Free In-Between Work and Play (The Jocelyn Frost Series Book 1) by Relina Skye Page A

from
her!”  Lucinda dove in front of me, but I was still hit by a pulse of magic,
which propelled my body straight into a piece of furniture.  Pain seared my
skull and my limbs numbed. 
    “You stupid
bitch,” a voice growled.  Lucinda crashed into the couch before lunging at her
attacker.  The fringe of my vision was blurring.  A ringing sound made it very
hard to focus on what was happening around me. 
    The attacker
pulled out a knife.  All I could see were his legs, but that was enough.  He
plunged the knife deep into her side before spinning her around.  Lucinda fell
to her knees.  Her brow creased with pain as her scream filled the air.  The
attacker sliced open her throat, silencing her forever. 
Lucinda’s lifeless body fell to the floor several feet away from me.  Her eyes
vacantly stared into nothingness.  I couldn’t pry my eyes away from hers. 
    Steps pounded
the floor before stopping short.  My eyes crossed as the ringing in my ears
worsened.  I couldn’t think.  Everything that just happened was way too much
for me to process. 

Chapter
Ten
     
    “Ms. Frost?”
    White, bright
light clouded my vision and the ringing sound continued to fill my ears.
     Where
am I?  What’s going on?
    “Ms. Frost?”  A
deep baritone voice cut through the ringing.  Someone gently stroked my cheek. 
“You’re going to be fine, Ms. Frost.”
    My eyelids felt
heavy.  All I wanted to do was sleep.
    “Jocelyn!  Stay
with me!”  Why wouldn’t he just shut up?
    Warmth rippled
across my forehead, dissipating the pain.  The striking, white light dimmed,
and my vision slowly went from blurry to clear.  Gunmetal eyes bore into mine. 
They looked familiar…  The Enforcer…  What
was he doing here, and why was I lying on the floor?  Where was here anyway?  
And what was that coppery smell?
    My stomach
churned.  “Oh…”  I turned over, empting the contents of my belly onto a
hardwood floor.  “What the Helheim is wrong with me?”  I gagged and my limbs
went limp. 
    Warmth filled my
side as I was lifted off the floor. 
    “Close your
eyes.”  Close my eyes?   They shut
on their own.  Unfamiliar, muffled voices reached my consciousness.
    The warmth
suddenly left my side and my rear sank into a cushiony substance. 
    “Open your
eyes.”
    I blinked.
“What’s going on?”  I was in my bedroom.  The door was closed, but everything
was a mess.  My clothes littered the floor. Dresser drawers were turned upside
down.  Cotton stuffing from the chaise lounge dotted everywhere I looked with
puffy patches of fluff.  Even my jewelry box lay empty and shattered on the
floor.
    “I was hoping
you could tell me.”  He knelt in front of me, holding my hands in his. Tears
began to leak from my eyes.  I was so confused.  It hurt to think.
    He brushed away
my tears with the back of his hand.  Tracing the side of my brow to my temple
with his thumb, he said, “It looks like you hit your head pretty hard.  I will
attempt to heal your concussion.”
    Closing my eyes,
I gave him a weak nod.  That warm sensation from earlier wrapped around my mind
like a cozy blanket. I felt safe as I rested my head against his shoulder.
    His strong
fingers continued to work their magic.  The pounding and ringing in my head
vanished.  I almost cried out in protest when I thought he might pull away.
    “Ms. Frost, I’m
a telepath.  I need to look into your memory to see what you saw.  Do I have
your permission to proceed?”
    I nodded.  It
was hard for me to make sense of what happened.  Strange sensations pushed
against my mental defenses.  I felt him diving below the surface of my bruised
brain and into my mind.  
    His mental
presence was strong and dominating, but in no way, violating.  The events of
the last twenty-four hours breezed through my mind like a movie being played in
triple rewind.
    When he
finished, he skimmed through the weeks and eventually, the months of the past
five years