Read Online Dead and Beyond by Jayde Scott - Free Book Online

Someone picked up almost instantly but they didn’t speak.
    “Devon?” I said into the silence. My heart hammered in my chest until it was so loud I thought I might not be able to hear anything else over the noise.
    “This can’t be who I think it is.” The male voice sounded foreign and cold.
    “Surprise.” I waited for him to make some lame vampire joke but he didn’t.
    “You’re speaking to Devon.”
    I frowned. “Yeah, I figured that much.”
    “Are you sure you got the right number?” he asked.
    I began to tap my fingers against my thigh because he made me nervous. As usual, I couldn’t read the guy and it drove me nuts. “Pretty sure since this is the number you programmed into the phone.”
    “I’m surprised you still have it. What do you want, Amber?”
    Granted, I didn’t expect a friendly welcome but his tone was downright rude and invited me to hang up on him. I swallowed down my pride as I answered.
    “I need to talk.”
    “About what? I don’t think there’s anything you and I could possibly have to say to each other.”
    I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. When I first met Devon, he was obviously looking for more than friendship. He used his charm to make me trust him. I knew I couldn’t let it happen again. But I also needed to ask a few questions. Literally. If I didn’t talk to someone with a pulse soon—I shook my head, unable to finish that thought. Let’s just say, someone had to know. And preferably someone who believed me. So I decided to spill the beans, all the while ensuring I wouldn’t reveal too much. I could bait him. My strategy: make him curious to reel him in until he had to see me, but don’t make any promises. And, most importantly, don’t offer anything in return. Now that part might just prove my downfall because I was always offering to do something for others, and usually ended up regretting it. “Something weird is happening to me. I feel different,” I whispered.
    Devon hesitated for a few seconds before replying, “You’re a bloodsucker now, what did you expect?”
    It wasn’t my fault, I felt like saying. But I didn’t. No point in arguing with him. It wouldn’t change anything. “It’s not that.” I shook my head and moistened my lips. “Listen, I need to see you. We really need to talk.”
    “I don’t know. I’d be breaking a lot of rules.”
    A dark cloud moved in front of the sun, bathing my surroundings in semi-darkness. Unpredictable changes in weather’s part of the Scottish charm, but it happened so fast, a shiver ran down my spine. I could feel something in the air; something dark and foreboding, gathering around me, talking to me even though I couldn’t hear a word, wanting me to do something.
    “Amber?” Devon’s voice jolted me out of my reverie. “Are you still there?”
    I nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see me. Or maybe he could. The Shadows had a reputation for hovering around Aidan’s property to watch their enemies.
    Even though they liked to pretend they were friends, a silent war between the Shadows and the vampires had been raging for centuries.
    Even though they liked to pretend they were friends, a silent war between the Shadows and the vampires had been raging for centuries.
    “Can I see you?” I whispered, adding, “Please. For old times’ sake.”
    Silence. Then, “Outside the gates?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll be there. Just be alone.”
    The dead line indicated the end of the call. I moistened my lips and scanned the surrounding woodlands with their dark green bushes and tall trees stretching over thousands of miles of land. Devon would come, I had no doubt about it. I just wished he could’ve told me when.
    The iron-wrought gates were only a few feet away. Lowering myself to the damp ground, I pushed the phone inside my pocket, prepared to wait for as long as it’d take him to get here.

Chapter 7
    Devon was trying to piss me off by keeping me waiting for almost an hour. Tapping my fingers on my