Touching Fire ~ Touch Saga ~ Book 2
by Airicka Phoenix
Release date: March 28, 2014
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Blurb:
Finding her past was supposed to end the nightmare. Only it was just the beginning.
Entrusting
the fate of the world, not to mention her and Isaiah’s life to a father
she’s never met is a big leap of faith on Fallon’s part. But it’s a
necessary risk. Ashton is the key to protecting Isaiah and keeping her
out of Garrison’s clutches. He is also the only one who can tell her
what she is, except what she learns is that she is from a world that is
far more dangerous than anyone could possibly imagine.
As her
powers grow out of control, Fallon must pick between her mortality and a
legacy that does not include Isaiah. She must summon the courage to
face a destiny that will test the boundaries of everything she has ever
known. But most of all, she must protect Isaiah from the monster within
herself and trust the man whose toxic blood runs through her veins.
Danger builds as power clashes between two evils, both seeking her to tip the scales to eternal darkness and suffering.
Can
humanity rise to face an ancient calling to which Fallon is powerless
to stop? Can she protect those she cares about, or will their blood
forever stain her hands?
Touch Vengeance. Touch Malice. Touch Fire.
Warnings: Strong language and mild sexual content
Formats: eBook & Paperback
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My Review:
Ready for an adventure to a whole new world?
Paranormal lovers...this is one you won't want to miss! It is full of
action, comedy, heat, & other worldly goodness!
Frustratingly so
because of Fallon & Isiah's hot/cold/smoldering moments. Then I was full of questions along with Fallon yet with every new
morsel of info. I found more added replacing the last. Of course she couldn't just lay it all out there easy peasy for us now could she? Where would the fun be in that? Airicka's attention to details amazed me & I enjoyed reading every bit of it. Amazing because the
characters are intriguing, ready for action, full of wit, & then
there are the absolutely hilarious, very unordinary conversations that
lead to some of these revelations which guaranteed I wouldn't put this
book down until the final word had been read.
Don't believe me? See for yourself. :)
Here are a few examples:
I
hit the pavement and cursed. I was not cut out for this hero business.
Someone needed to write a How-To for Dummies, the 101 of heroism. I was
pretty sure rule one would have been something like, don't wear a dress
to a fight, followed by, don't fall. But, in my own defense, I still had
a grip on my weapon and that totally deserved a cookie.
____________________________
"Put me down!" I snapped.
"Wouldn't want to hurt your dainty foot, Princess."
I bared my teeth. "Oh, it's going to hurt plenty when I kick your junk up into--"
"Easy!"
He rounded the corner between two buildings. "I saved your life. In
some cultures that means we're married, in which case yore going to want
my junk where it is."
____________________________
"They
won't hurt you," Ashton assured me, giving the one closest to him a find
pat on the rump. Like it was totally normal to touch a demon horse.
"They're
on fire," I said, deciding I should point this out just in case I was
the only one aware of the situation and the possibility of burning to
death in a fancy, black box.
____________________________
What were they? What was I? Life really was one big box of chocolates and I was quickly becoming diabetic.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Other Novels by Airicka Phoenix.
Upcoming Releases:
Winning Jewels
Dark Betrayal
When Night Falls
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I was going to die in a park surrounded by little kids. There was
probably some irony there; I just couldn’t bring myself to focus enough
to find it. Truthfully, I probably couldn’t bring myself to find my own
nose at that moment. The prospect of dying had that effect on me.
The sun shone brightly, blanketing the grass in a yellow glow that hurt
the eyes. Only in British Columbia could it be winter and sunny
enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt. It was like the tropics of Canada.
As final resting places went, it wasn’t too shabby. It was better than
the dank, urine soaked alley we’d nearly died in last week, or the
deodorant aisle at Walmart the week before that. It seemed like
every week we found new and more creative places to meet our demise and
frankly, it was getting tedious. There we were, adamant not to
die while Garrison’s goons were adamant to change our minds, and we were
just very stubborn people all around.
