Read Online Dust of My Wings by Carrie Ann Ryan - Free Book Online

from looking at it, she’d rely on the NMR and data analysis. After all, if people could identify soil and material samples with only their eyes, she’d be out of a job. Lily figured she’d use a dual probe and tune it to carbon and hydrogen. Both of those elements were the most common in materials and would give her a decent basis for what she was trying to identify.
    Humming under her breath, she set the sample on her workbench and started to tune the probe. Chemistry wasn’t all beakers and explosions. Sometimes she felt like a mechanic with all the wrenches and wires everywhere. After a couple hours, she had the NMR ready for the sample and spun it up to start running the scan.
    She sat back in her seat at the computer to watch the scan. It would take a few hours to get everything, but she could at least watch its progress for a bit. Shade’s face and his piercing blue eyes flashed across her mind, and she groaned.
    Dear Lord, that man was too sexy. Why had he been in the park that morning? Just going for a walk? She had almost left when Jamie texted saying she didn’t feel up to playing dominos that morning, but for some odd reason, Lily had stayed a bit longer. Oh, and she was so glad she had.
    Damn Glenn for calling her at the most inopportune time. The thought of being on a motorcycle scared her more than flying, but she had really wanted to be behind Shade with her body wrapped around him. She groaned and bit her lip. She shouldn’t be having so many dirty thoughts about a man she didn’t know; though he did look sort of like the stranger she had envisioned in her dreams…
    No, she didn’t want to think of that.
    Lily blew out a breath and shifted in her seat to take a look at the sample. For whatever reason, Glenn wanted these results like last week. She looked at the screen and frowned.
    What the hell?
    There was nothing. No peaks. No shifts. Nothing.
    Not a stitch.
    No carbon or hydrogen in the entire sample? Almost everything on earth had carbon and hydrogen, if not one, then the other. She couldn’t think of any mixture that had nothing in it.
    What the heck was it?
     
     
    ****
     
     
    Shade ducked as the tip of the sword flashed near his neck. He lifted his lips in a smile and pivoted, his wings catching a draft and bringing him higher than his opponent. He gripped the hilt tighter and flexed his arm, swinging his blade at his attacker in a firm stroke.
    Ambrose changed direction, the blade missing his torso by millimeters. Shade threw back his head and laughed.
    “You’re getting slow, old friend,” he called through the wind.
    Ambrose didn’t crack a smile, merely tilted his head. “I gave you that one, yet you still missed me. You are not paying attention.”
    Shade curled his lip. “I’m paying attention just fine. Don’t make excuses.” He knew Ambrose was right. Shade had too many things on his mind, and he wasn’t sparring up to his full potential.
    “Is it the woman?”
    Shade froze for just a second in the air, the wind blowing through his hair, before he sheathed his sword and lowered himself to the ground behind the house he rented. They were in the back yard and hidden in a copse of trees so the humans couldn’t see. He didn’t have any neighbors near him so it worked.
    “Shade?” Ambrose prompted.
    “I’m fine. I met with her in the park and learned a bit more about her.” Like the way she blew her bangs from her face when she got nervous. The way her eyes grew bright when she ran high on emotions.
    Ambrose landed beside him and quirked a brow, saying nothing. Damn him.
    “I don’t know what she knows about the dust, but I will find out. I’m going to meet her at her favorite bar, a place called Dante’s Circle, tomorrow night. I’ll see what I can get from her then.” And find out any other personal information he could.
    They folded their wings into their backs and walked into the house. Shade went to the kitchen to grab two beers from the fridge. His friend