Wings of Darkness: Book 1 of The Immortal Sorrows Series Read Online Free PDF

my breath and turned the
light on.  Angry green eyes stared back at me from a couple of inches
away.  I had to laugh at my own stupidity.  “Jasmine, you scared the
crap out of me.”  My cat flicked her fluffy white tail at me and glared,
patently unimpressed with me.
         I yawned, and almost panicked all
over again when my fingers came away from my mouth dotted with ruby red. 
What the hell?  Had I bitten myself in my sleep, or reopened the cut on my
lip?
         I threw the pearl grey comforter
off and stumbled into my bathroom, already half-sick with fear.  There was
blood smudged on my lips and a little smeared across my chin.  A quick
splash of water revealed no obvious injury. 
         I stopped and took a hard look at
the rest of my face in the mirror.  I was paler than normal, which was
saying something, since I’m usually the color of a milk bottle, but there was
something off about my reflection.
         The topknot I’d tied my hair into
before bed was a crumpled mess.  I pulled the tie out and let my hair fall
past my shoulders.  My mother’s green eyes sparkled back at me.  It
took all of a split second to realize that most of the bruises were gone. 
As were the scratches on my face.  Even the busted lip was nothing more
than a pink line now, slightly darker than the rest of my lip.
         Wow. Over-night healing. That
little snake of fear started to coil again.  It rattled and hissed a
warning; nobody heals that fast.  I poked gently at my broken ribs.
Nothing.  I poked a little harder, and still nothing.  Not even that
familiar itch was left to mark my injury. Something was terribly wrong with me,
but I didn’t think the wreck had much to do with it anymore.  Whatever
this was, it was a whole new level of wrong.
         I could have woken my dad up, but
he was exhausted from sitting up with me in the hospital for several
days.  Besides, if he thought I’d been coughing up blood he would have
rushed me to the emergency room.  I wasn’t in pain.  If anything I
actually felt pretty great.  I thought about taking the medical tape off
my ribs, but figured it would be easier to wait till I took a hot shower,
later.  Less skin would be lost that way.
         The wall clock read 5 a.m.  My
dad would be getting up soon.  There was no need to wake him up early.
 I thought about heading back to bed, but decided to stay up and make him
breakfast, instead.  I might even talk him into going to work instead of
staying home to babysit me all day.  It wasn’t that I wanted rid of him,
but I didn’t want him hovering over me and worrying all day.
         Dad owned his own restaurant, which
was ironic since he was the world’s worst cook. He was one of those creative
cooks.  You never knew what, exactly, had been thrown in the pot.
“Whatever you want it to be,” he would say.  It usually wasn’t anything that I
wanted it to be.  Some of it just wasn’t right at all. 
         Fortunately, he recognized early on that not everyone
was into his type of cooking, and he hired a chef to do the cooking for
him.  He was a lousy cook, but he was a great manager.  The good thing
about the restaurant was that he could set his own hours.  Things ran much
more smoothly when he was there, though, so he spent more time at the
restaurant than he did at home.  Usually I was right there with him,
bussing tables or washing dishes, but I think my wreck got me officially laid
off until further notice.
         It was too bad, too, since I needed
the money to help me pay for college in the fall. Not to mention, I was in need
of a car now.  My dad was going to help with college tuition, of course,
but he flat out refused to pay for all of it.  He was trying to instill a
good work ethic in me. I’d learned from the start that if I wanted anything I
would have to work to get it.  It was a good lesson to learn.
         I brushed my teeth before I did
anything else.  That