Read Guardian Demon (GUARDIAN SERIES) for Free Online Page A

wouldn’t be able to heal her, not a wound from that weapon, but he was trying. She was safe, though; she’d survive this. It hadn’t touched her heart.
    His gaze fell to the symbol.
Release.
His amber eyes darkened to obsidian, realization and denial tearing through his mind and echoing in hers.
    Khavi yanked the spear back.
    Excruciating pain tore a gurgling cry from her, but that wasn’t all that went. Bits of her bone and flesh clung to the spear. Michael’s big hands rose to catch her even as the spear’s head, dripping with her blood, jerked back through his body.
    And her mind didn’t release him. He was
ripped
away, and she screamed as his psyche tore free with bits of hers still clinging. He caught her as darkness filled the shredded remains.
    No white light, no kiss. Just darkness and pain and the stench of Hell, wrapped up in Michael’s arms.

CHAPTER 2

    Taylor opened her eyes in a familiar room, lying on her side in a familiar bed. A wooden dresser squatted against the wall in front of her. On its top stood a framed photo of a teenaged Taylor, her brother, and her mother at Lake Tahoe; her dad had been behind the camera. Another picture showed her dad in his dress blues, taken the year before he’d been killed. There was one of Jason before his accident. They hadn’t taken many family pictures after that—just the one of Taylor in uniform standing beside her mom, who was proudly displaying Taylor’s new inspector’s badge.
    Mementos of a human life that had ended. Michael must have brought her here after Khavi had separated them. Back to the apartment that Taylor had shared with her mother and brother for almost a decade—except for when she’d been a Guardian and hadn’t required sleep. When Taylor had needed time alone, she’d taken it in Michael’s temple in Caelum.
    She wouldn’t be doing that again.
    A blue sheet covered her legs. Someone had replaced her shredded T-shirt with a ribbed tank. She slipped her hand beneath the cotton, between her breasts. No symbol. No gaping hole. No Michael lurking in her mind.
    So she was home. She was free. And apparently not a Guardian anymore.
    Her body seemed heavy—weak in comparison to what she’d been the last time her eyes were open. So strange that she could feel the difference in strength between human and Guardian now, when she hadn’t immediately noticed it after her transformation. But Michael had been in her head then; he’d made supernatural strength and flying and teleportation all feel normal.
    Now she felt human, and human was a
real
normal. So the hollow ache opening up in her stomach was stupid. She hadn’t wanted to become a Guardian; she’d only accepted the transformation because she didn’t want to die. And though being a Guardian had grown on her, human was okay, too. This sick ache just came from having the choice taken away from her. That was all this feeling was—along with a hefty dose of rising anger. Jesus. No wonder Khavi hadn’t shared the details of her plan.
First, I give you a surprise spear through the chest! Then I turn your life upside down.
    Again.
    With a sigh, she rolled onto her back. What were her options now? She couldn’t return to the San Francisco Police Department. She’d burned too many bridges before she’d been transformed. No doubt she could arrange something, though. The Guardians ran a law enforcement division sanctioned by the U.S. government, and Special Investigations often provided vampires and Guardians with false identities and backgrounds. They could do something similar for Taylor so that she could find a job at another agency. It didn’t matter where, as long as it wasn’t under Michael’s leadership, and as long as she was working. She’d never been good at sitting on her hands.
    Or lying in bed. Taylor sat up, tossed back the sheet. Underneath, she was wearing navy blue sweats with
SFPD
written in orange down the right leg. Real clothes, not a Guardian’s