world in peace. Yet he can’t stand by and do nothing while a lone woman
defends two children from an armed thug. Even if doing something means taking the trio in.
Eden’s not sure if the armed hermit is her salvation or an even more
dangerous threat. A blizzard forces her to trust him with their lives, and in
Connor’s arms she remembers what it’s like to live .
Just beyond the edge of the storm, though, the cult leader awaits his chance
to get his hands on the children—and make Eden his next sexual sacrifice.
Warning: This book contains a strong, silent action-hero, a tough, tenacious heroine, a pair of steal-your-heart kids, and a pony-sized dog named Precious.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Reawakening Eden:
Rambo turned his attention to her, catching her staring. She didn’t look away
and neither did he—not so much in a battle of wills as a waiting game, a strategic feint to see who would reveal their true intentions first.
His gun was held at the ready, but she wasn’t exactly pointing a lollipop at
him, so she couldn’t really blame him. She didn’t precisely aim the rifle at
Rambo’s head, but she didn’t put it down either.
No one moved until the sound of Ben’s engine had faded to a distant whine,
and then it was Hannah Rose who broke the silence.
“Mama?”
Eden shushed her. Rambo’s eyes flicked down to the kids huddled half
beneath her, and her hands tightened on the rifle. Then he dismissed them—
faster than she’d ever seen anyone look away from the miracle children before—
and met her eyes again. “You okay?”
That remained to be seen. Eden wet her lips. “How long have you been
following us?”
His expression, so hard to read beneath the camo paint, didn’t change, but
she had the impression she’d managed to surprise him. “What makes you
think—?”
“I’ve seen your dog.” Only the one time, but he didn’t need to know that.
As if on cue, the wolfhound reappeared in the narrow clearing where she
and the kids had taken cover. Its jaws hung loosely in a canine grin as it loped
over to Rambo’s side. Its butt thumped down and it listed heavily against his
thigh. They fit together, the oversized dog and its oversized master. He reached
down to absently scratch the enormous animal’s head, and something in Eden’s
chest unknotted. He couldn’t be evil if he was good to animals, right? And he
hadn’t shot them yet. Maybe he wasn’t so terrifying, though he had been
following them…
“Been keeping an eye on you since you started running circles on my land.”
His concept of possession startled her a bit. It had been a while since my land meant anything to most people. Then she caught up to the circles part, and her heart thudded against her ribs. Just how lost were they?
“Who are you? What do you want from us?”
His face twisted with what might have been exasperation without the camo
paint to make it look foreign and terrifying. “Look, lady, I don’t want anything
from you. You just looked like you could use a hand.”
God, how amazing would it be if she could believe him?
She reminded herself he’d come out, made a target of himself and stepped in
to help them. He hadn’t had to do that. He could have just walked on by. Or if
he’d wanted to hurt them, he could easily have killed them all without stepping
a single foot out of cover.
His eyes flicked down to her white-knuckled grip on the rifle. “You ever
fired that thing?”
“Yes,” she replied too fast, defensively.
His mouth moved in what could have been a half-smile, but with the face
paint she couldn’t really tell. “Ever hit anything?”
“Yes.” A moose. Her dad had loved to hunt and taken her when she was a
teen. She’d shot the poor thing dead. Then puked all over the place for the next
hour.
“Uh-huh.” Rambo pointed his machine gun toward the sky, propping it back
against his shoulder.
Eden’s barrel didn’t waver, though she did let out a breath she hadn’t
realized she was holding. She wasn’t going to shoot him and they both knew it,
but she still felt stronger, more prepared, with the muzzle aimed in his general
direction. He didn’t seem to mind.
But she didn’t know how she would be able to tell if he did. The man made
robots look emotive.
“Where’re you headed?”
“We’re just passing through,” Eden said, trying to keep her own voice as
even and emotionless as his.
Rambo jerked his chin toward the dirt track they’d been walking down all
morning. “Nothing down this road to pass to.”
Which meant she’d gotten them just as lost as she’d feared. “We’re going
south.”
She couldn’t read his expression past the camo paint, but his voice was dry.
“You need a new compass. You’re going west.”
West. Back toward Spokane. Back toward Seattle. Shit. She’d tried to stay on small roads because they were easier for the kids to manage, but the country
lanes didn’t always run straight, and she hadn’t been very good about watching
the angle of the sun and all that shit to make sure they were staying headed in
the right direction.
Suddenly she felt weary to her soul. It was too much for one person to do
everything, to be wholly responsible for three lives when the world was spinning
upside down. How had she thought she could do this?
Eden swallowed back the self-flagellation and defeat. She needed to focus on
moving forward. Getting the kids to safety. Building a life for them somewhere
that didn’t involve guns or cults or fear.