We were at a park, in the middle of December, watching a kite flying
contest. For someone who had survived some of the worst winters in
Canada, only in British Columbia was something like that possible in a
sundress without freezing your pants off. But even this boggling climate
mystery wasn’t enough to overshadow the fact that it was nearly noon,
which meant we were minutes away from meeting someone, a man … my father
to be exact. My real father, not Garrison who was the genius
behind me being cooked up in a lab like an omelet with animal DNA and
who knew what else.
Isaiah sat beside me, his confidence and assurance a toasty blanket. It
took a great deal of resistance not to give in and curl up into his
side. I knew he wouldn’t push me away. I knew he would draw me in close.
It was solely the fact that we were surrounded by screaming children
and their watchful parents that kept me at arm’s length. It was just a
hunch, but I was almost certain they would not take too kindly to me
jumping Isaiah and doing very non G-rated things to him in front of
their offspring. Parents were just weird like that. They didn’t
understand that I didn’t have a choice. Granted, even if I had, I would
still jump the guy. He was freaking delicious and I was still just a
teenage girl with raging hormones and a thirst for blood. You know,
average.
There were often times when we were trapped in a motel with nothing but a
black and white TV for company and I would find myself watching him,
studying the powerful silhouette he made in the dim light. In the last
month since our escape from Garrison’s clutches, I had noticed a few
interesting things about my companion.
He never slouched. His body was perpetually frozen in an unyielding
rigid tension that seemed to never lessen. It was as though his mind and
body were continuously in attack mode. The first few nights after our
escape, I understood. I was on edge, too. Every little noise had me
bolting upright, heart wedged in my throat in panic. It was Isaiah who
assured me nothing was out there. The guy had the senses of … well, a
wolf. But eventually, I toned it down a notch. Isaiah, on the other
hand, was hanging onto that promise he made to Ashton as though it were a
brick of gold; he was going to protect me if it killed him. Sweet,
right?
Wrong.
If someone could reach into my chest and tear out my heart and turn it
into a living, breathing person, Isaiah would be it. He completed me.
Most people had to live their whole lives wondering if they would ever
find their other half, their soul mate. Well, I didn’t. I shared a soul
with mine, literally. But there was nothing remotely romantic about it.
Our love was genetically engineered to make us the ultimate weapon of
mass destruction. So for all I knew, it wasn’t even real. Because being a
teenager and worrying about break outs, pit stains and PMS wasn’t bad
enough. I had a genuinely good reason to wonder if he really loved me or
not. Plus, I perpetually had a guy in my head.
Isaiah knew every one of my secrets without me ever telling him. He knew
what I was thinking and feeling before even I did. It was a major pain
in the ass. A girl needed her secrets, needed to be able to ogle a guy
coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel without him getting a
full wash of her not so G-rated thoughts. It didn’t help that the guy
could elicit dirty thoughts wearing a snowsuit. I may have been biased,
but he really was just that sexy, and all mine. As odd as it may sound, I
wasn’t all too pleased about the latter.
Guys like Isaiah didn’t pick girls like me in the real world. I knew
that had, we met under normal circumstances, he would never have given
me a second glance. He’d no doubt have his arm around some leggy blonde
with big … personalities and … ugh! I couldn’t even think about it. The
chick didn’t even exist and I wanted to throat punch her. That was how
low I had sunk on the spectrum of things.
I blamed Isaiah for driving myself crazy wondering if he would just go
away one day.
No. Wait. I blamed Terrell Garrison. He was the reason we were in this
mess. He was the reason I was on the run. He was also the reason I would
die if something happened to Isaiah, not just because I was just that
deeply gone over the guy, but because I needed Isaiah’s blood to live.
Seventeen years of human food, gone the minute I sunk my teeth into him.
So when I say the guy was delicious, I don’t just mean someone better
call Calvin Klein and let them know their underwear model was
missing. The guy was literally delicious. His blood was just euphoric.
There were no words for the taste.
“Okay?” Isaiah took my hand from my lap.
I started to nod, because I sometimes forgot I didn’t need to lie about
how I felt. Mostly because lying was impossible when he already knew my
answers. Maybe it was because he knew how uncomfortable it made me when
he poked around in my head, but he always asked anyway. It was his way
of making an effort to give me a shred of normalcy in our bizarre
relationship.
