Icarus; The Kindred (A Paranormal Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

clench.
    "Cape San Blas, Florida? What the hell?" I sound as fatigued as I feel. "This has something to do with Blake Christianson, I assume."
    He runs a hand through his hair. It sucks how good-looking he is. Wasn't Ted Bundy attractive, too? "That's part of it," he says.
    "How did your friends know so much about me? Why was I set up?" I don't like the look on his face as I ask this.
    "What did they tell you?"
    "Enough with the games! You cut the dosing sphere out of my goddamn arm! Don't you think I at least deserve the truth?"
Without all the cloak-and-dagger bullshit?
    "The truth is that none of us really knows how to tell you what you aren't going to want to hear. Are you prepared for the truth? Or would you prefer to continue with the cloak-and-dagger bullshit?"
    What the … ?
I can't seem to find my tongue to ask this aloud.
    "Answer my question, please," he says.
    "You act like I have a choice in this. Why are you waiting on my permission? You clearly couldn't care less if I give it or not!"
    Tears again? Seriously? Bloody hell.
    He clears his throat and moves as if he wants to approach me, then thinks better of it and remains seated. "I care more than you know."
    We sit in stifling silence for a time before he speaks again. "The two you met first are Damian Ryder and Quinn Christianson. Then Olivia McKenna, though you were a bit out of it for her visits. You may call me Jace. As you already know, it's short for Jacelynd." He pronounces it Jase-lind.
    "No last name?" I can't help but ask. This whole thing is absurd.
    "We'll get to that. You asked how Quinn knew so much about you. I assume he told you things that you don't believe he could find out easily?"
    Okay, I'm either dead or hallucinating. I'm guessing the latter. "You apparently can read minds, why don't you know?"
    He grins. "Only when you think something at me directly. I can't read it at will."
    See, absurd.
"Pardon me."
    "Humans fear us in general, but they have far more to fear from those few of our kind who have taken control over the masses. Icarus dampens our strength, alters our ability to have children and wipes out our long-term memory. We haven't been free from one form of slavery or another, in control of our own people, in nearly five hundred years."
    "So skulking around in the dark and hiding is somehow better?" I lean up. "I was free. I could walk around without fear. Do you have any idea what that feels like? When was the last time you had sleep that wasn't plagued by nightmares of bur—?"
    "Exactly ten years ago today."
    His somber words take me by surprise. I didn't expect
that
precise of a response and for a second I think he's kidding, but his solemn expression tells me that he isn't. "What's so special about today?"
    He stands up and walks over to the bed. He appears to debate whether he should sit or not and finally takes a seat beside me. "There are two kinds of Kindred: those who are turned and those who are born this way. You and I, along with Blake and Quinn, are the latter. We aren't human. I don't mean anymore—we never were. We aren't from this world."
    I laugh … and I don't mean with the graceful swell of an inside joke, I mean this is effing hilarious. "Star Trek wasn't just a television show for you, was it?" I am staring at him, trying to decide if he is genuinely insane, or if his childhood involves one of those government conspiracy nuthouses, when I notice a tattoo on his neck, just above the collar. And it isn't so much the artwork itself that bothers me, but the fact that I recognize it from my dreams. I reach as far as the chains will let me to trace the outline with my finger. Damn, it
isn't
just a coincidence that he looks like my Christian Bale stand-in.
    "Who are you?" I whisper.
    Without turning around, he warmly places his hand over mine and takes a long calculated pause before answering, "You aren't ready to hear that yet."
    While I contemplate this, I notice the blood soaking his shoulder. "Did I do