Read Til Death (Jane #5) for Free Online Page B

It shook like he was going to
scold me and I smiled sweetly at him until he growled and stalked
off to the corner. I heard him rummaging around in one of the
cabinets for awhile and shot a grin at Anson. No matter how the man
tried to hide it, he could not help but give me a 'you're insane'
smirk.
    Finally, Raymond returned. In one hand he
held a long, pointed piece of metal and in the other was a pair of
nasty-looking ginormous pliers.
    "I will make you regret that, little girl" he
said, leaning close to me as he tried to look as scary as possible.
"I will hurt you, just a little at first, and in the end, you will
be begging me for release. You will plead with me to stop. You will
do anything I ask."
    I nodded. "Oh, I'm sure you will make me
regret it, but no matter what you do to me, no matter what you try,
it won't be enough. You are weak and pathetic, just like your
little minion, Conrad. He wasn't man enough to take over a little
country like Italy. What makes you think you can handle a place as
large and diverse as the United States? No, you may feel big when
you have a woman tied to a chair in a tiny little room, buried far
beneath the surface of the earth, but you don't have the balls to
face her in an even match, do you? You have to abuse her, treat her
like she's less than dirt, tear her down. But you're just a little
boy, scared of not being good enough, scared to face the truth. I
will always be better than you. I will always be smarter than you.
I will always be stronger than you. You may abuse my body, but you
can never break my mind."
    The blow from the pliers almost took out my
eye and sent the world spinning into darkness.
     

Chapter 7
     
    "Do you enjoy antagonizing people into
beating you into a pulp?"
    Anson shook his head as he wiped blood from
my drooping chin. The last round of abuse was definitely brutal and
apparently Raymond took great offense at my spitting in his face
more than once. If the neck band hadn't been firmly in place, I'm
pretty sure I would've toppled to the ground. As it was, I couldn't
hold my head up and my jaw was dislocated to the point where I
couldn't pop it back by myself.
    "Hold still." Anson took my head in one hand
and my chin in the other. "On three. One... two..."
    He snapped it on two. The pain was
excruciating, somehow worse than anything I had endured to that
point, but I could wiggle my jaw once more and it started to heal
instantly.
    "Who taught you to count?" I griped as he
lifted my head to wipe at my neck.
    "Your mom."
    My jaw dropped and I stared at him for a
second before bursting into a giggle. "Well played, good man. Well
played."
    He grinned before telling me to shush. The
last thing we needed was Raymond bursting in to figure out why his
punching bag was laughing when she should have been a babbling
mess. I watched him work for awhile, studying his face. He was
fairly pale, like most red-heads are, and he had light freckles on
his cheeks. I had noticed that when he let his guard down, he had a
slight accent.
    "Where are you from, Anson?"
    He stiffened slightly, but didn't stop
wiping. "I lived in Ireland as a boy, but we moved to the States
when I was twelve. I suppose you want to know how I became a
vampire?"
    I shrugged, a movement that I immediately
regretted due to a huge gash in my right shoulder. "If you want.
It's not like I have anything better to do."
    He grinned at me and winked. "I love it when
I have a captive audience."
    "Ouch."
    He stopped wiping, his face concerned. "Did I
hurt you?"
    "Yes, with that awful pun."
    His glare could have stopped a raging bull,
but it just made me grin.
    "Poor Felipe must have his hands full with
you."
    I nodded. "You have no idea. So, how did you
become a vampire?"
    "I was thirty-six at the time. Working at a
quarry during the late shift. I have no idea why they insisted on
having a late shift there. It was dangerous. More than triple the
accidents of the day shift, but I guess they felt it was worth the
expense. I