Beyond the Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

do with you.”
    “That’s not what I just heard. If he’s taken back, we’re all dead.”
    “And you as well,” Pope said to Cheveyo. “You will be in my memories, too.” He shifted his gaze to her. “I don’t want any of you involved in this. Cheveyo can handle this situation, and you will be safe. Now, go.”
    She had been daydreaming about, yearning for a cold-blooded killer. He’d just agreed to commit two acts of murder without hesitation.
    Cheveyo put his hand on her back and ushered her to the door. He opened it but turned her to face him before he might give her a shove through the opening. His hands settled on her lower arms, and his calluses felt like the light side of an emery board across her skin. He tilted his head down, eyeing her from beneath thick black lashes. “It’s dangerous for you to be involved in this. Do you remember how it was when you were being hunted? When you were hiding in the old asylum, running through the woods with that man gunning for you?”
    Those memories seized her. “How did you know?”
    “I saw it, before it happened. I also saw Eric save you. Think about everything you went through.”
    “I’m trying to forget.”
    “Good. Forget it all. Forget what you heard today.”
    Logical advice. She looked into his eyes. “Am I supposed to forget you, too?”
    “Yes.” He let go of her and took a step back. “Go.”
    She lifted her chin. “I will forget you. Watch me.” She started to walk but turned. “You’ll let me know if . . . if something happens to Pope?”
    “Of course. But that’s not going to happen.”
    Another step. “Don’t you dare kill Pope. Find a way.”
    “I will.”
    He looked confident. He sounded confident. She released a breath and continued walking. Everything she’d heard bombarded her as she reached her car. She never turned around again—good job on that—but felt him watching her. She wouldn’t tell the others that danger loomed unless it became an imminent threat. She set the stuffed dog on her lap as she pulled out.
    “Toto, we’re still not in Kansas.”
    C heveyo watched her leave. How many hells would he have to endure where she was concerned? Every time he left her, it tore a part of him. Watching her leave was no easier. You think you’d be used to it by now.
    He closed the door and found Pope regarding him curiously. “What?” he growled, uncomfortable with being assessed.
    “I find humans very interesting.”
    In other words, amusing. “Must be nice not having emotions. I wish I’d inherited that from my father.”
    “No, you don’t. What I sense, the pain, joy, love and hate, all of it makes you alive.”
    Cheveyo glanced back at the door. “And it shreds you. She made me promise not to kill you.”
    He smile was bland. “She feels loyalty, a debt of gratitude. What she feels for you, however—”
    “Isn’t important. How will I know if you’re captured? I may get a vision, but there are no guarantees.”
    “We bond. A replicate of the bond you share with her. You will see my capture, and I will let you know where I am. Yurek will have to take me to one of the finestras. There are two near here.”
    “Finestra?”
    “What you call a portal. The first finestra to your dimension was found a hundred years ago in a tomb. We named it after the ventilation hole in case anyone overheard an insider talking about it. We can’t let our population know about the finestras, which are guarded. It’s bad enough that some know about the cracks between our dimensions.”
    “My father never spoke about the finestras, other than to say he’d come through a vortex a long time ago. What happens if a human finds one that leads to your dimension?”
    “Humans feel them, like they feel the energy vortexes in certain areas. But their bodies won’t respond to the finestra in a way that allows them to slip through. At least not the finestras we’ve observed humans encounter.”
    “What about my body?”
    Pope