Shadow Rising by Cassi Carver Read Free Book Online Page A

pulled back in a feral snarl to reveal a long set of glistening fangs. She noticed then that he was completely naked. Not a scrap of clothing covered him. Not one pendant adorned his neck.
    “Julian?” When she took an involuntary step forward, he hissed and fanned his wings, adding to his menacing bulk. Kara stopped and extended her hands. “Are you all right?”
    “Who are you?” His voice was low and rusty, as if he’d just woken up. “Why were those men closing in on you?”
    “What men?”
    He nudged the body with his foot. “The ones I’ve been swatting like flies.”
    She couldn’t believe her eyes. The black-wing looked like Julian. He was Julian. And yet the creature before her didn’t have a glimmer of recognition in his hard gaze.
    “What were you thinking?” She knelt by the warrior and quickly examined him.
    The front of his skull had cracked where he’d hit the pavement, and he was unconscious, but at least he was still breathing. His head was going to feel like the devil had used it for league bowling when he woke up. And his wings…they were nothing but shredded stumps protruding from his shoulder blades.
    She stood. “Those are your scouts, Julian, the men you and the Mercury Lords posted at the four corners of the city to watch for—” she couldn’t raise the word above a whisper, “—Aniliáre.” Maybe they’d been coming to warn her…
    His eyes narrowed on her face with an expression bordering on contempt. “I don’t know you.”
    “It’s me, Kara.” She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Nothing made sense. She tugged the leaf charm from the cord around her neck and held it out to him. “This is your symbol. You asked me to wear it. Don’t you remember? Gavin gave it to me after…”
    He eyed the charm suspiciously but didn’t reach his hand out.
    She hadn’t expected Julian to come back. Gavin and Aiden had both confirmed he was truly dead. But when she’d allowed herself to dream of seeing him again, it had never played out like this. What was wrong with him? “Take it. Please.”
    The sound vibrating in his chest was like a rattler before it struck. He stepped forward, tore the charm from her grasp and cast it into a patch of straggly weeds fighting for life in the narrow seam between the building and pavement.
    She tried to stand her ground when he closed in on her, but his corded muscles and towering height dwarfed her smaller frame. He pressed his nose to the side of her neck and inhaled slowly. “You smell… right .”
    She couldn’t help leaning into him. His skin singed hers as he roughly cupped her chin and inspected her face. She brought her hands to his bare shoulders. “God, I’ve missed you.”
    Her heart felt as if it were swelling in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She wanted to squeeze him tight and never let him go, but his muscles went rigid under her fingertips and his lips quivered with something like rage. “It’s all right, baby,” she soothed as a single tear trickled down her cheek. “You’re alive, and that’s all that matters.”
    Perplexity flashed in his eyes for just an instant before they turned hard again. “I don’t know you.”
    He began to back away, but Kara held firm and rose to her tiptoes. “Do you know this ?”
    She brushed her lips tenderly over his. His sharp fangs were still fully extended, so she licked at them with the tip of her tongue as she smoothed a hand down his back. When she got to his rump, he grasped her fingers in a tight grip and shoved her against the building.
    His wings pressed against the wall to either side of her, cocooning her in. “You are a foolish woman.”
    He nuzzled her neck, running his tongue along her pulsing vein before grazing her with his teeth, hard enough to draw blood.
    “Ouch!” She pushed at his chest but couldn’t budge him.
    He might be built like Julian and he might look like Julian, but that was where the physical similarities ended. This man was