Read Online Delilah Devlin - My Immortal Knight 03 by All Knight Long - Free Book Online Page A

he said, “I heard a sound.”
    The officer snorted. “Do you make it a habit to
investigate odd sounds in dark alleys? It’s a wonder you’re still breathin’.
Looks like he took a chunk out of you—you’re bleedin’. If you’ll come with me,
we’ll get that seen to.” He reached for the radio strapped to his shoulder.
    With a twinge of regret, Joe lunged, his arm snaking
around the cop’s shoulders to draw him close to his body.
    The officer struggled, his foot stomping on Joe’s
instep, his elbow slamming back into his ribcage. Joe opened his mouth and bit
into the man’s neck.
    The officer continued his fight for a moment, and then
his body grew slack.
    Joe fed for several minutes then lifted his head to
whisper in the officer’s ear. “You heard a noise in the alley and investigated,
but you found nothing. Spoke to no one. Now go back to your squad car.” He let
the man go and shoved him toward the street.
    Without looking back, the officer walked away, shaking
his head. “Just a damn dog.”
    Joe watched until he turned the corner, and then
walked to the opposite end of the alley where he’d seen the werewolf escape. He
sniffed the air, but only faint traces of the creature’s scent remained. He
retraced his steps, wondering what it had been doing in the alley in the first
place. Near the entrance were large trash bins, which served the apartment
building. The side door of one was open and a shredded bag of trash laid
half-in-half-out of the bin.
    As Joe stepped closer, he saw a piece of paper flutter
to the ground. It was a phone bill with the name “ Lily Carlson” printed at the
top. Heedless of the acrid smell from the bin, he reached for the remnants of
the one demolished bag and dumped its contents. Tissues and feminine articles
littered the ground. Lily’s fragrant musk permeated the items.
    What interest would a werewolf have in scenting on
Lily’s trash? Joe’s instincts, his cop instincts, knew this wasn’t a random
act. The wolf had targeted Lily’s bag among all the others in the bin.
    He hurried back to the apartment building. Until he
knew what all this meant, Lily wasn’t going anywhere without him.
    * * * * *
    “You snore.”
    Lily lifted one eyelid and glowered at Joe. Only the
light from the open bathroom door shone on his features; he’d covered the
French door with a blanket. He was lying on his side, his head propped on his
elbow—watching her.
    She hoped she hadn’t also been drooling.
    “I do not snore,” she enunciated.
    A grin turned up the corners of his mouth. “How do you
know?”
    “I’ve never heard it.”
    “Ahhh…so you only believe what you see or hear for
yourself?”
    She twisted to look at the digital display of her
alarm clock. It was 3:30 in the morning! What right did he have to look this
good and expect her to engage in an intelligent conversation? She drew a deep
breath and lowered her eyebrows to show her displeasure.
    His gaze went straight to her breasts and she realized
she was still naked as a newborn while he was fully dressed. She pretended
unconcern with the disparity and tilted her chin. “Any good scientist bases her
conclusions on empirical evidence.”
    “Yet you believe I fly only because I entered your
room from your balcony.”
    “Are you telling me I came to an erroneous conclusion?”
    “No, I’m telling you that you jump to conclusions like
the rest of us. Sometimes, you trust a kernel of evidence and believe what you
want to believe.”
    Lily opened her mouth to give him a rebuttal, but he
pressed his finger over her lips.
    “Sometimes, you have to forget about the survey data,
or even what your own eyes tell you, and just trust your gut.”
    Lily knew he was talking about more than her snoring. “I
can trust,” she grumbled.
    “Is there anyone you trust fully now? If he said, ‘I’ve
seen the Loch Ness monster in Lake Ponchartrain’, would you trust it was true?”
    Lily thought hard. The Loch Ness