Tribes of Man: The Beginning [Tribes of Man] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read Online Free PDF

it a man?” Her voice was calm, but her hands quivered slightly when she set up the mugs.
    “It looked like a man,” Gideon replied. “He had a short, narrow face, thin nose, blue eyes, and he had...” He trailed off.
    “Yes?” Raina turned back to the stove when she heard the kettle begin to bubble.
    “Big teeth, ‘the better to eat you with, my dear.’” He finished in his best “Big Bad Wolf” voice.
    Raina didn’t laugh. “Long canines? Like a vampire.”
    Gideon’s laughter cut off. “Yes.” He sat up straighter in his seat as she turned to him. He was finally able to sit up without causing himself pain. “There was blood on his mouth.”
    Raina placed the mugs on the table. “He attacked me, you said?” She shuddered and sat down.
    Gideon laid his hand over hers. He ignored the sharpening of his senses. Every time it happened, it seemed less intrusive than the time before. “It was only a dream,” he said.
    “I don’t think it was just a dream. I had nearly the same dream. I think it was a warning.” She thought about the dream, and the images flashed through his head.
    A candle, a bird, a cup, a flower? What the hell kind of warning is that anyhow? Gideon thought.
    “I was told to find them,” Raina told him.
    “By whom?” Gideon asked.
    I don’t know.
    Gideon responded to her fear and despair by sending warmth and reassurance through her. We can’t do anything with a warning or a request that we don’t understand. Put it aside for now. “We have real threats to deal with. Let’s leave the hocus-pocus, mumbo jumbo out of it.”
    Raina laughed. “Tell me how you really feel.” Her joke broke the tension. Gideon started to pull his hand away, and Raina tightened her grip. Not yet.
    “You can see through me again, can’t you?”
    “Yes,” she said. “It’s easier now. At first everything was darker and the connection was a little disorienting. Now it seems almost natural.”
    “For me, too,” he said. Gideon watched Raina quietly, trying to give her time to enjoy this short respite from the darkness.
    Raina took her free hand up and ran it over her face. Gideon watched her and knew she was seeing herself as he saw her.
    “I’ve changed. I don’t look like this.” When she ran her fingertip over her bottom lip, Gideon’s body tightened again.
    Shit, he thought, forgetting that she could hear inside his head. I’m going to break something if I keep getting hard like this.
    He saw her nipples tighten and a flush went up her face. “You heard that, didn’t you?”
    She answered in his head, Yes.
    It turned you on. It wasn’t a question, but a statement.
    Her blush got darker. “Yes,” she said. It didn’t occur to her that their conversation was half in their heads and half out loud.
    “And you can see yourself right now, through my eyes.” Again, it wasn’t a question.
    “Yes, but something isn’t right. I don’t look the same.”
    The blush was fading, but her nipples were still hard through her tank top. “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you just forgot what you look like?”
    “No,” she said. It’s just that I look beautiful. She hadn’t meant to say it.
    Gideon’s hand tightened on hers. You are beautiful.
    I’m seeing myself the way you see me rather than the way I really am, aren’t I?
    I don’t know. But he did. She was exquisite to him, and he couldn’t see how she could not know that looking through his eyes.
    “Back to the issue,” he said, not letting go of her hand. He could feel her pulse beating rapidly in her wrist. “You said there was someone in your room? Who? What happened, exactly?”
    “I woke up from my dream, and I knew someone was there. I talked to him for a minute, but when he heard Bryce’s footsteps he said, ‘He’s not part of this,’ and disappeared.”
    “Disappeared?” Gideon asked sharply. “What do you mean by that? People don’t just disappear. Did he go out the window? Out the door?” Gideon sat up