Heir to the Coven Read Online Free PDF

to the dance floor.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 4
     
    Rainor was sitting up in bed with some color to his face when I arrived at his room after my meeting with our business managers and accountants. I tended to think it was knowing that I was here to ease his burden now and take over once he was gone that perked him up. I handed him the papers I had been given, along with my notes, and waited while he read them.
    Rainor shuffled the papers back together and put them on his nightstand. “You want to turn the Kensington into your ‘hybrid’ club.”
    “It’s near the vampire border and it’s not doing outstandingly as it is. Makes sense to either close it or convert it.”
    “Beautiful, brainy and deadly. My kind of woman,” Rainor teased.
    “Careful, you might give me bad ideas. I do like the bad boys.” I glanced over at the picture on the wall. The blonde woman smiled back at me above the scowling face of the little boy she embraced from behind. “You miss Claire a lot, don’t you?”
    “She made me laugh and she gave me peace. I knew what loving a human meant, but I wouldn’t trade all our years together to escape the heartache of losing her.”
    “So it was worth it then?” Not a question I would normally have asked, but his time was limited and he was one of the few people who I would ask such a thing of.
    Rainor eyed me for a moment and instead of answering me he asked, “Have you ever been in love Natasha?”
    “Now that’s a loaded question,” I said with an uncomfortable riff of laughter.
    “That’s not an answer.”
    Had I? I really didn’t know. I thought I was once, but the darkness in me and in him twisted it and in the end…well the end made me wonder if it had ever been love or even close to being love. The other time, I was too young to really know or to do anything about it if I was and then he left me so it did not matter what I felt.
    “Natasha?”
    Rainor obviously wasn’t going to let me off the hook. “Sorry, I was thinking.”
    “If you have to think about it, the answer is no.”
    “You sound disappointed,” I said. Rainor sighed, but did not comment. “I haven’t led the sort of life that lends itself to love. It’s an emotion that has been discouraged in me in every imaginable way and I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing.”
    “No weakening of the inner walls?”
    “The lone hunter.”
    “Ah. But is the hunter lonely?”
    “Can we talk about something else, please, sir?”
    “Still out of contact with those feelings and still eating nothing but sugar. The cook tells me you eat cupcakes for breakfast, ice cream for lunch and chocolate bars for dinner.”
    I laughed. “Are we going to delve the murky depths of my eating habits now?”
    “No. But out of curiosity, how long will this last?”
    I shrugged. “As long as I crave it.”
    “Right.” Rainor rubbed his eyes and yawned.
    “I’ll leave you to rest sir.”
    “One more matter before you go my dear.”
    “Yes?”
    “Dawn.”
    What could I say about Dawn? Did I tell Rainor that she was as she ever was, but that my patience for her had thinned? Or did I tell him that she lacked respect and needed to be disciplined? I didn’t want to be a tattletale, nor did I want to cover for someone who did not deserve it.
    “Be honest Natasha. You chastised her in public, something must have happened last night.”
    “I’m not sure if it’s my new lack of tolerance for her or if she will try to challenge me. Either way she’s likely to end up dead for it.”
    “No lingering loyalty to old friends?”
    “To Mercy and Kain, as much as I can safely allow, but to Dawn…we were never that close. Dawn was always fun, but our only real bond was Mercy.”
    “Thank you, Natasha. That will be all.”
    I bowed and left him to sleep. Out in the hall I sighed and leaned against the door. That had been an unexpected probe into my psyche. I had not realized how hard it would be to fit back into being one of many