Lover's Kiss Read Online Free PDF

and landed on all fours on the walkway between stairs.
    Beth stayed still and silent, watching the alley opening until she saw John step into view. He stopped and glanced down the alley. The badge on his black police jacket reflected a passing light from a car. His hesitation was over a minute later. He turned and hurried on, trying to find her.
    Beth relaxed and rolled to sit on the fire escape. Had he seen her, or had he seen someone running away? Was her secret safe, or did he think she was still alive. That their doomed romance might still live on.
    She'd vowed that she wanted him. She was going to make him hers. Not a slave forced to love her by the magic of her blood, but an equal. A peer. A vampire, like her. Even though Penny said it was forbidden for a male vampire to be made. They'd all been hunted and killed hundreds of years ago. Not because the women were man-hating lesbians, but because the men couldn't behave. They weren't careful enough to keep humans from learning about them and hunting them down. As powerful as they were, they were helpless during the day.
    Beth rolled back to her knees and climbed to her feet. She'd kept herself busy so she couldn't dwell on her past. Penny hadn't given her time to make any mistakes like trying to visit her old friends or family again either. At least not since she tried the one time before she died.
    So what was different now? Did seeing John change things? And if it did, why?
    Beth drew in a full breath and held it so long she would have passed out if her body still craved fresh air. She let it out, a reminder that she was different now. Changed. Better. She was immortal. She didn't need air and she didn't need a stupid cop that put everything aside to treat her like the most important thing in the world for one magical night.
    Beth snarled and leapt over the rail of the walkway. She landed off balance and slammed her palms and knees into the pavement. She heard bones crack and break and felt both arms jerk and give out before her chin hit the concrete.
    Beth rolled onto her side and tried to grimace. Her jaw was broken and she felt teeth rolling around in her mouth. She tasted traces of her own blood as she tried to straighten her legs. Her left knee had shattered and refused to budge.
    Beth stared at the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. She was stunned and in shock, but not from pain. Her body was broken, shattered really, but there was no pain. She felt the breaks and torn flesh, but it felt like it was someone else's body and not hers. Just like cutting her palm with the bottle cap, she experienced the sensation without the crippling agony.
    Beth pushed her fears away and concentrated on her body. She had to close her eyes to focus on one injury after another, starting with her mouth and shifting her jaw back in place and healing the scrapes in her chin and cheek. Next came her right hand and then her left. Her muscles and tendons restored themselves and pushed the bones back in place where they could reattach themselves and mend together.
    Beth kept going, fixing her shattered knee and then encouraging her heart to beat to push fresh blood through her body and continue restoring the damages her clumsy landing had caused. Penny had claimed she could drop from nearly a hundred feet. Beth had broken herself at only twenty. She had a lot to learn.
    She opened her eyes and blinked a few times. The blinking didn't help, everything remained dark. Beth rolled onto her belly and looked around, fighting through the stiffness that plagued her. She'd fixed her broken bones but they still felt numb and swollen. Her eyes fell on the mouth of the alley where the road was lit by streetlights and cars. What really lit up the entrance were the people walking by.
    Beth's vision throbbed. She snarled and felt her fangs lengthen. She moved her tongue to trace them, excited at how sharp and vicious they felt. She felt something else and twisted her tongue until she could get the hard