Read Online Scorched by Sharon Ashwood - Free Book Online Page B

right along with just how well vamps could mess with their victims’ heads. Should’ve remembered that nugget of info five minutes ago . Then again, Constance hadn’t hit his radar as a bloodsucker, just a really pretty girl. Just his luck she had to embrace her inner Babe of Doom right when he came along.
    He had to wind up this fiasco and move on. “Look, really, I’m flattered you want to drink my blood—”
    She stamped her foot in frustration. “I don’t want to, you great idiot. I need to. Stay still!”
    “Oh, yeah. Sure. Right. Why?”
    “That’s a very personal question.”
    “Biting is a very personal act.”
    “Oh, be quiet! This is hard enough as it is.”
    “Look, I’m walking away. You stay. I go.”
    “No!”
    He could feel her will pushing on his mind. Nothing he couldn’t handle, but more than he would have expected . “Back off.”
    “Come here .” She sprang like a cat, fingers crooked into claws.
    Whoa!
    In an instant, the demon took over. Pure reflex. There was a sudden flash of ice cold, like a freezer door had opened beneath his ribs, and every one of his senses cut out.
    Black. Silent. Stifling.
    The rush of blood in his veins just . . . vanished. The spaces where his pulse should have been beat in his mind, but not his body. The terrifying silence beat . . . and beat . . .
    And he was back, as if a switch had tripped.
    Constance was still leaping toward the spot he had been standing a moment ago. Somehow he had moved a good twenty feet down the corridor. He grabbed the wall, disoriented. Huh, that hasn’t happened in a while .
    She stumbled, grabbing nothing but thin air. “You turned to dust!”
    Mac shook his head, although he knew it was true. Poofing to an insubstantial black cloud was a demon talent. He had done it fast, too, the way he had when he had been at the top of his game. A cold, greasy unease slithered in his gut.
    Constance balled her hands in fury. “You’re a liar; you’re not human at all!”
    The words hit with all the subtlety of a city bus. “Never said I was!”
    He turned before a weird impulse to apologize could overtake him. I’m sorry I turned out to be a less-than-tasty treat.
    “What are you? Vampires know a demon’s stink, and you barely smell!”
    He was walking now, not so fast as to excite the predator in her, but not wasting any time, either. He suddenly felt hot, as if he had spiked a fever. “Flattery still won’t get you into my jugular, sweetheart.”
    Mac glanced over his shoulder, making sure she wasn’t coming after him. She looked beside herself, eyes round with anger and disappointment, but she wasn’t moving. Maybe that meant she’d given up. Maybe it was because he still clutched the sword. That was one of the bizarre things about the demon-dust-travel thing. Pretty much anything he was touching came with him. Handy, but strange.
    Don’t go there . If he was going to keep it together, thinking about what just happened was taboo. He wasn’t supposed to have major demon mojo. That could only mean really bad news, and the last thing he could afford to do was work himself into a panic.
    Think happy thoughts. Puppies. Kittens. Beer.
    Doggedly, Mac kept striding. He focused on the immediate problem of getting out of the Castle. He worked his way back to the door without passing the spot where he’d flattened Bran—neither of them needed a rerun of that encounter.
    The door looked as impenetrable as ever. Mute. Solid. A scar in the endless vista of stone walls. What do I do now? Sit down and wait for someone with a key to come along?
    Mac folded his arms, leaning against the wall opposite the door, and settled in to wait. A cold draft slithered over his foot. As always, he wondered where the air currents came from in a world with no sky, no wind, and no weather. Nothing in the prison ever made sense.
    Take the wars. The Castle dampened magic, so most of the fighting that went on was pure brute force. Swords. Fists. Guns, if