Lore vs. The Summoning by Anya Breton Read Free Book Online

be really stupid. If so, I might not have to work all that hard after all. But no, he couldn't be that much of an idiot. Things never went that well for me.
    While I watched in stunned silence, the Rhino lifted a large key ring from the waistband of his pants and shoved a key into the lock on the cage door. I held my breath, mentally calculating the moves I was going to make to break free of the behemoth. But the lock didn't turn for him. He exhaled roughly, lifted another key and wiggled it in. Oh, lovely. The dumb ass didn't even know which key would open the door. For all I knew he might not even have it.
    He tried two more, letting out increasingly frustrated breaths in between each one.I contemplated if I'd be able to unlock my own door after his corpse was decomposing on the floor. In the end I decided to let him get it open first.
    His minuscule lips lifted into a sick smile of pleasure when the lock made a distinctive clicking sound. He'd found the key, finally, after twelve tries. That expression told me that I was going to pay for making him go to all the effort.
    I remained pressed to the back of the cage in a ball shape. The Rhino struggled with the cage latch for a few seconds before the metal door swung open. I took a deep, steadying breath as I stared into the eyes of a killer. There would be no remorse when this one died.
    Given his massive stature I would have thought he'd have arms long enough to reach the two and a half feet back to me. I'd have thought wrong because the top of his head hit the edge of the cage when his sausage-like fingers were still inches away from me. He shoved the other arm inside as if that would help matters. This time it was his Mini Cooper shoulders that smacked into the front of the cage. He let out an exasperated snarl just before trying to squeeze his entire upper body in with me. This was going to take all night, or at least until he figured out that he needed something long and sharp to jab at me.  
    In an effort to speed this up, I lifted my hands to curl around his bare arms. They were rough like an animal's hide, which I supposed made sense given what he was. I had a brief moment of stomach fluttering doubt that my power wouldn't work on him. I'd never plagued a Rhino before. Then I saw the black weaving its way up his leathery skin.
    He jerked so violently that the cage damn near buckled beneath it. His unmanly shriek within the metal cage sent vibrations through the confined space. The shrill sound pierced my eardrum and made my eyes momentarily roll back into my head. I shook it off because I had a feeling I was going to have to worry about...
    The Rhino gripped my arm to yank me forward. I spilled out of the cage onto floor because of my legs couldn't support my weight yet after being cramped in the confine space. The Rhino's hacking breath halted long enough to grab me by the leg again, lift me by it and use me like a baseball bat...only there was no ball, there was only a wall. He smashed me head first into the cream-painted cinder blocks. Stars burst behind my eyelids.
    He pulled me back to repeat the action, this time slower but I didn't doubt that it would still hurt. I needed him dead. I willed it to happen, willed my dark power to flow down to my foot and into the swollen hand that held it. The Rhino let out another scream that ended in a fit of coughs. He dropped me mid-swing. I continued forward, slamming into the wall with a rib-crushing momentum.
    The Rhino was down for the count, working hard on breathing instead of worrying about killing me. I lay where I'd come to rest for several minutes, biting my lip to keep from making pained noises. I knew I should move now that our second captor's breath had nearly stopped. He had keys and I didn't want to search a pile of stinking ooze for them.
    I said a silent prayer for fortitude. This was going to hurt. I might be able to heal wounds faster than any Were or vampire but I always felt the pain for far