Absolution by Susannah Sandlin Read Free Book Online Page B

muscle pain. They were gone, but she didn’t feel stoned. She felt like herself.
    “How…Penton?” Her voice came out this time, scratchy, dry. She drank the rest of the water in one gulp and noticed for the first time the IV in her arm. The tube led to a bag of fluid hanging on a pole.
    Krys took the paper cup. “I’ll give you some more water in a few minutes, once I’m sure you can keep it down. How much do you remember? Your name’s Glory, right?”
    “I was in a cage, a cell…I got taken…that man. Sir. No, I don’t remember his name…” Panicking, Glory sat up and swung her legs off the bed and was rewarded with a bad case of the room-spins. Even the blue flowers on the nightgown she was wearing were spinning. Where were her clothes?
    She put her hands over her face, hoping when she uncovered her eyes she’d be back in Atlanta, getting ready to go to work at the Circle K. “I’ve got to get out of here. Vampires. I know you won’t believe me but…there are vampires. They…” She slid her hands to her neck and felt the rough terrain of scar tissue. Embarrassed, she fixed her eyes on the floor. The woman would think she was a junkie nut job who’d done this to herself somehow.
    A cool hand grasped her wrist, and the woman sat on the bed next to her. “Oh yeah, there are definitely vampires. I am one.”
    Glory tried to pull away, an involuntary moan rising in her throat, but the grip that held her was unyielding. “But you’re a doctor?” Vampires couldn’t be doctors, could they? And Krys had a kind face and brows wrinkled in concern. She didn’t look scary.
    “Shhhh. Lie back down. That’s a long story, but I guarantee nobody here’s going to hurt you. Let me tell you what I know.” Krys stood up and gently swung Glory’s legs back up to rest on the clean white sheets. Clean. Everything was so clean, except her.
    Glory’s gaze slid to the door, then to her surroundings. On television, hospital rooms always surrounded patients with steel furnishings and stiff linens and beeping equipment. This bed sported a carved headboard and all of the furniture except the rolling tray had been constructed of wood instead of steel, as if someone wanted to make the room less institutional. Even though the sole window was covered with eggshell-colored blinds, she could see out enough to tell it was nighttime. “Where did you say I was?”
    Krys perched on the edge of the bed. “Penton, Alabama, near the Georgia state line. Mirren Kincaid brought you here.”
    Glory frowned. “Mirren.” An image came to her of an impossibly tall man, hungry silver eyes, a vampire. “He was supposed to kill me.”
    Krys laughed, and Glory saw a fash of fangs. The woman really was a vampire, and if she hadn’t been afraid she’d fall over, Glory would’ve been tempted to try and run. She’d gone from one vampire captor to another.
    “Obviously, he didn’t kill you,” Krys said. “In fact, from what I understand, Mirren refused to leave that awful place without you.”
    “I don’t understand.” Glory rubbed her eyes, ran her hands through her tangle of hair, and grimaced. Nasty. God, what she’d give for a shower.
    Krys seemed to understand her expression. “Why don’t you see if you can stand up? If you’re steady enough, I’ll take out the IV and you can get in the shower. My friend Melissa’s about your size. She brought some clothes for you. Then we can talk.”
    What did female vampires wear? Glory glanced at Krys’s forest-green sweater and jeans. Nothing weird about them. The vampires who’d taken her had all been men, rich men with a taste for tailored suits or cashmere and wool.
    The doctor helped her sit up and then stand. She wobbled a little at first, but steadied as Krys removed the IV needle, swabbed the puncture wound with alcohol, and covered it with a Band-Aid. “Melissa’s another vampire?”
    Krys laughed. “No, she’s my mate’s fam—his human familiar, or feeder, but also