Free The Serpent in the Stone (The Gifted Series) by Nicki Greenwood Page B

line of his posture as if he were watching a venomous snake for the moment of attack. She bit her lip, just managing to stop a flood of tears. She ’ d be damned if she let him see her crumble.
    “ What— exactly —are you? ” he demanded.
    Alarm bells clanged at the hostility in his voice. She had to force her voice past them. “ You ’ ve seen me shapeshift. I can read minds sometimes. ”
    “ I ’ ve got time for the long version. ” He put the necklace back into his pocket. The shuttered look on his face raised panicky flutters in her belly.
    She drew a long breath. “ Telekinesis. I caught you with telekinesis. ”
    “ How did you get telekinesis? ”
    “ It ’ s not like they hand it out in stores! It just happened one day. I didn ’ t know what it was, and I was too scared to tell my parents. I was afraid of it for a long time. ”
    “ And now you ’ re not. ”
    His flat, blunt words stabbed at her heart. He might as well have slapped her down into a seat in an interrogation room. They traded stares. “ Yeah. Now I ’ m not. ”
    “When did your father die? How did he die?”
    Her thoughts flew to the amulet in Ian’s pocket. “What has any of this got to do with my father?”
    “Maybe nothing. Could be more. This stuff might be genetic.”
    Icy dread crawled across her skin. This time, she did hug herself. “I’m done talking to you.”
    Quick as lightning, he reached forward and snatched the boat keys from the ignition. “This necklace has to be important if you’re willing to risk being shot to fix it, Sara. That’s not even going there about you risking me being shot at. You’re not getting it back until you talk.”
    She felt naked. Worse than she had at the inlet. Then, she’d seen desire in his eyes.
    Now, she saw only hatred. “This isn’t about me,” she said, startled. “It’s about you.”
    “Never mind me,” he snapped.
    “What is it?” she asked. “What happened to you?”
    “How did your father die?”
    Pain and betrayal surged anew through every cell in her body, and that little girl from twenty years ago gave a silent wail of outrage. “He. Was. Murdered.”

Chapter Five
    Murder.
    He didn’t want to draw parallels. Not with her. Especially not with her.
    Memories rushed him. He held his breath and tried like hell to stop them, but they came anyway, clear as the day they’d happened.
    He saw his childhood home in his mind. The stranger in their kitchen raised a hand toward the knife block on the counter. Ian watched, stunned, as a knife flew through the air without help and sank into his father’s chest. He screamed and shot toward the stranger with all the rage his ten-year-old body could muster. His mother shouted behind him. Don’t hurt my boy, please don’t hurt my boy...
    His eyes snapped open. Sara sat straight up in her seat, hands fisted in her lap. She shuddered when their gazes met. “Can I have my keys back now?” she asked. Her voice trembled.
    Ian searched for something to say, fought for a calm voice as he said it. “How was he murdered?”
    Her gaze didn’t budge from his even as she flinched. “I don’t know. He was staying late at the college when it happened. I was only a kid.”
    He frowned. He’d suspected, for one tense minute, that his father’s murderer had been her father. Lots of things were genetic. Why not telekinesis? The rage drained out of him as fast as it had boiled up, leaving confusion in its wake.
    The killer hadn’t been Sara’s father. That man had been shot by the police soon after killing Daniel Waverly. A better death than he deserved. “What about your sister?”
    Sara’s eyes went green so fast it gave him chills. Her voice was rock-steady when she spoke. “Faith’s different. And she’s none of your business.”
    “And your mother? Is she ‘different,’ too?”
    “No. And I better not hear you ask about my family again.”
    Somewhere underneath his distaste, he felt oddly moved by her swift and