Murder Game by Christine Feehan Read Free Book Online Page A

were wrapped around her throat, thumbs pressing tightly. She remained very still, shocked at the truth. She hadn’t been saving the cougar’s life—she’d saved his life. It had been imperative to save his life. The moment she’d felt the threat and knew the cougar was going to attack, she’d leapt over him from a crouching position, giving away another hidden secret, to keep him from harm. She blinked up at him as he slowly removed his hands from around her neck.
    “You could get off of me.” Her chest hurt. She was feeling every single rock digging into her back. “You weigh a ton.”
    He merely looked down at her for a long moment without responding, his blue-black eyes holding heat and a raw lust, making her heart pound, but then he blinked and his eyes went flat and hard, impossible for her to read. He stood up, drawing her with him, holding her steady until he was certain she was able to stand on her own.
    Tansy dusted off her jeans and then rubbed her palms down her thighs, looking around for the sunglasses that had flown off her face when the cat slammed into her. “Thanks for not shooting me.” She would never admit to him that she’d leapt in front of him to save his life, not for one moment. At a much later date, when he wasn’t around to confuse her, she’d take out her motives and examine them, but for now, she’d put it down to saving human life.
    “You’re damned lucky.”
    She nodded. “I know that and I really do appreciate that you’re that good.”
    “Are you going to tell me how you made that leap from a crouch to over the top of me so fast?”
    Tansy shrugged. “I don’t know how I do things. I just do them.” There were a lot of things about her that couldn’t be explained.
    “Have you ever heard of a man named Peter Whitney?”
    She blinked. Her face went expressionless as she searched the ground for her sunglasses, giving herself time to think. “I think most people in scientific communities have heard of Dr. Whitney,” she answered carefully as she retrieved her glasses from under some brush and wiped them off on her shirt. “I believe he was murdered.” She looked him straight in the eye so he could see she meant exactly what she said. “If you’ve found some piece of evidence you want me to ‘feel’ for you, I can’t do it.”
    “You believe he’s dead?”
    Tansy frowned. “It was big news. He disappeared and everyone thought he was murdered. Wasn’t he?”
    Kadan shook his head slowly. “No, he’s alive.”
    “That’s impossible. My parents knew him quite well. If he was alive, they’d know.”
    “How well is quite well? They were friends?”
    Tansy shrugged. “No one was really friends with Dr. Whitney. They were colleagues and they respected each other. My father and Dr. Whitney went to school together and they had a lot of common interests.”
    “Were you one of them?” Kadan asked.
    Tansy’s mouth tightened. She pushed around him to start up the trail again. “I think this conversation has gone on long enough. It’s getting personal and I don’t even know what you want yet. I have work to do tonight and I need food, so if you’re coming, then let’s get moving.”
    Kadan fell into step behind her, alert for any more threats from the large cat, his gaze shifting around the area, but more than that, his every sense reaching out for information. “Dr. Whitney conducted experiments on children about twenty-five years ago. He collected infant girls from various orphanages around the world. He was looking for specific talents, female babies with psychic abilities.”
    Tansy kept climbing while the roaring in her head sent her pulse pounding in her temples. Counting. Ten steps.
    “He named each of the girls after flowers. Tansy is a flowering herb that grows in Europe and Asia.”
    Fifteen steps.
    “He enhanced those girls psychically and genetically altered many of them as well. When he removed the filters in their brains, he opened them up for