Peyton's Ride (Riding With The Hunt, #1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

burst of hope when the icy leather of the creature’s fist wrapped around her calf. The bellow of an enraged horse reached her ears, and she toppled a bar stool in an attempt to obtain a weapon. The stool rolled in a half circle, and the fingers gripping her leg scratched deep furrows into the muscle before lifting away.
    When she realized she’d been freed, she gained her feet, hobbled away, and concealed herself behind the counter. The clack and ring of hooves on cement mixed with hungry roars, a horse trumpeting, and the metallic clatter of what she assumed to be motorcycles falling over onto the show room floor.
    All those pretty bikes were gonna be dented up. At least it wasn’t her fault.
    Blood ran down her leg and back in a sticky red flow. The new leather jacket and chaps she wore had done little to protect her from the knife-sharp nails on her assailant’s hands. She shuddered, cold wracking her frame. Something inhuman attacked her, an enormous ring curved through its pig-like snout. Enormous tusks sprouted from its lower jaw, and it clutched a cleaver in its free hand. Dread overrode any pain from her injuries as she recalled some of the more gruesome stories in her book. The ones where the fairies ate people and each other. Whole scores of the sidhe were carnivorous, cannibalistic, and bloodthirsty.
    Not that long ago she’d wondered if she was turning cannibal, but now she thought no, definitely not. No actual biting and chewing and swallowing would take place.
    Fleshy thwacks and the crunch of shattering bones replaced the cacophony of battle. She grappled with the phone the thing masquerading as Howie had clutched and discovered a trail of wires hanging from the back. Not attached to anything.
    “Why am I surrounded by technology that hates me? Fuck it all.” She slammed the handset down, and the bells inside the housing released a shrill clang. No help there.
    She scooted across the floor toward the break room door in hopes of locking herself inside and calling for help. Perhaps the living participant of the brawl—most likely the horse—wasn’t interested in eating humans and would leave her alone. A call to the police and help would arrive. Yes, that’d do it. Why the hell didn’t the universal cell phone actually exist? Something that didn’t break after she’d owned it a month.
    She’d take a nice vacation in a mental hospital or another state after explaining a fairy battle broke out in the motorcycle dealership. And one of them wanted to eat her, and he scratched her leg up and stabbed her shoulder, but then a big black horse charged in and stomped the first one to death, and the original one had taken the form of Howie Turner. So that meant Howie had probably been eaten himself, so they’d never find a body. But even if they did find it, it’d look like a piece of gnarled wood or something innocuous because the fairies would want to cover their tracks. And she’d heard Ian the motorcycle mechanic speaking in a weird foreign language that she’d never heard before and couldn’t speak herself, but she understood every word he’d said, and she was pretty sure he was the horse that wasn’t a horse at all but a phooka—
    A soft puff of hot breath and the velvet skin of a horse’s nose nuzzled at the back of her neck. The thoughts cut off, and she shrieked.
    “Get away from me. No eating! No! Go have some hay!” She increased her speed in her attempt to get to the break room. The horse whickered, soft and low, a sound she remembered from years of childhood riding lessons. Such a spoiled, indulged child she’d been. The father she’d never known provided well for her despite the estrangement between him and her mother until she’d reached adulthood.
    Shaking so hard her teeth clacked together, she peeked over her shoulder.
    The phooka’s black coat glittered and shone with blue highlights. Despite the thick gore splattered on its hooves, forelegs, and muzzle, she felt an