The Broken Protector Read Online Nicole Snow

Categories Genre: Alpha Male Tags Authors: Nicole Snow Advertisement1

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Everything looks blurry as hell. I think I need medical attention ASAP because blood loss is a motherfucker. But I manage to sit up slowly, every part of me protesting, my head reeling as I turn around to take in my surroundings.

Big mistake.

I’m immediately clutching at the sides of the little rowboat swaying under me with the movement, struggling not to hurk up my lunch into Still Lake.

What the fuck?

I’m out in the middle of the lake in the same damn rowboat I’d been in with Delilah on our date.

Only this time I’m alone.

There are no oars stowed in the oar locks, either. I feel around clumsily and bend over to look, making myself dizzy all over again.

I think I get what was supposed to happen here.

Culver Jacobin knocked me out, threw me in this boat, and pushed me out onto the lake to bleed to death long before anyone would find me.

Guess it’s a good thing I’m too stubborn to die.

This is not how I wanted to find out I’m right, that he’s the asshole who killed Roger Strunk. Can’t think of any other reason why he’d do this, except he realized we were hot on his trail.

What scares me is that he found me at The Rookery.

He was probably already there looking for Delilah.

Obsessive stalker types get real crazy when they’re cornered.

Some of the more extreme cases in criminal history have killed the object of their obsession because they felt like they were about to lose them, so murdering their prey becomes the only way to keep them according to their warped logic—and to make sure no one else could ever have them after the perp gets caught.

I bet the plan was to get to Delilah before we could stop him, but he tripped over me in the process. Which means—

Fuck.

Fear socks me so powerfully it’s like a fist of pure grief.

Almost like mourning somebody before I even know she’s gone.

I dig at my pockets and—motherfucker, my phone’s not there.

That bastard took it.

With my luck, he probably threw it in the lake, and now it’s sitting useless at the bottom.

I’m well and truly fucked until someone finds me.

If I try to swim out of here in my current condition, I’m definitely going to drown. Swimming and concussions pair with massive blood loss about like red wine pairs with pork rinds.

Maybe I can use my hands to paddle.

It’ll be slow as hell, but better than nothing. Adrenaline gives me urgency and—

—and some kind of God must be with me tonight because I see lights through the trees.

Then I hear laughter, young and rowdy.

Shit.

There’s someone out there on the lakeshore, and they’re coming closer.

Straining toward those sweeps of light, I watch several high school kids come tearing through the trees by the pier, carrying coolers and zigzagging their way along, using their phones for flashlights.

They should all be at home in bed, but hell, when I was their age I snuck out to drink at the lake and raise hell, too.

I lean toward them, raise my arms, shouting as loud as I can, even if it makes my head ring.

“Hey! Hey!” I call, and they freeze, staring. “Little help out here?”

23

Red As Sin (Delilah)

Okay.

So.

Maybe I deserve my spot on the Too Stupid To Live Heroine List because I’m still not sure why I’m surprised I wound up in the situation I’m in now.

I threw myself in the thick of it like a dumbass, thinking I’m going to be all kick-ass Nancy Drew and solve a murder my stupid cop boyfriend couldn’t even handle.

Right.

More like I’m about to be the latest Redhaven case file.

That’s my first thought as I come to slowly.

My limbs and brain feel sluggish, and I think I smell—is that animal flesh?—manure, meat, blood.

Strong blood.

Fresh and potent, but it’s mixed with another smell, too.

A strange one, something like... hot metal?

My arms hurt like hell. I don’t even need to open my eyes to know I’m dangling from them, the full force of my weight pulling me down, making my shoulders burn.

Ugh. He injected me, didn’t he?

And what did Ulysses poison me with?

Ulysses.

It was him all along.

Right under my nose, but I couldn’t see it.

Like Lucas, I was hung up on the notion that whoever killed Celeste Graves also killed Emma Santos, and that couldn’t have been Ulysses when he’d have been about twelve or thirteen at the time of Celeste’s disappearance.

Maybe it’s a like father, like son situation.

I don’t know.

My head is spinning.

All I know is I need to figure out what the hell’s going on and get out of here ASAP.

I carefully pry one eye open, trying to assess my surroundings without giving myself away.

I don’t know how I avoid screaming bloody murder when I realize I’m surrounded by carcasses. Red meat and marbled white fat lines the walls surrounding me.


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