Blaze of Memory Read Online Free PDF Page B

close enough to jog your memory.”
    The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Too close.”
    “Kate?”
    She paused, considered it. Hesitated.
    “Katya?”
    Somehow she knew no one had ever before called her that. It felt new. Fresh. Alive. Ekaterina was dead. Katya lived. “Yes.”
    As Dev walked farther into the room, she realized for the first time how big he was. He moved with such lethal grace, it was easy to overlook the fact that he was over six feet three, with solid shoulders that held his suit jacket with effortless confidence. There was considerable muscle on that tall frame—enough to snap her in half without effort.
    She should have been afraid, but Devraj Santos had a heat to him, a reality that compelled her to move closer. He was no shadow, she thought. If this man decided to kill her, he’d do so with blunt pragmatism. He wouldn’t torture, wouldn’t torment. So she let him get close, let him lift a hand to her hair and rub the strands between his fingertips, the scent of his aftershave soaking into her skin until the fresh bite of it was all she could smell.
    Her body began to sway toward his the moment before he said, “You need to brush this out.”
    “I washed it.” She picked up a brush, fighting the urge that threatened to destroy what little control she’d managed to cobble together. “But it’s so knotted, I couldn’t get it smoothed out. It might be easier to cut it.”
    “Give it to me.” Sliding the brush out of her hand, he nudged her back toward the bed.
    The slight touch jolted her, made her move unresisting. But she headed away from the bed and to the chair instead. “There’s no sunshine here.” Sunshine . The word ricocheted around her head, echoes upon echoes. Sunshine. A painful thudding in her heart, a sense that she’d forgotten something important. “Sunshine,” she whispered again, but the echo was already fading, lost in the fog of her mind.
    “It’s snowing up above,” Dev said. “But the sun’s out—we’re just too far down.” He waited until she was seated before beginning to brush her hair. She didn’t know what she’d expected, but the patience with which he untangled the knots wasn’t it.
    Some small part of her knew that he was fully capable of using those same gentle hands to end her life. And yet she continued to sit, her body vulnerable, the tender skin of her neck tingling where his fingers grazed it. More, she wanted to say, please . Instead of betraying the depth of her need, instead of begging, she gripped the sides of the chair, the metal growing warm under her palms. But no matter the touch of heat, it wasn’t real, wasn’t human.
    “I know things,” she blurted out.
    He didn’t pause. “What things?”
    She found herself leaning back toward him, so hungry for contact that her skin felt as if it was parched, dying of thirst. “I know about the world. I know I’m Psy. I know I shouldn’t be able to feel emotions.” But she did. Need, fear, confusion, so many things that twisted and tore at her, demanding attention, wanting to surface.
    And beneath it all was terror. Endless. Wordless. Always.
    Dev’s fingers touched her nape, vivid warmth and silent demand. “How much do you know about the world? Politics?”
    “Enough. Pieces.” She breathed deep, found that the scent of him, rich and dark below the crispness of the aftershave, was in her lungs. It made her heart race, her palms go damp. “When people speak, when I watch the news channel, I understand. And I know other things...I know who—what—you are. I know what Shine is. It’s only me I don’t know. Nothing comes.”
    “That’s not true.” Firm strokes, little tugs on her scalp. “You dream.”
    A pulse of dread, bile in her throat. “I don’t want to.”
    “It’s a way for your brain to process things.”
    Her arms hurt, and she realized she was holding herself so stiffly, her muscles were beginning to burn. Forcing herself to let go of the chair,