Destiny and Deception by Delany Shannon

Author:Delany, Shannon [Delany, Shannon]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Published: 2012-01-31T06:23:37+00:00

Marlaena

It wasn’t a big store, but then again, it wasn’t a big town. The parking lot was the most remarkable thing about the little strip mall—all sleek and recently poured macadam, black as a new moon night and smooth as satin. Snow fluttered down, only showing briefly in sharp contrast to the blacktop before it vanished, white absorbed by the black. The buildings were standard fare—something new filling the façade of a franchise store that stood here earlier—its architecture proclaiming its original intent, but its strange choice of colors showing new ownership.

Judging the space I guessed the mall had been started in the nineties, hit its heyday then, and soon started to tumble into the faint signs of disrepair and a failing economy that still marred it now. A few roof shingles hung awkwardly, some mismatched from more recent repairs. The sidewalk rose up at an odd angle where a tree’s root worked to reclaim the earth beneath it, and the brick face, its corners chipped at bumper level, was in need of a good powerwash.

Gareth tugged at my hood, tucking a stray wisp of my hair back into its dark depths. “If you’d take my advice and dye it,” he whispered—his breath so close I fought a shiver—“we’d all be safer. Brunettes are a dime a dozen. But redheads—ya’ll are memorable.”

“Aren’t I memorable for something more than my hair color?” I asked, feeling the alpha in me slip away as I searched for his eyes in the falling gray of dusk.

He rolled them, his lips pressing into a long, firm line. “Come on, Princess,” he drawled in that slow Southern way of his that always seemed to say no matter how fast our lives rushed by—no matter how hard we bled out—that this was the only moment that mattered and it needed to be savored. Gareth sucked the marrow out of life without even trying—just by being. I envied him that. He looped one arm around mine. “Stroll with me.”

“I’m not the strolling type.” But with Gareth beside me, I couldn’t imagine anything else. “You’re brunette and you’re far from forgettable.”

“I’m as brunette as they come,” he said, flashing a smile full of white teeth that contrasted beautifully with his rich skin tone—so much like freshly made cocoa, and capable of warming a person just as much. An ebony curl danced near one of his pale lavender eyes and I resisted the urge to brush it back as he’d tucked mine away.

His mama was a white girl with freckles dappling her face and shoulders and his daddy was a dog as dark as midnight, he’d once said as we all had huddled together, sharing tales around a campfire beneath a bridge in some now-forgotten city miles away.

They may have been in sharp contrast to each other, but when they’d come together they’d bred one amazing wolf, in my opinion. So Gareth carried her cheekbones, pale eyes, and freckles and his father’s dark skin, broad shoulders, and amazing lips. He coughed.

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