Dire Wants Read Online Free PDF Page A

across the back of the head.
    Stray turned from them to look up at the sky as the two tussled next to him.
    The moon wasn’t ready to relent her hold on the world just yet. These last few hours of dawn were some of Stray’s favorites, the in-between time when most creatures were quiet and everything seemed at peace.
    The solitude was what Stray enjoyed the most. He knew Jinx understood that the best, as they were the only two who consistently slept in wolf form, because for Jinx, it blocked out all the ghosts who constantly needed his help.
    For Stray, it wasn’t that easy. His ability had been developing at an alarming rate once he left the Greenland pack. At first the other wolf’s emotions had to be really strong in order for Stray to hear his thoughts. Now, if he tuned in, he could hear just about everything—from Dire, Were and human, and maybe even witch—and it made him feel like he was going nuts.
    Hell, maybe he was.

Chapter 2
    “T ell me what you remember,” Kate Walters urged the young woman named Josie, who sat across from her on the couch. “Start anywhere.”
    “His hands,” Josie blurted out. “They were . . . hairy. God, of all things to remember.”
    “Keep going.” Kate spoke gently as the picture began to firm up in her mind. She didn’t want to see the face of the man who’d hurt Josie, but she was able to see him the exact way Josie had. The back of his hands, unnaturally furred, the face, unmasked. That wasn’t always the case.
    Kate concentrated on the attacker’s eyes first. Windows to the soul—or lack of one. They were blue—dark—close set. Bushy brows.
    The graphite pencil flew across the page as Josie talked, voice tremulous.
    Eventually, Josie would find herself staring at a replica of her attacker—the man who’d also killed her best friend, Sue, in the woods early this morning, when they were walking back from a town bar to their college campus through a popular shortcut. Josie’s reaction would be hard to judge—she might cry, scream or shake. The stoic ones affected Kate the most because they would simply sit there, hands balled tightly in their laps, and nod that the picture was right.
    Kate wanted them to have a crack in their armor, a chip, wanted them to do something, because not reacting would come back to bite them in the ass.
    It had for her. The fact that she got up daily and confronted her fears by helping others who’d lived through a violent crime was her only recourse.
    And that’s why, even though she much preferred to do this in the police station, she would go to the hospital and even the victims’ homes if that’s what it took to keep them comfortable. That was why she was at Josie’s apartment instead of the hospital, where Josie had spent the better part of today.
    The ultimate irony was that Kate couldn’t remember the face of her own attacker no matter how hard she tried. It happened nearly three years earlier. The detective who’d helped her when she was attacked in the woods several towns over from where she currently lived had been the one who’d gotten her this job. And while she was grateful for it, some days she felt she could never—would never—escape the victimology that surrounded her.
    Today was one of those days. She’d spend a long time in the shower when she was done here, trying to wash away the brutality of the attack on the woman across from her, as well as her own.
    At twenty she’d already lived through what she thought was more than her fair share of tragedy. But then she was attacked and realized that there was no limit to the amount of pain someone could be forced to endure during their lifetime, no magic number that would allow them to live the rest of their life unscathed. Sometimes tragedies multiplied upon tragedies.
    She’d worked with enough victims to realize the solid truth behind that.
    She kept talking, small affirmations so Josie would think she was still listening. But she didn’t need to. She