Wicked Kiss (Nightwatchers) - By Michelle Rowen Page 0,45
Kara asks of us in her grand schemes. Her goals have grown much darker now that she’s joined that new club of hers. She claims it’s going to give her all the power she ever wanted—by tapping into the occult.
I don’t believe any of that. I’m too busy to waste my time chasing fairy tales. I’d leave that kind of nonsense to her.
She isn’t with us tonight. She’s with her new friend as they attempt to summon a spirit from the beyond.
What a waste of time.
Fingers of dread crawl over my flesh as I look down at the dead woman’s face. I hate graveyards. And tonight feels worse than normal.
“Something wrong?” James asks.
“I don’t trust her.”
“Who, Kara? That makes two of us.” James’s grin holds. “Don’t worry, kid. We’re in this together, you and me. Till the end.”
I nod, reassured. “Till the end.”
“She gets the body, we get the jewels. We’ll scrape together enough to get your eyes fixed or get the best goddamned pair of specs in the whole—”
Snap!
Bishop got to his feet and staggered back from me across my bedroom until he hit the wall.
“What—?” he began, his brows drawn tightly together. “What did you just do?”
I didn’t get up from the floor. Instead, I stared at him, my eyes wide. “I don’t know.”
And I didn’t. When I normally had my mind melds with Bishop, I saw through his eyes—but I was still me. This time, it was different. I wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. It was all Bishop—his thoughts, his emotions, his everything.
“What did you see?” he asked quietly.
I had no idea what it would have felt like for him. He didn’t usually realize when I had my “normal” peeks into his daily life. But this time he did.
“You and Kraven...” My breath came quicker. “You were grave robbers. A woman, her body—you were going to sell it to a medical school. She had some jewelry, too, you were going to sell. You were fifteen, and your eyes...I think you were going blind.”
His face paled. “You saw my memories.”
I stared at him, then nodded. Silence stretched between us. All I could hear was the sound of my heart hammering in my chest as I slumped back on my heels. The throw rug was my only protection from the cold wood floor.
“That is a very dangerous talent you have, Samantha.” He said it softly, but I’d never heard him say anything with more of a dangerous edge to it. It made goose bumps break out over my arms. “Don’t do that again.”
“I wasn’t trying to do it. It just happened.” I swallowed hard and looked down at my hands until I summoned my courage again. “Who’s Kara?”
When I looked up, my window was open again.
Bishop was gone.
The cold air blew in, chilling me to my bones, even as my hunger began to fade.
Chapter 12
I think I got about an hour of sleep that night. If that.
My brain worked overtime, trying to process what I’d seen. What I’d learned. Focusing on Bishop’s memory was good for one thing, though—it took my mind off Stephen. Off Julie. Off my own problems.
Since Bishop’s eyes were bad back then, I hadn’t gotten a very good glimpse at anything, but I could tell this much...based on the clothes the dead woman wore, the jewelry, how Kraven was dressed...
It was a long time ago. But how long?
Seeing this memory brought forth another thousand questions that now needed answering. But nobody was willing to answer them.
All I knew was that he and Kraven had been grave robbers. Bishop had been fifteen, and Kraven, sixteen—so approximately three years before they died. They worked for somebody named Kara, who they didn’t trust—a woman who was getting into the occult. That didn’t bode well for what I knew about their futures.
It had been disturbing, but it hadn’t made me loathe Bishop or fear him. I didn’t know why he wanted to keep his past from me so badly that he wouldn’t even tell me his real name.
After I forced myself out of bed, had a shower and got dressed, I saw Cassandra downstairs. I half expected her to know about Bishop’s midnight visit, as if she might have some kind of angelic intuition about this sort of thing, or felt the spark of energy between us that still, hours later, made my skin tingle.
The angel gave me a weary look. “I’m still tired.”
“Join the insomnia club,” I said, nodding at the cupboard. “Coffee’s up there.”