Octavia's War by Tracy Cooper-Posey Read Free Book Online Page A

look as if it weighed nothing, only Octavia had seen what Ángel had packed in it.
    Ángel carried another bag, slung over one shoulder. After a mile he put his arms through both handles and hefted it onto his back like a pack, too.
    As they had walked away from the house in the clear, harsh daylight, Remmy had glanced up at the sun and squinted. “Today we’ll walk until the sun is high, then camp until sunset. We’ll walk into the night, as late as we can. Then you’ll sleep tomorrow, once more. We should make it across the Rio by some time tomorrow night if all goes well.”
    Ángel had not spoken or disputed Remmy at all, yet Octavia saw his troubled look. There was something bothering him that he wasn’t ready to talk about.
    She found she was watching over her shoulder a lot, after that. Every now and again, she would turn and look back the way they had come and minutely examine the horizon for signs of anything out of the ordinary.
    “There’s nothing behind us,” Ángel said, the last time she looked back.
    “How do you know that?” she demanded.
    “I just know.” His eyes under the hat were shadowed.
    Remmy considered him. “They say that one of every trinity becomes the hunter, with extraordinary senses and instincts. Maybe that’s you.”
    Octavia frowned. “He could hear the safe without leaning up against it.”
    “Shouldn’t you be the hunter?” Ángel said to Remmy. “Aren’t vampires hunters anyway?”
    “Yes, they are, but how did you know that? Lucky guess, I wonder?” Remmy said.
    “My superstitious mother.” Ángel shrugged. “She had a story for everything.”
    “I am a hunter of humans and other earthly creatures,” Remmy said, without any apparent self-consciousness. “You, though, will be hunting prey of a completely different kind.”
    Octave stared at him. “You’re not even embarrassed to tell us you kill humans?” she asked, amazed.
    “I didn’t say I kill those I catch.” Remmy gave her a small smile. “No human has regretted allowing me to feed from them. None of them remember me doing so.”
    Even Ángel was staring at him, now. Octavia caught Ángel’s glance as he looked at her. She could see a dozen different emotions in his eyes and his face. He was repelled and at the same time, fascinated.
    This was such a different world from the one they had run away from last night.
    Remmy turned and began walking again and she and Ángel followed. Remmy seemed to have an uncanny sense of direction. She kept checking the position of the sun to be sure and he never wavered from their north-east direction.
    “There’s a rift and a bluff, about ten miles ahead,” Ángel said softly as time moved on.
    “I am aware of that,” Remmy said. “Once we are on the other side of the arroyo, we can bend east to avoid them both.”
    Other than odd comments like that, none of them spoke. It left Octavia with far too much time to think and she had difficulty thinking of anything except the bonding that was supposed to be building between them. She found she was studying one or the other of them, speculating about them. And their bodies.
    Annoyed, she tried to distract herself with mentally writing a report about how she had been forced to abandon her identity and position inside the Garcia family. The dry phrases couldn’t hold her attention and the whole time she fought with the wording, a part of her was wondering if the DEA would even be a part of her future.
    There were too many unknowns ahead, that was the problem. Just like the open and endless land around them, her future stretched on without many details.
    Then she would realize she was staring at Remmy’s rear as he walked, following the line of his ass under the worn jeans and the long length of his legs.
    And she would be back to cursing at herself for her lack of mental discipline.
    “I’m curious,” Ángel said, changing his pace so he was walking alongside her. “Back in the kitchen, you interrogated both of