“Nervous.” I moistened my lips and darted an apprehensive glance over
the sea of faces. “It’s kind of … open, here, isn’t it?” There was so
much movement. Too many people that could get hurt if Garrison was there
amongst them. “How would we know?” I said the last part out loud,
already knowing Isaiah had heard the rest without words.
“I would know.” He squeezed my hand. “He’s not here.”
Even while I believed him, I still couldn’t bring myself to relax,
because there were bigger things to worry about than just Garrison,
although he was reason enough.
“You look beautiful.” He pressed a kiss to my temple and stilled the
restless picking I’d been doing at my clothes.
“What if he doesn’t like me?” I hated myself for confessing such a
vulnerable fear, but I couldn’t help it. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good
idea.”
“Fallon.” He nudged me lightly with his shoulder.
I groaned, squeezing my eyes closed tight. He was right. I was
overthinking it. Whether my dad wanted anything to do with me or not,
I’d be fine. I was a survivor. It was the one thing my mom had spent my
whole life teaching me. I just had to keep moving. I could do that.
Being on the road was second nature to me. I didn’t need approval from a
man I’d never met.
“He’s here. Ashton,” he said quickly when I bolted to my feet, gaze
searching wildly for an oncoming attack.
“Oh!” Except, that was equally as bad. It was just a different sort of
attack.
I wiped the sweat off my palms onto my new dress, hoping he wouldn’t
want to shake hands. I’d taken a shower that morning and had lathered on
the vanilla scented deodorant, but it didn’t seem to be doing its job;
my armpits were sticky with sweat. I also prayed he wouldn’t want to
hug. Then, because freaking out was what I did best, I wondered about my
makeup. I didn’t usually wear any, but it wasn’t a usual day. What if
it was running down my face? Was my dress okay? Isaiah had sworn the
soft, lavender sundress with its white knitted sweater brought out the
mix of colors in my eyes, but he was a guy, what did he know about
women’s clothing?
Still sitting on the bench, Isaiah chuckled. “The sales lady agreed with
me.”
“She could have been lying just to make a sale.” I muttered, wringing my
hands anxiously at my abdomen. “Will you get out of my head? It’s a
mess up there without your prodding.”
I knew it wasn’t his fault. I was the one who had to calm down. My
overflow of emotions was what sucked him into my head in the first
place. It didn’t help that I was being swept away in a storm of emotions
at that moment. There was no real stopping it.
He rose to his feet and took my shoulders in his firm grip. “Then you
need to calm down.”
I did take a deep breath, closed my eyes and willed myself to remain as
calm as possible. Yet, the second I opened my eyes, I was pulled under
by my uncertainties and fears. I didn’t know what I was looking for and
that made it worse. I had shared no resemblance with my mother at all.
For I knew, he could be six feet tall, black and a wrestler.
Isaiah snorted a laugh. “He’s not.” He leaned into me and brushed the
side of my head with a kiss. He’d been doing that a lot that morning,
soothing me with his touches and kisses. It was his way of reminding me
that I wasn’t alone. “You have his eyes and the color of his hair.”
As though for emphasis, he wrapped a strand of my unbound hair around
his finger and gave a playful tug that made me laugh. He smiled and I
felt my heart stutter in my chest.
The worry took a momentary backseat as I fell into his beautiful eyes,
eyes so blue they could have been strips of raw electricity. They were
surrounded by lashes that I would have killed for, long, thick and dark.
They matched the perfect shade of ebony tumbling over his prominent
brow and curling behind his ears. Glossy strands had escaped the band at
the base of his skull and fluttered temptingly in the breeze. I was
always so fascinated by his hair. Maybe because he rarely ever took it
down from its confinement, but I always had an inexplicable urge to tear
the band away and replace it with my fingers.
I reached for him and touched the side of his rugged face in a feather
light caress from temple to jaw. I caught a strand and nimbly tucked it
behind his ear.
“How do you do that?” I murmured, turning my body to his and being
rewarded by the feel of his hands going to my waist.
His head bent to the side. “What’s that?”
“Make me feel not so crazy.”
