RawHeat by Charlotte Stein Read Free Book Online Page A

had
never known her father. All her friends were disgusting sociopaths.
    Who did that realistically leave? Commissioner Reddick?
    She reached out through the dense blackness again, searching
for the completely dead control panel. For the cages, maybe—but then again, if
she got too close something could leap at the bars and get her.
    Something far more bestial than Connor.
    Though as she searched, she realized something pretty
fundamental—that being attacked by a beast in a cage was the least of her
worries. Actually finding the cages was more of a concern, in blackness
thick as tar. She stumbled into things without meaning to, hands running over
objects that could have been anything in the dark.
    A console. A chair. A wolf, eight feet tall and ten feet
across. Mouth like a shark’s. Eyes glowing and glowing and just waiting for her
to spot it, skulking in the thick shadows.
    “Serena?”
    She almost screamed. Her brain turned the voice into a
wolf’s roar without her permission, and some silly sound just threatened to
burst right out of her. Only clutching on to something crazy—like her own
hair—kept it in, and even then she knew she was whimpering.
    She actually stood in this darkness, bleating like a sheep.
It didn’t shock her that embarrassment was her primary emotion, when Connor
quite suddenly spoke.
    “Serena, it’s okay, it’s okay. Come toward my voice.”
    Her immediate instinct was to hold down the relief that
bloomed inside her—because really what if it wasn’t him? What if her mind was
just playing tricks or even worse—what if the wolves had somehow gained the
ability to mimic each other? He sounded so cool and measured and yes, true,
there was the hint of that rich-chocolate warmth in there.
    There was a hint of Connor.
    But how could she really know for sure?
    “I have twenty-twenty night vision. I can see you freaking
out over there.”
    Though the touch of deadpan in his words was something of a
clue.
    “Are you okay?” she asked and oh it was mortifying how
waver-y the words came out. All up and down and full of more whimpering, while
he somehow managed to sound so unruffled.
    Even when he went with some really painful sentences, he
sounded unruffled.
    “I have three nails in my left shoulder, but I’ll live.”
    She fumbled toward him, arms out.
    “Watch the chair Dr. Philips overturned in his haste to
flee.”
    Oh, definitely Connor. No doubt about it.
    “Can you really see everything perfectly?”
    “You know I can. A little to your left—don’t go too fast,
you’re almost at the bars.”
    He didn’t have to tell her, however. The smell of blood had
gotten strong enough to gag her.
    “Are you hurt anywhere else? It stinks like a fucking slaughterhouse
in here.”
    “They cut one of my fingers off.”
    He even said a thing like that in a glassy, reasonable
voice. As though he’d just told her what the weather was like in France.
    “Jesus Christ,” she managed to get out, but the sob couldn’t
be held back this time. It strangled her words into submission, then kicked
dirt over their graves.
    She wrapped her hands around the oily bars and tried to just
shake them.
    “It’s fine. It grew back,” he said, and she knew it was true
because his hands went over hers. Sticky, but complete with all possible
fingers.
    “Yeah, that makes it okay.”
    “It makes it okay when you say things like that
sarcastically,” he said. She could feel him stroking over the backs of her
hands. Feel him leaning down to kiss her through the bars. It made her weak,
even under these circumstances.
    “I need to get you out of here. I mean, I know the wolves
might ignore you but even so—”
    “There aren’t any wolves. It’s a corridor collapse down by
Ward Two.”
    He was still stroking her hands. And when she went still and
didn’t quite know what to say, he kissed her mouth again. Wetter this time. A
little deeper—or as deep as the bars would allow.
    She could taste blood, though it