Hannah Rose made a small sound of complaint, and Eden shifted so she
wasn’t smushing the little girl quite so much. Lucas sat up at her side as Eden
crouched in front of them, still defensive.
She jutted her chin up the road back the way they’d come. “So that’s east,
huh?”
“East-north-east.”
So south was right in front of her, through the dense forest where this man
had appeared. He didn’t look like he was in the mood to play tour guide, and she
wasn’t sure she wanted him to. He was too imposing, too obviously deadly for
comfort. This didn’t look like the kind of man who had picked up a gun and
some hunting gear out of desperation and self-defense the way she had. He was
too calm. He’d probably been living the curmudgeonly mountain-man existence
for the last two decades, reading the Unabomber’s unauthorized biography and
taking shots at anyone who trespassed on his land. No doubt he was delighted that only one person was living today for every three thousand who’d been alive
a year ago.
But he was plainly capable. He knew the area. He’d tracked them easily, so it
wasn’t like she’d be able to escape him without a car anyway.
“Could you give us directions to Boise?”
He snorted. “On foot? Honey, you’ve lost your mind if you think you can
walk to Boise this time of year.”
“What about someplace we can get a car? Is there a town near here?” She’d
pretty much exhausted her knowledge of Idaho towns with Coeur d’Alene and
Boise.
The sense o
f hopeless defeat rushed back in. How was she supposed to get
the kids south for the winter if she couldn’t even figure out which way south
was?
A tiny hand plucked at Eden’s jeans, Hannah Rose trying to get her
attention. She shifted her leg away. Not now, babygirl. Mama’s holding a gun on the nice man.
“Look, I’m sorry, lady…”
“Mama?” The little plucking fingers were back. Hannah Rose poked her
head around Eden’s shoulder.
“Not now, Hannah Rose.” Don’t call attention to yourself, babygirl.
But it was already too late. The mountain man was staring at Hannah Rose’s
rosy cheeks, his fierce frown evident even through the camouflage paint. “What
does she want?” His voice was gruff, choked.
And a note in it set off warning bells in Eden—a note that made him
simultaneously a dozen times more likely to help them and a thousand times
more dangerous. Not a loner mountain man after all. This man was a daddy once.
Two hearts, many worlds, one mission.
Water Mark
© 2011 Kathleen Scott
As Wynn St. Jyles searches for the fabled Amulet of Skia among the
dangerous market stalls of the Alterrian Islands, memories of her last disastrous mission to the beta dimension haunt her steps. She’s determined not to repeat the mistakes that left her with a broken heart and permanent ear damage, but this
trip doesn’t look much more promising.
Particularly when she’s dragged into a dark room, robbed of her aural
implant—and the face swimming in her vertigo-stricken vision is the lover who,
five years ago, left her in a pool of her own blood.
Kade, an exiled prince of the realm, still carries the pain of the devastating
choice that forced him to leave Wynn for dead. Now she’s in his arms again, but
the last thing she wants is him. She wants only what he’s trying to protect—the
amulet.
Forced to become cautious allies in a violent, inter-dimensional arms race,
Wynn finds herself fighting just as hard against a rekindled desire for Kade—
leaving her wondering how she can hope to control the key to the multi-
dimensions when she can’t even control her own heart.
Warning: Contains pulse-pounding action, vertigo-inducing plot twists, and a love that crosses dimensions.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Water Mark:
Footsteps echoed off the close walls and low-hanging rooftops of Thieves’
Square. Wynn St. Jyles stopped in an alcove and listened as the footfalls came
closer to her hiding place. She held her breath, afraid her pursuer would hear her labored respirations in the darkness.
Full night had fallen while she’d searched Maseco Calura’s shop for the
amulet rumored to be the key to unlocking the Gamma, Delta and Epsilon
dimensions. It was her mission to ensure the artifact did not fall into the hands of the bloodthirsty Muloons. That was if she lived long enough to liberate the damn
thing from the tiny island of Cordona, located in the Beta dimension off the coast of the Alterrian Royal Islands.
So far, paradise had shown nothing but its dark underbelly. It was a fact
Wynn St. Jyles was very intimately acquainted with.
Her heart rate accelerated as the steps neared. She pushed back to the dark
recesses of the alcove. It wasn’t like her to hide, but she had no idea who
followed her or what they were willing to do to get information. She didn’t dare
even hit the communicator she wore as a direct link to her auditory implant in
her partially deaf ear, for fear her voice would carry and give away her location.
Surely Cash and the others already knew where she was and had dispatched
the troops. If not, she was one dead Jumper.
She lifted the hem of her lightweight tunic, easing the stunner off her hip.
The footsteps stopped in front of her hiding place. A dark silhouette stood in
relief against the low lighting from the cross street at the mouth of the alley.
