Diaries of an Urban Panther Read Online Free PDF Page A

nose, scolding himself.
    “You said you were waiting to see if I was safe. Am I safe?”
    “I don’t know,” he said. “With the way you’re healing, I can’t be sure.”
    “Well, what do you think? Because I’ve had plenty of time to dream up thousands of theories with all the Cloak and Dagger stuff going on here.”
    Garrett looked deep into his coffee, avoiding my eyes. “Do you really want to know what I think?”
    “Of course I want to know. I’m smart enough to know the thing in the alley was too big to be a dog but you took it down pretty quick. I know even in my younger days, I didn’t heal this fast. I want to know why you brought me here and not a hospital.”
    Garrett pursed his lips and leaned back on his couch. His T-shirt stretched over his chest as he put his arm on the back of the couch. There was a dark mark there, some kind of tattoo on the inner side of his left upper arm. It was a small design, something in a circle. I tried not to stare at it but couldn’t help myself.
    He shifted position and kept his arm to his side from then on.
    I curled my feet underneath me and waited, watching, as he decided what to tell me. I’d decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had healed me, fed me, and clothed me. And the addition of cinnamon was above the call of a normal kidnapper.
    “You were attacked by a werewolf.”
    Laughter echoed in my head and I immediately knew number three of my scenarios was right: He was gorgeous but insane. I was about to be dinner. Only Violet Jordan could get herself into a situation like this. I smiled and was about to say something witty to that effect but the darkness in his eyes made my smile fade.
    “I didn’t get a good look but I shot it with silver. Works for most things if I’m wrong.”
    The penny taste of fear filled me. I gripped my coffee tighter as I worked through this in my brain. He was insane ; it was the only thought that ran through my head. I mean sure, I wrote about this stuff on TV but it was SCIFI , hence, the FI part of it.
    “Now, I’m waiting to see if you’ve been infected. It takes in some people but not in others.”
    “Why?”
    “Depends on the person’s blood.”
    “What about the blood?”
    “Depends on if there is magic in it already.”
    Wasn’t that some mythology he’d cooked up? But wasn’t I healing too fast for it not to have infected me? The wounds were through muscle; wouldn’t that be deep enough to infect someone with a mystical disease? God, I sounded like I was at work. Of course, I did do most of my work sitting on a couch with a cup of coffee. But not at three in the morning and not across the cushion from a mad man—or any other man for that matter. Maybe I was the one going crazy.
    He must have read my thoughts, which at this point, I wasn’t discounting. “I’m not sure if your healing is because you’re a Perfect or if it’s the disease.”
    The P word caught my attention more than the notion of lycanthropy or being filleted alive. “What exactly is perfect to you?”
    Garrett just smiled that soap star smile. “It means you are perfect in every way.”
    My hysteric laughter echoed off the bare, wood-paneled walls. “You obviously didn’t see me in high school with the zits and the braces and the frizzy, frizzy hair.”
    He waited to continue until after my fit of panicked giggles had subsided. “It means you were created for a specific purpose. There has been a prophecy. That’s why I was sent to watch over you.”
    “But you asked out Jessa, you were following . . .” And then it hit me. I was always with Jessa when she spotted him and how else would he know how I took my coffee. “You were following me.”
    There was that look again, that dark look where he dropped his chin slightly and looked through his long lashes. It made me stop breathing and my skin grow hot. But maybe it was the coffee still steaming in my hands.
    His voice was soothing as I dropped my gaze into the