Hearts Aflame Collection IV: 4-Book Bundle Read Online Free PDF Page B

that she didn't even look up to see what she
had until she had finished.
    “ For the freeing of things once caged, and for setting right the wrongs that have been done...” she murmured in confusion.
Deep inside her, she felt a cold shiver, something that chilled her to her
fingertips.
    Things are changing, she thought incoherently, and for a moment, Tara
was almost frightened.
    The moment passed, and she started to laugh at her
own silliness. The Sybelline Brotherhood was a group
of rich men with too much time on their hands, she reminded herself. They had
produced some fascinating works, and they offered a glimpse into the mystical
minds of the era, but no matter what fantasies they spun, they meant nothing in
the new era. She knew this.
    The knock on the door nearly made her jump straight
out of her blankets. Then she remembered that a knock meant that there was
someone at the door and, pulling her robe over pajamas, she went to
investigate.
    Her hand was just on the knob when her window
exploded inwards. The shattering glass was terrifyingly loud, and she
instinctively threw herself to the ground, covering her head with her arms.
When she looked up, she realized that she was completely unhurt, but now there
was a wild-looking man standing in her living room.
    He was tall enough that he seemed like a giant in
her home, and she froze as his startlingly bright blue eyes roved the room. He
saw her crouched by the door, and with a sound like a bestial growl, he strode
toward her as she tried desperately to push herself to her feet.
    His hand clamped like an iron band around her
shoulder, hauling her to her feet, and he loomed over her, menace etched in
ever line of his body.
    “ Where is it?” he growled. “You have it; you must
tell me where it is.”
    Gulping back a whimper of fear, Tara tried to tell
him that her purse and her wallet were on the table, that he should take it as
long he left her alone, but she couldn't make the words come out. Her voice
shivered and shook, and for a brief moment, the intruder looked almost
repentant.
    He started to speak, but then the knocking at her
door came again. No, not knocking, pounding, and to Tara's shock, she saw the
door, heavy and steel, start to bend inwards.
    The man swore in a language that Tara's distracted
mind recognized as Scandinavian of some sort and thrust her behind him.
    “ I'm sorry,” he whispered. “Damn me for a fool but I have led them right to you.”
    She knew that she should be running to her bedroom
where she could lock the door, or that she should take her chances going
through the window that had been broken. Instead, she skittered back and away,
unable to take her eyes off the man who was staring so ferociously at her door.
    “ Come on, come on, you feathery son of a bitch.”
    The man crouched like an angry animal, and as they
both waited, the door bent further and further until one final blow flattened
it, revealing the thing behind it.
    Tara caught a glimpse of wings tall enough to brush
her ceiling, and a face that was ruined with scars before the thing was borne
to the ground by a snarling whirlwind of fur and teeth.
    Her brain refused to believe what her eyes told
her. Where there had been a man, there was now a wolf, and it hit the thing in
the door with a demented snarl. She was frozen to the spot, unable to do
anything, unable to breathe or scream or call for help, but then she saw the
winged being wrestle the wolf to the ground. The menacing growls turned to a
pained, choked howl, and now she acted on instinct alone.
    It took two steps to the large heavy vase on the table, and three steps to the fight on the ground. With a
calm and grace that would always surprise her in years to come, she brought the
heavy vase down hard on the winged thing’s head. The vase shattered into a
thousand shards, and the winged thing uttered a startled shriek that sounded
like sharpened nails over chalkboard.
    It drew away for a moment, giving the wolf