Under My Skin Read Online Free PDF Page B

his nose wasn’t as hawkish, and his hair was way shorter.
    “I’m fine, thanks for asking.” I frowned up at him. “No broken bones or puncture wounds. Don’t worry about me.”
    He ignored me. “What’s she doing hunting on our turf?”
    His gaze flicked behind me. I was being held upright by someone. A very tall, strong someone. My pulse raced. A solid muscled chest pressed against my back. Thighs shifted against mine. A delicious heat built up between us. Slowly I lifted my chin. My breath caught in my throat. I stared into the most intense brown eyes I’d ever seen. Alec.
    “You sure you’re okay?” He turned me in his arms, studying my expression.
    Completely ignoring the goose egg throbbing to life on the back of my head, I nodded. Uh-huh. Yup. More than okay. Deliriously fantastic, in fact .

    I didn’t say the words out loud, but Alec’s amused expression suggested he’d guessed why I couldn’t converse like a normal person.
    Was it lame for a girl to swoon at a guy’s feet?
    I didn’t get the chance to find out.
    “It’s Ethan,” said the guy who looked like Alec—but had none of his special brand of hotness—as he pulled on Alec’s arm until he released me. The two of them walked over to the body that lay on the floor a few feet from where I’d fallen.
    The werewolf had morphed into his human form after he died. Just like in the movies. Unlike in the movies, however, his body wasn’t clean and unmarked as if he’d been born again. When a werewolf died and resumed its human form, it bore all signs of the physical beating it had taken. Skin peppered with deep purple bruises. Bones jutting out at odd angles. In this case, the bullet wound was a clean entry. A single pool of blood trickled down his cheek, but the exit….
    Brit tossed her coat over his naked torso and stared down at the dead boy’s face, her expression bleak. Tears welled in the corner of her black-rimmed eyes.
    “Matt.” She reached out for Alec’s almost look-alike. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
    Matt guided her quickly to a far corner of the store. I blocked out the sounds of her retching and Matt’s soothing words. I frowned. Brit and the guys walked, stalked, and tracked like hunters, but getting sick after a kill was the mark of an amateur—or someone far too emotionally involved. What was the deal with Brit? Hadn’t she told me she couldn’t even run? How was that NOT a requirement for a member of a hunter crew?
    Alec knelt by the boy’s head. “Ethan Macleod. He went missing about a month ago. The last full moon.” He met my frown with one of his own. “The third werewolf we’ve taken down in as many months.”
    I wished the rumors weren’t true, that the Delacroix weren’t tracking werewolves, that no one in Redgrave had seen the things Alec and his crew had.
    But the proof was lying on the floor in front of us. If Redgrave had paranorms working over the young, the vulnerable, turning them into werewolves, I had to be very careful what I said around the Delacroix. A group like this probably wouldn’t be jumping for joy if they found out I was half-paranorm.
    Ethan’s body began to tremble. Alec stepped back. A faint white glow radiated through his bruised flesh, building until rays of light shot from his eyes.
    The energy inside Ethan grew. His body radiated so much light Alec covered his eyes behind the crook of his arm. In the corner, Matt turned his back to Ethan, shielding Brit with his body. I’d never witnessed the entire process of a paranorm’s passing, although I’d tried many times while hunting with my father. In the end, again, the light won.
    I squeezed my eyes shut against the terrible burning white light. Heat waves vibrated in the air. Sweat beaded on my forehead. A muted rumble, like thunder from a vast distance. Then silence.
    I opened my eyes a few seconds later. No light. No Ethan. Just Brit’s coat flattening to the floor. It settled across a long black burn where