You Slay Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

realized that it wasn't just my own voice that was echoing around the room— police sirens outside the windows were growing steadily louder.
    Drake pulled his face out of my neck just long enough to give me a look that left my knees weak. There was something different about his beautiful green eyes. The pupils were slightly elongated rather than round, almost like a cat's eye, but not quite as dramatic. It wasn't just his eyes, though. It was the way he touched me, the way he spoke, the way he ... scented me. There was something not quite human about him that had my heart racing. I understood then what he meant about my fear of him—it was definitely sexually charged, but beneath that was a baser emotion—the fear of being consumed, destroyed by a being who was much more powerful than I.
    With a gentle touch that belied the threat in his voice, he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and said, "The police are here, Aisling; thus I must bid you adieu. I do not know for what purpose you are denying the truth, but I advise you to be a bit more circumspect with the French police. They are not known for their tolerance of those who dally with the dark powers."
    He leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine, the warmth so quickly withdrawn that he was gone before I pulled my wits together.
    "What? Hey! You can't kiss me! And what do you mean to be more circumspect? What dark powers? Where are you going—? No! Stop! That's mine!"
    I lunged forward but was too late. Drake snatched up my case and spun around, racing out the door of the apartment before I stumbled forward three steps.
    Unfortunately, the three steps were directly into the circle. Instinctively I reached out to keep myself from careening into the body. What I grabbed, though, wasn't Mme. Deauxville. It was a silver object that I suspected had been plunged into her heart, an object I hadn't seen because of the way her body was hunched over. The cool metal slid easily out of her body as I staggered to the side, away from her. I stood staring at the weapon in my hand for one horrified moment. It was long, with a thick curved blade smeared almost to the hilt in blood. I recognized what it was from several of the texts I'd read on demon lore—it was a seax, a medieval single-bladed dagger that was commonly used in the ritual destruction of beings of a dark origin. This seax had a bone handle and appeared to be made of silver. It was said that only silver piercing a demon's heart could destroy it... when coupled with the twelve words, of course.
    "A real live example of one of the Demon Deaths," I murmured, the reality of the decidedly unreal situation being driven home by the cold weight of the seax in my hand. I was just thinking about making a sketch of the arrangement of symbols so I could compare them with a book back home when noises in the hall had me gawking in surprise. A number of policemen pushed through the door, all talking at once. They stopped and looked at me in equal surprise, the look quickly turning to one of profound suspicion as they saw the dead woman next to me ... and the bloody seax in my hand.
    I sighed as I raised my hands in surrender, the police swarming forward to surround me. What was turning out to be the longest day of my life had just grown a whole lot longer.

3
    Hi. I'm Aisling Grey, in room twenty-three. Are there any messages for me?"
    The hotel clerk on graveyard duty looked up from his magazine and gave me a martyred sigh before reluctantly setting down his Paris Match and hoisting his bulk out of the chair. "It will require me to check," he said, his voice rich with accusation.
    I gave him a feeble smile as an apology. After spending the whole night explaining to the police over and over and over again who I was and what I was doing at Mme. Deauxville's apartment holding the deadly weapon that had been used to kill her, my "be a good American abroad" muscles were all worn out.
    "Yes, there is one."
    The clerk looked at me. I