Read Online Night Beyond The Night by Joss Ware - Free Book Online

Wyatt and I were checking out the van, saved me,” Quent told him as his friend gestured in the proper direction for them to walk. Bloody good thing, as he’d been out cold for part of his trip and didn’t know which way to go. “Wanted the arrows back.” It wasn’t like him to drop pronouns.
Interesting
. Quent tickled that around in his mind as they started back.
    Simon, who wore his shoulder-length dark hair in a low ponytail, walked alongside him with long strides, though he still limped a bit. Quent didn’t know him that well, but, he supposed, when your life changes the way his had—all of theirs had—you get to know a man pretty bloody quickly when you’ve got all that to deal with. And what he’d gotten to know about Simon was that, though quiet and private, and stinging at times, he was brave and fought tenaciously. He was trustworthy and intelligent.
    “You give them back to him?”
    “Yes.”
    Except the one in his hand. He was keeping that one . . . until she came back for it.
    The
gangas
were gone, Geoff had fled back into the safety of the building, and Elliott and his friends had sustained little in the way of injury. Even Wyatt had resisted the urge to lecture Geoff, who claimed he’d left simply to find a place to piss, and got turned around in a dark and unfamiliar place.
    As soon as he reached the top of the rope ladder, Elliott found himself looking for Jade. Sweaty, exhilarated from the adrenaline rush of battle, and pissed that one of his few shirts had been ruined, he saw her talking to Linda and another of the teen girls. She cast a quick glance toward him, but didn’t break off her conversation.
    That was fine with Elliott. He had some patching up to do on Simon, who’d taken a nasty hit by a set of
ganga
claws, and some serious thinking ahead.
    At least he knew the answer to one question, sort of. After the battle with the
gangas
, he’d been unable to avoid Wyatt clasping his hand in a victory shake. Nothing had happened.
    At least, so far.
    It could mean that once he’d “transferred” the injury to someone, it couldn’t or wouldn’t be transferred again—hell, he hadn’t even been able to heal Linda after he’d given it to her.
    Or maybe it meant that the ability to transfer it had worn off after a while. Or maybe he had to be thinking or concentrating about it when he absorbed the injury and then transferred it.
    The implications were enough to keep his mind on that labyrinthine trail for a while. There was also the possibility that it had been something about Jade herself that had caused him to take on her injury and transfer it to himself, and then to Linda.
    He glanced over at the woman in question and happened to find her looking at him. She looked away quickly, but it was too late. He couldn’t hold back a smile of delight and a rush of attraction.
    Something about Jade? Most definitely.
    “Look what I found.”
    Simon’s richly satisfied voice had Elliott starting awake from the best dream he’d had in a long time. It starred him and the intriguing, bareback-riding woman who was supposed to be his patient. There’d been lots of bare ass and smooth white skin, and he wasn’t playing doctor.
    Shaking off the dream, trying to ignore the raging hard-on that reminded him that, yes, his parts still worked and his jeans were a bit tight, Elliott rubbed his dry eyes and realized that not only had he actually slept, but that the sun sat fully on the horizon.
    Then he saw what Simon was holding. “Duct tape. Holy crap. Six rolls? Unopened, dry, unmildewed?” He grinned and took one of the precious objects. “We could build a bloody house with this stuff. Could probably even tape that damned motor back together.”
    Simon gave a rare laugh. “Tell me, man.”
    Until now, until he’d had a chance to pull back on his raging hormones, Elliott hadn’t allowed himself to look toward Jade’s pallet. But now that he did, he saw that she was gone.
    “Where’s Jade?” he