Blind Destiny: Grimm's Circle, Book 7 [retail mobi] (20 page)

He let me go so abruptly, I was left floundering.

And empty.

Incomplete.

I knew how he felt.

The woman I love…

Covering my eyes with my hands, I said, “How do you know that you love me?”

There was no answer.

He was striding back down the beach.

Like hell.

“Damn it, you’ll answer me.”

Luc spun around to meet her as she came charging for him.

“What do you want, you insane woman?” he demanded.

“An answer. How do you know that you love me?”

“The same way I know I’m tired,” he snarled. “The same way I know Will pisses me off, and the same way I know it’s raining outside. I feel it, damn it. I love you, and I know it, because I feel it. Sometimes I think it started a long time ago, but it doesn’t matter—all that matters is that I love you. And you don’t feel the same. Now would you leave me al—” Her mouth was on his in the next breath.

“No
,” she whispered into his mind. “
I won’t leave you alone. And don’t tell me I don’t feel the same…”

Then she dropped her shields.

The shock of it sent him to his knees.

Sina went with him, her hands cupping his face. Her lips brushed over his cheeks, his eyes. “I’ve loved you for years,” she whispered, trailing a line over to murmur against his ear. “Years. I waited. I wished. But I never truly hoped. And then there you were. This wonderful, wonderful chance that I didn’t think I deserved, that I knew couldn’t ever really be mine. Then there’s this chance that maybe you could be…and I didn’t trust it. Didn’t trust you.”

She eased back and Luc gripped her head between his hands. “Enough, Sina,” he growled. “You’re spinning me around like a child’s toy and I’m dizzy. What is going on?”

“I was afraid to hope,” she murmured, touching a hand to his chest. “I wanted time, to make sure you weren’t going to change your mind. Time to trust all of this, so afraid that I think I cost us our chance. Did I do that, Luc? Are you truly going to walk away from me?”

Shuddering, he leaned in, pressed his brow to hers.

“Say you love me again,” he whispered against her lips.

“I love you. With everything I am.”

Taking her mouth in a desperate, hungry kiss, he clutched her close. Only once she was breathless did he let her go. “No walking,” he rasped, burying his face in her hair. “I’m where I need to be.”

“Both of us are.”

As the rain poured down around them, he buried his face in her hair and whispered, “Finally.”

Epilogue

“You really can’t hope to keep up with that one.”

Will sighed as Crow emerged from the night.

The wraith was going to prove troublesome.

Natasha still hadn’t spoken.

Mandy could usually get through to anybody, but not this time.

“And what should I do, wraith?” He turned to face the reaper of souls, arms crossed negligently over his chest. “Send her on with you so you can take her into the void between the plains where you dwell? She’ll die there and then she’ll be trapped. That’s not exactly an ideal fate.”

Crow just stared at him. Then his brow wrinkled. “What are you wearing?”

Will scowled and turned away. “Jeans.”

Originally they’d been blue. He’d put them on after Mandy’s ceaseless prattling about how he never wore anything but white. White trousers, white shirt, white jacket. He’d put on the blue jeans, after much, much searching. Within two hours, they’d been bleached white. It was a good thing she’d been out running at the time.

Still, they were oddly comfortable and he’d picked up several more pairs. Just keeping them in his room with his other garments was enough to leech away the color. White, apparently, was his only color option. Odd, considering how everything inside him was nothing but black.

The door opened and Crow spun around, wings flaring wide.

Mandy froze at the sight of him. Will went to her side, resting a hand on her shoulder. “
Don’t let him frighten you. He won’t hurt you, but fear feeds him
.”

She swallowed. The fear in her mental voice was so thick, she couldn’t even reply without stammering. “
Demon
?”

“No. Different being altogether. Just don’t speak to him
.”

“Crow, you should leave,” Will said flatly.

But Crow was studying Mandy like she was something altogether new and entertaining. “This one is new,” he murmured. A dark, demented smile curled his lips. “New…but she’s not human anymore.” Something flashed in his eyes. “She can survive in the void.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Will warned.

Crow’s smiled widened. “And how will you stop me? You are not as old as I. Not as strong.”

He took a step toward them.

Will ripped opened the fabric that separated their world and shoved Crow through without blinking an eye. “I said, don’t.”

He snapped it shut before Crow managed to snap his wings closed.

A spray of black feathers, blood and bone drifted down.

Mandy gulped and stumbled away. “What…what was that?”

Will blew out a sigh and knelt down, lifted one of the feathers.

“Somebody who hates me.”

About the Author

Shiloh Walker has been writing since she was a kid. She fell in love with vampires with the book Bunnicula and has worked her way up to the more…ah…serious works of fiction. She loves reading and writing just about every kind of romance. Once upon a time, she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She writes romantic suspense and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name
J.C. Daniels. You can contact her via her website at
www.shilohwalker.com/website
or find her on Twitter at
www.twitter.com/shilohwalker
.

Look for these titles by Shiloh Walker

Now Available:

The Huntress

Grimm’s Circle

Candy Houses

No Prince Charming

Crazed Hearts

Tarnished Knight

Locked in Silence

Grimm Tidings

Coming Soon:

Beautiful Scars

The Unwanted

Never fear the pain. Fear what lies behind it…

Grimm Tidings

© 2012 Shiloh Walker

Grimm’s Circle
, Book 6

In his mortal life, the only thing Jacob liked better than money was a good brawl—until he stuck his fist into the wrong fight, and a demon sent him spinning into a new life as a Grimm.

