As Kougar turned toward the door, Zeeland released Julianne and followed.
“Kougar. You’ve known the Ilinas still existed all along.”
Kougar didn’t turn around. “Yes.”
“Why do they let you live?”
The Feral glanced over his shoulder, meeting his gaze with cold eyes, then turned and left without replying.
Zeeland stared after him, then shook his head and turned back to Julianne.
She watched him with pensive, uncertain eyes.
His heart expanded until it ached in his chest. She was so beautiful. So precious to him.
He went to her and pulled her into his arms, cradling her against his chest. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
Her arms slipped around him, and she clung to him. “Yes.”
“Me, too, though I’ll be better once we’re mated.”
She pulled back to look up at him, an aching sadness in her eyes.
“Zee…I hate that you’re being forced to take me as your mate.”
“I’m being forced into nothing.”
“You never intended to bind yourself to me.”
He smiled. “Not true. I think I knew from the start you were going to be mine someday. I tried to fight my fate, probably because I’d spent a century believing I never wanted to be bound to another. But I was wrong, Sunshine. I spent a century alone and lonely. This past decade without you, I’ve been miserable. Only with you have I ever been happy. Have I truly felt alive.”
Tears gathered in her eyes. “I love you, Zeeland. With all my heart, I love you.”
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, tasting her tears. And her joy. And feeling his heart burst in his chest, overflowing with a love that would not be contained.
“I love you, Julianne. Be my mate and my companion for all eternity.”
“Yes, Zee. A thousand times yes.”
He pulled back and grabbed her hand. “Come on. We’ll go downstairs and do it right now, in the middle of the party.” A grin spread over his face. “That should get the festivities popping.”
Julianne laughed, a sweet, musical sound that sang through his veins and made him feel like he was the one floating this time.
“Are we really going to marry on Valentine’s Day?”
He stroked her cheek and smiled with all the love in his heart. “Can you think of a better time?”
“No. It’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
He kissed her again. “As are you, my beautiful Julianne.
Perfect
.”
When
PAMELA PALMER
’s initial career goal of captaining starships didn’t pan out, she turned to engineering, satisfying her desire for adventure with books and daydreams until finally succumbing to the need to write stories of her own. Pamela lives and writes in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Please visit her on the web at
www.pamelapalmer.net
.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
JAIME RUSH
Chapter One
Anyone who hyped Valentine’s Day should be locked in a cold theater and made to watch sappy movies for an entire month. While eating nothing but chocolates. No sleeping allowed.
Kristy walked into Casey’s Coffee Shop and snarled at the pink and red hearts dangling from the ceiling like an obstacle course.
Five days to go. Let’s not forget this mushy stuff has been in my face for three weeks now.
She got into the line and cranked up her iPod to drown out the noise. She bobbed to the funky-alternative-rock band, Does It Offend You, Yeah, as she moved ahead in line. To say that the MP3 player had saved her sanity was not overstating a fact. Reluctantly, she paused “Dawn of the Dead” and pulled out the earbuds as she stepped up to the counter.
“Mondo white chocolate mocha, please.”
She readied herself for the noise. Not steam-hitting-metal or conversation. No, these sounds were much worse: everyone’s thoughts.
What am I going to do about Stan
,
that cheating bastard?
Kewl. That hot chick’s checking me out.
Crap
,
my stock just took a dump.
Ever since this curse started at the age of fifteen, she hated being around people. Being a travel writer was much preferable to having to work in an office or in retail. It was also why having a relationship—heck, even having sex—was a nightmare. Hearing the guy’s every thought, not so good. For example:
“John, does this skirt make my butt look big?”
“No, not at all, honey.”
Only as big as a freakin’ mountain.
Even worse was when they lied about where they had been and with whom.
Being able to pop those earbuds in and hear her fave tunes instead of everyone’s thoughts was a godsend. If only she could learn to resist moving her body to the music.
She wasn’t just here to grab a coffee, though. She had an important meeting. The magazine she’d been doing freelance assignments for was closing. She needed to line up a new gig. This opportunity had come out of nowhere, a real coup. She was early enough to snag a java and get her bearings before the people she was meeting arrived.
She was going to have to watch
her
thoughts. If everything worked out, Adrian Kruger might be her new boss. From everything she’d read and seen about him online, he was funny, down-to-earth, and mouthwateringly gorgeous.
Bad idea
,
Kristy
,
and a good way to lose an assignment.
The place was a cacophony of voices, audio, and thought, and she tried to tune them out. One thought, though, stood out because it was more menacing than the jumble of other thoughts:
Oh
,
yes
,
there she is. That face would look lovely on the news as Kiss and Kill Cupid’s next victim.
She turned around, feeling as though she’d been dunked in a vat of ice water. Kiss and Kill Cupid. He’d been menacing New York City for five years, killing a woman on Valentine’s Day. The most disturbing aspect was his signature: he left a lipstick kiss along with the words “Kiss and Kill, Cupid” across the dead woman’s stomach. The media, of course, had been playing that up as well as the romantic aspects of the holiday.
Had she heard the words correctly? Maybe it was a mix of two people’s thoughts that only sounded like…all right, she couldn’t kid herself. The killer was in here, and he’d found his next victim.
Then her body went even colder. Had he meant
her
? A few men were looking her way though none with an evil gleam in his eyes.
And that long blond hair
,
I’ll bet it’s as silky as
,
well
,
silk. Maybe I could use it to strangle her with.
She involuntarily clamped her hand over her hair, her heart hammering in her chest.
“Kristy Morgan?”
She jumped at the voice coming from right beside her.
