Harlequin Nocturne September 2018 Box Set by Michele Hauf

Author:Michele Hauf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 2

I’m not here to claim the sword. Or you.

Her words echoed in his ears long after the silence of the forest had descended around their standoff once more. His feet were planted on firm ground. His muscles responded when he tightened his fists. His chest rose and fell. His heart beat. But none of those things negated the feeling that he stood on a jagged, dangerous precipice waiting for the suck of gravity to take him down, down, down to the floor of the canyon somewhere far below.

Bell was gone. But she was also mere feet away from where he stood waiting to fall to his death. The fall never came, of course. That would have been an escape, and there was no escape from this. The feeling of being on the edge of a cliff was only the emptiness her presence caused deep in his gut.

Because she wasn’t really here.

This wasn’t the girl he’d known. She wasn’t even the woman the girl had become as they’d endured the curse together, side by side. He’d been Bell’s protector. Her constant companion for more years than he could count. He’d been in his wolf form, but he remembered every second, every one-sided conversation, every wistful sigh and every battle. Those intimate memories scalded his already raw emotions.

The beautiful witch who faced him with wide green eyes and damp curly hair was a stranger, an enemy who was interfering with the hunt for his brother right when he was as close as he’d ever been to luring Lev home.

Soren had no time for Anna. He had to make the distinction between the girl he had known and the witch she had become clear in his heart. He had to save his brother before it was too late. Talk of swords and witches only prolonged the inevitable moment when he would have to see her leave again. Even if she only left once he had driven her away.

* * *

The howl that sounded around them was so different from the natural wolf’s howl she’d heard before that Anna jumped away from the tree. She’d have time later to mourn what she might have had with Soren Romanov if she’d actually been the foundling he loved.

For now, she swallowed her fear and chose to survive.

She had her left glove off before her feet hit the ground, and as she landed with her boots planted wide apart, the other glove fell beside its partner. Beneath her scarlet cloak—her princess garb—she wore deep green insulated leggings and a matching microfiber jacket that would have seemed at home on a cross-country skier’s body.

She’d grown used to eclectic dress as the orphaned waif of Bronwal. She saw no reason to change now. She was still Bell, even as she found her way as Anna, whether Soren understood that or not.

The veins in her hands glowed a pale green beneath her porcelain skin in the forest shadows as her cloak fell back from her shoulders to hang in a long flow of scarlet down her back.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.