Read Online Into the Rift by Cynthia Garner - Free Book Online Page A

Mini Cooper into her driveway, the sun began to rise over the eastern mountains, sending alternating shafts of light and shadow across the valley floor. She shut off the engine and sat there a moment, enjoying the stillness of the dawn, and wondered if her brother was awake yet. Randall had shown up four days prior without warning. The last time she’d seen him had been just before they were stripped of their bodies and put in a holding cell for decades. Their souls had then been sent through a rift between dimensions as punishment for a horrific crime committed by their cousin. As incorporeal entities they’d been drawn to Earth, to the bounty of human bodies available for the taking, for instinctively they’d known if they didn’t take a host they’d die. She’d ended up in London in the body of a woman making her living on the streets of the East End. Through the years, she’d managed to get away from that kind of lifestyle, and the new Victoria Joseph had made her way to the United States at the turn of the twentieth century.
    Rand, she’d found out just recently, had gone into a man in a small village outside of Manchester. It might as well have been the other side of the world. In 1866, it had been impossible to even begin to try to find him. She’d been alone, a stranger in a borrowed body, overcoming the guilt at displacing the rightful owner while trying to find her way in a primitive world. Staying alive was about all she could do for a long time.
    She and her brother hadn’t seen each other in nearly a hundred and fifty years until he’d shown up on her doorstep, a familiar spirit in a stranger’s body. She’d known him instantly. He was the same sweet brother she remembered, yet he was different in some ways. More withdrawn and evasive with a chaser of surly. But even with the newfound secrecy, she would take what she could get. He was family. She was willing to overlook a few eccentricities and irritating behaviors to have him with her again.
    Tori just wished she knew what to do to make him more at ease. He’d had some predisposition toward obsessive-compulsive behavior before the Influx of 1866, but those tendencies seemed to be exacerbated here. Perhaps the human he’d ended up inhabiting, Randall Langston, had also had such predilections.
    With a sigh she got out of the car and let herself into her small two-bedroom rental. Smells of lavender and vanilla assailed her from the various bowls of potpourri she had scattered around the house. Her job as werewolf liaison to the Council of Preternaturals was more often than not dark and full of violence, and as a werewolf she was predisposed to be more aggressive in nature than an ordinary human woman. So when she came home she wanted calm and tranquility. She needed it in order to slough off the stress of the day.
    Tori drew in a breath and held it a moment, letting the tranquil setting of her home seep into her spirit. Neutral beige and cream furniture was piled with blue and green pillows, and the same color scheme played out on the walls. The wooden wind chimes on the back patio clinked, the sound coming to her as clearly as if she were standing beside them.
    She didn’t need to use her keen werewolf hearing to pick up the snores coming from Rand’s bedroom. He rarely arose much before noon, preferring to stay up until the wee hours of morning and run as a wolf as much as possible.
    She tried to get over his choosing to run alone instead of with her. After all, he’d been on his own just like she had, and he was much more of a loner than she’d ever been. But it bothered her. Why had he gone to the trouble of locating her if he didn’t want to spend any time with her? It was as natural for werewolves to run as a pack, even a small pack of two, as it was to breathe.
    Tori moved quietly through the house, not wanting to wake him. She undressed in her bedroom, putting her cell phone on the nightstand. After she took a quick shower, she slipped