Free Tempting the Enemy by Dee Tenorio Page B

but the taint came with it.
    Seeping into her hand. Climbing up her arm. She clawed at it, but nothing stopped the advance. “No. No, no, no—”
    Brilliant blue light tore through the dark, wrapping around her arm and shredding the shadow from her skin.
    She cried out, the ripping sensation feeling as if it were Dee Tenorio
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    being pried from her flesh. A blink, half an instant later, it was gone.
    She gasped, grappling for breath through chattering teeth, trying to find her bearings again. Surprisingly, she found instead that her feet weren’t on the ground anymore. She looked down, her hands landing on the iron band around her ribs.
    Rysen.
    “I don’t know what the hell that was.” His voice was a lethal whisper in her ear. She could see his breath puff past her face and didn’t kid herself that he wasn’t furious.
    With her. “But if you ever put yourself in danger like that again, I won’t lose a second’s sleep leaving you to it.”
    No, he wouldn’t. She didn’t bother checking his color for validation. She could feel it in the absolute control he kept over her with one arm. “How long was I gone?”
    “Three seconds,” he answered, finally, when she shivered so hard her muscles jerked. “Maybe four.”
    Three seconds and that evil had nearly overtaken her.
    Her next shudder had nothing to do with the cold she felt all the way to her bones.
    “Can you stand?” His question lacked the fiery anger she’d sensed at first. If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was concerned.
    Eyeing the ground several inches below her feet, she had to laugh. “I don’t know.”
    He grunted—she doubted it was from any strain of holding her up—and lowered her. She expected weakness, but nothing was wrong with her legs or her body. Just coldness. Her blood felt icy.
    She’d no sooner stabilized her footing than he spun her around, shrouding her with the coat again. She 70
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    couldn’t help a small smile as he took pains to button her up. His warmth surrounded her. Then he took her arm and led her to the car. “Let’s get you somewhere warm. Then you talk.”

    Chapter Six
    The snow made a neat crunchy sound as Emmitt Crowe walked through it. He was still getting used to it, and to the boots the people at the last house gave him.
    They were too big, so Sarah had stuffed some paper towels in the toes, which was nice because his toes were really warm now. His fingers weren’t, though. She’d slipped two pairs of her socks on his hands to keep them warm, but her fingers were freezing where they held on to him.
    “Don’t stomp, Em.”
    Emmitt looked up at his sister. Her skin was as blue as the snow. She’d put her hair up into a cap their mom had knitted for her last Christmas. He’d held the ball of yarn for her and she’d put his name on the tag when they wrapped it. He wished she wouldn’t have done that. Sarah had pretty hair. Yellow, like Mom’s used to be.
    “No one can hear me,” he mumbled, but obediently stopped crunching so loud. She’d told him like eight million times how important it was that he always do what she said. They weren’t safe anymore. The bad people who had broken into the house could still be looking for them. If Sarah hadn’t hidden with him under the house, they would be like everyone else in the family.
    Gone to Heaven.
    Emmitt blew out his breath, making a little cloud in front of him. He missed Mom and Dad. And Joey. Even 72
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    Cora, even though all she ever did was cry and wake him up at night. But he didn’t want to be in Heaven yet.
    “Are we almost there?”
    “Almost.” Sarah looked behind herself again. She’d been doing that a lot. Since they got off the bus. She had that line between her eyebrows again.
    Emmitt looked back too. Nothing there but the snow they’d been walking on, the road, black trees and the wall of the mountain across the street. He frowned, reaching with his senses the way Sarah had been