Free Shadow Alpha by Carole Mortimer Page B

her?
    Well…no, given a choice…
    She looked down at Dair as he slouched in his chair. “You fly a helicopter…?”
    He arched one brow. “Does that surprise you?”
    Nothing surprised her about this man anymore; Dair really was a modern day warrior. He could probably see through metal walls and scale tall buildings unaided as well!
    And he could have her in a heartbeat if he wanted to.
    Half a heartbeat, even.
    A quarter—
    Oh grow up , Kat, she told herself disgustedly. Why would a self-confident and utterly gorgeous man like Dair, who could have any woman he wanted, possibly be interested in a woman he had just rescued from the clinic her husband had put her in because she had supposedly had a nervous breakdown?
    He wouldn’t.
    Except…
    Kat was sure she hadn’t imagined that glitter of interest she had seen in Dair’s eyes earlier when she’d kissed him so impulsively.
    Was that before or after he pushed you away from him, that mocking voice taunted inside her head.
    Fuck off , Kat told that voice irritably before answering Dair. “Not at all,” she dismissed. “You can probably jump from an airplane without a parachute and land on your feet too.”
    Dair gave a rueful chuckle. “I haven’t tried that one yet, but I believe there is a way to moderate the speed of the fall in relation to the—”
    “Never mind!” Kat gave a disgusted shake of her head as she crossed the cabin to enter the bedroom and close the door behind her, Dair’s chuckle still ringing in her ears.
    She leaned back against the door as her legs began to shake.
    Dair Grayson was as much a temptation to her now—more so—than he had ever been fifteen years ago.

    Kat undressed down to her panties and bra before climbing between the sheets, so exhausted that she fell asleep almost instantly. Only to fall into an all-too-familiar dream. One that she knew didn’t have a happy ending.
    It started out as it always did, with that wonderful sense of wellbeing, of inner contentment, a completeness she had never known before.
    She couldn’t quite grasp what that something was, what had suddenly made her life bearable but— Ah yes, she remembered now. The baby. She was going to have a baby.
    It was growing inside her even now, filling her emptiness. A son or daughter she would love with every part of her. Someone of her own to—
    The happy drifting faded to be replaced by voices. Dark, ugly voices. One voice in particular, spouting horrible, disgusting words before she began to fall and fall and—
    The knife.
    Where had the knife come from? The same knife she could feel piercing her stomach, twisting, turning, tearing, and ripping her agonizingly apart.
    Blood.
    There was so much blood. It was everywhere. On her hands. On the floor. Glistening between her thighs—
    No…!
    “Kat? Kat, for God’s sake, you have to wake up, damn it.”
    There was so much blood, glistening red, on her, around her, it was everywhere.
    “Kat!”
    “Murderer!” She pushed against the hands she could feel restraining her. “Let go of me! Let go of me, you murdering bastard!”
    Dair released Kat but not before she’d raised her fist and given him a powerful punch to the jaw. What the fuck—
    He had been in the main cabin, relaxing in his seat if not sleeping, when he heard Kat cry out. He had thought she was awake, perhaps in pain, but when he entered the bedroom she was obviously sleeping, her eyes closed as she thrashed about on the bed, muttering incoherently. The only words Dair had been able to make out as he had sat down on the bed beside her had been “No, no, no!”
    He had tried to wake her then by gently stroking her cheek and saying her name, utterly shaken by the wetness of her tears against his fingers.
    She had begun to lash out with her fists before he’d had time to move away, her arms flailing about too wildly for him to be able to catch hold of before she delivered the punch to his jaw.
    Not that he was bothered about that; he’d