Darkness Unbound by Zoe Forward Read Free Book Online Page A

you hear me? Do not get out of the car. Nod if you understand.” Christian’s head snapped to stare out the windshield into the black night, and then popped back to her. Worry pinched his features.
    “I’ll just doze here.” She leaned her head against the window.
    “Just stay in the car. No matter what you see out there. You can’t handle this thing, at least not your condition.”
    “What’s going on?” She squinted at him, but he was already exiting. The car door’s slam ricocheted like a gunshot through her head. She massaged her forehead. Instinct demanded she disregard the temptation to doze. Stay alert .
    Shadows moved in front of the car through the darkness beyond the light cast by a solo streetlight. Even that dim light hurt her retinas, but she forced herself to squint through the pain. Khyan flew from the darkness. He landed butt first onto the sedan’s hood with a long curved sword in hand. He jumped up like a superhero as if not even bruised, leaving a body-sized dent in his wake. He charged back into the dark.
    The car jolted forward, smacking Astrid’s cheek against the back of the front seat and tossing her onto the floor. She pulled herself off the floor mat to glance out the rear view. With a screech she braced for the SUV’s next strike. She crashed back onto the floor. Screw Christian’s dictate. She had to get out of this car. Now.
    Another hit came from the passenger side. Her head whacked against the driver’s side door. She blinked slowly until the world stopped its spin. Then, she tugged at the door handle, but it wouldn’t open. Outside, the door was tight against the concrete edge of an overpass. Two more successive hits, and the car broke through the concrete guardrail. It teetered at the edge. Interstate traffic whizzed below. She shuffled to the passenger side of the car too late.
    The car rocked into free fall.
    ****
    Had someone whacked her mid-forehead with a sledgehammer? Astrid cracked her eyelids, which resisted as if swollen. An overhead fluorescent light burned her retinas. She slammed her lids shut with a groan. Why did her ribs and legs ache?
    Oh yeah. The car had swan dived off an overpass. So much for Christian’s promise to protect her, if she got drunk.
    The steady beep-beep of nearby electrical equipment set off a metronome of rhythmic spiking pain in her brain. Artificially fresh disinfectant tickled her nose with a smell she knew only too well after years of gone-to-shit ops and from the weeks after Zannis skewered her. A hospital. She pushed her mind beyond the drugged drowning sensation and gasped for breath. You will not lose it right now. Pull it together and get your bearings.
    A second eye open didn’t hurt quite so much. She took in her hospital bed, digital monitoring equipment, and IV pole.
    Her stomach lurched with a red-alert warning. When she attempted to sit, restraints around her wrists and ankles prohibited more than a pitiful abdominal crunch move. She twisted, but couldn’t break free. Crap, she was going to vomit on herself.
    The restraints miraculously unlatched at the moment her stomach lurched. She rolled to the edge of the bed. A trashcan appeared beneath her head. A hand held her hair as her stomach emptied copious amounts of foul fluid.
    She wiped her mouth with the moist washcloth handed to her, and fell back against the pillow. Her savior glowed. Actually, only his hair glimmered as its long blue strands traveled a wavy path to his mid-back. Blue? That punk style had gone out decades ago. A woven gold, blue, and red beaded collar lay over his darkly tanned, naked neck and sculpted, smooth chest. And he wore a sarong-style skirt. Maybe she was finally dead, and he was an angel or god or something.
    But who vomited when dead?
    “You are not dead, Astrid.”
    He could read minds. And knew her name. That weirded her out.
    He chuckled.
    “Where am I?” Her voice came out scratchy, and her throat burned as if she’d had a breathing