Unholy Blue Read Online Free PDF

page. After a moment, he sighed and carefully dog-eared the bookbefore closing it and placing it beside him. “I hope they all get home.”
    Bann took a seat on the edge of the mattress. He picked up the book and moved it to the nightstand on top of the others. “Home is a good place to be,” he said. He waited until Cor wiggled further down under the covers before tucking the comforter around the small body that seemed to have grown a foot in the last week. Bann remembered being able to hold his son in the crook of one arm. “I’ve missed being here at ours.”
    â€œMe, too. I’m glad you’re back.”
    â€œMissed your old da, eh?”
    Cor nodded, yawning. “I didn’t want to sleep in here by myself.”
    â€œYou slept by yourself at Ann’s.”
    â€œThat was different.”
    Bann tightened his jaw in frustration, thinking of Shay waiting for him. Probably naked. Certainly eager. “Wouldn’t you care for a room of your own?”
    â€œNo.”
    Bleedin’ hell
. A sudden inspiration hit him. “What if we got you a puppy? You could share the room with the wee thing. We’ll put a crate over in the corner and—”
    A cloud passed over Cor’s face. “I don’t want a puppy. I want Max.” His jaw jutted out in a way that was oh, so familiar to Bann. It was like looking in a mirror.
    â€œI know, son. But Max is dead.”
    â€œHe’s not! I saw him!” Cor burst out, speaking of the brief glimpse he had had of Max only a few days after they had buried the hound. The vehement tone took Bann by surprise. “He’s just
different
. He could still be our dog, you know.”
    No, he cannot. He’s a monster from the grave. A creature filled with the evil of the shapeshifter
. “What you saw was just his body. Inside, he is not the same Max,” Bann said as gently as he could.
How do you explain to an eight-year-old that his beloved dog is now a mindless, savage puppet
? “Cor, lad, you must understand—”
    â€œGo away.” The boy rolled over and curled into a ball, his back to his father. The equivalent of a spoken “get lost.”
    Knowing Cor’s moods, he leaned over and kissed the back of the rumpled head. “
Codladh sumh
, son.” Clicking off the lamp, he turned on the Batman night-light Shay had purchased—
Batman?
—and left, leaving the door ajar. He paused in the hall, torn between his son’s needs and his own. The sound of drawers opening and shutting drifted from the master bedroom at the end of the hallway.
    Sighing in frustration, he raked his fingers through his hair, digging the tips into his scalp, trying to lose the tension and slight disorientation that the long flight had brought on, before dragging them down his face to give the stubble on his jaw a good scratching, too.
I best tell her
. He continued to her room.
    Max’s kennel was gone from its spot in the corner near the window that looked out into the back yard. A queen-sized bed, sans any headboard and covered with a plain cream-colored comforter, took up the middle of the room. A mismatched nightstand and a tall dresser completed the sparse décor.
As bare as a nun’s bower
. His father’s old expression rose from memory. Across the room from the window, a door led to the attached master bath. He could hear the
whoosh
of running water.Feeling every minute of the last year, he walked over to the bed—the bed he had hoped to share—and sat down to wait.
    Shay appeared in the doorway of the bathroom a moment later, still dressed in sweater and jeans, but barefoot. A toothbrush poked out of one corner of her mouth. “What’s wrong?” The words came out like
waf wong
.
    â€œCor wants me to continue to sleep in the guest room with him. I offered him a puppy, but…” He shook his head.
    She pulled the toothbrush out. “But he still thinks Max