Edge of Seventeen Read Online Free PDF Page A

cheeks flushed with pink and he
tucked his chin, darting his eyes away from Cyrus.
    “The girl… She doesn’t want to get out of the
car.”
    Angel stepped aside and took strides toward
the back of the truck. He lit a cigarette and sucked in the first
drag like he’d been waiting years to do it. He threw his hands up
and exhaled harshly, raising a cloud of grey smoke.
    Cyrus eyeballed Angel. Angel was pissed, but
not quite I’m gonna rip your throat out kind of pissed; he
was more like I’ve had the worst day in my life and it’s all
that damn kid’s fault kind of pissed. If Cyrus hadn’t been so
keen on lifting his pack of this burden, he’d find it comical. He’d
laugh. He’d make fun. Angel’s fuse got lit by a lot of things, but,
until now, a teenage girl wasn’t one of them.
    As it was, Cyrus wanted to get this contract
over with. He gritted his teeth and gave a curt nod to Angel
signaling that he’d take the baton in the relay to get the
ever-feared god-woman-child out of the car. They could laugh about
this later, Cyrus resolved, much later, after they’d gotten
rid of the little problem.
    “Let me handle it,” he chewed out,
confidently puffing his chest as he pulled his shoulders back. Like
this, he was massive. Even bigger than usual. If the girl wasn’t
intimidated by the dark, agitated werewolf, then perhaps the huge,
burly one could shock some sense into her.
    Cyrus stepped toward the open back door of
the truck slowly, hoping to build the Incarnate’s anticipation of a
threat with his pace. She might have been the ever-feared god-woman
of the preternatural world at-large, but she was also just a kid.
If Stephen could kick back and relax while Angel felt keen enough
to argue with her, then Cyrus could work on manipulating her in
order to get his way.
    He pulled his long, dark, blond hair out of
his ponytail and shook the hair free around his face. Between that
and the thick beard he wore—not to mention the full sleeves of
tattoos that all but screamed out KEEP AWAY, he was sure
that the girl would be shaking in her shoes to do whatever the
werewolves asked of her.
    When his eyes landed on her, Cyrus
experienced what he could only comprehend as a cataclysmic
unhinging of his being. It shocked him into stupor and that was,
for Cyrus, a unique occurrence. He hadn’t felt it when he’d awoken
to his curse after the animal attack that should have ended his
life. He hadn’t felt it when he’d mercilessly devoured his first
kill and recognized a guilt so cruelly unrelenting that it he
carried it even sixty years later. Never had Cyrus become so
upended.
    His pulse raced, his lungs seized as he
fought for breath, his stomach cramped. Even transformation had
never been so wholly devastating, so completely visceral. It took
him a handful of seconds to compose himself and put a cork on the
unprecedented eruption within. He didn’t have to look in a mirror
to know that his eyes were blazing gold with his wolf’s sudden
break for the surface. Even his wolf needed to come up for air.
They were both suffocating.
    Cyrus’ white-knuckled fists smashed into his
hips and he shut his eyes tightly until a white light sparked
against the inkiest black of his mind. When he reopened his eyes,
he forced himself to look at her, really look at her, with a
raw, heavy-handed dissection. Cyrus approached her until he stopped
just a few feet from the girl, but she didn’t even flinch.
    The Incarnate looked every bit the part of a
pissed-off teenager, petulant and arrogant with the pride of every
second of her fourteen years. The girl glared straight ahead
through narrowed eyes. The seat belt buckled and strapped tightly
across her chest. She sat erect in her seat with her hands folded
neatly in her lap as though expecting good conduct marks from a
teacher, her long chestnut hair tossed haplessly over her shoulders
in careless tangles. She looked as though she’d stepped out of
school, which was definitely a