Cloak of Deceit: An Alex Moore Novel Read Online Free PDF

exceptionally well.”
    I pressed my hand over the mangled flesh on my own neck.
    Julian brushed my chin with his fingertips, turning my head slightly. He eased my hand away. “That one might leave a scar. He was sloppy.”
    His thumb slid across the ring of swollen bumps, and I couldn’t repress the shiver his touch brought. The warmth in his fingertips painted a trail of heat on my skin, relaxing the muscles beneath.
    “What’s going to happen to Cody?” I asked to fill the heavy silence.
    He let go of me and cleared his throat, his mouth drawing down at the corners. “He and his Sponsor will both be punished by the Cloak, but if they cooperate, it shouldn’t be too severe.”
    It seemed like he had flipped an internal switch. Another side of him emerged when he mentioned the Cloak, a harder side I didn’t like so much. My eyes lingered over the shiny crescent-shaped scar on his otherwise perfect profile. I had to wonder: if he healed exceptionally well, what had left that mark? Had it been there before he’d turned into an Undead?
    He caught me studying him and stood. “I should go.”
    “No, wait.” I grabbed his hand.
    The mixture of impatience and curiosity in his expression was growing familiar, as if he couldn’t quite figure me out and hadn’t decided if he liked that or not. The idea of intriguing Julian managed to thrill me just a little, despite the general downward spiral of my life, and even my recent death.
    “Please.” I let my very real desperation come through in my voice.
    Think, Alex — don’t let him go .
    All that echoed in my mind was the increasingly uncomfortable truth: I didn’t want to be alone. No one else could possibly comprehend what had happened to me. I stared into Julian’s dark eyes, and swallowed the lump in my throat. “I have so many questions.”
    I need help figuring this out.
    “I know,” he said, all gentle reassurance, “and you’ll get answers.”
    He reached into his pocket and handed me a business card, which I examined with feigned interest: ten hand-written digits. I would have staked my life — ha! —on it not being Julian’s number.
    “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” A self-conscious frown distorted his handsome face. He tucked a small vial into my palm. “Here.”
    I furrowed my brows and examined the viscous black liquid.
    “Drink it.” He closed my fingers for me. “You should sleep through most of tonight and tomorrow. When you wake up, call the number. The Cloak will assign you a case worker to help you sort things out. Don’t make a move without calling them first. You’ll need more blood, and they can provide it for you. No one can find out about what you are, Alex. If you reveal anything about the Undead or the Cloak, they won’t hesitate to eliminate you. Consider yourself warned.”
    He picked up his coat from atop a pile of folded laundry by the door and shrugged it on.
    “Julian?”
    He paused in the doorway and glanced back at me, his black hair falling to shadow his eyes.
    “Will I ever see you again?”
    “Not if you play your cards right. Watch out for yourself, Alex.” He gave me a half-smile, and then he walked out without looking back.
    Guys doing that to me was really starting to get old.
    I sat on the edge of my bed for I don’t know how long, teetering at the edge of the unknown.
    How can any of this be real?

    I examined the vial in my hand and thought about how my main gripe had always been my life’s predictability. My course had been plotted ahead of me since before I was born. Even my conception had been considered, planned, and executed by my mother like an operation. I had always felt trapped by it, had searched for a way to break the mold. But now the boring, predictable life I’d wanted to escape had been snatched away, and I faced a great big question mark. I realized how much I had taken for granted.
    Still, another part buried deep inside of me stirred, an inner restlessness. That part looked at