Hive Queen Sinclair, Grayson (best pdf ebook reader for android txt) 📖

Blood welled from her pale skin, but the color was off. It was tinged with fire like a ripe blood orange. It dripped warmth over my cheek, and she lowered her wrist to my mouth.

“What are you doing?” Reina asked.

“Not using a potion.” Evelyn’s skin pressed against my teeth, and a drip of succulent blood slid down my mouth. It was warm, rich, and utterly delicious. It put even Sam’s tangy blood to shame, and I knew beyond anything else that I wanted more.

I opened my mouth wide and dug my teeth into her flesh, breaking the skin to spill even more of her delicious blood over my lips. It invigorated me like nothing I’d experienced before, and I jolted awake, wrapping my hands over her forearm.

Something shifted inside of me, and a warmth spread through my veins as my organs righted themselves and my spine fused back together. It was so wonderous to feel my body again that I didn’t question what was happening to me.

And then my mind slipped into the past.

The darkness that accompanied the Mnemosyne was too similar to the bleak, unending void, and like I had when I tasted of Sam, I froze, my heart stopping as unhinged terror threatened my sanity. I curled in on myself as the familiar loneliness crept from the furthest reaches of my mind. I opened my mouth to cry out, but before I could, I was falling.

The memory slunk in with bright tones. I was back in the world Sam came from; that much I knew. It was too different from what I’d come to know as my reality.

The buildings were tall, lifeless gray masses that rose higher than the birds could fly. It unsettled me to have them looming overhead as soft moonlight reflected off shattered glass in the broken windows above me.

The smooth, black street I stood on came to a crossroads where three people stood, their heads darting around as they scanned the darkness for something I couldn’t see. Two of them were male, one taller than the other by just a few inches. The tall one was cute, bordering on handsome, but still had too much youthfulness in his face. His dark hair hung past his gray eyes, and he brushed a tanned, muscular hand across his bangs.

I didn’t know him, but I felt like I did, something about him was incredibly familiar.

The shorter one was someone I knew I’d never met before.

He was thin, wiry, with shaggy blond hair only a shade or so lighter than mine that framed his sharp face. His green eyes were hidden behind a pair of square glasses, and the beginnings of stubble sprouted from his jawline.

They pointed to a building and shuffled across the road, their movements slowed by their armor. It was obviously armor, but not like I’d seen before. It was sleek, muted black that covered their chests and left most of their upper arms bare. Strapped to each forearm was more of the material, but I had no clue what it was.

In their hands were weapons, that much I knew, but they were blocky, a glossy gray, and they hefted them with respect.

As they crossed the street, the final member of the party checked behind them and followed after.

She was tall, almost the same height as the tall boy, but off by an inch. She had the same dark hair, but hers fell past her chest. Familial resemblance reflected in her features that she shared with the boy, but her eyes were shot through with jade rather than the muted gray of the boy’s.

I knew who she was, who they both were then. Because I was seeing Evelyn’s memories, the girl had to be Evelyn, and the boy Adam. Gone was the pale skin, the silver hair and golden eyes that I’d come to associate the twins with, but as I stared, it was undoubtably them.

The blond boy shouted in alarm. “Over there!”

The group raised their weapons as a pale, monstrous creature leapt onto a broken, red machine with metallic wheels. It crumpled the metal and let out a piercing howl from its too-wide jaws. Its needle teeth sparkled from the light of the moon down its throat.

It was a ghoul, one of the creatures that destroyed Sam’s world and took the person he loved most from him.

A shrill blast of pain rang through my ears as fire bloomed from the weapon Adam carried. A heavy gout of flames shot faster than I could follow and stuck the ghoul. It hissed a wretched scream as the fire blistered and blackened its skin as it spread up its shoulder to the side of its face. In a second, half of its body was a mess of oozing black skin that burst open with vile white blood as it spilled down its legs.

“We’re too far away,” Evelyn said, her voice taking away any doubt that it was her.

“Retreat?” the blond boy asked.

“Nick, that’s a goddamn great plan, but we’ve got company,” Adam replied, motioning with his weapon to the shadows near a decrepit building that sold something called “pizza.”

Four or five new creatures appeared, covered in darkness.

They resembled the ghouls only in their hideousness. They looked human, but like walking skeletons. Their pallid, emaciated gray skin stretched tightly over their pronounced bones. Lanky arms ended in five wickedly sharp ivory claws while they stared at the three with soulless, pitch-black eyes.

A low hiss rolled from their mouths as they shambled out into the light.

“Shit. We’ve already got a ghoul to deal with—I really didn’t want to add the fucking grim on top of it.”

“Run?” Nick asked.

“Run,” the twins agreed.

They turned as one and sprinted to the nearest building, a towering giant with the words Windigo Industries written in giant white letters. They hopped through a broken