by Jess Haines
“You will die if you continue on that road. Not because of me. Because you can’t stop yourself from burning out, becoming a shell of who you are and who you could be. Don’t do it to yourself, Shiarra. You’re not a monster. No more than I am.”
Says the vampire who’s been around since before the coming of Christ. Somehow, I managed to bite my tongue long enough to keep from saying that out loud and came up with something a little less snarky.
“I hate how right you are. You always are. I’m not sure if I should be pissed at you for saying it or at myself for needing to hear it.”
He gave me a close-lipped smile, and for once there wasn’t anything sly about it. “Either way, it’s better to be angry than resigned or afraid. It means you’re getting stronger. Finding yourself instead of giving in.” He leaned in, cupping my cheeks and kissing my brow. “I want you to live. No shame, no regrets, no blame. No more fear.”
“No promises,” I said, voice thick.
No. No promises. But from that point forward, I would do my best to be the greatest person I knew how to be. To find that thread of self-respect I used to hold so dear, to be brave and thoughtful and worthy of the words he used to describe me. To stop worrying so much about what he might do versus what he’d proved himself to be. A friend. I owed it to him. To Sara. To my family. All the people who loved me, even if they didn’t accept me. Most of all, I owed it to myself.
It took a lot of hard knocks for the lesson to sink in. Sometimes being brave means letting go.
ZEBRA BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Jess Haines
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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ISBN: 978-1-4201-2404-0
First Electronic Edition: July 2014
eISBN-13: 978-1-4201-3516-9
eISBN-10: 1-4201-3516-3