His eyes glittered as his lips pulled into a heart melting smile. “Maybe
because you were never crazy to begin with.” He touched his brow to
mine and I was drawn into his scent of toothpaste, soap, rain and
leather. “Or maybe we’re both crazy.”
I became painfully of his lips hovering dangerously close to mine and
his hands burning through the fabric of my dress. The rest of the world
faded as the rush of his blood racing through his veins roared in my
ears, calling to me, begging me to do what I swore I wouldn’t. The gums
above my canines began to itch deliciously. My fingers tightened in the
fabric of his shirt. My lips parted, my breathing ragged even to my own
ears.
“Isaiah…”
His gaze sharpened. They became dark slits of hunger I recognized all
too well. His fingers gouged ten holes into my side as he tightened his
grip on me. In a single yank, I was crushed into the shelter of his
chest. His heart tattooed a desperate beat against mine. I trembled. My
body ached in places I could do nothing about. I felt his fingers tangle
into my hair to cup the base of my skull.
His breath burned the side of my face, coming out gruff when he growled
into my ear, “I told you to feed.”
He had … insistently for a month.
“You know we can’t.” My hands trembled and I was sure I was cutting
holes into his shirt with my nails and causing irreparable damage to the
fabric, but I couldn’t let him go. “We agreed—”
His eyes narrowed, reflecting his anger and frustration. “I never agreed
to anything.”
What we were doing was playing with fire and toying with things that
neither of us fully understood. What we did know was that our need for
each other, our insatiable hunger was the thing that would burn the
world to the ground. The fire between us was as wild and dangerous as it
was beautiful. The world may not have wanted to burn in its glorious
embrace, but I did. I wanted nothing else. Succumbing to the untamed
temptation was vastly more alluring than the alternative, which was the
perpetual distance I had to put between us.
“There’s still time,” he murmured directly into my mind. “You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”
Screw the world, this is what you want! A very persistent part of
me insisted and it wasn’t wrong. I did want this.
It wasn’t fair. Being strong and resisting wasn’t quite as simple when I
was being prodded from all sides.
He touched the side of my face, tracing the contours of my cheek with
his finger and coaxing me to nuzzle his palm. My eyes closed as I leaned
into him.
There were insane moments when I saw no reason to stop, but then
commonsense always prevailed and I forced myself to step back. Lately,
those lucid moments were becoming few and far between.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.” And just like that, the calm within me
erupted.
I was slammed with an avalanche of panic and dread that had my heart
jumping into my throat. Sweat returned to my palms and I was left with
no way to wipe them without giving away how nervous I was.
“Ashton!”
Isaiah stepped forward, hand extended to the other man. I heard the slap
of palms and happily shared murmurs. I let it all wash over me, biding
my time before facing the man responsible for bringing me into the
world—more or less.
He was handsome, all chiseled features, twinkling eyes and blinding
smiles. He stood brushing six feet, slender with a head full of salt and
pepper hair and eyes the same turquoise-blue with flakes of green, gray
and brown as mine. He wore casual clothes; black slacks and a white
dress shirt. There was nothing intimidating about him, or so I thought
until he finally turned those eyes on me, and I froze like a deer caught
in the headlights of a semi.
“Fallon.” His smile was soft, sad, but blazing with a light only my
mother had ever worn when looking at me—love. “You’ve grown.”
It was a lame joke, yet it was kind of funny. The last time he’d seen
me, I’d been four so, yeah, I had grown since then.
“Yeah…” I voice hitched embarrassingly.
As tense, awkward moments went, it was the worst. My mind remained
stubbornly blank, probably giving me an air of idiocy. I didn’t know
what to do with my hands; they suddenly seemed so big and dumb hanging
at my sides uselessly and I couldn’t stop wondering if I was slouching.
“How are you?” he asked.
I did that stupid shoulder jerk thing. It was a toss between a shrug and
a nervous twitch. “Okay. And you are? Okay, I mean. Are you okay?” I
grimaced at my own rambling. “How are you?”
His lips curled in the faintest smile. “Nervous.” It was comforting how
easily he said it. It was also really good to know I wasn’t the only
one. “I’ve been waiting for this moment a very long time.”
