Creche (Book II of Paranormal Fallen Angels/Vampires Series) Read Online Free PDF

to be there in the morning, when Sabine might return to me for the day, but even more, I wanted to know how to awaken her forever.
    Some part of me knew Skylar was right: if I brought Sabine back as she was, she would hate me for it. Sabine would count herself even more a beast than she had before. What would be left for her if she could not hunt, could not run, could not fend for herself?
    The dwarf, Kettle, the stumps of his tortured legs swathed in bandages, came to my mind. I had left him to die, he who had helped me. I could not leave Sabine so helpless as that. It would destroy her—destroy us both. But still I had begged Skylar to tell me there and then.
    “To learn the riddle, you must come with me,” Skylar had insisted. “Sabine’s anchorstone will be safe here until you return. That is why she hid it here in the first place.”
    She was right, I knew. Gandler, the monster, was dead, and I did not think Beltran would care enough to torment me now that Joslyn’s love was lost to us both. It was likely he thought Sabine would remain forever in a watery grave somewhere in the Caribbean.
    Skylar’s voice when she spoke was soft with sympathy. “It is not just the Council. There is something I want you to see, something that must see you, also. You are not alone, Amedeo, not unless you wish to be.”
    But I felt more lonely than ever. How long would it take for the encasing metal they had trapped Sabine in to be lapped away by seawater? How long would it take me to hunt down Beltran and tear his heart from his body, to set aflame the vampire brethren of the world?
    “This thing you cannot do alone, Amedeo. And you should not.”
    I bit my tongue, but my mind retorted with, “ Who would help me? You, who would not lift a hand to save them then, or to save me?”
    “I am sorry.”
    I sensed the truth in it.
    “I have my own ... mission ... my own wishes. I could not save them for you, not even if you would have let me.”
    She was right—again. I had never asked Sabine to help me, neither had I asked Josyln. I remembered my fear when I had first seen Skylar’s face, shining in the crowd at Gandler’s Circus of Curiosities. I would never have involved her in my private war with Beltran. I would never have introduced her to Gandler, or asked her to fight on my behalf, even if she hadn’t been just a will-o-the-wisp in the darkness, or a beautiful face above a scarlet cape at a circus.

    T he earth was chalky where we set down, and I fell forward and sprawled on landing. I had not expected sympathy from Skylar, nor did I receive any. She laughed—a clear, uncomplicated sound, and when she reached out a hand to help me up, I ignored her.
    “I had thought you a gentleman.”
    I found I was ashamed of myself. However apathetic she had been about the fate of my friends, I could tell she was not unkind.
    “I am tired,” I said aloud, by way of apology. “Exhausted.”
    “Sometimes you must learn to take the hand that is offered you.”
    “Even when it is offered too late.”
    Ignoring my petulance, she dropped her hand to her side. “Come,” she said. Her feet left dainty prints in the gray-white dust of the hillside.
    She had said we were nearly there, but I followed her for miles on foot, wending through dense forest. Sometimes it seemed as if we had backtracked or as if we set off on a tangent, and when she stopped to enable me to catch up, she looked behind for any others who might follow. Whether she heard me mentally cursing her, I was unsure, but she said nothing or had hidden her mind.
    The viridian of pines, cypress, and chestnut, and the duller khaki of olives studded the stark landscape. The place crackled with light and with loneliness; it felt as terse as I did and even more ancient. My footfalls were the only sound; even the call of shrike or thrush was absent. If we are being followed, it must be by fox alone , I thought, wondering how Skylar was so light of foot that I could not hear her