Beneath the Skin by Adrian Phoenix Read Free Book Online Page B

slanted together. "I sure as hell wasn't expecting him to have another seizure after we spiked him fulla morphine. That worries me, doll."
    Heather shivered, her wet clothes clinging to her skin, cooling the hot ache in her battered thighs. But more than wet clothes chilled her. She remembered what Dante had said, words whispered and broken, just as the morphine took him the first time.
    Her name was Chloe. She was my princess. And I killed her.
    "He's remembering things," Heather said, fighting to keep her voice level. "Lyons and his sister kept showing him images from Bad Seed, kept trying to shove his past down his throat and he was having seizures over and--"
    A creak of bedsprings, a whiff of motor oil and frost, then warm hands cupped her face. Callused thumbs wiped away the tears from her cheeks, tears she hadn't even known were there. "Hey, hey, hey," Von murmured.
    Heather bit down on the underside of her lip to keep from bawling like a baby. She was too drained, too exhausted, to feel embarrassed.
    "We'll get him through this, doll, whatever it takes." Von's voice, low and rough with emotion and thick with coming Sleep, brushed against her aching heart like fingers against her cheek. "We ain't gonna lose him to those fuckers."
    "He never stopped fighting," Heather said.
    "And he ain't gonna quit now." Von released her face to wrap her hands up in his. "You know why?"
    "Because he's pigheaded?"
    "Like a goddamned mule."
    Heather felt a smile tug at her lips. "A pig-headed mule?"
    "Thanks for that mental image, doll." Von smiled, squeezed her hands once, then released them.
    "How is Lucien's death going to affect him?" Heather asked. "To have that dumped on top of everything else ..."
    "Not good." Von rubbed his face with his hands. "I still can't believe Lucien's dead. I don't know how the severed bond's gonna affect Dante. If it was gonna kill him, I think it woulda done so the moment it was cut."
    "Not always, llygad."
    Heather twisted around to look at Cortini. She leaned one shoulder against the wall, her gaze on Dante, her dark hair framing her face. "Sometimes the damage is subtle," she said, "and takes hours to reveal the extent--a hemorrhaging brain or one seared from the inside out."
    "Thanks," Von growled. "Just the note I wanna Sleep on."
    "I can hang towels over the curtains if it needs to be darker in here," Heather said, scooting off the bed.
    "Nah, we'll be just fine. Keep the curtains closed and the blankets up." Turning around, he yanked down the comforter and blankets on his side of the bed and tucked himself underneath. "Bonne nuit, y'all," he slurred. "Don't let the bedbugs ..."
    The nomad's eyes closed and he was gone, lost to Sleep's narcotic embrace before he'd even pulled up the blankets. His breathing slowed. All the tension eased from his handsome face, smoothing worry lines and creases from his skin. He looked peaceful.
    Heather pulled the blankets up over his head, making certain he and Dante were 100 percent covered. "Sleep well," she wished them both.
    She sat down on the unoccupied bed and slid the Browning underneath the pillow. Despite Von's words, she was worried, deep and down to the bone. What had been unleashed inside of Dante?
    Weariness burned through Heather, fogged her mind. Her thoughts kept circling, taking on a looping Wizard of Oz singsong rhythm: the Bureau, the Shadow Branch, the Fallen. Oh, my. She'd bet anything an APB was out on them--Dante, because of Rodriguez's murder, herself as an accomplice.
    But Dante had been no more responsible for the death than a fired gun. He'd had no choice, his programming triggered by the man who'd implanted it. Dr. Robert Wells and his twisted son, Alexander Lyons, had used Dante like a weapon.
    How could she keep Dante hidden and safe--and, most importantly, unused? The walls barricading his hidden past had been breached; how much of it had slipped through? The memory of Chloe's loss alone and his role in it would be enough to break