The man standing next to her looked like the pictures in the write-ups, only he was bigger than she’d imagined. And even more gorgeous. He had to be six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders and straight brown hair that fell to his shoulders. In a cable sweater and jeans, he looked every bit the part of the outdoorsy adventurer.
He smiled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Are you Kristy?”
Take a breath.
“Yes.” She held out her hand, jabbing it toward him, feeling flustered and taken off guard in more ways than one. “You must be Adrian Kruger.”
He nodded to another man sitting at a table. “My business partner, Owen, and I are sitting over there.”
When the barista told her the amount due, Adrian put his hand on hers. “Allow me.”
“That’s not nec…”
He’d already paid the young man, and another barista called out her order. She looked around the café again, fear tightening her throat.
Why is this happening during what might be the most important meeting of my life?
She took her cup, feeling the warmth seeping into her cold fingers. “I, uh…thank you.”
He led her toward their table, but her thoughts were a scramble. Owen stood and extended his hand. He wasn’t nearly as tall or as built as Adrian. His smile was bland, his gray eyes blank behind his square, black-rimmed glasses. The shaggy blond hair and wrinkled, linen shirt gave him the look of someone confused about what style he was going for: business, college student, or surfer.
She shrugged out of her coat, and Adrian took it from her and draped it over the empty chair. He held out her chair for her. She tried not to seem surprised at the act of chivalry as she thanked him.
She was faced away from most of the café and had to fight not to turn around and keep studying the crowd. Okay, just a glance. Still, no one obvious. The thoughts she heard weren’t the killer’s:
I’ve got to get this formula memorized before the exam tomorrow.
When is she going to get here?
Her elbow tipped over her coffee. She caught it before it hit the table even as Adrian tried to grab it, too. Their hands collided, but she kept a hold on her cup. She smiled and tried her best to compose herself. It didn’t help that through her earbuds, which were hanging around her neck, Katy Perry was singing about kissing a girl. Kristy yanked down the wires and set them in her lap.
She focused on the two men sitting across from her, her forced smile still in place. “It’s so nice to meet you both.”
Adrian and Owen had gotten publicity by being twenty-year-olds who’d started a successful outdoor adventure magazine three years ago. They were hailed as “Beauty and the Brain” by one snarky magazine because someone had found a modeling shoot Adrian had done to earn money while he, as he’d put it, worked and lived his way across the country.
She knew she’d like him when he commented in a later article that he was glad he hadn’t done the nude layout he’d been offered. That would have given the name of his magazine a whole new meaning.
She tried to push aside the creepy sensation of being watched and focus on the interview. “I love
Get Out!
It’s fresh, fun, a bit irreverent, and pushes the boundaries. Maybe I shouldn’t say this at the outset, but I’d really like to write for you.”
Adrian’s perfect smile and white teeth made her heart flutter. “I feel the same about your writing.” For such a masculine man, he was surprisingly soft-spoken. “Most of our articles are in-your-face, out-there, rugged adventures. When I read your article about finding inner peace while sitting on a rock in a rushing creek in Helen, Georgia, I forgot about the five meetings I had scheduled that day, forgot about the pile of phone messages sitting on my computer, forgot about the looming deadline. I was there on that rock. I want to share that experience with my readership. I’m thinking a monthly column of about six thousand words to start.”
Oddly enough, she had also done some modeling, nudged by her mother, and when she found herself in exotic locales, she became lost in the moment, journaling about how the place made her feel…much to the annoyance of the photographer who was waiting on her. She quit modeling and pursued a freelance writing career, covering far-flung (and thus not-so-populated) places.
Owen spoke his first words so far. “As soon as he read your piece, he was determined to bring you on board.”
Adrian gave her a pointed look that demonstrated his determination. “You’re good. I want you.”
Those words shimmered through her.
Want you.
Her writing, of course. With all the other thoughts flying around, she couldn’t quite pick up theirs.
Owen’s voice was as deadpan as his expression. “As the sales manager, I need to make sure your kind of column would integrate well with the rest of the magazine. And with advertisers. We’d like to see some sample pieces, with
Get Out!
and its high-octane readership in mind.” He pulled out three issues of the magazine from a leather satchel and handed them to her.
She nodded as she fought to filter out random thoughts, including one she knew was about her:
That girl’s wearing socks with her high heels?
She involuntarily crossed her ankles beneath her chair, then uncrossed them and even extended her left leg. Yes, pink socks with the periwinkle blue heels that matched her dress. A pink silk scarf around her neck matched her socks.
“I can write up a couple of pieces over the next few days.” She brushed a lock of hair from her forehead, taking the opportunity to glance back in hopes of catching someone leering at her with menace in his eyes. No such luck.
She turned back to the two men at her table. Could it be one of them? The thought startled her.
Get hold of yourself
,
girlie. You’re good at masking your reactions. Put on that perky smile
,
no matter what the other person is thinking.
’Course, she’d never heard someone plotting her murder before.
Adrian’s blue eyes were filled with concern. “Are you all right?”
She took a sip of her coffee, taking a moment to compose. “I’m fine. I’d better get going, though, get to work.” She tapped the magazines Owen had given her. She’d read the current issue before the meeting.
She stood, scanning the café. The line of people down the middle blocked her view of the far side of the room.
Oh
,
yeah
,
she’s perfect. I could have fun with that pink scarf
,
too.
She grabbed at her scarf as she got to her feet, stumbling as she spun around too fast. Adrian’s hand clamped onto her shoulder to steady her.
She laughed in such a god-awful phony way, he couldn’t have missed it. “My heel caught on the chair leg.”
He turned to Owen. “I’m going to walk her out.”
“It’s okay. I promise, I’m not a klutz.”
His laugh was soft. “Walking a lady out is just something I do.”
Really? Is this guy for real? Or is he a murderer?