Touch the Dark by Karen Chance Read Free Book Online

chance that there would be a next time.
    I could hear the thud of music from the club through the door, some kind of chant mixed with techno, and it sounded like heaven. I wanted to lose myself in the crowd, make my way up to the street and run like hell. I was the hiding champ, and in the tourist district it would be easy to become an anonymous member of the happy, Friday-night throng. I had a separate bank account under yet another fake name and an emergency stash of nondescript clothes in a locker at the bus station, and I’d memorized every back alley in a fifteen-block radius. I’d get away all right, if only I could lose Tomas.
    I slowly slid up the door, using it to steady myself and cursing my high heels. My skirt rode up but I didn’t bother to straighten it; flashing Tomas was the least of my worries. I felt behind me with a hand slick with blood and finally found the doorknob. I fell through the opening on unsteady legs, slammed the door behind me and scrambled around the bar. I couldn’t get a deep breath and my body convulsed like it wanted to be sick, but I held on. I didn’t have time for that now.
    The light show had started, and the bouncing, gyrating mass of dancers was slashed through by blinding blasts from the strobes. The pulsing rhythm and the noise of the crowd made me immediately deaf, but I didn’t need to hear Tomas to know he was back there. The strobes leached the color from the blood on me, turning it alternately black and silver. The low lighting let me blend in without causing a stampede, although I doubted I looked normal. I slithered through every opening, trying to think as I ran, but my higher brain wasn’t home, and all my instincts said was “Faster!” I tried, because there was nothing else to do but wait for him to catch me, but I already knew it wouldn’t be enough.
    I was halfway across the dance floor when Tomas grabbed me. He spun me around to face him, and I felt a hand slide through the burnt back of my T-shirt to meld our bodies together. It probably looked like we were dancing to everyone else; only I knew that I couldn’t pull away. He had an iron grip on my gun hand, forcing the weapon down to my side and away from him. I wouldn’t have tried to fire anyway. My palm was so sweaty that I was having trouble just holding on to the thing, and there were too many people around to risk a shot going wild. Besides, unless I missed my guess, a bullet wouldn’t do much more than irritate him.
    His fingers slid up my naked spine to the outline of my ward. He traced the edges almost reverently. “I heard stories of this but never believed them.” His voice was full of something that sounded like awe. Somehow he made me hear him despite the deafening music, but I wasn’t interested in conversation. I twisted, trying futilely to break his hold, and cursed the useless ward. It must have been exhausted by the previous fight or else it didn’t work against those at his level, because it had no reaction to his touch.
    â€œCassie, look at me.”
    I fought him, knowing from childhood that looking a vampire directly in the eyes made it easier for him to control you. After the scene in the storeroom, there was no doubt in my mind what he was, and I desperately didn’t want him in my head. Given that he’d gone right under my vamp radar and posed as human for months, there was no chance that I was dealing with less than a third-level master, and possibly higher. Make that probably, considering that, on rare occasions, I’d seen him walk around in full daylight, which even Tony couldn’t do without risking a lot worse than a sunburn. Not that his level mattered; if he felt like it, any master could have me clucking like a chicken with little more than a glance.
    Once, I’d had a level of protection from that sort of thing, but with my old defender the very one wanting me dead, I was fair game; no one would