Transmuted
Page 33
“Thank you, Booth,” I said, and then rather more sternly, “Now do go rest before your wounds open.”
“Wouldn’t hear of it unless it came from you,” Mrs. Booth added with a tsk of her tongue. “Come on, you. You heard the miss.”
Booth allowed his wife to usher him across the thrumming floor. She was forced to take his arm for balance. “You’ll find your ship legs,” I heard him say to her as the door closed behind them.
“Tell me,” Hawke said once we were quite alone. He spanned both hands around my corseted waist, backing me slowly to the bed. “Tell me that I can have you until supper.” Mischief alight within my smile, I said innocently, “Will you help me find my ship legs?”
“And then once we touch down in America,” he replied, “we’ll work on finding your land legs.”
I grinned, unable to keep all my good feelings bottled up. It was, as far as I cared to have one, a promise—of future, of together. Not just with Hawke, but with Ashmore, Booth and Mrs.
Booth. Even with Levi, whose hunger for adventure would no doubt earn him great accolade. As the bed bumped against the back of my skirt, a hard knock thudded the door. Hawke stiffened, a flash of temper gathering at his brow, but he was given no opportunity to deny the intruder.
The door swung open, and Maddie Ruth popped her head in. Her wild curls frizzed about her gamine smile in windblown chaos. “My cabin is full to the brim with gossiping girls,” she announced. She slipped in, shutting the door behind her. “So I’ll stay with you, all right?” Hawke’s forehead bumped against my shoulder.
I couldn’t help myself. My laughter filled the cabin as the Winsome Dove gathered speed across the warm spring sky.
Maybe not everything would go so smoothly, but that was all right, too. I was used to peculiarities.
For the first time in as long as I could recall, I felt mistress of my own fate. That I required friends to support me was not a weakness.
Though we all bore scars of flesh and heart, carried the battered spirit that came with loves lost and consequences suffered, I was stronger with my friends and family than I could ever imagine being without them.
I supported them too.
Through thick and thin, eager for the adventures waiting for us in the new world we sailed to, we reached out together to embrace the future.
Catch up on the other titles in Karina Cooper’s The St. Croix Chronicles today!
Corroded
Book three of The St. Croix Chronicles
Hungry for vengeance, Cherry St. Croix is forced to the fog-ridden streets of Victorian London.
My rival, a collector of bounties like myself, has murdered one of my own. In consequence, I have been removed from my house, my staff and all who would support me. I have nowhere else to turn, so I beg asylum within the Midnight Menagerie, London’s decadent pleasure garden.
Micajah Hawke’s dominance there will not tolerate my presence for long. I am fixated on revenge, but I walk a razor’s edge under his scrutiny. His wicked power is not easily ignored, and I must not allow myself to submit—no matter how sweet the sacrifice.
Challenging my rival to a race is the only way to end this—no small task when the quarry is the murderous Jack the Ripper. As my enemies close in, I fear the consequences of this hunt. I am trapped between two killers, and what doesn’t kill me may leave its scars forever.
Tempered
Book four of The St. Croix Chronicles
Forced out of London’s coal-blackened streets, Cherry St. Croix is faced with her most difficult undertaking yet: sobriety.
At long last, my guardian, the enigmatic Mr. Oliver Ashmore, has revealed himself—and his order is clear: I am to be dried out at once, regardless of my wishes.
I loathe the country estate I am imprisoned within. Footsteps follow me, voices call for me, and my sanity wavers. In my fevered dreams, I am haunted by those I failed, while waking proves no protection from the ghosts of my reckless past. The craving for laudanum plagues me. I require a distraction.
To unravel the alchemical mysteries of my mother’s family, I must rely on Ashmore’s tutelage. I am lured to the art and drawn by the secrets my guardian possesses. Yet the deeper I delve, the more I believe that something dreadful disturbs these haunted corridors. In my madness, I fear that what it wants most...is me.
Engraved
Book five of The St. Croix Chronicles
Cherry St. Croix returns to the fog-ridden streets of Victorian London, where the balance of power threatens all that she loves.
At long last, my guardian, the enigmatic Mr. Oliver Ashmore, has revealed himself—and his order is clear: I am to be dried out at once, regardless of my wishes.
I loathe the country estate I am imprisoned within. Footsteps follow me, voices call for me, and my sanity wavers. In my fevered dreams, I am haunted by those I failed, while waking proves no protection from the ghosts of my reckless past. The craving for laudanum plagues me. I require a distraction.
To unravel the alchemical mysteries of my mother’s family, I must rely on Ashmore’s tutelage. I am lured to the art and drawn by the secrets my guardian possesses. Yet the deeper I delve, the more I believe that something dreadful disturbs these haunted corridors. In my madness, I fear that what it wants most...is me.
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About the Author
After writing happily ever afters for all of her friends in school, Karina Cooper eventually grew up (sort of) and went to work in the real world (kind of), where she decided that making stuff up was way more fun (true!). She is the author of dark and sexy paranormal romances, steampunk adventures and crossover urban fantasy, and continues to write across multiple genres with mad glee. Her award-winning steampunk series, The St. Croix Chronicles, has been nominated for multiple RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards.
One part glamour, one part dork and all imagination, Karina is also a gamer, an avid reader, a borderline hermit and an activist. She co-exists with a husband, a menagerie and a severe coffee habit. Visit her at www.karinacooper.com, because she says so.
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ISBN-13: 9781426899485
Transmuted: Book Six of the St. Croix Chronicles
Copyright © 2015 by Karina Cooper
Edited by Mallory Braus
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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