Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(97)
“Is this just about jealousy?” She looked worried again. “Because that’s not love.”
“It’s not.” He kissed her. “Jealousy, I mean. This is… I don’t know, different than anything I’ve felt before.”
“Me, too,” she whispered, then she smiled up at him through her tears and he felt his own eyes filling up.
She laughed. “God, would you look at us? How did this happen?”
“Hell if I know. I think it happened for me when I first saw you out at that dig site, covered in dirt and bossing everyone around. Only I didn’t know it then.”
She laughed, but then her face grew serious. She glanced over her shoulder at the airport behind them as the reality of what he had to do came back into focus.
“Are we really going to try this?” she asked.
“Trying isn’t going to work.” He took her hand and looked into her eyes. He hoped he could somehow make her understand. “If you want to do something really hard, you have to decide. And then make it happen. Are you up for that?”
She kissed him, and she was heat and sex and tenderness and Kelsey, and she was everything that had turned his world upside down and everything he’d come to care about, and she was the thing that had made his heart start working again when he’d thought it was dead.
And when she was done kissing him, he pulled back and looked down at her. “Is that a yes?”
She smiled. “That’s a yes.”
Turn the page
for a sneak peek
at the first novel in the new Belador series
Blood Trinity
from
New York Times bestselling authors
SHERRILYN KENYON AND DIANNA LOVE
Coming soon from Pocket Books
UTAH, BENEATH THE SALT FLATS
August 2008
Uphold my vows and die.
Or break my vows and die.
Evalle Kincaid had faced death more than once in the past five years, but never with so little hope of escape. A citric odor burned her lungs, confirming that Medb majik shrouded the rock walls, high ceiling, and dirt floor of her underground prison.
Grace be to Macha, Evalle still couldn’t believe one of her own, a Belador, had betrayed her.
Not just her.
Anger over the betrayal and her own stupidity for falling for this filled her deep. But she pushed it down, knowing it wouldn’t do anything except weaken her more. And right now, she needed her full sense and bearings.
Peeking carefully from beneath lowered eyelashes, she took in the other two captives—male Beladors—also held upright by invisible constraints.
A human would be blind in this black hole but her vision thrived on total darkness. Natural night vision that allowed her to see in a range of monochromatic blue-grays. One rare perk of being an Alterant—a half-breed Belador… unlike those two purebloods with their backs against the glistening red-orange stone wall.
Did those men know each other?
Did she really care? They were either allies or enemies. And until she knew more about them, they were definitely enemies.
Similar in height and size, they were different as night and day in skin color and the way they dressed. The one with nothing on but jeans had been conscious when she’d regained her wits twenty minutes ago. Completely still, he hadn’t made a sound since then—like a snake lying low until it saw an opportunity to strike. Arms outstretched and legs spread apart, his gaze now cut sideways at a rustle of movement.
The fair-haired guy on his left struggled to reach lucidity.
Being imprisoned with two Beladors would normally fill her with hope for escape, because of their ability to link with each other and combine their powers. When that happened, Beladors fighting together were a force few unnatural beings could win against.
But linking required unquestioned trust. And right now, she couldn’t offer trust so easily. Not after a Belador’s telepathic call for help had lured her into this hole—into the hands of Medb warlocks—her tribe’s most vicious enemy for two thousand years.
Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice…
Die with pain.
Even so, could she refuse to help these two warriors—members of her tribe—if there was a chance to save them? Beladors were a secret race of Celtic people connected by powerful genetics and living in all parts of the world. She’d only met a few. Never these two.
But every member of the tribe had sworn an oath to uphold a code of honor, to protect the innocent and any other Belador who needed help.
If a warrior broke that vow every family member faced the same penalty as the warrior, even the penalty of death.
Evalle had no one who would be affected by her decisions—too bad her aunt was dead, but she’d still upheld her vows since the day she’d turned eighteen. Not because she had to, but because she wanted to. And—until now—she’d always supported her tribe without question.
Absolute trust was expected, demanded, among the Beladors.
Were those two Beladors across from her allies or foes?
She had one chance to answer that question correctly. Live or die…
What else was new?
“Anyone know who called for this delightful little meeting?” the fair-haired male grumbled in a smooth voice born of enhanced genetics and a hint of British influence. The sound matched the urbane angles of his European face, which could be Slovak or Russian. He straightened his shoulders as if that would smooth the creases in his overpriced suit, obviously tailored to fit that athletically cut body that James Bond would envy. She’d put him in his early thirties and close to six foot three.