Wynn watched as the man—there was no doubt it was a man—moved away
from her. Relief was short-lived as he returned only moments later to stand in
front of the alcove.
Real fear for her life spread throughout her body like a charge from a
snapped power line. She’d been so careful when she broke into the shop. No one
had seen her. She’d disconnected both the overt and silent alarms. Her
surveillance equipment hadn’t revealed any other means of security. Had
someone else been watching the shop besides the Jumpers?
Most likely. If the Muloons already had a bead on the amulet, it was likely
they’d had an agent in the area to do the exact same thing Wynn had been sent to
do.
Move along will you?
He didn’t hear her silent plea.
Shit, what was she supposed to do—wait in the corner until someone else
came along and her skulking pursuer decided to give up, or wait until morning
when there were too many people around to make it worth his while to kill her?
Oh God. Who was she kidding? In this part of Cordona, no one would even
blink an eye at some man dragging a woman off to only the sea knew where.
Human trafficking was as much a part of the trade on the islands as tacky tourist trinkets. Only the former was illegal and the latter should have been.
The bitch of the situation was that if she died now, it would be for nothing.
She hadn’t found what she was looking for, or a clue to point her in the right
direction. In other words, she’d die in vain.
Not bloody likely.
The man started into the alcove. Wynn raised the stunner. Her thumb slid
over the power control, ramping the voltage to full. If he wasn’t going to fuck
around, neither was she.
He raised his arm. A light shone in her eyes, blinding her momentarily. As
yellow spots clouded her vision, she let her finger hit the pulse trigger and heard his grunt and then the thump as his body hit the ground.
She bent over his supine form, feeling his pockets for identification. He had
none. Not surprising. Whoever hired him wouldn’t want his identity known
should he fall to an assassin. Too bad she didn’t have the luxury of killing him at
this point. If she killed him, there would be no way to know who had sent him.
Discovering the man’s employer was paramount.
She tapped the communicator disguised as jewelry clipped to her ear. “Cash,
I need a body pickup.”
The reply that came through was a groan. “Is it dead?”
“No, just very knocked out. Can you get a bead on my location?”
“That’s affirmative.” There was a brief pause. “Take off your locator and put
it on the body. Then get the hell out of there. Our contacts tell us the polantaria are on their way.”
“Copy that.” Wynn pulled the bracelet locator off her wrist and threw it onto
the body. She lifted the cowl of her tunic over her head and left the safety of her hiding place.
The low whistle of the polantaria vehicles sounded in the distance. Cash hadn’t been kidding.
The polantaria were the island equivalent of the royal security forces and they didn’t suffer fools and murderers lightly. The old belief of an eye for an eye was alive and well and living under King Cadson’s rule. Actually, they made the old
German Gestapo look like a band of Boy Scouts. It was amazing how they tended
to look the other
way when enough credits were put in their outstretched hands.
Payments the U.S. Jumpers were known to make on occasion, if it suited
their purposes. At this time, it didn’t. The less the security forces knew about the plans to take the amulet, the better off for all.
The Amulet of Skia was believed to be a myth. Rumors began circulating
about the time the Muloons threw in their lot with the exiled Vice Chancellor
Rehelm of Didan that the amulet not only was real but had been discovered. No
one in a place of authority had authenticated the tales, but that hadn’t stopped
treasure hunters from both dimensions crossing over to try their luck at finding
it.
For the Jumpers it was a matter of dimensional security. The Muloons must
not get that amulet.
The sounds of the polantaria came closer. What had tipped them off? Was it just a coincidence, or had they discovered the shop had been hit?
Wynn headed south out of the market district and then turned west along
the residential section where large white stone buildings were built six stories
into the air as low-cost housing. Most of the inhabitants were workers from the
docks, fisheries and marketplace. Their lot would never change.
In Cordona, there was very little room for advancement. It reminded her of
the U.K. in the Regency and Victorian Eras—except with more sunshine. But the
class systems that were in place were well and truly engrained and dictated by
the auspices of the Alterrian royal family.
She continued to walk, moving from the main straightaway to the back
alleys until she came to the upscale business district where her hotel was located.
Her feet burned, the soles numb and tingling in her flat little sandals. The pain of working in a principality of Alterrian was that one had to dress the part. Her
uniform would make her stand out like a rhino on the space shuttle. Which
wasn’t always a bad thing.
She looked over her shoulder as she hurried into the hotel lobby and started
for the bank of turbo-elevators. An arm reached out from a freestanding telecom
station and wrapped around her throat, cutting off her scream.
Jigsawing her body back and forth, she tried to break her assailant’s hold.
The hold only tightened as he moved her into a dark room and closed the door.
Strange, exotic scents assaulted her senses. Images waved before her eyes.
Degrees of Wrong Page 34