Carson's Night (The Stonebrood Saga) by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online

heart and eat it when I arrived, just then? I know he doesn’t like me.”
    “He doesn’t like that I love you. It’s nothing personal.”
    “He doesn’t like that I’m a rival in the hunting game and I’ve only been in it for three years, while he’s been around for one hundred and ninety, and your father considered me good enough to be his partner. It’s very personal. What else is there, Tally?”
    She looked him in the eye. “You’re different, Carson. You’re not like human men I’ve known…in bed I mean. I…don’t know you very well.”
    His smile turned smoky, hot and wicked. “But you liked what you do know,” he finished.
    “Yes,” she whispered, her cheeks blazing. “Where—” Her courage failed her.
    “Where did I learn that?” he finished.
    She nodded.
    He climbed off the bed. “I’m going to get the food and come right back. We both must eat and I bought hot meals.” He slipped from the room.
    While he was gone, Tally removed her shoes and settled cross-legged on the bed. It was nearly one in the afternoon. No wonder she was ravenous. She hadn’t eaten since yesterday.
    Carson reappeared with the two brown bags, which he placed on the small table by the window. There were two warm stuffed baguettes, freshly squeezed orange juice, and apple pie.
    For a while they ate in total silence.
    When Tally could spare enough attention away from her food, she asked, “You weren’t born into a demon hunting family, were you?”
    Carson shook his head as he wolfed down his apple pie. He reached for hers when she pushed it towards him and tackled it hungrily. “Born and raised in Minnesota. I was even married for a whole nine months.” He looked at her. “I learned later it wasn’t really my idea. The most beautiful girl in the town, who happened to be the daughter of the most powerful and richest man in the county, decided that I was the only man suitable enough to be her husband, and set about to make it happen any way she could. Mostly that was by using Daddy’s name and influence, and straight emotional blackmail. In the end it was straight blackmail. She told me she was pregnant. It was a lie of course.”
    “You divorced her?”
    “An incubus seduced her and killed her when it was done with her,” Carson said flatly. “At the time, I had no idea about this underworld of ours. I only knew that the police finding of depression and suicide made absolutely no sense at all. Not if you knew Debbie, which I finally did after nine months of her bullshit. Her father didn’t believe it either, which made us uneasy partners. He gave me an open check and told me to find the truth. It took me eighteen months but I did find the truth at last…and he didn’t believe me. He kicked me out of the town, out of his life, and made sure I could never step back into the county without being arrested.” Carson pushed the pie plate away with a convulsive shove and wiped his mouth.
    “But you knew about the demon world after that.”
    “Yeah,” Carson growled. “I had nowhere else to go. So I started hunting. First, I went looking for the incubus.”
    “Did you ever find it?”
    Carson shook his head. “Not yet. I’m not in any real hurry. One day I’ll cross its path and we’ll have words. But that’s not why I’m in this, Tally. Don’t ever think that. I’m not looking for a white whale and leaving destruction in my wake.”
    “You don’t give off that impression,” she assured him.
    “Mostly I’m doing it because it interests me,” he told her. “For nearly thirty years I had no idea there was a whole other world of creatures and people mingling with humans, undetected, sometimes living as humans. Then there are the humans who go among them and even hunt them. It’s a whole different universe, with different rules. I found myself drawn in. The more I was drawn in, the more I learned and the more I liked it. I started hunting, but I didn’t stop at hunting.”
    Tally felt her