Authors: Sherwood Smith

Trouble with Kings (44 page)

His arms tightened around her as he lowered his head and sucked the moisture off her shoulder as well. Sebastian’s mouth was hot on her skin and his teeth raked across her rapidly beating pulse.

“You taste good…” he moaned into her neck.

“Bastian,” she said hoarsely, “I…I don’t know what to do. Show me what to do.”

Lifting his face to hers, he gave her a tender kiss and said, “Put your legs around me.”

She looked at him in confusion but he held her close. “Trust me.”

With his help, she locked her legs around his waist. He waded through the water until her back was against the large boulder. When he was sure she was secure, he leaned closer, pressing his entire body length flush with hers, molding himself to her as he took her mouth with a sudden, surprising passion.

She answered him back with her own desire, teasing him with her tongue.

“Good God, you are so beautiful,” he murmured as his mouth moved to her ear.

Jewel chuckled, sliding her fingers into his unruly wet hair. “It seems we think alike, you and I.” She relished the feeling of his body moving erotically against hers.

He growled at her words as he unwound her hands from his hair, lacing his fingers with hers. He pressed them back against the boulder on either side of her head. The simple gesture of having both her hands entwined with his seemed, at that moment, the most intimate and natural thing to do.

“Are you ready?” he panted.

“More than you know.”

“It might hurt.”

“I don’t care.”

Between two races that hate each other, at the doorway between two worlds, can Claire find the strength to be the emissary they all need?

Go Between

Halfway through her twenties, her divorce, and a bottle of rye, Claire opens her birthday present—a “pressed fairy” book.

One of the fairies is neither pressed, nor a picture.

He’s the sinfully sexy Dell, who’s been trapped inside the book for twenty years. The moment Claire frees him, goblins attack her house.

Dell and Claire’s only option is to use a “Between”—a rift between their worlds—to escape into the land of Fae.

There, Claire discovers the elven queen, Eliane, has a mission for her—one that has her keeping secrets from Dell.

And ousting the goblins from her home is only the start.

Book One of The Curtain Torn series.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Go Between
:

Claire smothered a gag that had nothing to do with the rye she’d been drinking. Glaring at the birthday gift, she cradled the bottle in her hand. So it was only a mickey. Claire was a cheap drunk. With her almost compulsive tendency to finish what she started, a forty in the house would have just been stupid. She wanted enough to ease her pain, not end up standing on her balcony, naked and screaming at passers-by. Not again.

The no-name cola she’d been using for mix sat on the coffee table, which suddenly seemed too far away. After a moment of consideration, she swigged directly from the bottle of rye. Her eyes burned, and her cheeks bellowed, but it stayed down. She grinned with a fierce pride. The smile froze when her gaze fell on the papers on the ottoman and the gaudily wrapped package beside them. Reminders of what had caused her to crawl into the bottle to begin with. One was her birthday present from Ryan. Not the overly festive package, either. No, her high school sweetheart and husband of five years had served her with divorce papers. On her twenty-fifth birthday. Not that the divorce was a surprise, they’d been separated for over a year, but as always, Ryan’s timing sucked.

The only one whose timing was worse was her sister, Marielle. Because she had just opened the divorce papers when another messenger arrived. Carrying the package. Neon-green wrapping paper with tiny purple and aqua polka dots, tied with a huge hot-pink bow; it was the ugliest thing Claire had ever seen. And whatever was inside it could only be as bad. Maybe worse. Marielle had some strange ideas of what Claire wanted, and who she was. Past birthday gifts had included edible underwear, adult-only Twister, and fuzzy socks. In the same package.

The eye-popping paper didn’t disguise the gift—it was a book. A big book. A heavy book. Yet, still, a book. But Claire couldn’t help but wonder what kind of book it was. She’d spent an entertaining half-hour taking wild guesses. Her latest: a coffee table version of the Kama Sutra, with full colour illustrations. Bound in leopard-print velour. Claire studied the package again, letting her gaze trace the lines of it, too afraid to let her hands do the same.

Lifting the bottle for another swig, she checked the level of the amber liquid inside. Half empty. Or was that half full? She giggled. It didn’t matter. Either way, she had half of a bottle to self-medicate with. If the book turned out to be the Nazi manifesto, bound in human skin, she’d have enough alcohol to drown the memory. The bottle tucked into the crook of her arm, Claire pulled the ottoman closer with her free hand. She hefted the book in her arms and debated putting it back, ignoring it, pretending it had never arrived. She knew Marielle would phone, though, asking pointed questions to make sure Claire had really opened the book.

