Read In the Dark for Free Online Page A

innermost room in the penthouse. No
windows. No way to sneak in while he slumbered, no way to expose him
to sunlight. He listened as the girl walked around his home,
examining things. He could just hear the hiss of her fingers sliding
over various objects if he listened hard enough. She touched, but
left things lie.
    He had had very
few people in his home, vampire or mortal. He wanted to ask her what
she thought, what she made of him from what she saw – he knew
she lacked the training to pick up information about him from his
home. She would gain some clues, of course, but not what he would in
her place.
    The whisper of
skin on metal told him she’d found a blade – probably the
one he carried on him. The smaller one-handed sword hung in plain
sight. She ran her fingers along the metal, letting out a brief gasp.
He kept the blade sharp. She had likely cut herself. Sebastian
continued listening. Whatever wound she had acquired would heal.
    Ian moved on,
coming down the hall toward the bedrooms. He tensed momentarily,
though he had locked and barred his door securely.
    A doorknob
rattled gently, then turned with a soft squeak. A room further down
from his. One of the guest rooms he had never thought he’d use.
The door creaked open. He heard her feet pad in and the door close
behind her. Sebastian strained his ears to hear beyond both doors, to
trace her footsteps across the floor. She stretched out on the bed,
springs squeaking. Her boots thumped to the floor. In a moment he
heard the sharp breathing that meant she had begun crying again.
    How long would
that go on? he wondered with minor irritation. Hours? Days?
    How long has
it gone on . . . ?
    As quickly as it
had formed the irritation vanished. She had every right to her grief.
    He listened
carefully until her sharp breaths slowed and finally stopped. Once he
was certain she had cried herself to sleep, he stretched out, closed
his eyes, and slept himself.

I AN
    A voice floated into my dreams. A woman, far away. Or maybe just very
quiet. She sounded upset. I rolled over in bed, half-asleep. No
woman. Just a dream.
    The woman
drifted back into my dream. “Sebastian, I don’t know what
to do, Evan hasn’t been home in two days . . .”
    My dream changed
to focus on her. I found myself standing beside her while she fought
tears, facing Sebastian’s chill expression. My name was Emily.
I lived with Josephine and Evan, loved them both very much. I missed
Evan. He’d been gone for too long and this solid stone man that
Josephine had said would help just looked at us, like we didn’t
matter.
    My eyes opened,
lying in Sebastian’s dusty, untouched guest room. Very real
tears wet my cheeks. The dream feeling of loss and sadness seemed to
follow me into the waking world, so close that I nearly cried again.
I scrubbed at my face with one hand, turning my fingers red.
    I rolled off the
bed – stopped as an ache went through my neck. I slapped my
hand to it with a groan. The muscle under my skin had turned into a
hard knot. I looked behind me on the bed and saw one of the hair
needles I used to hold my bun lying on my pillow. I gave it a dirty
look.
    Massaging my
neck, I turned back away from the bed – a clean set of clothes
sat folded on the armchair. Men’s jeans and a button-up shirt
like the one Sebastian had on last night. Apparently, he’d
slipped in before I woke up. I tried to feel paranoid and uneasy
about that, but gratitude for fresh clothes won out. It didn’t
take me long to change. His clothes were big on me, but nothing fell
off when I walked. After running my fingers through my long black
hair to straighten it, I left the room.
    The sound of a
real woman’s voice down the hall made me pause. The voice
sounded just like the one in my dream.
    I must have
heard her talking and made up the dream about me being there. I
decided to chance being an intruder and crept into the living room.
    Two women stood
in front of Sebastian. I jumped when I saw them. One