Life Cycle by Zoe Winters Read Free Book Online Page B

down to his mate. He lost all his sense and reason.
Another thing Cain didn’t find very attractive as a lifestyle.
    “Will somebody please tell me what’s going on?” Cain
was growing irritated.
    “Fine,” Cole said. “The Cycler has struck.”
    “Already?” Only two little Indians left.
    The pack leader continued, “It’s hit the human media.
It’s bad. Come with us, we need to show you.”
    “I’m staying with Tam,” Anna said. Luc nodded and
kissed her, then she left the tent, going right through it in her
ghostly form without Luc to hold onto.
    Cain looked away from the display
of affection. There was no reason to be jealous of his brother. In
the mating, Anna had fundamentally changed—a slow transformation
that, over time, would make her more demon than human, but changes
had happened in Luc as well. He could only
feed from her. L uc had given up the
freedom of the hunt, the freedom to seduce and kill. He'd given up
what he was as an incubus.
    The demon leader growled, and they all looked at
him.
    “What?” Luc said, his eyes narrowing.
    “Nothing. I was just thinking.”
    But Luc knew him too well; the suspicion didn’t leave
his eyes. The man upstairs had royally fucked Cain and all the
other demons he’d created. They could either be free or happy. They
couldn’t have both. Maybe Cain would never be enslaved by his own
guilt, but he’d always known that if he took a mate, his freedom
was over forever. Luc had known it, too. But he hadn’t cared. That
stupid witch had wormed her way into his heart. What was it with
witches and their kind?
    Luc couldn’t play around with others. Not based on
some internal moral code, but literally, it wouldn’t work. If he
tried to harm his mate in any way, it would only hurt him twice as
much—that was how tightly he and Anna were linked. Cain had
discouraged his demons from mating, playing up the freedom they’d
lose. In truth, he didn’t want the man upstairs to be right about
anything. He didn’t want to believe his punishment had been
deserved or that it served any rehabilitative purpose. It made it
easier to maintain the anger.
    It was mid-morning when they reached the hive in Cary
Town. Cole took the lead—after all, they were his caves that his
pack lived in. The pack showed deference to Jane and Cole, but
pulled back when they saw Cain and Luc.
    “They’re all right,” Cole said. “I told you, we have
an alliance with the demons because of Jane.”
    Most of the pack relaxed a fraction at the
reassurance, but the rest drew back and tried to make themselves
invisible against the walls.
    “Mara, get the television set up, please,” Jane
said. The wolf disappeared down one of the cave’s corridors. She
returned several minutes later, rolling a large cart with a flat
screen TV on it into the center of the main den which served as a
rec room and meeting hall of sorts.
    “Please remove all small children back to the living
quarters. We don’t want to frighten them,” Cole said.
    Mother wolves ushered children down a separate
hallway. Whatever was about to be revealed, the pack hadn’t seen it
yet.
    “All right, brace yourselves. There has been nothing
but this on the news for the past hour.” Jane clicked a button and
the television blinked on.
    A newscaster stared out at them with a blank look
plastered on her face as she spoke. “The president has issued a
statement asking that everyone remain calm. We don’t know what this
means yet.”
    Jane changed to another channel. This one showed an
image of the crime scene. This time a man on the scene spoke into a
microphone.
    “Full information of the state of
the body is not being released, but if the killer is trying to
emulate Jack the Ripper, it doesn’t take much imagination to guess
the grisly details. The alleged killer released a bizarre letter
directly to the media only thirty minutes before the body was
discovered. In this letter he seems to be implying that he is Jack the Ripper.