Forsaken: The World of Nightwalkers by Jacquelyn Frank Read Free Book Online

almost nothing about the Night Angels,” she whispered fiercely between tense lips and clenched teeth.
    So that was what she was. A Night Angel. The name suited her perfectly. Between those wings and her skin…and then there was her hair. Cleanly white, not a single touch of color or shading, not even a variation at the roots where a bleaching process would have been detected. She had it bound in a figure eight shaped knot on the back of her head, a thick, winding thing that told a tale of great length.
    And not a stitch to cover those unbelievable swells and hollows. From the slope of her shoulder to the cleft of her backside, there wasn’t a single ounce of shame. Nor an ounce of anything but well-shaped muscle beneath all of those female curves. Had she been human he might have thought she’d spent hours in the gym in order to achieve that muscular definition. Perhaps there were muscle groups required for flight. It wasn’t even a thought that could have possibly crossed his mind before this week. This strange, surreal, painful week.
    He watched as she bent forward, sliding an arm behind Jackson’s broad shoulders and the other beneath his knees. Leo watched, utterly stunned, as those lean muscles flexed and—with a remarkable display of strength—she lifted a man who had to be at least 180 pounds of dead weight as if he were a baby. It wasn’t completely effortless. He could see that as she moved quickly past him, toward the house, every single muscle in her body working hard at her task.
    When they passed the spot where Ram was, Docia broke away from them and hurried to his side. He was down on his haunches, bent over as though he were trying to be prepared in case vomiting ensued. He looked pale and sick, his eyes shot through with blood in the sclera, a sharp background for the gold of his irises. At Docia’s urging he straightened up onto his feet. And even though he didn’t look much better for it, Ram leaned on his love for strength and followed the entourage into the house. This rousing was also to be said for the Gargoyles, who were also picking themselves up from the deep holes in the ground left from the impacts of their stone bodies.
    They all followed in the Night Angel’s wake, at a loss to do anything else. She had come in and taken total command of the situation, and Leo was left without a single doubt that she deserved their hopeful faith in what she could offer them.
    But she had warned that she could not give them a miracle cure. He hadn’t missed that part. It sounded as though all she could offer them was a way to keep him alive for the time being while they figured out a solution.
    “Where is his bed?”
    “There’s a couch—” Docia began, gesturing toward the parlor.
    “No. He cannot be moved once I begin, so you will want him as comfortable and protected as possible.”
    Marissa hurried forward, showing the Angel the way to the master suite she shared with Jackson on the topmost floor of the house. Like all the rooms in the house the windows were polarized to block out the sun, the glass going blacker the brighter it became outside. Electronic blinds between the glass panes and automatic shades also reinforced that, raised and lowered as need be at the touch of a button.
    Docia hit the button that did that, protecting them from the imminent daybreak, just about an hour more away. Only an hour before everyone, except for Leo, a human companion who lived with them named Max, and Marissa’s sister Angelina, would be confined to the house or risk weaknesses under the sun. The humans would be the only ones able to freely exit. Which was the point of having Max for a lackey, Leo thought with a dark frown. As Bodywalkers, the owners of the house would become paralyzed at the touch of the sun. Just as the Gargoyles that stood sentry all around the property would turn to stone the very instant a single ray of sun crested over the horizon and touched them. Max would be able to carry out