Sighing, Claire tore off the ugly pink bow. Peeling away the wrapping paper, she stared in disbelief at the cover of the book in her lap. It was a Squashed Faery book. Each page featured a different illustration of a faery, supposedly pressed between the pages of the book like a flower. She traced the gold-embossed lettering of the title with one finger, a smile tilting the corners of her mouth. Warmth that had nothing to do with alcohol spread through her body. She and Marielle had gotten a similar book when they were kids, from some aunt they hardly knew. They’d spent hours staring at the pictures, giggling at the expressions on the tiny faces. With every turn of the page they would try to convince each other they’d seen one move before the giggles would set in again.

The happy memories made her feel worse as the reality of her current situation slammed into her. She was twenty-five. The middle of her twenties. The middle of a divorce. The middle of a crisis. She took another swig then put the bottle on the floor beside her. Peeling off the plastic that bound the book, she inhaled the familiar scent of paper, tainted slightly with the mustiness of age.

She stopped after listlessly turning a few pages and stared down at the book. Red, brown, green and gold leaves appeared to swirl across the page, as though being tossed by a gentle breeze. The male faery, wrapped in an autumn-red leaf, was almost invisible. His hands were outstretched, palms up, as though he was trying to push the pages off himself. His hair looked like spider webs fanned around his chiselled features, which were pinched with his efforts. Without those tiny hands, she might never have found him in the tumble of leaves. Peering into the book, she followed the line of his wide shoulders, down his chest to a narrow waist. Not badly built, for a Little People. Little Person? Claire considered that, reaching over the book to grab the mickey. Something bit her breast, and she jumped, the rye sloshing in the bottle, but not spilling.

“What the hell?”

A spider. Maybe an ant. She looked at the page, expecting to see some kind of biting insect skittering across the page. Never mind that in the midst of a Canadian winter, any bug but a cockroach would be hibernating. And the thought of a cockroach—especially one that might bite—was just too disgusting to consider. When she looked down, already inhaling to let loose a scream that would shatter a bug to pieces, there was nothing on the page but the little faery. His tiny hands were clenched into fists, and his chin jutted at her in defiance. Something about that wasn’t right. She exhaled noisily and turned the page, then took another swig, her eyes closing against the fierce burn.

She opened her eyes in time to watch the page flip back to the one with the leaf-faery. Futile fury welled up in her chest. She’d told Ryan there was something wrong with the windows. Even when they were closed, a breeze came through the living room. This was proof. The brief moment of victory felt hollow, though. Ryan was across town at his girlfriend’s place—not there to listen to her gloat.

She sighed, leaning away from the book to put the bottle on the floor beside her, checking it when it wobbled. Satisfied it wouldn’t fall, she stared at the little faery. His fisted hands were outstretched, pushing up over his head, a thin layer of plastic bubbling up from the page with his efforts.

Wait. That wasn’t right. She pulled the book up close to her nose to examine the faery.

“Are you going to sit there gawking, or are you going to help me out here?”

The book fell to her lap, and Claire watched the faery jostle across the page. She stared in disbelief at the faery standing in the middle of the page with his hands on his hips. She tilted the book to the left, and the faery slid across the page. She angled the book to the right, and he skittered that way, his feet skipping underneath him to keep his balance. When the book was level again, he turned his gaze onto Claire. “Would you stop that?” He stamped his foot in irritation.

“Oh, sorry,” Claire said, but he wasn’t listening. Reaching toward Claire, his hands pressed against the plastic, separating it from the page. His hands were far enough apart to create two separate bubbles with space between them. Claire thought they looked like pinchers. As his hands closed together, she realised she hadn’t been bitten, but pinched. Part of her brain whispered she should be incensed, but she was too fascinated to work up much in the way of anger. She stared as he pushed one hand to join the other in its plastic bubble, straining his muscles to break free. But the plastic wouldn’t give. It snapped back into place with a pop, and he sagged. Panting with exertion, he glowered up at her. “Could you give me a hand?”

Without thinking, Claire reached out to touch the page with the tip of her finger. Wiggling her nail a little, she felt the soft resistance of the bubble around the little man. With a final twist of her finger, her nail gouged the bubble. The man’s hands burst through to grab her fingertip. Holding tight, he heaved himself out of the book, the plastic shredding around him. Once he’d brushed himself off, he stood astride the open pages with a triumphant grin.

“Much better, thanks!” He shook his head, which sent his silver hair fluttering around his face. Stamping his foot on the page, he glared at the book as if he’d like to rip it to shreds. “Horrid place to spend a couple decades.”

Brushing his arms off with the palms of his hands, he let his gaze rove her body. “Well,” he said, with one eyebrow cocked. “Hello there.”

The Trouble With Kings

Sherwood Smith

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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The Trouble with Kings

ISBN: 1-59998-448-2

Edited by Anne Scott

Cover by Anne Cain

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First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: February 2008

www.samhainpublishing.com

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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