My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(22)

“Perhaps it will be a relief,” Constantina says. “But first, dear Ollie, for your foolish decision to be more loyal to your country than to me, you shall watch your friends die before you!”

She aims her pistol where you and Mac once stood…and gasps as she realizes that you are no longer there. Seizing the opening, you swing your stocking-rock and clock her squarely in the head. She collapses, the gun slipping from her fingers, and falls into Mac, who places his dirk at her throat.

As Ollie stares in cold rage at his former amour, you use your other stocking to bind Constantina’s wrists.

“Let’s go,” you command. “To the castle.”





Nicely rigged, you! March on to this page.





“I choose you. I choose pleasure. I choose now,” you whisper, releasing yourself from the trappings of the person you thought you were and the one you might become. Delphine and Evangeline are lost in each other, and for all you know you all are lost in the desert. You might as well lose yourself in the vast expanse of Fabien’s pectorals and your shared desire.

“Worship me. Revel in me. Anoint me,” you murmur into the soft hardness of his body, your tongue lapping his skin as if it were life-giving water.

“Yes, my queen,” Fabien moans, as you slide the sword of his body first into your mouth, then into the hidden temple of your sex.

You devour each other with senseless passion as desert winds whip torrents of sand around you like so much confetti. You would be concerned about it getting in places it shouldn’t, but you are too busy being overcome with a feeling of divine blessedness and crying out with ecstasy to care. You are wetter than the Nile for this man, and he navigates your depths with the skill and magic of a sailor who knows his way to and from worlds beyond the earthly plane.

Suddenly, the earthly plane beneath you shudders and bucks. At first, you think it is Fabien trying something new and a little rough, but then you realize he has been flung a small distance from you by the shifting sands. Farther away, you see that no such disruption has pulled Delphine and Evangeline from their embrace.

Fabien crawls toward you over the violently trembling sands, as what can only be the lost Temple of Hathor breaks through the desert floor like a giant hand reaching out to steal the sun.

As the temple rises impossibly high, almost blocking out the sun with its beauty and size, Fabien leans over to you.

“Do you think it is for us?” he asks incredulously.

“Perhaps,” you say. “But I think not.”

In fact, the more intensely Evangeline and Delphine kiss, the higher the tower seems to rise. It shimmers for a moment, and then solidifies, a mirage no longer. The temple is risen. The temple is real.

You shake your head in wonder. The sand storm quiets, and the desert is as calm as a distant sea.

As disappointed as you are to leave your friend, you cannot help but feel glad for the happy couple. Nothing will please Evangeline more than to investigate the ultimate in Egyptologist fantasy—and nothing will make Delphine happier than Evangeline’s happiness. Rather than brood, you grin at Fabien and walk over to one of the camels waiting patiently on the outskirts of the camp.

“Still, maybe love’s truest pleasure is shared adventure?” You mount the noble beast and gesture toward Fabien. “Shall we?” You smile wryly.

He swings himself onto another camel and nods.

You admire Fabien’s fearsome, almost feline form as he effortlessly guides his beast of burden to intrigue and adventures. Who knows what will come, but you certainly will, until your next adventure. You spur your camel to follow his…and quickly realize the fatal flaw in your current scheme.

“Er…Fabien?” you call out. “How exactly does one direct one of these things?”

The End





You address None-of-Your-Business. “You there. Most ornery child.” He scowls.

“What’s ornery?” he asks.

“I’ll tell you once you drag that blackboard into the street. We are going to make the world our schoolroom. We are going OUTSIDE!”

The children cheer. Together, you and the mass of miniature ruffians maneuver the blackboard out of the room with a minimum of sweat and tears. Just as you’ve passed the last bit of the board over the threshold, Abercrombie approaches.

“Aye, lass! I reckon your moxie will take Mac for quite the surprise!” While Abercrombie congratulates you, you notice his gaze search over your shoulder and alight on a fine wooden chest shoved near the back of the messy schoolroom. “I’ve had the stroke o’ luck to round up some friends in the neighborhood. You teach your lesson, and by the time you get back, me ‘n’ my boys will have this place fixed up for you, good as new!”

You beam. “Thank you, Colonel Abercrombie!”

“’Tis my pleasure, miss,” Abercrombie says and beams back. He starts the cleanup by moving the fine wooden chest.

You lead the children (and the blackboard) out to the gray street, then put your hands on your hips. “Ornery,” you say. “Is that a word any of you know?”

The children look at their tattered shoes in shame.

“No,” None-of-Your-Business says, and he scowls again.

“Well,” you continue, “have you ever met a cat that creeps up close to you, but then swipes at you when you pet it?”