“Sorry. We were too late to save them.”
Watching the light fade in her eyes was like seeing a car crash in slow motion. And it hit him just as hard. “Did you see my parents?”
He shook his head. “I’m so sorry. There was no sign of them.”
Daria swallowed hard. “Did you even try?”
Those words hit him like a slap. Josiah recoiled. “How could you ask me such a thing?”
“How could I not?”
Fury stung him deep and it launched his bitterness. He was a fool to think for one minute that she might be different. In the end, she was as black-blooded as the rest of her kind.
“Whatever. I’m not going to stand here and let you put your hatred in my heart, and condemn me like some tabloid working off half-truths gleaned from propaganda you made up out of thin air, and the falsified opinions you gleaned from your friends, because you want to hate me and you’re looking for any excuse to justify it.” He started to leave, then stopped himself. “You know, I could have forgiven you for anything but this unfounded accusation that I don’t deserve. I won’t be condemned for your fears. Only for the actions and sins that I actually do.”
Daria sucked her breath in sharply as Josiah turned into a crow and vanished.
She’d be furious but for the fact that she understood.
He was right. She’d condemned him without a hearing and on assumptions that had no basis in fact.
Still...
Who could blame her? The humans had wrapped themselves in a flag of treachery and bitterness. Was it so much to assume they would strike back at her race any way they could?
They’re going to eat you alive...
Especially now that she’d lost her only ally.
“Here.”
Daria jumped as someone offered her a tissue to wipe away her tears.
Looking up, she met the gaze of an extremely gorgeous human male. One with brown hair and dark brown eyes. His caramel skin was dusted with a day’s growth of beard that added a rugged quality to the perfection of hard, chiseled features. “Thank you.”
He inclined his head to her. “Don’t worry. You’re not the only one who thinks Crow’s an ass.”
Those words both startled and amused her. “Pardon?”
“I said you’re not the only one who can’t stand the smug, sanctimonious prick.” He changed his features so that he appeared to be as Maten as she did.
And not just any Maten. This was one she knew all too well. One she’d never expected to see again.
“Frayne?”
His features dark, he narrowed his gaze on her. “You’re not the only one with secrets, Daria. And there’s a lot of things Xed didn’t tell you.” He brushed his hand over her cheek, causing her heart to race and her skin to burn with a memory of how much he meant to her. How much they’d shared. “I swear, I never meant for you or your parents to get caught up in any of this.”
Her head spun at what she was seeing. What she was hearing.
What she still felt for him.
Was this for real?
Was it really him?
“You’re a Shif?”
He nodded, then leaned down to whisper in her ear. “And if you can forgive me and trust me again, I swear I can get your parents back. But first you have to decide whose side you’re really on.… Ours or theirs.”
THE WITCH OF ENDOR
THE BLACK SWAN SOCIETY
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Chapter 1
Be careful. The devil will steal your soul.”
Shifting the heavy cardboard box in her arms, Anna Carol blinked at the ominous voice. “Excuse me?”
No one was there.
A chill went up her spine as she turned around slowly in her new apartment and glanced around the empty space.
Nothing.
It looked as cheery and bright as it had two weeks ago when the plump little real estate lady had led her through it, and she’d fallen in love with the place. It’d only taken her fifteen minutes to decide that this was where she wanted to start her life over. That this was the right place to begin fresh.
Richmond, Virginia. Childhood home of Edgar Allen Poe. The place where Patrick Henry had given his infamous “Give Me Liberty or Death” speech. This was where they’d passed the first statute for Religious Freedom written by Thomas Jefferson.
At one time, Virginia was America. This was where it’d all began. Decades before the Pilgrims had made landfall at Plymouth Rock, the colonists in Virginia had intrepidly carved out new lives for themselves here in the wilds off the banks of the James River.
So, it was ironic that when she’d dragged out her father’s old road map he’d once used to plan holiday fishing trips, closed her eyes, and randomly placed a thumbtack on a city to move to after her divorce, it had landed squarely on the very city that one of her ancestors had boldly helped to build. It still gave her a chill whenever she thought about it.
Having decided that she was going to pick up everything, and go wherever fate decreed, here she was.
No regrets.
If only she could say as much about her marriage.
Don’t think about it. Rick was a prick. That was her motto.
She couldn’t change her past. Only her attitude about it. And so, she’d sold everything she could, packed up her red Jeep, and hightailed it from Huntsville to Richmond.
To start over. Tabula rasa.
And it certainly didn’t get more blank or Spartan than this apartment with its plain, white walls that stared at her with threatening austerity.
She shivered in revulsion, wishing she could paint them the bright eggplant and green colors she’d used in her old Huntsville house that Rick had managed to steal out from under her.
“I’ll get some pictures.”
Some drapes.
That would help cheer things up a bit more. Especially if one was a picture of her ex with an axe planted firmly between his eyes.
Smiling at the thought, Anna set the box down, then opened her door to return to her car for another load . . . and almost ran smack dab into a young man.
Handsome and ripped, he was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt as if he were about to go running.
“Oh, sorry,” he mumbled. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
She scowled as she caught a glimpse of his pupils through his dark sunglasses. For an instant, she could have sworn they flashed red. Must have been an optical illusion. “No problem. I’m just moving in.”
“Ah.” He glanced at her door. “I’m in the apartment above you. I was wondering if anyone would ever move into this one, again.”
Her frown deepened at the odd note in his voice. “What do you mean?”
He stopped scrolling through his playlist and lowered his phone. “You hadn’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
One brow shot north. “Um . . . nothing. Nothing at all.” As he started to leave she stopped him.
“Do you have a name?”
“Of course.” And with that, he dodged out the doors and down the stairs, toward the parking lot.
Okay then. He’d obviously flunked Southern Hospitality 101 and took an extra course in Rude.
“Ignore Luke. He has a personality disorder.”