Read Online Blood Shadows by Lindsay J Pryor - Free Book Online

may, Kane was going to learn that she needed her vengeance more.
    She placed the ID back in the suitcase, moved aside some of her mother’s boxes of jewellery and took out the handbook she had been seeking. She closed the lid of the suitcase and shoved it back under the bed.
    She knew every archaic page of this notebook, having read it countless times – the shadow readers’ guide, which had been given to her over twenty years before when her gift had been diagnosed. Caitlin had always been overly tactile and one of her teachers had seen her trying to read a friend at school during break-time. All such instances were reported. Shadow readers had to be declared to the state. There was no rhyme or reason as to why a child was born with the ability, and many lost the skill by the time they reached their mid-teens. Many more crumbled during assessments, their energy drained too hard and too fast by the darkness contained in third species’ shadows. Many were left too traumatised by the images they saw, especially when they were upgraded to reading vampires.
    Somehow she’d managed to keep an emotional distance. She’d let the images play like a film in front of her eyes and then, after she reported what she’d seen, she’d switch off. By the time she’d applied to be a VCU agent, she was already top of her game. And somehow, losing her parents, the agony, let alone all else that had happened, had helped with that switching off, no matter how disturbing the images were that she saw. In doing so, she’d convinced the unit assessors that emotionally she was up there with the elite. Intellectually, she was ahead of them. Physically, she was sufficient enough, on nimbleness and speed even if not on strength. They’d had no choice but to accept her application.
    She opened the first few pages. She knew it wasn’t going to tell her anything she didn’t already know and certainly not why Kane wanted her soul. But she needed something to distract her thoughts from him, something to curb her frustration. She needed to at least feel like she was doing something, however futile, because even that felt better than sitting and waiting for the vampire to make his move.
    Kane stood outside the VCU headquarters’ gates as he lit a cigarette, exhaling a steady stream of smoke to mingle with the fresh morning air. Despite the sunrise, the sky was fortunately still a heavy, tepid grey, the clouds blocking the ferocious UV rays. It wouldn’t do him much good to be stood it in for too long, though, and he’d have to sleep it off when he got back to his place. He’d probably lose most of the day recovering from the long walk back in the draining sunlight.
    The inhalation of smoke did little to sate his irritation, his frustration. Two encounters with the girl and she was already making him second-guess her. He didn’t want to be intrigued by her – something that aggravated him more than the fact she had outsmarted him. Feisty, obstinate, intelligent and brave Caitlin Parish who’d felt as soft, warm and enticing as woodland moss as he’d lain on top of her, pinning her nubile body to the table with ease. A fragile body and eyes even more vulnerable, eyes that had been wary but nonetheless still defiant enough to grate on his nerves. And that was what he had to hold on to – that sense of irritation she had evoked, not the fascination.
    But at least he’d fed her enough information to make sure she didn’t run and hide. Not that it was in her character to do so. But questions would have been asked: why she was still alive, why he’d confronted her, why he’d allowed himself to be tracked. Questions and complications brought about by her escape. But she’d only get away from him once. Nothing was beyond rectifying and nightfall would come soon enough. It needed to, because losing any more time wasn’t an option.
    He lifted his cigarette back to his lips. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who was there. Despite