Night Whispers: ShadowLands, Book 1 Read Online Free Page B

knives.
    He’d grown up in a suburb. His knowledge of gangs had been gleaned from television, and his ability to fight came from a combination of the karate classes his father had bullied his skinny son into attending, his CIA training and the simulations he’d participated in to test their training equipment. Never had he been in a real fight, one where his life depended on beating the other creature.
    So he was pretty awed that she’d turned her skills to saving others, when she could have easily made the world an even worse place.
    It would be nice, though, if she wasn’t so dead set on saving Erik Jafari.
    It was nothing personal. Jafari had disappeared about six months before they’d reestablished communication with Sanctuary, so he’d never met the guy, not even remotely.
    All he knew was that Jules and Erik had had a history between them, a very tight bond. He didn’t think it was a romantic history. No, he hoped it wasn’t a romantic history, and if it was, he didn’t particularly want to know.
    Jules rarely let a few weeks go by that she didn’t ask if one of the other agents or anyone else had heard anything about the man who had mysteriously disappeared overnight.
    What does it say about you that you’re jealous of a man who is, most likely, dead?
    Yeah, this wasn’t his finest moment. Even his worries over Jules leaving the relative safety of California couldn’t justify this level of dislike.
    He glanced up at the large screen above him, but it was blank now, as were the other five that gave him a 360-degree view of everything going on around her. Jules’s vitals beeped, reporting her signs. On the bottom of each screen was a green symbol representing each of his other agents. They would turn red and pulse should they try to contact him or if their GPS or vitals went wonky. Jules was such a cool cucumber, he sometimes had to poke at her to make sure she was still breathing.
    For a system he’d rigged in a hurried couple of months, he was pretty proud of it. He figured someday they could mass produce enough of the collars for all of the front-lines people to wear—soldiers, ration scouts and agents. That way, they could be tapped in 24/7 in all ways, vitals, sights and sounds. Right now, though, between all of the pies he had his fingers in, their priorities and limited resources, they would have to make do with what they had. Plus, he would need more handlers to serve here if that did happen.
    Jules would stay his agent, though, no matter how many people this program got. He lived for the moments he got to virtually see out of her eyes.
    Especially if there was, as he’d joked, a mirror or some sort of reflective surface around, and he could catch a glimpse of her reflection. Not for any prurient interest. Okay, not for much prurient interest.
    It was another way to connect with her, another way to pretend he was standing there with her. The pixie cut of her hair revealed the vulnerable nape of her neck, the high cheekbones and pointed chin that made up her face. She reminded him of a wary fox sometimes, always balanced on the edge of fleeing. Her eyes were an almond-shaped dark brown as inky as her curly hair. From what he’d gleaned, her body was compact and muscular, with small breasts and long legs. His imagination filled in the blanks.
    Now, if only he knew what she felt like.
    Maybe someday they’d find a way around the long distance between them, and he’d maneuver her closer. Close enough to touch. To talk to in person. To discover if these crazy feelings were real or as virtual as the training programs he developed.
    He just had to keep her alive.
    James eased back from his desk before standing, automatically hunching to keep his head from hitting the low ceiling. His living quarters, housed elsewhere in one of the separate tunnel-connected structures, were, thankfully, built large enough to accommodate his freakishly tall figure. These cubicle-sized steel-enclosed offices were small