I'm going to go hunt."
    I rub my eyes. "Are you guys going through that much meat?"
    "I'm bored."
    That makes me blink again. "We'll have to find you a hobby. We don't have that much freezer space."
    I get out of bed, wondering what on earth I could sic him on that would entertain him without grossly depleting the deer population of southern Kentucky. I'll worry about that more after I find out what Mira wants.
    She answers on the second ring, and as I shuffle out into the living room of the cabin, the smell of cooking eggs   and onions greets me. Carrick is wearing a frilly white lace apron — only an apron — and his bare butt is flexed where he stands in front of the stove.  
    "Storme," Mira says in my ear. "Earth to Storme."
    Belatedly, I look away from Carrick and shake my head, finding an innocuous chunk of dark-paneled wall to look at. First Jax and now Carrick. "Sorry, Mira," I say. "Somehow I woke up in the Twilight Zone. Or the world's most bizarre porno."
    "Well, that's something I do not want to hear about," she says. "Just tell me the shades aren't boning in the living room."
    "Nope."
    "Good. Tell them to get a room if they start."
    "Jax said you called twice. What's up?"
    I can hear Mira take a deep breath through the phone, and I fix my gaze on the whorls in the faux wood paneling.  
    "Our territories have changed."
    Whatever I was expecting her to say, it wasn't that. "What?"
    "I never kept super detailed records of mine, but apparently Ripper's charted his own every six months since he graduated training." Mira's voice goes so flat when she says it that I feel a lump rise in my throat.
    The limits of our