Winter's Night Read Online Free Page B

Tabitha? Is your sister and Kyrian coming?”
    â€œNo, they’ll be here tomorrow. Morning sickness hit Amanda as they were leaving, but Talon said he’d be here just as soon as he could.” The two of them drifted off into the crowd.
    Gallagher stood back, watching the revelry. There were Arcadians here, Katagaria, Dark-Hunters, demons, humans, and who knew what else. By all rights none of them should get along and yet they were together tonight.
    Bound by something other than blood. They were bound together by their hearts.
    Colt came up to him. An Arcadian Sentinel, his job was technically to hunt and slay the Katagaria. But years ago the Peltiers had rescued and protected Colt’s mother and then raised him after her death. He was as loyal to the bear clan as any of their natural sons.
    Smiling, he pulled a pineapple mitt out of his back pocket. “Man, Gallagher, you must really rate. You got one of the good fish. All I got was a lousy pineapple.”
    â€œWhat, does everyone she meet get one?”
    â€œNope. Only family.”
    Gallagher looked around at that and saw something he hadn’t noticed earlier.
    Everyone there had a mitt.

Prologue
    Danger. O’Connell felt it on the back of his neck and deep in his bones as he raced his pinto across the dead winter Texas plains toward a town he’d never known existed.
    After all this time, he ought to be used to danger. He had lived his life under its constant stalking shadow, and kept it as his faithful companion. Danger was his ally and his enemy.
    It defined everything about him. There had only been one time in his life when he had felt safe. But that was a long time ago.
    It was biting cold out, not that he felt it much. His thrumming blood kept him warm as he rode through the night.
    â€œYou should have been there, Kid. It was like taking candy from a baby,” Pete had laughed. “Hah, now that I think about it, I did take candy from a baby. I just wish I could see their faces when they wake up and find their money gone.”
    Then as now, O’Connell hadn’t found the words amusing. He knew Pete could be as cold-blooded as they came—the bullet wound in his arm was testimony to that. But not even he had thought Pete would steal from an orphanage just two days before Christmas.
    The man had no soul.
    There was a time when O’Connell had been just the same. When hatred had strangled his heart and left him unable to feel for anyone save himself.
    And then he’d met her.
    His heart lurched, just as it always did when he thought of her. She had shown him another way, another life, and had changed everything about him in the process. She’d given him hope, a future. A reason to live. And life without her had been nothing more than a bitter hell.
    In all honesty, he didn’t know how he managed to make it through the endless, miserable days that had turned into years.
    Somehow, he just survived. Cold. Empty.
    Alone.
    God, how he missed her. How he ached for some way to go back and relive just one second of the time he’d shared with her. Just to see her face one more time, feel her breath on his skin.
    For a moment, O’Connell let his thoughts drift to the past. And like they always did when he was unguarded, they went to a remembered dream of long dark brown hair and eyes as clear and warm as a summer’s day. Of a woman who had told him she loved him without making a single sound.
    Closing his eyes, he saw her bright smile and heard the music of her laughter as she lay naked beneath him while he claimed her for his own. He clenched his teeth at the white-hot desire that coiled through his belly. And for a moment he swore he could still feel her hands against his back as she held him tight and cried out in ecstasy.
    Not even five years could dull the memories. Or his craving for her touch. He could taste the salty sweetness of her body, feel her hot and tight around him, and smell the sunshine