Edge of fear, p.33
Edge Of Fear, page 33
“You’re sure Bean didn’t—”
“I’m just discovering that the babyhas powers, but I’m pretty surethat wasn’t one of them. I think I need to sit down.”
“Yeah.” He gave her a worried glance as he herded her toward her single bed. “Good plan. Need something to drink?”
She shook her head as she sat on the edge of the mattress.
Caleb sat down beside her, keeping three feet between them. Maybe she needed to lie down. Be held. Comforted. That had been pretty damned scary. And he was familiar with magic.
“I think—No. Never mind. That’s crazy.”
“You have a theory?” Despite what had just happened,whatever the hell that was, he didn’t want to talk about magic. Not now. But the alternative was to say good-bye and walk away. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s way out there,” she warned. The glow from the bracelet illuminated her cheek as she scooped her flyaway hair up off her neck and twisted it into a knot. He loved her neck, especially the sensitive spot just below her ear. He wanted to kiss her there. Just lean over and press his mouth against the soft fragrant spot right—there.
She looked so sweet, so damned adorably sweet and sincere, Caleb’s heart squeezed. He imagined kissing away the twin lines between her brows. Damn it, he wanted to do a number of things that would start up the entire conversation that had already swirled around the drain. “Try me.”
“You told me that Magnus gave Nairne three pieces of jewelry as engagement gifts, right?”
What did theCurse have to do with what had just happened? Other than every Edge wife croaking for five hundred fucking years to prove the Curse was powerful and in effect, there’d been no magical clues to how to break it that he knew of. He doubted the flashy show a minute ago was it.
“Well, yeah, but, sweetheart—thathad nothing to do with the Curse.”No matter how badly we’d both like to believe it could be. The thought, however, was intriguing.
Oh, shit,the “sweetheart” had slipped out. She didn’t appear to have noticed. She bent her knees up on the bed to fully face him. He could feel the heat of her jean-clad legs almost touching his hip. Cheeks flushed pink, she was practically vibrating with excitement. She touched her fingertips to the gleaming circlet. “I’m positive the baby had nothing to do with what just happened. Aren’t you?”
He wasn’t positive at all. He had no idea what powers his son had in vitro. “I suppose so.”
“Iknow so. Wasn’t you, right? Wasn’t me. Who elseis there? The ghost of Flood Street? ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” Her voice gathered speed as she talked, and he couldn’t take his attention off her mouth. “I think that bracelet, the bracelet my mother found in the Paris flea market, and had engraved, was one of the three pieces of jewelry that Nairne rec—Caleb?! Are you even listening?”
Not so much. All he had to do was shift slightly and he could take her down. Flat on her back. He’d be right where he longed to be. A little kiss wouldn’t hurt…
She punched him in the arm. “Talking here.”
“I’m hanging on your every word,” he assured her. He liked when she said “S” words the best. Loved the way her pink lips puckered…
“Your great-great-whatever-grandfather gave her three pieces of jewelry as an engagement present, right? And when he broke it off with her she threw them back at him and cursed him. I honest to God think that the bracelet was one of those pieces.”
Had she moved closer?
He was too stunned to move out of her way. And God only knew, he didn’twant to. She reached up and traced his cheek with her finger, her beautiful eyes alive with love and anticipation.
She was buying that the Curse had just been broken.“‘Only freely given will this curse be done’ ?”
It was practically tattooed on his synapses. His heart started knocking as hope slowly unfurled. “And?”
“The thing that had to be given freely,” she said softly, “was that bracelet. The other two pieces she threw back at Magnus must be for Gabriel and Duncan to receive to break the Curse forever.”
His heart leapt. Was it possible? After fivefreaking hundred years, was itremotely possible she was right? “Whythis generation? Why us?” As skeptical as he was, Christ, he wanted to believe she was right. Thatfinally, atlast Nairne’s Curse was broken…
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She was too close. Her nearness muddied his thinking, and made himwant. He could smell the promise of her skin. Longing welled up inside Caleb in a tidal wave. With a groan he turned to her. Cupping her face, he tunneled his fingers through her hair. “I hope to hell you’re right,” he whispered against her mouth before he kissed her. And he only did that because not to kiss Heather now would have killed him stone dead.
Touching her tongue to his, she sighed, then tightened her arms around his neck. Caleb couldn’t help himself, he put his heart and soul into the kiss. It was like coming home.
But then he’d known it would be.
God help him, she’d better be right, because that one small ray of hope was enough for his brain to hold onto for dear life. Her dear life.
He cupped the back of her head, his thumb stroking the soft, sensitive skin beneath her ear as he broke away from her.
This required a leap of faith.
He held her gaze. “I do love you,” he told her thickly, taking a verbal running jump across the dark chasm the Curse had set between them. “Love you with every fiber of my being. More than I ever imagined loving anyone. More than I could have dreamed, if I’d ever allowed myself to dream.” He closed the few inches between them and kissed her again, long, slow, and deep.
