Haunted by Your Touch by Jeaniene Frost, Sharie Kohler Read Free Book Online Page B

pressing again on the barrier to the right. My hand slipped inside just as easily as before, coming out dripping water once more. I could penetrate it, so this gateway had to lead back to my world.
    My stomach roiled with nausea. Did Rafael allow Purebloods to go back and forth shuttlingPartials through these two barriers? How easy that would be, and how private. Even if one of his people found traces that had been left after each passage, who’d think twice about water being splashed on a bathroom floor? No one, that’s who.
    I left the bathroom, my fingers trembling with the urge for revenge as they curled around my gun. But when I stomped over to Rafael and stared down at him, despair replaced the rage seething in me. He deserved to be killed in his sleep for all he’d done, but even as I raised the gun, my hand wavered. Rafael looked almost angelic lying there, with golden russet hair draped over part of his face and his mouth slightly open. His beauty shouldn’t have mattered to me, nor should the memory of how I’d felt in his arms, but even though he deserved it, I knew, deep down, that I couldn’t pull the trigger.
    My Partial side might have been howling at me to shoot and avenge my people, but killing Rafael felt wrong in every fiber of the rest of me. For once, the three-quarters of my humanity were stronger than even the urgings from one-quarter’s worth of seething, vengeful demon.
    I lowered the gun and spun back around, headinginto the bathroom. Maybe I couldn’t kill Rafael, but I could warn people about him. I wasn’t so weak that I couldn’t do
that
.
    I stared at the barrier to the right. Wherever it opened up to, it was somewhere wet, so I’d better take some deep breaths first.

Chapter Five

    I didn’t wait for Lena to put the car in park before I jumped into the passenger seat. My younger half sister gave my sodden clothes a disbelieving look before rubbing her nose.
    “What is that
smell
?”
    “You don’t want to know,” I replied shortly. Rafael’s portal had indeed opened up somewhere underwater. No wonder the location of the other gateway had remained hidden on this side for so long. What Partial in their right mind would go for an exploratory dive in the waters of a sewage treatment facility to stumble across it?
    “Guess now I know why you told me to bring you a change of clothes. I would’ve brought a bucket of water and some bleach, too, if I’d known how much you’d stink—”
    “Drive,” I cut Lena off in exasperation. “Wedon’t have much time. You don’t even know the shit that’s about to hit the fan.”
    “You found something out about Gloria?” she asked, losing the mocking tone at once. To my relief, she also hit the gas, lurching the car forward with the carelessness of a teenager who’d only recently learned how to drive.
    “Did you get ahold of Dad?” I replied, not answering that. If I could avoid involving my little sister in this, I would.
    “Left a message, but you know his cell has crappy reception in the Bahamas. Bet that’s why they go there every year for their anniversary, so it’s harder for us to bug them.”
    I agreed with her reasoning. Normally I wouldn’t begrudge my father or my stepmother their private time together, but it was more than an inconvenience now. Of course, his being out of town was why I’d chosen
this
weekend to break my promise by going back to Nocturna. I knew he’d never even realize I was gone, and Lena was fine staying home alone. She was more mature at sixteen than I’d been at that age.
    “Aunt Nancy and Uncle David?” I asked next.
    Lena shook her head. “At the movies. They’re supposed to go out to eat afterward, too.”
    Damn it! It figured everyone would be unavailable when I had the most important news of my life to relay.
    That left Lena. I gave her a hard look that she didn’t see as she concentrated on the road.
More mature than I was at her age, for sure
. And I had to tell
someone
before I