Shadow Rising by Kendra Leigh Castle

Author:Kendra Leigh Castle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: www.dpgroup.org
ISBN: 9781455511631
Publisher: Forever
Published: 2012-07-30T22:00:00+00:00

chapter FOURTEEN

HE’S A COMPLETE ASS.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s already trying to cut me out.”

“Of course he is.”

Ariane paused in her pacing of the bedroom, gave a couple of irritated swipes with the dagger in her hand, and frowned at her reflection in the mirror.

“Elena. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to humor me,” she said into the phone she had wedged against her ear.

Elena’s burst of laughter provoked Ariane’s own. It felt good. Better than good, after last night, to know she could still laugh with a friend. It was good to know she still had a friend, that it hadn’t been just a figment of her imagination.

“Ari,” Elena said, “you’re the one who wanted to team up with a Shade. I did warn you. Waking up in another state with no stuff and no guy is pretty standard.”

Ariane sighed, walking closer to the mirror and ruffling a hand through her hair. “Well, he’s not exactly gone. But he certainly didn’t invite me along to wherever he wandered off to.”

“Again, standard. I’ve never met one who wasn’t a loner, though they’re that way for a reason—Shades don’t tend to live as long when they work in pairs. At least he ditched you someplace a lot classier than some rat-infested safe house. Not that I’d have any experience with that. Hey, if you’re going to be there a few days, I’ll send along the weapons you left, and the clothes. You didn’t leave much, and Strickland has a runner headed in your direction—he does a little business in the city.”

“That would be great,” Ariane breathed, cheered at the thought of having her things back.

Tonight she was in faded jeans and a tank top, both borrowed from one of Vlad’s employees here at the mansion. She was comfortable, but she didn’t want to leave behind what little she had brought into this world. At least Vlad had stopped to collect her sword from Damien’s car before heading for the airport. She didn’t care how outlandish Damien thought it looked; it was still hers.

“No problem,” Elena replied. “I’ll have Matt bring your stuff. And to the Dracul mansion, no less. You’ve moved up in the world—it doesn’t get much safer than that.”

“I care less about safety than I do about the fact that I’m sitting in Chicago, useless,” Ariane replied, beginning to pace again. “I don’t know this place. I don’t know why Damien thought it was a good idea to come here. It feels like everything I need to be doing is back in Charlotte.”

Her frustration bubbled back up quickly. Last night she’d been in shock, reeling from what she’d done, and had allowed Damien to decide what was best. She’d given in to her only instinct, which was to get far, far away. Tonight was one of the first times she wished she’d been a little more, well, Grigori about it all.

“I doubt it,” Elena said, sounding so sure of herself that Ariane wanted very much to believe her.

“Oh?”

“The weirdo Grigori who tried to kill Damien has almost definitely blown town.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.