Beast in Me (The Divination Falls Trilogy) by Sommer Marsden Read Free Book Online Page B

sheriff blurted.
    ‘We … No,’ Cameron said, and he felt more than saw the wolf smirk.
    ‘You didn’t feel that tremor?’ Eliot yelped.
    ‘I did. I just –’
    ‘It was so light,’ Trace interrupted. ‘We weren’t sure we felt what we felt.’
    Well, that was a loaded statement, Cam thought. I certainly felt what I felt.
    He pressed his lips together and refused to look at Trace. He finally gets contact with another man, a man he actually finds intriguing and handsome and, yes, just plain fuckable, and the guy’s denying the chemistry five minutes later. Is this what wolves were like?
    ‘Tremor,’ the sheriff said, nodding. He cocked his head and studied them, but at the last minute said nothing, just pressed his lips tight and tried not to smile.
    ‘I’m off to fix that fence,’ Trace said. ‘See you back at the good father’s home for wayward freaks,’ he said to Cameron and off he went.
    Cameron rubbed his forehead hard and tried not to scream. Frustration didn’t come close to covering how he felt.
    ‘Did the tremor have any significance?’ Then it hit him: when the tremor hit, when he felt as if the earth was moving, the lightning had hit. But he’d been too busy getting his rocks off and so what? So what if he let it be about him for five whole minutes?
    He gritted his teeth against his internal temper tantrum and waited for them to explain.
    ‘It hit and we got a call from up at the Simon place that someone saw a bleed-through.’
    ‘Tentacles?’ he asked, feeling suddenly exhausted.
    ‘More like claws and wings.’
    Cameron shivered a bit. This was very much like a waking nightmare.
    ‘But everyone’s OK?’ he ask. When he bent to tie his shoe, a minor shock rolled through his fingers. The wolf had not reacted to the blast from Brother Lightning. If anything it amused him. My God, was there hope for –?
    ‘Everyone’s fine,’ Eliot said. She cocked her head. ‘Are you?’ His eyes only darted toward the path once, but he’d forgotten, just for a minute, that she was an empath. ‘Oh honey, he’s a hard case. He has a really … terrible background.’
    Cameron looked up swiftly. ‘What do you mean?’
    She sighed. ‘Not for me to say. Let’s just say, someone he cared for was hurt long ago. He blames himself and he’s locked himself away in that church for over a damn decade. And the Father watches over him. When he called it a place for freaks, he meant himself. He didn’t really mean you.’
    ‘But I’m a freak,’ Cam said, laughing. He meant for it to sound self-mocking. Instead, it sounded dreadful.
    Eliot shook her head. ‘You’re not, and neither is he, for God’s sake.’
    ‘Back to the tremor,’ Slaughter said. ‘Sorry to be a jerk about it, but –’
    Cameron shook his head. ‘No, no. That’s what matters. Do you want to walk me to the closest? Or the first?’
    ‘The first makes sense,’ Eliot said.
    ‘When was it?’ He followed them back the way he’d already walked, ducking the same branches, stumbling over the same roots.
    ‘Not long after the events at the tavern,’ Slaughter said. ‘About a month and a half ago.’
    ‘Do tremors always come before?’
    Eliot looked at the sheriff and something passed between them. She finally looked at Cam and answered. ‘Well, the first time, we weren’t really sure that we’d felt a tremor. We thought it was maybe a low-passing military plane or an explosion out in town – or …’ She shrugged. ‘Something.’
    ‘But?’ he asked, trying to keep from falling and breaking his damn neck.
    ‘But every time it happens, we get another one, and they’re getting –’
    ‘They’re getting stronger,’ the sheriff said, cutting her off. ‘We don’t know, but we’re afraid that’s because the creatures are getting stronger.’
    ‘Or figuring out how to get in,’ Eliot said.

Chapter Eight
    ‘We’ll have to drive,’ the sheriff said. ‘Unless you’re up for a super hike. We have a