Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series by Sherri A. Wingler Read Free Book Online Page A

time off from high school would put me off schedule for
college.  I couldn’t have that.  I’d worked too hard, and passed up
too many parties and dates, to lose focus in the last few months.
         I met back up with Gwen at
lunch.  I’d just bitten into my stale ham sandwich when I smelled that
smell that had been haunting me for the last week. I felt the hair on the back
of my neck raise.  Someone was watching me.  My head came up and I
looked around, automatically.  For a split second, above the sea of faces,
I saw someone standing at the corner of the lunchroom, looking straight at
me.  He was utterly out of place.  Tall, good-looking, too old to be
a student.  I thought I recognized him.  Or imagined him.  His
gaze was steady, focused on me with stalker-like precision.  I caught my
breath and for one insane moment I almost got out of my chair and went to him.
 My heart hammered away in my chest like it should have been earlier, when
I had been caught up in Alex Winters’ arms.  A tiny, secret smile played
around his mouth before he turned away. 
         I turned back in my seat and
dropped my eyes back to my sandwich. Why did I suddenly feel like I’d been
caught with my hand in the cookie jar?  I had butterflies swarming in my
stomach. “Do you see that guy over there?  By the gym doors?”  I kept
my head down, and my voice low, so nobody else would hear me, but Gwen.
         “What guy? Rodney, the
janitor?”  Gwen’s head came up and she started really looking.
 Practically standing up on her chair, looking.  So much for
subtle.  I wanted to crawl under the table.
         “Not him. The blonde guy. 
Don’t be so obvious,” I hissed at her.  Crap, my cheeks were
burning.  I didn’t want to get caught, but I just had to take one more
look.  I dropped my napkin in the floor so it landed sort of behind my
seat. That way, I’d have an excuse to turn and look again.  Really smooth,
hunh? When I glanced back up, he was gone.  I felt lonely suddenly, and
completely foolish.
         Gwen looked over my shoulder and
took a sip of her tea.  Her eyes were crinkled up at the corners like she
was about to crack up. “The only blonde guy over there is Sheldon Blake. 
Didn’t think he was your type.”  Sheldon Blake was a known stoner.
         “Ewww, he’s not.”  I swung
around in my plastic seat to face her. “That’s not the guy I saw.  This
guy was around mid to late twenties, kind of short, blonde hair, high
cheekbones, strong jaw; he had on dark clothes, and a leather jacket, I
think.” 
         Gwen wiggled her eyebrows at
me.  “Sounds like my type.  Maybe he’s a substitute or
something?  Was he tall?  I have a height requirement, you
know.” 
         “Yeah. He looked really tall.”
         She leaned in closer to me, batted
her eyelashes and dropped her voice a few octaves.  Her “sexy”
voice.  “Was he hot?”  Her eyebrow arched seductively and I nearly
blew green tea out through my nose.  Gwen killed me.  I snorted and
choked till tears started at the corners of my eyes.  I finally got a deep
breath and sighed as I got my composure back.  Not my dignity, maybe, but
my composure.
         And yes, from what I saw of the
guy, he was infinitely hot, but for some reason I didn’t want to share that
little tidbit of info.  Strange, because I told Gwen pretty much
everything.  I shook my head and rolled my eyes at her. “Nope, don’t think
so. Just kind of creepy the way he was hanging around watching everyone and
then ducked into the gym.”  Creepy, yet intriguing, and sort of sexy, if
you liked the type. Creepy and sexy in the same thought… I was officially
cracking up.
         “Well, let me know if you see him
again. Maybe he was a sub or someone’s brother or something.”
         “Yeah.  It was probably no big
deal.”  I dropped the rest of my ham sandwich onto my lunch tray and
finished my tea.