Roman's Gold (Underground Heat, Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

discovering what sex was all about. She grinned. The look on his face when he’d sunk full length inside her was priceless. He’d even managed to last a couple of minutes.
    She hurried past the city limit sign. Berkeley was surrounded by dreary, concrete walls with gates. When civil unrest escalated, city cops secured the gates until things settled down. It worked because no one wanted to be locked inside their town. Suppliers complained, too, when they couldn’t deliver their goods. All in all, it had proven an effective means of crowd control.
    She focused on her wrist computer, called the agreed upon number, and activated the app which would ping her location to the hovercraft. Kate scanned the skies. Hovercraft were nearly silent unless you were right next to them. They ran on electricity supplied by well-muffled onboard generators. In moments, the craft came into view over her head. A harness dropped from its belly. She buckled in and tried to relax as the auto winch brought her aboard. It wasn’t easy. She was totally vulnerable to sniper pot shots as well as mechanical failures in the persnickety winch system.
    Her head spun; she realized she wasn’t breathing. Come on, she urged herself. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.
    Yeah, well, I didn’t like it then, either, another inner voice answered testily.
    The upper part of her body was inside the craft. She placed a hand on either side of the opening and levered herself the rest of the way in. The door slid into its slot; she undid the harness buckles with unsteady hands and dropped it over the winch.
    “Stay down,” the pilot called over a shoulder.
    Kate looked longingly at the soft copilot’s seat, then slithered against a curved wall and tried to get comfortable. “Are we good?”
    “Yeah, I think so. No radio calls to land immediately and turn myself in.” A short bark of a laugh followed the words.
    “Sorry about the food crisis. I only thought they’d be with me for a week, but it’s been nearly three.”
    The pilot blew out an audible breath. “Yeah, we’re running out of hiding places. Not even sure you’re all that safe anymore—”
    “What?” She leaned forward, heart beating harder.
    “Uh, sorry. Thought your contact would have told you.”
    “He didn’t tell me anything. As long as you opened your mouth, I need to know.”
    “Let me check what I can tell you.”
    The pilot keyed something into his console. A moment later, her contact—also the head of the shifter underground in California—shimmered into life on the screen. Max’s mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him because the pilot had muted the sound. The screen faded to gray. “Okay,” he said, “I was cleared to tell you … some things.”
    Kate rolled her eyes. She’d taken a huge chance when she signed on to help the underground. It didn’t sit well they were keeping secrets from her.
    “It’s the new Tracker task force. They’ve gotten some sort of drug to make them more sensitive to us. According to Max, half a dozen of our hiding places were busted in the last week.”
    “I knew the first part—about the drug. Dear God. How many of us did they get?”
    “Nearly a hundred.”
    She bit her lip. The next question was a hard one, but she wanted to know. “Have they started killing us yet?”
    The pilot nodded. “Before they actually sign us into prison.” He grunted in disgust. “Guess they figure if there’s no official record, we never existed.”
    Kate dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her temples. “We have to fight back—before they kill all of us.”
    “We’re talking about it—”
    “We’re going to run out of time while we’re talking.” Her voice ended on a shrill note she didn’t like at all. “Is it like this in the other cities, too?”
    Another nod. “Mostly even worse than here.”
    Kate sighed. “What’s your plan for all that?” She gestured at the stacks of food crates surrounding her.
    “I’ll drop