Hunger Embraced (The Hunger Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

days or more. Yet here I lay, wide awake and ready to start the day two hours early with nary a twinge.
    Power arced around him, the magic contained in his body intimidating and strong enough to crush me. Yet he’d dominated me into a gentle surrender and tucked me into bed.
    Hopefully he’d stay away with all his mysterious pronouncements of “things I needed to know.” I wanted him to.
    Did I really believe it? Ah, no.
    I crawled out of bed and put on my favorite dark pink, lacy lingerie with the assumption I wouldn’t run into any vamps or creeps other than the ones at the office today. Putting them on always made me smile, so by the time I headed out the door with my hair in a sensible French twist and minimal make-up, my mood improved considerably. I even put in the pearl ear fobs my nanny Stella bought me for my sixteenth birthday.
    I’d made a decision about yesterday while I ate eggs and toast standing at the counter for breakfast. It was time to call my father for a long overdue chat.
    Considering how many vamps I’d fed recently, I assumed he knew my location. The lack of edicts to return to the coven gave him some brownie points. He’d probably totally blow them within thirty seconds of answering the phone.
     
    * * *
     
     
    Work bordered on pleasant. Shelley took a very rare day off, so I caught up on the things I’d missed without a constant barrage of new folders and stacks of paper flung across my desk. What had Daniel said to my boss? The version he fed me was obviously truncated, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to thank him. He’d totally invaded my life and privacy, but damn if the man wasn’t effective. One phone call and Shelley became as malleable as soft butter.
    To be fair, she did have some legitimate complaints. I came in late pretty often and spent a good chunk of my day sending her male counterparts on their way. Sometimes I was downright rude, but they still wouldn’t stay away. For someone like Shelly—who looked kinda like an angry Buddha—the constant flirting, aping, and sexual innuendo added insult to injury. Short and squat, she had an unfortunately placed mole on her right cheek. Add a nasty attitude and the signs of thinning hair, and not only do you never get laid, but you also have no friends.
    I was on the bus home before I knew it. I’d never experienced such a normal, boring day at the office. I hoped for more of the same on the walk home from the bus stop. Feeling as though I’d earned a splurge, I stopped and ordered Chinese takeout before heading into the drugstore next door to the restaurant. I needed to restock my jelly bean stash after yesterday’s scarfing incident with a certain someone I refused to think about. This morning after breakfast I’d finished what was left in the bag.
    Tomorrow I’d go to the grocery store. But for today, spicy garlic chicken, jelly beans, and some new nail polish in Silver Dollar Sparkle were in order.
     
    * * *
     
     
    My Chinese was perfection, my toes were painted, and the time had arrived to call my father. I dug in my purse for my phone only to discover it was missing again. The cracks in the couch yielded fourteen cents and linty popcorn. I searched all the flat surfaces in my apartment and then resorted to looking under the furniture. The battered Nokia was under the couch, all the way to the back against the wall.
    Things tended to move around my apartment and end up in places I didn’t leave them.
    I flipped it open, ignoring the text from my friend, Anna, for the moment, and began to scroll through the contacts. She’d just gotten home from an extended weekend in Niagara Falls with her current boyfriend. I thought he was off, but she seemed to like him. I’d never picked up a single stray, sexual thought from him. It was weird.
    I hit “T” to skip ahead to the right section in contacts.
    Tasty Pizza, The Golden Wok, Thibodeaux House, T.T.B.-Daniel…
    Son of a bitch vampire!
    Daniel had put