When Heather opened her eyes again it was to find herself quite naked, and on a bed the size of a small island hung with burgundy velvet drapes. Sunlight streamed through a high, arched window, flooding the opulent room with buttery light and gilding Caleb’s bare shoulders to gleaming bronze. He lay, head propped on his hand, watching her. Heather smiled, filled to the brim with happiness. “I’m guessing we’re not in Oz anymore?”
“Edridge Castle,” he admitted, sliding his hand over the gentle curve of her tummy. “I’d like my brothers to meet you. When we get around to getting out of bed. In about a week or three.”
“Hmm.” She wound her arms around his neck, pushing him onto his back, and sliding her body over his. “It’s not going to be easy, you know.”
“Having to deal with two wizards?” he asked sympathetically, running his hands down her back.
Her smile felt as though it started at her toes and worked its way all the way through her body to curve her mouth.
“Trainingtwo wizards.”
He nibbled her throat. “How long do you think that’ll take?”
“Bean and I are already negotiating terms. You’re a hard case. Atleast fifty years.”
He smiled as he kissed his way up her neck to her jaw. “With time added for good behavior?”
“And extra time for very, very bad behavior,” she whispered against his mouth. “We’d better get started—Bean? It’s time for your nap, sweetheart.”
Edge of Fearis a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2006 by Cherry Adair
Excerpt forEdge of Darkness © 2006 by Cherry Adair
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINEand colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming bookEdge of Darkness. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN-13: 978-0-345-49349-1
eISBN-10: 0-345-49349-4
www.ballantinebooks.com
v1.0
To Rhonda Pollero
For curses, Curses, and laughter.
With the magic of hindsight,
I agree.
Ido owe you
all the muffins
and bagels in the land.
A special thanks to
Heather Wieker from Sea-Tac Airport.
See? I was quite serious.
And for David, with love
Duty o’er love was the choice you did make
My love you did spurn, my heart you did break
Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain
Three sons on three sons find nothing but pain
I gift you my powers in memory of me
The joy of love no son shall ever see
When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son
No protection can be given, again I have won
His pain will be deep, her death will be swift,
Inside his heart a terrible rift
Only freely given will this curse be done
To break the spell, three must work as one
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Also by Cherry Adair
Except of Edge of Fear
Preview for Edge of Darkness
Don't be afraid...take yourself over the edge!
Copyright Page
Cherry Adair, Edge Of Fear
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“I’m just discovering that the babyhas powers, but I’m pretty surethat wasn’t one of them. I think I need to sit down.”
“Yeah.” He gave her a worried glance as he herded her toward her single bed. “Good plan. Need something to drink?”
She shook her head as she sat on the edge of the mattress.
Caleb sat down beside her, keeping three feet between them. Maybe she needed to lie down. Be held. Comforted. That had been pretty damned scary. And he was familiar with magic.
“I think—No. Never mind. That’s crazy.”
“You have a theory?” Despite what had just happened,whatever the hell that was, he didn’t want to talk about magic. Not now. But the alternative was to say good-bye and walk away. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s way out there,” she warned. The glow from the bracelet illuminated her cheek as she scooped her flyaway hair up off her neck and twisted it into a knot. He loved her neck, especially the sensitive spot just below her ear. He wanted to kiss her there. Just lean over and press his mouth against the soft fragrant spot right—there.
She looked so sweet, so damned adorably sweet and sincere, Caleb’s heart squeezed. He imagined kissing away the twin lines between her brows. Damn it, he wanted to do a number of things that would start up the entire conversation that had already swirled around the drain. “Try me.”
“You told me that Magnus gave Nairne three pieces of jewelry as engagement gifts, right?”
What did theCurse have to do with what had just happened? Other than every Edge wife croaking for five hundred fucking years to prove the Curse was powerful and in effect, there’d been no magical clues to how to break it that he knew of. He doubted the flashy show a minute ago was it.
“Well, yeah, but, sweetheart—thathad nothing to do with the Curse.”No matter how badly we’d both like to believe it could be. The thought, however, was intriguing.
Oh, shit,the “sweetheart” had slipped out. She didn’t appear to have noticed. She bent her knees up on the bed to fully face him. He could feel the heat of her jean-clad legs almost touching his hip. Cheeks flushed pink, she was practically vibrating with excitement. She touched her fingertips to the gleaming circlet. “I’m positive the baby had nothing to do with what just happened. Aren’t you?”
He wasn’t positive at all. He had no idea what powers his son had in vitro. “I suppose so.”
“Iknow so. Wasn’t you, right? Wasn’t me. Who elseis there? The ghost of Flood Street? ‘When you’ve eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.’” Her voice gathered speed as she talked, and he couldn’t take his attention off her mouth. “I think that bracelet, the bracelet my mother found in the Paris flea market, and had engraved, was one of the three pieces of jewelry that Nairne rec—Caleb?! Are you even listening?”
