Possession Read Online Free PDF Page A

to hold me up. He
cursed under his breath. "Were you bitten?"
    I
blinked up at him again, feeling faint. My vision was growing darker at the
corners. I wanted to reply and tell him that yes, I had been bitten, and um,
would he mind explaining exactly what had just happened?
    But
all I managed was to faint dead away.
    When
I woke up, I was warm and dry and my head felt pleasantly fuzzy. Ensconced
under the weight of something fabulously soft and warm, I waited as my eyes
slowly focused. A big fireplace, roaring. Men's voices, murmuring somewhere
behind me. A high ceiling, giant bookcases...where was I?
    "Ms.
Beaumont?"
    I
turned to look at the soft, French-accented voice. It was Oscar, smiling down
at me. I tried to smile back, but my lips felt weird, as if they didn't really
belong on my face.
    "Here;
a drink."
    I
moved my gaze lower and lower until it settled on his gloved hands. He held a
small silver tray on which there was a glass of something yellow.
    "What..."
When my voice came out a hoarse whisper, I cleared my throat and tried again.
"What is it?"
    "Hot
toddy." He set the tray on the table at the head of the couch I was laying
on and helped me sit up. I winced as a faraway, foggy pain lit up various parts
of my body.
    Oscar
handed me the hot glass. I wrapped my hands around it and inhaled the aroma.
After a long, deep gulp that warmed my stomach and spread to my chest, I looked
back at him.
    He
had a tense, wary look in his eyes, but his mouth was curved upward in a smile.
"Better?"
    I
nodded and set the glass aside, my head starting to buzz with questions. But the
toddy and whatever else they'd given me formed a veil over my thoughts and I
fought to find one to ask. It wasn’t entirely surprising, which one surfaced
first. "Where's Dax?"
    "I'm
here." I heard footsteps behind me and then Dax came around. He'd changed
into a cream-colored short-sleeved shirt and dark jeans. Silhouetted against the
fire, his eyes cautious, his face perfectly calm, he looked like some kind of
avenging angel.
    I
shook my head, trying to shake another question loose. Finally, haltingly, I
said, "What...what was that thing?"
    He
continued to gaze at me calmly. "What thing?"
    "That
large black creature." I held my hand up high to indicate how enormous it
was. "It attacked me? You somehow...disabled it?" I stared at him.
What was he trying to do ? How could he not remember?
    A
faint wrinkle creased his brow, but other than that, he looked unperturbed.
"Miss Beaumont—"
    "Cara."
    "Cara.
You've had a trauma. Your car broke down on the way back into town, and you
were attacked by a big wild dog. I suspect it was rabid. We had a doctor come
look at you and he gave you the antidote, so there's nothing to worry
about."
    I
laughed disbelievingly. "That wasn't a dog!" I looked slowly from
Dax's impassive face to Oscar's careful eyes, the smile slipping from my face.
"And you know that," I said softly, mostly to myself. What was going
on?
    Dax
and Oscar exchanged a fleeting glance. Then Dax looked back at me, his face
still a mask, giving nothing away. “No. It was a dog.”
    There
was something wooden and robotic about the way he said it, as if he didn’t
really expect me to believe his words. With a trembling hand, I reached for the
hot toddy and took another sip. Then, after I set it back down, I looked right
back into Dax Allard's unfathomable copper eyes. "There was a... a creature
in the woods with large red eyes and wings folded to its sides. It stalked me
and attacked me, and would likely have killed me if you hadn't come along at
exactly the right time." A fire log popped in the fireplace, making me
jump, but I kept going. "I tried to attack it, but...it was like it was
made of steel...or iron. Nothing I did fazed it.
    “But
then you were there. You went right up to it and broke its neck. And then it
disintegrated into ashes, right in front of me. And your hands...there was
steam coming out of your hands, as if they were smoking hot." A