Companions Read Online Free PDF Page B

Maria ripped open Selena's sleeveless white shirt. The Page 18
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    popped buttons scattered like seeds on the concrete floor. Lawrence's gaze settled on her breasts.
    "Will you take her as a companion?" Maria asked him.
    Lawrence's head came up sharply. "What?"
    "That's your choice, boy. What else can we do? Her will cannot be subverted in the usual way.
    We all know that some mortals resist chaste mind control."
    "Those are the best kind," a woman said from the back of the crowd.
    "Entertaining," one of the others declared. "Chastity is so boring."
    Selena tried to pry her hands away while Maria shook her like she was an annoying rat. "Take her, Lawrence. You could use a companion."
    Lawrence shook his head. "No way."
    She was pushed toward the male vampire. "But you want her."
    "But not permanently! "
    "Why not?"
    Lawrence looked around wildly. "Take an unwilling companion? I'd rather slaughter her."
    "They're never unwilling for long," someone said to the accompaniment of shrill laughter.
    "She's beautiful, Lawrence." Maria ran her hands over Selena.
    Lawrence looked her up and down. He bared his teeth. "I'm tempted."
    "Indulge," Maria urged.
    Selena didn't know if they were planning to rape her or kill her or both. The diamond woman's touch had been obscene; her voice, as she urged the man on, was worse. Selena knew she had to get out before she could be used to entertain the troops.
    "Help me!" she called to the man in the shadows.
    There was no answer but the laughter of the others. Maybe he was laughing, too. Maybe he wasn't even there. He certainly didn't care. There was no one to depend on but herself.
    Alone she might be, but years of training and years on the street counted for a lot. She was on her feet; that helped. The bitch only had one hand on her, and her attention was elsewhere. Selena saw her opportunity and used it to pull away. She left a lot of hair behind, but a stinging scalp was worth the price of getting out of the diamond woman's clutches. She was still surrounded by the crowd.
    There was nowhere to run, but there was room to spin and kick as hard as she could. Her foot landed squarely in Lawrence's abdomen and again in his face as he bentforward. The vampire Page 19
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    went down. Selena leapt over his prone body, through the gap he'd left. She ran into the darkness.
    They followed, howling like a gleeful pack of hyenas at her heels.
    She remembered the staircase, and the door to the outside on the landing above. Heart pounding, the monsters' screams freezing her blood, Selena ran for the stairs.
    He didn't step out of the shadows, they parted to let him through. One moment the stairway was clear before her. The next he was there, solid and dangerous and waiting for her.
    He opened his arms.
    Hell was behind her. What waited before her radiated fury and contempt and a strange promise of shelter. She couldn't have turned back to face the others if she'd tried. So she kept going in the hope that she could somehow get around the lone wolf on the staircase.
    "Let me go." She said the words quite calmly, under the circumstances.
    "Or you will do what? Arrest me?" He took her in his arms. "You shouldn't have run."
    "I didn't have any other choice. Let go of me." She spoke through gritted teeth.
    "It's him! He's here!" Lawrence shouted out the warning.
    Selena heard them behind her. She also heard the edge of terror in the monsters' voices as a name was repeated, passing like a wave through the crowd. The one holding her scared them nearly to death. If they scared her, and he scared them, just how bad was he? What was the monsters' monster going to do to her?
    I might do a great many things.
    His voice was a silken caress in her mind. And howcome he could read her thoughts when the other ones couldn't?
    Stop that!
    You started it, his thought answered