Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page A

believe anyone had agreed when she’d insisted we go to bed and she stay up doing that. I wasn’t about to leave her without someone watching her back, though. There was still a chance one of the innumerable people after her would find out she was here.
    I shifted around on the couch and peered through the crack between the curtains. A few yards down the length of the porch, she sat on the swing, her gaze on the darkened street. In the shadows, her auburn hair looked almost black, though her eyes still seemed to catch the light, glinting deep green. She hadn’t changed them to see better through the darkness, which made me uncomfortable even if it was probably smart. A person with glowing eyes would attract attention if anyone in the neighborhood happened to glance outside.
    But I didn’t like her not doing everything she could to stay safe.
    A creak sounded from the second floor and my gaze twitched up. Footsteps came closer to the stairs.
    I leaned back into the pillows, looking more like I was asleep. I didn’t really feel like talking to anybody here, and if that was Olivia and she was proving not to be as willing to help as she and Ellie had claimed…
    My eyes closed. The footsteps came down the steps and paused.
    I kept my breathing even and worked to stop my remaining spikes from emerging.
    The front door opened. Closed.
    I opened my eyes.
    No one was in the study. I sat up and looked past the curtain again.
    It was that Noah guy, sitting down next to Chloe on the swing. His voice was low when he spoke to her, the words indecipherable, and her response was the same. I couldn’t see her face – he’d taken the seat on the far side of her, making her turn his way, and all I could see was the edge of him past her hair – but I could read her tension in the way she was sitting.
    I made myself draw a breath. He liked her. I wasn’t stupid, and it’d take some serious brain trauma not to see that. Everything he’d done to keep his cousins away from her aside, he’d kissed her before she’d left Santa Lucina that first time, and the way he’d been watching her when she wasn’t looking made it more than clear that his feelings hadn’t changed.
    And he knew about things between me and Chloe. That was also obvious.
    When it came to that last, though, I didn’t really care. Chloe was one of the most incredible people I’d ever met and she’d chosen to be with me.
    After what he did to hurt her, anyway.
    I pushed the thought aside. That didn’t matter. There was no telling how things might have gone if I’d realized earlier what I was feeling for her. For all I knew, this could have started sooner, and what that guy had done wouldn’t have changed a thing. I wasn’t going to give his actions credit for what I had with Chloe.
    And meanwhile, I wanted to be with her. I was going to make damn sure I gave her plenty of reasons to still want to be with me.
    The guy’s hand rose to her face, pushing away her hair. I tensed. A heartbeat passed and he leaned closer.
    Shivers coursed through me.
    And then she turned away.
    I exhaled. I couldn’t tell if she’d kissed him. I couldn’t tell anything. But a moment later, Noah stood. He hesitated, saying something to her, and then returned to the door.
    My attention was locked on Chloe. She seemed upset. Like something had happened, though I wasn’t certain which of the two possibilities it was. But she also didn’t look elated, or like she’d fallen back into his arms.
    I glanced over when the front door closed. In the entryway, Noah paused. His head turned back in Chloe’s direction, though the rest of him was still enough to be stone.
    He released a breath, the sound of it shaky. And then he looked over at me.
    I didn’t know if he could see me in the shadows. Much more than the rough shape of me, anyway. From what I could tell, greliarans didn’t have the same visual abilities as dehaians, and regardless, his eyes weren’t glowing.
    I let my own change,