Arise (Awakened Fate Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

bringing him into sharp focus and dispelling the darkness.
    His jaw muscles jumped at the sight. I could see the tension in his face, and in the way his hand trembled. His fingers moved, as if he was fighting to keep them from curling into a fist, and then his head twitched toward Chloe again.
    He exhaled, short and sharp. A quiver shook him.
    Without a word, he turned and climbed the stairs.
    I realized I hadn’t been breathing, and air filled my lungs quickly. I glanced to Chloe.
    She’d looked at the street, but now her eyes were closed. Out in the open, all alone, and her eyes were closed.
    Tears glistened on her cheeks.
    My hand moved to push the blanket away and then I hesitated. Regardless of what just happened, she probably didn’t want me out there. I was itching to go outside, to learn what had passed between her and Noah, and to keep her safe as well, but I wasn’t a fool. I knew I had to give her a moment.
    Even if I wanted to hurt anything that had hurt her. Anyone , for that matter.
    I took another breath. I’d talk to her tomorrow. Or in an hour. Or the second she looked like she wouldn’t push me away. But in the meantime, I didn’t have to leave her unprotected.
    My gaze returned to the neighborhood while I shifted around on the lumpy couch, sitting up to avoid sleep claiming me. I could go another night without rest. Exhaustion be damned, she was distracted right now. And while it was unlikely that her parents or the police would show up, or that the greliaran guy’s cousins were anywhere around, unlikely wasn’t the same as impossible.
    And the loss of a little rest was a tiny price for helping Chloe stay safe.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    Noah
     
    I climbed the stairs, fighting with every step not to go back down to the living room and have it out with that dehaian. I didn’t know what I planned to say. I wasn’t sure saying anything was the plan. Shivers rippled through my core, driven by anger and God knew what else, and it was everything I could do to keep my skin from changing.
    But I wouldn’t be like that. Wouldn’t lose control. And pummeling the guy wouldn’t fix anything, or endear me to Chloe either.
    No matter how tempting it was.
    I shuddered harder, struggling to keep my greliaran side at bay. Zeke was wary of me, I knew. I’d heard the fact he hadn’t breathed till after I left the living room. Some part of me was glad I put him on edge.
    The rest of me didn’t know what to feel.
    My feet stopped at the top of the stairs. On my right, Olivia’s bedroom door was closed and the gap beneath it was dark as if the lights within were off. At the end of the hall, the guest room door stood open, and through it I could see Baylie and Ellie asleep on either side of the large bed. I’d insisted they take it. I wasn’t going to make one of them sleep on the floor.
    A breath escaped me. It wasn’t just kindness to them. I was exhausted; I’d barely slept for two days, and the old wizards who’d made us apparently hadn’t seen fit to give greliarans the dehaians’ ability to stay awake for damn near ever. But I didn’t want to sleep, so they might as well have the bed. And tiredness or not, I would’ve stayed outside with Chloe if she’d wanted me to be there. I refused to leave her to keep watch by herself. Not when she was the target in all this – more than the rest of us, anyway – and when, in this quiet, I could hear a good chunk of the neighborhood if I tried. I’d probably know if anyone was heading our way long before they came into view.
    At least, I hoped.
    But regardless, I didn’t want to sleep.
    I crossed to the tiny window on the opposite wall from the stairwell. The street was dark, with only a few porch lamps to break the blackness, though most of the lights just caught on the large pines near the houses and created deep pools of shadow on the trees’ other sides. Wisps of clouds drifted through the sky, hazing over the stars and veiling the moon, and