Read Online Say You Love Me by Rita Herron - Free Book Online

boy to man, girl to woman.
    One was always taken.
    Adrianna’s face remained etched in his mind as the young girls dressed in virginal white stepped before the altar. Their mothers shivered with fear, knowing that any one of their daughters might be the chosen one.
    Only the girls knew nothing.
    But Adrianna had known. The devil must have whispered in her ear. And she had chosen him.
    Then the clan had cast him aside as if he was a leper.
    He fisted his hands at his sides. He had to destroy all those wicked women who defied their religion. The cheap whores. Satan’s messengers. Then the curse would be removed from him and he could once again walk among his people.
    Fury twisted his insides as time spun backward.
    He was back in Black Bayou on that fatal day.
    Blood soaked his hands, his face, his clothing where he leaned over his daddy’s body. Shouts and screams of terror and shock rocked through the clan. Suddenly someone yelled for them to hunt Adrianna.
    Torches were lit, tempers fired and men dispersed. He had gone with them. Hours had dragged as they’d relentlessly fought through the bayou. Crocodiles had threatened. Attacked. Another brother had fallen prey to the swamp, his limbs ripped away one by one by a gator’s sharp teeth.
    Then one had shot out of the water toward him. His stomach rolled as he recalled the gator’s teeth ruthlessly sinking into his arm, his torso, his ear. Fear had nearly crippled him.
    But Satan had decided to let him live that night. Death would have been too easy.
    Finally at daybreak they’d returned to the camp. Exhausted. He was half-dead.
    They hadn’t found Adrianna.
    Then his next realm of punishments had begun. He’d bowed his head before the snake pit, the blinding pain swirling him into a vortex of eternal darkness. The clan chanted and prayed for the demons to be exorcised from his body. They’d thought him weak. A traitor. That he had warned Adrianna….
    In their eyes, he was a failure. An outcast. He had not survived the trial by ordeal without looking guilty.
    Then they had banned him from their presence forever.
    Thunder clapped above, drawing him back to the present. He stood on the edge of another clan now, the work of the great Ezra Cortain in progress. The pounding drums echoed around him and the chants began, praising Sobek. Although forced to remain on the periphery, he clasped his hands and silently joined their prayer.
    Adrianna might be able to run, but she couldn’t hide.
    And she had changed her name, but he knew it, as well as her real one. The Christian one her mother had given her.
    The one he would call her when he finally offered her to the spirits.

CHAPTER FIVE
    J EAN -P AUL SILENTLY CURSED his decision to bring Britta Berger to his family’s restaurant. He should have called it a night. Left her at her apartment. Gone back to the precinct.
    But once he’d ignored his family’s welfare for his job and his wife had died. He’d never forgive himself. Lucinda’s family hadn’t forgiven him, either.
    He had to warn his sisters and mother now that there was a killer preying on women.
    A low jazz tune wailed in the background of the diner, wrapping tendrils of nostalgia around him—and a longing for what he’d lost. The comfort of a companion. The feel of a woman’s touch.
    Only Lucinda had never been a comfort about his job. She’d hated it and begged him to leave police work.
    God, why was he thinking about her tonight?
    Because another woman had died and you couldn’t stop it.
    â€œThis is the rest of our family!” His maman gestured toward the wall of family photographs above the table, forcing Jean-Paul back to the present as she rattled on. “Jean-Paul is the oldest and of course, always the responsible one, taking care of everyone.”
    â€œMother—” he growled.
    â€œIt’s true.” His mother batted her hand at him, then continued,