How Nina Got Her Fang Back: Accidental Quickie (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 13) Read Online Free PDF Page B

kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place here. And FYI, have I told you some of the things these women have been smack in the middle of? Those women have fought—successfully, I might add—more certifiably crazy nemeses than most of us will see in ten lifetimes. And just in eight years. Do you think Artem could have gotten the clan this riled up about them if they weren’t a cause for worry?”
    “But they’re women. And a zombie, right? Cal or something?”
    “Carl, and he’s a half-zombie. And excuse me, Knuckle Dragger, but these women are just as badass, if not more so, than twenty of Artem’s men.”
    Galen held up his hands like white flags and smiled at her as the summer breeze lifted his dark hair. “Okay, okay. Easy there, Megadeth. I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant I find it rare that women fight with their fists—you know, in the physical sense. But I get it. Yet, I still don’t know how they can help when they have their own trouble to deal with. The clan wants Nina gone, thanks to that prick. Surely her friends will be more focused on that than what we’re going through.”
    “Both issues go hand in hand, Galen. I’m hoping we can help each other, but Artem is videotaping every session I have with her. It isn’t like we can go to someone on the council of elders and tell them what Artem threatened me with if I don’t do what he asks. He’ll do what he threatened to do anyway and no one can question it because he’s your personal clan leader. We have to get this and all his other crazy plans out in the open in front of reasonable people.”
    Galen’s hard jaw tightened, the tic in it pulsing. “That son of a bitch and his lunatic ideas about clan purity. They’re archaic. He’s a freak of a zealot and he has everyone in a panic about their immortality every second of every day,” he spat. “He runs our damn clan like a death camp, for Christ’s sake. No one will go toe to toe with him for fear he’ll burn them at dawn.”
    That was what worried her. No one would be free to make any choices if Artem had his way—unless the head council of paranormal elders intervened. “But those bullshit ideas are what he wants to reinstate, Galen. All the old laws that have since been modernized, that Artem calls lax. If he accomplishes that with his pack of goons leading the way, we’re sunk. We have to find a way to prove that he’s nuttier than squirrel shit and he doesn’t just want to rule Clan Casteel, but all clans. That he doesn’t just want purification for vampires. He wants to eventually expunge all other species of paranormal. I’m tired of him holding this over my head, Galen. If he succeeds in his mission, it’ll be the first step in his bid to rule every single vampire. Do you have any idea what will happen, not just to us, or you, but to Nina if that happens?”
    Her concern for Nina’s welfare, not to mention her daughter Charlie’s, grew by leaps and bounds. Artem had killed in the name of the clan before. Would he really only have Nina shunned? Or would he kill her and her child to prove a point? If he got what he wanted, if he talked everyone into going back to the ways of old, he’d eventually have the right to end her life.
    Galen tightened his hold on her, the hard press of his thighs firm against hers. “I’d like to wrap my hands around that asshole’s neck and squeeze until he spits up his colon.”
    January shuddered a breath. Standing on tiptoe, she grazed a kiss over his jaw, trying to extract herself from his arms. “You have to go, Galen. We can’t afford to even be in the same hallway at work together, let alone caught like this. I can’t help but feel like Artem’s always watching.”
    Galen had found her at their secret meeting place, a rooftop high above New York City, the skyline at their feet. The same rooftop they’d been meeting atop for months now. The one upon which they’d dreamed about a future together curled up on an old frayed