JUMP (The Senses) by Cindy Paterson Read Free Book Online Page A

looked at his picture, protected, sheltered in his embrace as if he’d done something to stop the suffering. What though? And why?
    Without turning around , he spoke. “Forget me, little one.”
    “No. I can’t. Tell me,” Danielle said , her voice a jagged whisper. “What happened to us?”
    “You’re better off forgetting.”
    Danielle’s spine stiffened. “Don’t you dare tell me what I’m better off forgetting. You came here, so bloody well explain why.”
    “So you’d know I was real,” he said.
    “Look at me. ” Danielle grabbed the back of his coat, wanting him to spin around and face her. “Damn it, look at me,” she said, her voice rising.
    But he didn’t, instead he walked away.
    She refused to go after him; her dignity was too great to do that again. Instead, she stood staring, her body jerking as the back door slammed and the uneasiness came swirling around her once more. It was as if this veil had been lowered over her while he was present, then it lifted and again she was immersed in her own hell. Alone. Afraid. And desperate for him to come back.
    She kicked the legs of her easel and it crashed to the floor. Her scream of frustration bellowed into the air.
     
    ****
     
    He leaned up against the door, bo dy shaking, heart pounding, breath in short gasps. He cringed, a pain shooting through his heart like an arrow as he heard her scream. The impulse was strong to bolt back inside, pull her into his arms and cradle her. If he’d turned around, he would’ve been lost in those eyes, seeing the pain. Walking away had been his only option. If he told her what had happened, what he was, her life would be in jeopardy. No human could have knowledge of the Senses.
    Why had he come tonight? Why cause her more grief than she already had? He felt her anguish, the anxiety of contemplating that she was going insane. He had to give her one sense of reality—that he lived. She wasn’t imagining him. Would she be able to move through her past now? Or had he just made it worse?
    God, the thought of her free spirit being swept up into the heavens, never to be found again, made him sick to his stomach.
    The undomesticated part of him craved to be released and run, feel the elements, be free from the constant guilt that sucked him under with every breath he took.
    He sighed, a ragged sound undistinguishable even to himself. Never had he sunk this low.
    The past two years had been hell, as he fought the malicious blood that ran in his veins like poison. Any Senses warrior knew what the tainted blood did to you, destroyed your virtue, made your thirst for blood so strong you’d do anything to relieve the agony; kill any in your path in order to claim their blood. That made it pretty damn important never to do as he had done. Still some refused to comply with the laws and risked death for power and control. He’d betrayed his kind, but luckily, so far, he’d escaped death and the power of the vampire blood he had consumed.
    Most v ampires were soulless maggots who had no qualms about killing. Actually, they had no qualms about doing anything despicable. Living with the constant thirst for blood made them a threat to humans, and it was the Senses’ job to make certain that didn’t happen. But that wasn’t the only war they had to fight on this earth. The CWOs, Center World Others, were always rising from beneath the ground, and they were still trying to figure out what capabilities they possessed. He’d encountered several during his two years of running from the Senses and the Wraiths who governed them.
    He ’d nearly crossed over to the draw of the vampire blood that ran through his veins, eating away at all his morals and values. It was Danielle who kept him sane. Her strength. Her voice. Scent. God, everything about her.
    He ’d been running from Waleron—his Taldeburu . . From Danielle, from everything he had ever known. The Senses had nature’s gifts from the five distinct senses, and he’d only