Bitten in Two Read Online Free PDF Page B

“The two of you go on in. I wil catch up later.” He picked up his pace.
    I grabbed Cole’s arm so hard that he jumped. “Uh, Lord Brâncoveanu?” he said. Pause for eye rol . “We’d be happy to do that but, er, you know how Helena worries when you’re out on your own. What do you say we al stay together tonight? You know, do something as a family?” By now we were nearly jogging to keep up with him.
    “That would be fine, except I am planning to find a woman who—”
    I lost the rest of Vayl’s sentence in a mental whiteout.
    The sensation was close to the feeling (or lack of) that I reach just before my finger squeezes the trigger. But it was misleading. Because before a kil I go to a place very close to peace. This was the indrawn breath before a battle cry.
    Cole lunged forward to yank on Vayl’s coat sleeve, managing to stop his progress. At the same time he shoved his body in front of mine. He said, “I’m afraid Madame Berggia doesn’t understand. At al .” Madame Berggia doesn’t understand. At al .” Vayl didn’t even spare me a look. “She does not need to.” His voice was hard as the eyes of the children who suggested we use them as our guides every afternoon when we went to the Djemaa el Fna to search for the answers we couldn’t find in Cassandra’s books or at Bergman’s keyboards. Only Cole kept me from shoving my face into Vayl’s, wrecking our relationship and maybe his mind by demanding that he remember the only woman who should matter to him anymore.
    Cole turned and put both his hands on my shoulders.
    Leaning down so our noses were nearly touching he murmured, “Get it together.”
    I glared over his shoulder at the vampire who was tapping his foot impatiently. “I hate that son of a bitch!”
    “I know.”
    That stepped me back. “But… I love him.”
    “Which is why you hate him right now. I get it. Don’t you think I’ve felt the same way about you practical y every day since we met?”
    I looked into his eyes and, for the first time, truly understood. “Jesus. I’m sorry. I real y wish—” He shook his head, his smile so smal it resembled Vayl’s least readable expression. “My mom used to tel me that we can’t help how we feel. It’s what we choose to do about those feelings that makes us shits or saints.” His hands slid down my arms until they fel to his sides. “I guess I final y understand what she meant.”
    I dropped my head.
    I love you, Cole. So much that I wish you could find the perfect girl. Someone who wants to wrap herself around you the same way I do Vayl. With a mind-blowing passion that keeps making me forget to breathe. The downside is that it can tear your heart out. Slowly, so that you feel yourself bleeding, dying inside, every time he looks at you, past you, not seeing, not remembering. And if he never comes back? Another kind of living death that zombies are glad they never have to experience. And still I can say I’ve held the world in my hands.
    But you’re not content, are you, Jazzy? Granny May peered at me from around the blouse she was hanging on the clothesline. You’re still going to fight to get him back?
    Damn straight, I am. Because in the end, I may be greedier than Kyphas. I’ve had it all. But I want more.
    Even so changed, Vayl hadn’t lost his ability to move like one of the tigers that had been carved into the cane he no longer carried. Despite my Sensitivity to his presence, I was stil surprised to find him standing at my shoulder when I final y looked up.
    “I am sorry to remind you of your sorrows, Madame Berggia,” he said, his fine black brows drawn down in a frown of, geez, could that actual y be concern? “Let me assure you, the woman I seek is nothing like the Seer who led me to your home in the first place.”
    “I… uh—”
    His lip quirked, reminding me so strongly of my old lover that I had to grab a handful of skirt to prevent myself from wrapping my arms around his waist. He said, “I have