Secrets and Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

sure there was money for Christmas. Dad’s factory was stil laying off workers and though we doubted he’d be cut, there was little hope for a holiday bonus.

    * * *
Sarah reached up and kissed Pietr before she dodged into the bathroom for her standard between-class hair check.
    Glancing up and down the hal way I decided it was safe enough to join him. We were alone. I reached out to him, but he dodged back, his gaze guarded.
    I dropped my hand.
    “Tomorrow night we’re scouting,” he said. “Neither Wanda nor Kent have contacted us about seeing Mother.”
    “They want you to scout.”
    He shrugged.
    “Don’t give me the same crap Max is pushing—that macho ‘let ’em try’ stuff. They have guns. Don’t be reckless, Pietr.”
    “We have limited options. Limited time. And”—he checked the hal —“fangs and claws.” A lazy grin sprawled across his lips.
    My knees threatened to buckle. “So. Tomorrow night.”
    He gave a sharp nod and pushed back at the shock of dark hair spiking toward his right eye. “Cat wants you along. I—” Looking down at the floor between us, he seemed to measure the distance. “I don’t think you’re needed.”
    “I’m not … needed? ”
    He rubbed his nose and looked away.
    “You’re going.”
    “ Da ,” he said, settling his eyes on me again, puzzled.
    “Then count me in,” I insisted.
    His jaw tightened.
    “Count. Me. In.”
    One simple word, given so reluctantly: “ Da .”
    Sarah stepped out of the bathroom, making a beeline for us. Her blond hair was perfect. But it already had been when she went in to fix it.

    had been when she went in to fix it.
    I smiled and waved at her like there was nothing going on beyond two friends chatting. “Pietr,” I said with a grin plastered across my face while Sarah remained out of earshot, “if you care for me—keep your hands and your lips off Sarah.”

    * * *
“Okay, no exploding out of clothing. Check.”
    Cat laughed, her voice crackling over the phone. I needed to put the receiver back in its base later.
    “What’s next?”
    “Silver bul ets.”
    “ Nyet, it does not take a silver bul et to kil us if the shot is perfect. That is a Hol ywood invention like having to change under a ful moon.”
    “But you and Pietr turned under a ful moon,” I protested.
    “ Da, because our birthdays fel at that time. The change activates after the first ful moon of our seventeenth birthday. We feel increased desire to change under the moon, but Alexi believes it is because instinctively we know the light is better and easier to run and hunt by. We are the result of scientific tampering, not magic.”
    “Says the tea-leaf-reading werewolf. How is Alexi?”
    “Alive.”
    I shivered at how cool y she dropped the single word.
    “Next?”
    “Imprinting.”
    I heard the smile disappear from Cat’s face. “Next?”
    I repeated myself.
    “Are you referring to Stephenie Meyer’s books?”
    “Yes,” I said. A little unwil ingly.
    Cat chuckled. “There is no shame in reading enjoyable books. But this topic is better discussed later.”
    “Got it.”
    Since we’d learned the CIA had tapped the Rusakovas’ phone we were careful about chatting. Cat readily answered things she felt the CIA knew from the Soviet files. Or things that drove them insane—like sales on clothing, who needed to wax, and suitable caloric intake for girls, werewolf or not.
    Some nights I thought I could almost hear agents groan.
    “Would you like to speak to Pietr?”
    My heart hammered at his name. “Of course.”
    There was a shout and the clunk of one phone clicking off as another was picked up.
    “ Allo ,” he said, his voice a rumble in my ear that made my blood rush and my vision blur.
    “We need to talk.”
    “We are talking now.”

    “Thank you, Captain Obvious.”
    He chuckled, a deep noise that wel ed up from somewhere undeniably close to where growls were made.
    I flopped back on my bed, curling the pil ow to my stomach and taking