Immortal Need Read Online Free PDF Page A

given. On the nights when she was lonely, she’d wished she could let go and lean on someone else, just for a moment. Her father, it seemed, had truly known her.
    Oh Dad, she prayed silently, my angel all the time. Enjoy heaven. You deserve it. And find Mom. I know she’s waiting.
    The others filed out slowly, kissing her or hugging her, and she didn’t respond, too shocked to do much more than blink. Taylor said something to her about cleaning up the house, but Ayah just sat there. Even after she heard the door close a final time, with words of love from Taylor ringing through the house, she sat there. Nothing, nothing, had prepared her for this.
    It wasn’t until goose bumps rose on her flesh, and the house grew dark, that she forced her body to move. She stood slowly, joints popping, and walked from the room. She walked on autopilot to her room. Tomorrow…tomorrow she’d think about this, give her mind a chance to assimilate what had happened. Tonight, she just wanted to sleep and to recharge. She reached her room and opened the door, ready for the sight of her soft yellow comforter on her four-poster bed, and the feel of the cool sheets as she slipped under them.
    What she wasn’t prepared for was a giant of a man sitting on her bed, with a sword strapped to his back.
    The scream bubbled up through her even as the man moved, faster than she ever thought possible, and grabbed her. She wailed into his hand as he covered her mouth.
    “Be still,” he commanded. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
    Yet …seemed to echo eerily in her brain, even though he hadn’t said it. Fight or flight kicked in, though, and she struggled in his arms. He was strong, and she felt like a butterfly trapped in the claws of a lion, but she fought anyway.
    “You are making this harder than it must be,” he grumbled as he carried her, as if she weighed nothing, to her bed. He stood her up and spun her around to face him. He repositioned his hand over her mouth. It was the first time she got a look at him, really got a look at him. His dark hair, almost darker than the night itself, curled around his shoulders. His face was hard, full of angles, but striking. His bottom lip was fuller than his top one, and his nose was straight. But it was his eyes that captivated her. He stared at her with a blue-gray gaze that was unreal. There was fire there, as if the blue were electric and the gray like moving smoke. He was tall, maybe a foot taller than her, placing him well over six feet. She could see the ripple of his biceps under the short-sleeved black shirt he wore. She could even see they were covered in the glinting silver of daggers.
    But something just on the edge of her mind bothered her. She frowned behind his hand, her heart slowing down, as he didn’t move to toss her on the bed or pull one of the wicked-looking blades strapped to his body. He was familiar. She would have remembered seeing a man like him. His commanding presence would have made an impact, she was sure of it, but somehow she knew his hands could be just as soft as they were hard. She knew the right side of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the right side when he smiled. She knew that if she kissed him, she’d taste honey and storms. She shouldn’t know this man, but she did, somewhere, somehow.
    “Better?” he asked, and the deep timbre of his voice rolled over her. She nodded.
    “Do I know you?” she asked. He closed his eyes, sighing with so much pain she wanted to pull him into her arms.
    “In another time, and another place, perhaps.”
    “I don’t understand,” she said, frowning.
    Why wasn’t she terrified? Why wasn’t she trying to get away? And why was she suddenly so very interested in getting to taste this man? She could recognize the stir of desire licking through her system as he looked at her. His gaze flittered over her soft sable hair, her big green eyes, pert nose, and even her mouth. He missed nothing. She waited for indifference,