Read Online No Sorrow Like Separation (The Commander Book 5) by Randall Farmer - Free Book Online

He didn’t want to accept my judgment and wanted to fight.  Not allowed!  I gave him a hug and drew his juice.
    Yum.
    When I recovered, many minutes later, I stood and looked at Keaton.  “How’d I do, ma’am?”
    “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
    “Thank you, ma’am, for hunting with me.  Shall we go back to your place, ma’am?”  My body wanted what my body always wanted after a kill, and she was so nicely available.  I gave her a lusty grin.
    Keaton rolled her eyes.  “The body, Hancock, the body.”
    I looked down.  The body.  Yes, a body.  “Are we supposed to do something with the body, ma’am?”
    Keaton patiently explained to me about body disposal, cops, and similar unfortunate problems.  “I apologize, ma’am.  The connection between killing and body disposal seems utterly arbitrary and magical.”
    “Yes, I realize that.  Other than that bit of telling information, when hunting you are utterly quiet, you hide extremely well, and your senses are better than they used to be.  You did tap on the lock to tell whether it was locked, didn’t you?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”  I didn’t remember bodies being so heavy, before.  It took work to put the man into the body bag.
    “You could have gotten to him before he discharged his weapon.  Why didn’t you?”
    “Doing so didn’t seem necessary.”
    “You do realize that the neighbors might find a gun discharge in their neighborhood disturbing and call the police?”
    “Now that you mention it, ma’am, you are correct.” I stopped.  There did seem to be a problem with that, but the logic escaped me.  Obviously, I needed to heed bad omens when I hunted.  “I’ll avoid that problem next time.”
    “Good.  You’re also fast.  I’d swear you actually dodged the bullet.”
    “I saw his finger about to move.”
    “Ooookaaaay.”
    I struggled to lift the corpse in the body bag.  “Let me,” Keaton said.  She did it one handed.  As soon as we had the body in the bag, Gilgamesh appeared.
    “I’ll take it from here,” he said, a ritualistic whisper.
    Keaton nodded and we left the man’s house.  Gilgamesh stayed behind.  Strange.
    “Ma’am.”  Something had been bothering me.  “Once, you couldn’t hunt with me.”
    “Yes,” Keaton said.  “The inability to give up a prey Transform is a weakness.  I decided to correct that problem.”  Keaton didn’t like weakness, in herself or anyone else.  I understood.
    After we returned to the car, Keaton tossed the corpse in the trunk.  When we got back to her place, I rubbed up against Keaton and suggested we use the bedroom.  I remembered that once I hadn’t considered this behavior to be appropriate.  I thought there must have been something wrong with me.
    This time, Keaton smiled.
     
    Many hours later, she gently twirled her fingers in my hair, making little loops and curls of the wispy strands. This was Stacy, the tender lover, the caring protector.  I snuggled close, safe in her embrace.  Stacy was much better than my lord and master, who gave me orders, or the demon, who thankfully confined herself to appearing in the outbuilding with the men ready to be tortured.
    She watched me with a languid smile.  Then the smile faded to a look of sorrow.  Regret?  She leaned over and kissed me carefully on the forehead, and then on each eyelid.  So delicate.
    “This is so stupid,” she said, her voice so low I barely heard her.
    I didn’t say anything.  I just waited, open to anything she wished to tell me.
    She shook her head and then rolled on her back to stare at the ceiling, hands behind her head.
    “I shouldn’t have ever let myself care for you, you know.  The damned training.  Nine fucking months with you under my power.  How the hell was I supposed to know what that would do to my head?”
    She didn’t say anything more.
    “Ma’am?” I said, hesitant.
    She shook her head again and rolled back to me. “Don’t you worry.  This is my