Now, a hundred years later, he’s been called to protect someone too much like himself. A woman who could let the chains of her past drag her down unless she learns to let go. A woman who fights like there’s no tomorrow, because she clearly doesn’t
want
a tomorrow.

Celeste thought her second chance at life would be an opportunity to fix some of her worst mistakes, to set things straight. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She’s trapped by the past and her regrets, and nothing—not even her darkly sexy new trainer, Jacob—has a blade sharp enough to cut her loose.

Chains are Jacob's specialty, but his help comes with a price. To her, the cost is her heart. To Jacob…something much more.

Warning: Contains a heroine with enough fight in her to put the 300 to shame. And a hero who knows how to take a punch.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Grimm Tidings:

Then his mouth was on hers.

An iceberg.

She thought he was an iceberg.

Little fool.

Her mouth was still under his, for the briefest moment. He knew it wouldn’t last long, and he intended to make the most of it. She wanted to wither away and die, did she?

Perhaps she needed to see just how much
life
she still had inside her.

Oh, but she was sweet…he’d known she would be. Her mouth was soft, even though she was still frozen with shock. Soft, and she tasted like soft, warm woman, cherries and Coke… She lived on Cherry Coke, it seemed. He could live on the taste of it on her, he supposed.

Stroking his tongue along the curve of her lower lip, he teased her lips apart, delving inside the second he had an opportunity. He didn’t believe in wasting those.

Her fingers curled into the front of his coat and over the roaring of blood in his ears, he heard the soft, broken sound of her breath…and even sweeter, the erratic beat of her heart. Her body wilted against his—he felt the push of her breasts, the softness of her belly, the long lines of the body she treated so carelessly. There was wanting in her body, needing…she wanted, she needed.
Him
…she wanted
him
.

For that moment—he felt it.

And then he felt her fist.

He took that first punch, staggering back a little. Damn, she was strong. When she would have hit him again, he caught her hand, stopping the blow before it landed. “Don’t,” he warned quietly.

When he saw the tears in her eyes, though, he wished he’d just let her hit him. Pound him bloody if it made her feel better.

“Why did you do that?” She jerked her hand.

Jacob let go, his heart aching.

Her voice was shaking. Fuck, what had he done?

“Why did you do that?”

“You’re not dead, Celine. You need to quit wishing it on yourself.”

But he didn’t think she even heard him. Celine, with a hand that trembled, touched her mouth. “You kissed me. Damn it, why did you kiss me?”

There was no chance for him to answer, because more yelling erupted from the house. Celine’s voice, angry and hurt. And then there was Gavin’s voice, tired…just tired. There was no anger there. No anger, no hurt.

“He stopped loving you, the fool,” Jacob said quietly as she turned toward the sound of the voices. “He gave up on your marriage—a long time ago, but you mourn for that life. A life where he didn’t love you as you deserved.”

“If he didn’t love me, he wouldn’t still be grieving for me.”

“Many things inspire grief,” Jacob said, turning to look back at her. The pain in her dark eyes all but put him on his knees. He’d do anything to take it from her. Anything. “Love. Anger.”

He moved to stand next to her and because he couldn’t stop himself, he touched his hand to the dark strands of her hair. “Guilt.”

She flinched.

“He cared for you, yes. But that isn’t love. It is guilt that makes him cling to your memory, Celine. If you would just let yourself look, you would see it.”

Thick-skinned vampire assassin meets smart-mouthed druid archer. Run, Cupid, run.

A Low Down Dirty Shane

© 2012 Sierra Dean

Shane Hewitt has been many things—failed husband, supernatural punching bag, and now a bitch to the vampire council of New York City. He thought killing rogue vampires was the hardest thing he’d ever do. Until a hot redhead smashes into him, shouts orders and announces she’s saving his life.

The sole female warrior in a family of druids, Siobhan O’Malley knows how to take care of herself and protect the big city from beasties who breach gateways from the fae realm. The last thing she needs is a misguided, leather-clad hottie’s help to get the job done.

Except maybe he’s exactly what she needs. Siobhan is expected to be a willing,
virginal
sacrifice on her twenty-fifth birthday. Sex with Shane to stay alive? If he can pull his foot out of his mouth long enough and stop driving her crazy, no problem.

Now if only the bad guys would leave them alone long enough to get the deed done.

Warning:
Contains a wee red-headed archer with deadly aim; a leather-jacket-wearing vampire hunter with a habit for saying all the wrong things; and a life-saving ritual that will leave them both panting.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
A Low Down Dirty Shane:

The next thing Shane knew he was throwing up on the sidewalk.

“Idiot,” Siobhan said, but she was laughing as she said it. “You’re lucky we didn’t end up trading tongues in the transport.”

“
Hurrruffff
,” Shane replied, seeing his SpaghettiOs dinner for the second time that night.

She gave him a gentle kick in the ribs. As gentle as a kick in the ribs could be, anyway.

“Get up, you great big pussy.”

Shane clambered to his feet, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and leveling her a hard glare. “A warning would have been nice.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You were too busy sexually assaulting me for me to get around to an in-flight safety demonstration.”