Read Online Underground Warrior by Evelyn Vaughn - Free Book Online

the violence of the hammer began to frighten her, he guided her gently sideways, toward the half he’d secured, so that he could continue on her other side. The contrast unnerved her. “He’s a heroic French conqueror and epic hero. Other epic heroes of the period include Roland, of course, and Girard de Roussillon, Aymeri de Narbonne, or even Saint William of Gellone.”
    She tried not to notice the way the soft fabric of Trace’s T-shirt strained against the breadth of his shoulders. Noticing such things hardly helped her concentration.
    Trace snorted through the nails in his mouth and said, muffled, “You think a sword like that belonged to a saint and not a warrior?”
    “William—Guillaume, in French—was sainted for killing Muslims,” Sibyl clarified. “The ancient Comitatus was all about conquering and killing.”
    Trace continued to secure the nails— whap! —without commenting.
    “Did they tell you that, before you joined?” she continued, as he finished with that length of chair rail. Trace looked guilty when he glanced at her. Because he took vows of secrecy, she reminded herself. “They had to tell you something, before you took vows.”
    Trace shrugged and picked up another length of molding. One-handed. “So who’s this guy you’re house-sitting for?”
    Wham!
    He changed topics as subtlely as he pounded nails.
    She reminded herself that she wouldn’t learn all his secrets in one afternoon. So she lied about her fictional house-sitting job, and he told her a little bit about his “Ma’s” bed-and-breakfast in Stagwater, Louisiana, and she felt satisfaction at the afternoon’s progress. Before he would ever get to the good stuff about his dad, he had to trust her, right? She let him walk her back to the light-rail station, despite not feeling particularly at risk on the “poor side of town.” He didn’t hold her hand, or put his arm around her. She wasn’t wholly sure what was normal, and didn’t want to show her ignorance, so she didn’t reach for him either. She surreptitiously watched how he scanned their surroundings as they walked, like a predator on the prowl, simultaneously hunting both prey and rivals. Even the gangbangers gave him wide berth. She wondered what he did on the rare occasion that a rival, in size or toughness, actually appeared.
    Only as they hiked across the parking lot to the Westmoreland DART station, hearing the distant whistle of the northbound train’s approach, did he clear his throat and say, “Let me know when you’re coming back. I’ll meet the train.”
    “That’s stupid. I can—” But something about the way his expression darkened clued her in to her near misstep. He had a ferocious scowl. The expression reminded her that he could probably break her neck with one hand. He wouldn’t, LaSalle blood or not. She felt sure. But still…
    “I don’t like talking on the phone,” she confessed instead, and felt her cheeks flush despite the nip in the air. Because it was the truth. The Comitatus couldn’t know what had happened to “Isabel Daine” after her parole—unless they’d tapped her mother’s phone out in Oregon or wherever she’d moved after remarrying. Sibyl didn’t want to involve her mother, anyway. And she had nobody else. But how had she become the one parting with secrets now?
    He shrugged. “So one-ring me, and I’ll head this way.” No questions. No judgment. Just that simple a solution.
    Before she could stop to think—she didn’t dare think—Sibyl hugged him. Her hands couldn’t meet be hind him, but her head tucked perfectly against his thrumming heart under his flannel shirt. Belatedly, his arms wrapped her thoroughly in return, hard and warm, and his head tipped down over her. His body and sawdust scent surrounded her. No escape. Why wasn’t she more frightened?
    “So you’ll call?” he demanded toward her hair, and it took her far too long to remember what they were talking about. She’d gotten distracted