Midnight Medusa by Stephanie Draven Read Free Book Online

You can’t watch me every second.”
    “And when you do, you’ll run to her?” Damon growled. “Even knowing what she wants you to do with your powers?”
    “Why shouldn’t I run to her?” Renata demanded. “Why shouldn’t I save the world the burden of having to hunt these men down? They killed my family. I can return the favor.”
    “Who killed your family, Renata? Do you even know? Was it the Serbs, the Bosniaks, the Croats, the Montenegrins? Who killed their families before?”
    “There’s no moral equivalency,” she snapped. “Don’t equate what happened to them to what happened to us.”
    “I’m not,” he started to say, but she was already clawing at him for the phone. She was on her knees, her legs tangled in the blankets as her nails dug into his black dress shirt.
    She got hold of the phone and held onto it with all her strength. “Let me call her, Damon. You can’t stop me from sculpting.”
    The more she wrestled with him the more it seemed to enraged him. “Let go of the phone,” Damon snarled.
    “You’ll have to break my fingers first!” Renata shouted.
    His jaw clenched as he brought his face close to hers, warning, “I’ll do just that, Renata. I’ll break your fingers, one by one, before I let you pick up a chisel again.”
    The force of his threat carried on his breath as it puffed into her face. It had the scent of gunpowder and the iron tang of blood. It carried the stench of corpses and carrion. It carried the very essence of dread. It was more than just a scent. It was a power that overwhelmed her. It was terror in its most primal form, and Renata could not fight it.
    A thousand snakes of terror slithered inside her, coiling and striking her conscious mind. As the memories of her childhood flowed over her, she fell back on the bed and began to scream. Her scream came from such a deep part inside that it exploded out of her and scraped her raw. Her scream was a mixture of keening and rage, of grief and frenzy.
    A mirror across the room from the bed shattered, glass shards scattering across the wooden floor like shell fragments.
    What had he done to her? He was killing her.
    Renata screamed again and the cabin windows rattled ominously. She was hurting her own ears and her skin felt like it was on fire. She was burning, burning. She would make the whole world burn with her.
    “Renata, stop!” Damon was shaking her.
    She saw him shout the words, reading his lips rather than hearing the sound. All she could hear was her own scream. She felt like her fingernails were fraying, hurt slicing through her, and she couldn’t stop screaming.
    It was agony.
    Damon pushed her down, smothering her body with his own, urgently offering his flesh as the only respite from the pain. “I’m sorry!” he was whispering. “I’m going to take it away.”
    Desperate, she pressed her cheek to the bare skin of his chest where she’d torn his shirt. Where his skin touched hers, she felt the familiar tingle, the tug at the fear inside her, as if he were drawing it out of her, as if he were devouring it.
    His mouth was open in silent feasting, twisted in a grimace. “Give me your terror. I’ll take it away.”
    Renata didn’t fight him. She let him have it all. Every nightmare, every secret, every horrible burden she carried. And as he drew the terror from her, Renata’s screams turned to whimpers as she shivered against him.
    Slowly, he eased her from dread to contentment, and her breathing calmed, easy and languid. In a rush, she scented the woodsy smoke of a warm meal spent in her father’s lap, then the cherry Popsicles she used to bring her littler brother, which made him smile and stick out his red-stained tongue.
    Damon gave her back these happier memories, eased her down into the bed, and let them flow over her.
    She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, in his arms, but soon found that she was as calm and relaxed as she’d ever been. She wanted to tell him that he’d taken