AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Eden Montgomery.” Lemaire’s voice lashed at me like a whip. “Come back here.”
My shoulders pulled up around my ears. I fought an urge to obey, to give in.
No.
I would not go back. I was fighting for not just my freedom, but the baby’s.
The compulsion increased. Stop. Turn around. Look into my eyes…
I strained against the urge to obey.
“No!” This time I said it aloud, and then I screamed it. “No! Leave me the fuck alone!”
My scream echoed in the cavern. The compulsion weakened, then abruptly broke. I stumbled forward, falling to my hands and knees on the gritty cavern floor, but kept going, crawling across the cavern floor toward the protection of the boulders. Although what good that would do with Lemaire watching me, I didn’t know.
But turning back would be giving in. And I would not give in.
“Eden!” A deep voice made my breath hitch.
I lifted my head. “Talon?”
Was it really him or was I dreaming?
“Hang on, baby. I’m almost there.” Powerful arms scooped me up. When I startled, he said, “Easy, now. It’s me, Talon.”
“Talon?” I brought a hand to his cheek, even though my fingers were blocks of ice, too numb to feel anything. “It’s…you? You’re really here?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” His lips touched my temple. I was so chilled they felt warm to me. “It’s me. I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”
“You came.” Emotion swamped me. I sucked in my lower lip and took a hard breath through my nose, then grabbed his shirt and burrowed my face into his neck. “You came.”
He tightened his grip on me, raining kisses on my face. “Of course, I did.”
For a couple of heartbeats, I clung to Talon, breathing him in, floating in a delirium of love and relief.
But there was something I had to tell him. Something important. I pulled a little away. “Lemaire, he…”
“What?”
My brain felt like it had been packed in cotton. I gave my head a shake, trying to remember what Lemaire had said.
“He t-told me,” I said through chattering teeth, “th-that this is a tr-trick. He’s s-set a trap.”
“The fire in the lair?” Talon asked.
Shivering uncontrollably, I worked an arm around his neck. “N-no. I m-mean, that’s just the f-f-first. There’s m-more.”
“All right. We won’t go back through the lair. We can’t anyway—it’s an inferno up there.”
A grunt drew my eyes to the boat. Brien was fighting Lemaire on the small deck. Blades clanged, the two vampires moving in a flurry of motion too fast to follow.
“Brien’s here?” I asked.
Talon nodded. “And Cain and Twilight, too.”
“They are? All of them? But—”
“They know how important you are to me. We had most of the island searching for you, the syndicate included.”
