Dark Predator Read Online Free PDF Page B

she began to dig. She wanted the hole deep enough to cover him so the earth could heal him. She could have gone to the tool shed for a shovel, but she didn’t dare run into anyone. She didn’t lie, not even with her sign language. She wasn’t all that adept at it yet and few understood her, so mostly she wrote on paper. Her hands would shake and Cesaro would know something was wrong.
    She dug with her hands. The soil was rich and fertile, a black loam abounding with minerals and nutrients. She knew it was so just from the feel of the dirt. It took most of the morning and she was sweating and covered in grime by the time she was satisfied with the depth of the hole. His body needed to be completely surrounded and covered by the soil if he was going to heal properly.
    Marguarita dragged the tarp to the very edge of the hole, her stomach churning a little. It did feel as though she was trying to cover up a murder. She could add this day to her nightmares for certain. Crouching, she placed her hands firmly on his shoulder and hip and pushed. Fortunately, she was strong from handling horses since she was a child, but it was still a difficult task to roll him into his resting place.
    Zacarias landed awkwardly on his side, like a rag doll—or a dead body. She pressed a dirty, trembling hand to her mouth, feeling limp herself. She rested for a few minutes before she began covering him with the dark soil. When he was completely buried, she sank to her knees beside him and allowed herself a few minutes to have a panic attack.
    What had she done? The De La Cruz family made few demands on their people. Very few. Everyone who worked for them was wealthy by any standards. All owned their own lands adjacent to the De La Cruz lands, all because one of the family members had purchased it for them. Cousins, aunts, uncles—everyone related was taken care of. Fathers passed the legacy to their sons. Mothers to their daughters. All had obeyed until Marguarita. She’d disgraced her family name by her disobedience and she had no doubt that she would pay dearly.
    She lifted her chin and forced herself to stand. She was a Fernandez, her father’s daughter. She would not run from her crime but stay and face whatever Zacarias De La Cruz deemed fit for her punishment. A shudder went through her and icy fingers crept down her spine. He barely seemed human. Or Carpathian. He was terrifying.
    She couldn’t change what she’d done. She didn’t understand it and put it down to her compassion for all things hurt, but that didn’t explain why she’d defied him after he’d told her to allow his death. Why would he choose to burn in the sun? It was a horrible death, and how could he think that she could stand by and watch him burn?
    He’d saved her life. She touched her mangled throat, stroking dirt-smeared fingers over the scars. Sometimes, at night, when she woke in a sweat, trying to scream but nothing would come out, she thought she had called to him to save her. She could hear the echo of his name faintly in her head, as if she’d managed just his name. Now he was here and he wasn’t at all the fantasy figure she’d conjured up in her mind.
    Zacarias frightened her in an elemental way, deep down in her very blood and bones. In her soul. She pressed a clenched fist over her heart while it beat frantically out of control. He was handsome, had a rock-hard body, seemed everything a woman might dream of, but his eyes . . . his face. He was terrifying and every girlhood fantasy she’d secretly harbored vanished on encountering him.
    Marguarita climbed slowly out of the chamber, dusting every grain of dirt from her clothes and body. She couldn’t leave tracks. If a vampire’s puppet penetrated the ranch’s defenses, there could be no trail leading to Zacarias’s resting place. She lowered the trap door and again swept the floor and even washed it, afraid the scent of Zacarias’s blood would be detected. It was extremely difficult to push the