Embrace The Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

might, catching him in the gut and sending him off balance.
    Scrambling to her feet, head and shoulder aching, hardly able to move from the pain in her lower back, she stumbled toward the faint outline of the door. But a hand lashed out and grabbed at her ankle, and with a hard yank, he dropped her to the tile, palm-flat, knee-hard.
    Sage shrieked with rage and pain and tried to crawl away as he dragged her back toward him, her dress bunching and catching up around her hips. His fingers curled tightly into her right ankle and then his other hand pulled on her bare leg, and then as she came close enough, he backhanded her across the face.
    Even in the dimness, she saw stars and a streak of light, then felt the wave of pain and grasping, clawing fingers tugging at her dress. “Now, that’s more like it,” he said as she struggled to breathe, to regain her focus, not to think about where his hands had moved…
    She thought she was imagining it when the light seemed to grow brighter, but that galvanized her into hope. Sage twisted one hand away and, as he was tearing at her dress, buttons flying, she slammed her palm up and into his nose.
Aim for the septum.
    Something crunched beneath her hand, he cried out, and then suddenly, he was gone. Lifted, like a puppet…and then his silhouette was flying through the air. Sage heard the crash as he landed on some furniture, and then the unmistakable sounds of fists thudding into flesh and bone, and even over the man’s groans and the slams and slaps, she discerned a nauseating crackling sound.
    Sage pulled to her feet, knees weak and fingers trembling, just in time to see her attacker slammed down onto a table—ouch, no, it was the
edge
of the overturned table onto which he was shoved, bent backward over, by a powerful hand at his throat.
    She recognized Simon with a little jolt of surprise, and then the surprise was replaced by awe. Unruffled, unmoved, he held the man’s life in the palm of his hand, in the little vee of his thumb and forefinger jammed up against the attacker’s neck. One twitch, one twist and she knew it would be all over.
    “Wait,” she said, pleased that her voice came out steady, if a bit husky from the dryness that barely allowed her to swallow. “Uh—Simon?”
    He turned to look at her, casual in his movements, unquestionably certain of his control of the situation—as if she’d simply hailed him while walking into the room, not as if he’d just finished beating the bunk out of the guy. He wasn’t even breathing heavily and his dark hair was still pulled back neatly in its low-riding tail.
    Unlike hers, which straggled in her eyes.
    Simon nodded, and Sage took that as invitation to approach. He didn’t talk much, but in this case, speech wasn’t necessary.
    She walked closer, steadying herself, feeling the rush of adrenaline still burning through her. Her fingers were shaking, and she would probably puke as soon as she was alone, but she refused to cower in front of this man who’d tried to violate her. She might be a curdled mess inside, but she wasn’t about to show it.
    “Someone you know?” he asked.
    The door hung open, allowing plenty of light into the room for her to see details. Even through the shiny dark blood that dripped from the attacker’s face, and the eye that was beginning to swell shut, she knew she’d never met him before. “No.”
    Then she looked at Simon, who’d not moved a muscle, except perhaps to tighten his fingers warningly over the man’s throat—for he’d stopped struggling and simply rasped heavily. She noticed that Simon’s tee was stained with what had to be blood, and that there was a streak along the shoulder of the unbuttoned shirt he wore over it, but there wasn’t a cut or bruise on his face, nor was the tee even untucked from his many-pocketed pants. The light from the door poured in behind him, casting his beautiful, carved features half in shadow.
    “Could you just…step aside a bit?” she