Heart Mates Read Online Free PDF

shown how easily it could be done. Her heart thumped faster.
    Brrring.
    She jumped. Nearly zapped the wall phone with a short-out spell but managed to stifle it. She thought about letting it ring but realized it might be Auntie and ran to answer.
    She grabbed the old-fashioned ear trumpet and panted, “Hello?”
    “Doing marathons now?” Gabriel’s deep voice held a hint of amusement.
    “Hello to you too, brother dear.” She tried to control her breath. A witch, scared of a little night? She’d never hear the end of it. She managed to wheeze, “I was out searching for Aunt Linda. I just got back.”
    “You need to work on your stamina.”
    “Sure, as soon as you work on your manners. Are you calling for a reason?”
    “I was worried. You texted that the door was broken and then nothing. I tried your cell, but you didn’t answer. It’s been almost an hour. Why were you so late getting up there in the first place?”
    She checked her phone. Two missed calls. She took it off vibrate. “I had car trouble.”
    “I thought I fixed that.”
    Normally, technology mixed with magic like lemonade and potato chips. Theory had it that a witch’s magical aura—or neural fields or whatever—fritzed the technology.
    Sophia’s technology was fine, with a little help.
    Gabriel was a wizard prince—but more, he was a Choice Buy Techie Titan. He dealt with bit-challenged mundane users all day, so it was easy for him to make recalcitrant technology sit up and rumba, even for witches. Something to do with aligning rare earth elements in the logic-gated components. Sophia tried to listen but her eyes glazed.
    “You couldn’t have done anything about this. It was a mundane failure. A carbegumerator injector thingy.”
    “Gotta love injector thingies. Update me.”
    She told him about the boy-wolf Marlowe tripping Auntie’s store alarm, and Auntie calling in the pack alpha to handle it, without mentioning Noah by name. “Now Auntie’s gone, but nobody knows where.”
    “Cap’n Crunch me. That’s not good.”
    “I have a lead I’ll try tomorrow. Oh, and Auntie got a dog.”
    “What kind?”
    “A little poofy one.”
    “Now I’m scared. Those fuckers are like stealth sharks. No ankles are safe. About Aunt Linda.” Gabriel paused and Sophia knew she wouldn’t like what was coming next. “If you would do a simple reveal spell—”
    “Not happening.”
    Gabriel blew out a sigh. “Okay. I’m not going to backseat drive. But anytime you want to talk about it, I’m here.”
    “Thanks.” When it counted, Gabriel was the best brother in the universe. “I’ll talk to Marlowe tomorrow. Noah said he’d call me too, although I said I could handle it.” But she sort of hoped he’d call anyway.
    “Noah? Who’s Noah?” Gabriel’s tone was brightly inquisitive.
    “Nobody. Nothing. Gotta go.” She hung up and spun away from the phone, thinking she’d saved herself with her quick action.
    Only to see a man’s shadowed face in the door’s crosshatch.
    Her heart skipped. “Who…?” Her voice cracked, her mouth suddenly dry. She tried to swallow. “Who’s there?”
    “It’s me. Sophia, open up.”
    Any trouble she’d had swallowing disappeared in sudden influx of saliva. Noah . She ran to open the door to him.
    He didn’t enter immediately but stood there, filling the doorway, as still as the night, dark and deep and born of enormous strength.
    It both scared and excited her. She swallowed again.
    Against the doorjamb’s height tapes, he measured several inches above six feet. Miles of shoulders, acres of chest, light-years long legs, dark flannel shirt and jeans worn white—framed by the doorway, the man looked like a hard-hewn Paul Bunyan.
    Excitement took the lead by a nose, then by a big long lick. If she got any hotter she was going to fling the door wide to jump his bones. Not a good ending for the new panes. “Um…c’mon in? Watch your feet. There’s broken glass.”
    The garage’s half light