Read Wolfsbane: 3 (Rebel Angels) for Free Online

unhurried, he looked back at the horse. ‘And leave that girl alone. She is not for you.’
    The blue horse gave an eloquent snort of disgust. I watched in disbelief as the scarred man grabbed the blond boy’s wrist and dragged him roughly off it, sending him crashing to the
tarmac. That was bad enough, but I gasped in anger when he gave the boy’s ear a hard stinging flick.
    ‘Ow,’ said the boy without rancour, sitting up.
    ‘You little git. How many times you going to do this?’
    Even in trouble the boy was seriously beautiful, with his penitent grey eyes, his sharp-tipped ears and his elfin face. His sun-bleached hair was unruly, curling down past the nape of his neck,
and when he blew a lock of it disconsolately off his brow, it fell straight back into his eyes. He didn’t look at the man or the sweating horse, fiddling instead with a circle of silver on
his wrist. A little silver charm hung on it, set with a lump of dull green stone.
    ‘Your father will want a word with you, Rory Bhan.’
    The boy raised huge spaniel eyes to the man. ‘Sionnach, give us a break,’ he wheedled.
    I barged forward, incredulous. ‘This guy isn’t even your dad? You could
so
take legal action.’
    They stared at me in bewilderment before looking back at each other.
    ‘Stay
there.
’ Sionnach pointed at him as the guide came storming out of the stables towards him. ‘So help me, Rory, don’t you
move
.’
    ‘Where would I go? Keep your beard on.’
    He’d nearly let his stupid pony run me down, but I still felt sorry for him: lonely and glum, slumped unhappily on the tarmac, waiting for Sionnach to calm the tour guide down. Maybe the
boy was traumatised by his domestically-violent carer, but it was a funny kind of nervous tic he had: picking at thin air with his fingers, tugging on nothing.
    Sionnach was busy, mumbling apologetically to the guide and getting an earful of indignant abuse in return. Sighing, I glanced sympathetically at Rory, still wrapping thin air absently round his
fingers. He needed support. He needed a friend, preferably a friend with a lawyer. My eyes were so misted over with fellow-feeling, I thought I imagined it when he scuffed backwards on his bum,
winked at me, and vanished.
    I started, and blinked in disbelief. He’d tugged aside a curtain and scooted behind it.
    Only we were in a car park, in the breezy open air.
    And there wasn’t a curtain there.

    I slammed the front door and stood in Aunt Sheena’s hall: bare wood and cream sofas and the smell of polish. I had a screaming urge to get right back out of it.
    Truly, a
screaming
urge. I had to hang onto the hall table to anchor myself.
    Now, it’s absolutely a fact that I had no idea why I stayed. Between Sheena, Groper Marty and Lauren of the Bitten Face, it wasn’t as if I liked the company. But leaving for good
– I refused to call it
running away –
was a decision I wasn’t ready to take. Shop doorways were not my preferred sleeping place. And besides, my mother might get it into
her head to come back for me, and then how would she know where I was?
    Unlikely, but possible.
    I was ten when she dropped me off at The Paddocks, and my most abiding memory of that day was her desperation to get back in her boyfriend’s car. She’d checked her watch and fiddled
with her jacket and sworn she’d be back, even as I curled on the sofa and pretended I wasn’t crying. I didn’t beg, of course – begging wouldn’t have made any
difference at all – but the woman could hardly pretend I was glad to see the back of her. She couldn’t weep and wail that I’d never liked her, so she had a right to
Self-Fulfilment and the Pursuit of Love and the Road Less Travelled.
    Well, to hell with her and the boyfriend both; tonight at least I had something more interesting to think about. In fact I was so preoccupied with events at the castle, I had entirely forgotten
that Sheena had told me this morning, at about ninety decibels, not to