Not so much. All he had to do was shift slightly and he could take her down. Flat on her back. He’d be right where he longed to be. A little kiss wouldn’t hurt…
She punched him in the arm. “Talking here.”
“I’m hanging on your every word,” he assured her. He liked when she said “S” words the best. Loved the way her pink lips puckered…
“Your great-great-whatever-grandfather gave her three pieces of jewelry as an engagement present, right? And when he broke it off with her she threw them back at him and cursed him. I honest to God think that the bracelet was one of those pieces.”
Had she moved closer?
He was too stunned to move out of her way. And God only knew, he didn’twant to. She reached up and traced his cheek with her finger, her beautiful eyes alive with love and anticipation.
She was buying that the Curse had just been broken.“‘Only freely given will this curse be done’ ?”
It was practically tattooed on his synapses. His heart started knocking as hope slowly unfurled. “And?”
“The thing that had to be given freely,” she said softly, “was that bracelet. The other two pieces she threw back at Magnus must be for Gabriel and Duncan to receive to break the Curse forever.”
His heart leapt. Was it possible? After fivefreaking hundred years, was itremotely possible she was right? “Whythis generation? Why us?” As skeptical as he was, Christ, he wanted to believe she was right. Thatfinally, atlast Nairne’s Curse was broken…
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She was too close. Her nearness muddied his thinking, and made himwant. He could smell the promise of her skin. Longing welled up inside Caleb in a tidal wave. With a groan he turned to her. Cupping her face, he tunneled his fingers through her hair. “I hope to hell you’re right,” he whispered against her mouth before he kissed her. And he only did that because not to kiss Heather now would have killed him stone dead.
Touching her tongue to his, she sighed, then tightened her arms around his neck. Caleb couldn’t help himself, he put his heart and soul into the kiss. It was like coming home.
But then he’d known it would be.
God help him, she’d better be right, because that one small ray of hope was enough for his brain to hold onto for dear life. Her dear life.
He cupped the back of her head, his thumb stroking the soft, sensitive skin beneath her ear as he broke away from her.
This required a leap of faith.
He held her gaze. “I do love you,” he told her thickly, taking a verbal running jump across the dark chasm the Curse had set between them. “Love you with every fiber of my being. More than I ever imagined loving anyone. More than I could have dreamed, if I’d ever allowed myself to dream.” He closed the few inches between them and kissed her again, long, slow, and deep.
When Heather opened her eyes again it was to find herself quite naked, and on a bed the size of a small island hung with burgundy velvet drapes. Sunlight streamed through a high, arched window, flooding the opulent room with buttery light and gilding Caleb’s bare shoulders to gleaming bronze. He lay, head propped on his hand, watching her. Heather smiled, filled to the brim with happiness. “I’m guessing we’re not in Oz anymore?”
“Edridge Castle,” he admitted, sliding his hand over the gentle curve of her tummy. “I’d like my brothers to meet you. When we get around to getting out of bed. In about a week or three.”
“Hmm.” She wound her arms around his neck, pushing him onto his back, and sliding her body over his. “It’s not going to be easy, you know.”
“Having to deal with two wizards?” he asked sympathetically, running his hands down her back.
Her smile felt as though it started at her toes and worked its way all the way through her body to curve her mouth.
“Trainingtwo wizards.”
He nibbled her throat. “How long do you think that’ll take?”
“Bean and I are already negotiating terms. You’re a hard case. Atleast fifty years.”
He smiled as he kissed his way up her neck to her jaw. “With time added for good behavior?”
“And extra time for very, very bad behavior,” she whispered against his mouth. “We’d better get started—Bean? It’s time for your nap, sweetheart.”
Edge of Fearis a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Books Mass Market Original
Copyright © 2006 by Cherry Adair
Excerpt forEdge of Darkness © 2006 by Cherry Adair
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
BALLANTINEand colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming bookEdge of Darkness. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
eISBN-13: 978-0-345-49349-1
eISBN-10: 0-345-49349-4
www.ballantinebooks.com
v1.0
To Rhonda Pollero
For curses, Curses, and laughter.
With the magic of hindsight,
I agree.
Ido owe you
all the muffins
and bagels in the land.
A special thanks to
Heather Wieker from Sea-Tac Airport.
See? I was quite serious.
And for David, with love
Duty o’er love was the choice you did make
My love you did spurn, my heart you did break
Your penance to pay, no pride you shall gain
Three sons on three sons find nothing but pain
I gift you my powers in memory of me
The joy of love no son shall ever see
When a Lifemate is chosen by the heart of a son
No protection can be given, again I have won
His pain will be deep, her death will be swift,
Inside his heart a terrible rift
Only freely given will this curse be done
To break the spell, three must work as one
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Also by Cherry Adair
Except of Edge of Fear
Preview for Edge of Darkness
Don't be afraid...take yourself over the edge!
Copyright Page
Cherry Adair, Edge Of Fear
