Read Online Under His Skin by Jennifer Blackstream - Free Book Online Page B

lunged off the bed. Taken by surprise, Brec shouted as she snatched his knife from his hand.
     
    “No!”
     
    He grabbed her hand where it was wrapped around the handle of his blade, stopping her before she could slash at the pixie. The little fey shrieked and dove out of sight as Brec wrestled the weapon out of Ana’s hand and threw it across the room. It skittered across the floor and bounced against the doorframe. Angry and impatient for the answers to his sudden questions, Brec grabbed her free arm to keep her from continuing her attempt to catch the pixie.
     
    Ana thrashed in his grip, her face twisted in a snarl. “Let go of me!” she hissed.
     
    “I don’t want to hurt you, but if you don’t calm down you’re going to tear your own arm out of its socket because I’m not letting go,” he said calmly. He tightened his grip, inflicting a small amount of pain to show her he was serious.
     
    “You’re hurting me.”
     
    Brec’s eyebrows rose as, before his eyes, Ana’s face lost the hard edges of anger and softened into the perfect combination of fear and pain. The woman who only seconds before had been screaming with the vengeful shriek of a goblin had transformed back into the meek maiden that had blushed and hid her face as she confessed her wicked plan to capture him for a husband. The transformation was astounding.
     
    Embarrassment at his own earlier gullibility fed his temper and Brec clenched his teeth. She’d lied, played him for a fool.
     
    “Think about what it was like for you when you found your skin missing.”
     
    The pixie’s voice came from a spot right next to his ear and Brec’s heart skipped a startled beat. He’d been so engrossed in his thoughts on Ana’s duplicitous nature he hadn’t even felt the pixie land on his shoulder. He tilted his head toward the voice, but didn’t take his eyes off the naked woman on the bed. She wasn’t looking at the pixie, but the slight twitch in the muscles around her eyes betrayed the effort it took her to keep her attention on Brec’s face. She wanted to focus on the pixie, but apparently she wasn’t quite ready to give up on the chance that she could manipulate him again. He narrowed his eyes, his brain whirling with different ways to show her just who she was toying with.
     
    The emotions that had battered him about all day until his soul was bruised from the force of it all echoed in his mind. He remembered the body-seizing shock when he’d opened the chest to find his skin gone, the horror when it had dawned on him what that meant, and the drowning pain he’d felt when he had to watch his brother return to the waves without him.
     
    It was a day he wanted to forget, but knew he never could. Never in a million years could he ever forget what it had been like to be human—really human—for nearly a full day. His jaw ached and he realized he was clenching his teeth, glaring at the woman who had put him through that nightmare.
     
    “You’ve done this to others?”
     
    He let his voice grow deeper with the severity of his words. Using every inch of his six foot seven frame, he towered over her. Ana’s mask of vulnerability flickered, real concern and fear sparking briefly in her eyes.
     
    “Brec, I—”
     
    He squeezed her arm until he felt her bones shift under the pressure. She sucked in a breath, real pain flaring on her face.
     
    “Try to manipulate me again,” Brec said softly, “And I will make you very very sorry.”
     
    She stared at him and he could see her gauging his words, trying to decide if he was serious. Indignation added heat to his anger. He’d told her in Mrs. Downing’s shop that he was a doctor. Was she so certain that he wouldn’t hurt her? So certain that a healer couldn’t be a warrior as well—couldn’t be a force to be reckoned with?
     
    Rage burned bright inside him and he snarled at her. “You humans and your arrogance,” he hissed. “You think you can steal that which is most