He moved then. It was quick, or maybe I blinked, but he was suddenly in
front of me and I was engulfed in a fierce embrace so tight I almost
couldn’t breathe. I didn’t complain. It wasn’t tight enough. He smelled
like a dad, or what I always imagined a dad would smell like—warm,
loving and strong.
“I’ve missed you,” he murmured vehemently into my temple.
“I missed you, too,” I replied, still grappling with the knowledge that I
had a dad, a dad I was told was dead my whole life. A dad who wanted
me.
He pushed me back to arm’s length and stared down at me, his eyes
unnaturally large and bright. Mom used to get that look during romance
movies, just before she started crying. But nothing about Ashton
suggested he was a closet romance crier. No, he was impenetrable,
resolute … sturdy. Still, his eyes shone down at me like liquid pools.
My own were filmy.
He smiled, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “Call me Ashton, unless you
prefer Dad or Ash. Whatever is easier for you.” He paused, before
adding, “You must have a million questions.”
My smile quivered. “Yeah.”
He gave my shoulders another squeeze. “Let me take you home. You must be
starving.”
Home … I’d never had one of those before. I grew up in motel rooms on
greasy, cardboard food and plastic cups. I lived out of a single duffle
bag, out of the back of my mom’s Impala. The closest thing I’d ever come
to healthy living was the tomatoes and lettuce on my burger and
remembering not to fall asleep against the car window while the sun was
highest in the sky. But I didn’t eat food anymore. At least, I hadn’t in
almost a month.
“Actually, there are a few things we need to tell you first.” Isaiah
took a step forward.
Ashton glanced from me to Isaiah, curiosity bright in his eyes. He
straightened, removing his hands from my shoulders, leaving a cold
sensation behind. “Is here all right?”
Isaiah glanced around at the people rushing around us. “Perhaps
somewhere else?”
Ashton nodded, all business now. He surveyed the park, the movement
quick, but I knew it was thorough. He didn’t seem like the sort to leave
anything half-assed. “There is a café down the block. It’s usually very
quiet around this time and the staff doesn’t meddle.”
I learned quickly what that meant. As soon as we walked into the tiny
corner café, the staff vanished. Not into thin air, but they got one
head nod from Ashton and walked a straight line into the back room,
closing the door behind them.
“I own the building,” Ashton said when he caught me staring in awe.
“I guess being a doctor pays really well, huh?” I mused.
“Doctor?” Ashton peered over his shoulder at me, his features perplexed.
I looked towards Isaiah, waiting for him to explain, because he’d been
the one to tell me my father was a doctor. But he was equally puzzled by
Ashton’s confusion.
“Oh!” Ashton seemed to realize something. He nodded. “Yes. Doctor.” He
closed and locked the glass door behind us. He turned and motioned
towards the fifteen or so empty tables around the place. “Why don’t we
talk?”
After a curious glance between me and Isaiah, we took the seat furthest
from the wall of windows, right in the corner so we had a clear view of
the whole café, including the front door.
“You are a doctor, right?” I pressed. “I mean, that’s how you met
Garrison, isn’t it?”
He cleared his throat and I could tell right away I wasn’t going to like
what he was about to tell me.
“I’m not a doctor,” he said slowly, looking from me to Isaiah. “That was
what I'd told your mother I was when we first met.”
“So what are you then?” This was from Isaiah, who looked even more
betrayed by the confession than I felt.
Ashton lowered his gaze to the tabletop. “I’m many things,” he began
slowly.
“But all these years…” Isaiah shook his head. “You told me—”
“I know.” Ashton looked him square in the face. “I will explain
everything in due time, Isaiah. For now, I think we have more important
things to discuss.” He cast me a pointed glance.
The muscles in Isaiah’s jaw flexed, but he reined in the frustration I
could feel pouring off him into me. I had to restrain the urge to reach
for his hand.
“Garrison has become more persistent in his hunt for Fallon,” Isaiah
mumbled, unable to conceal the grudge in his tone. “We can hardly go a
day without an attack. Whoever his tracker is, they’re very powerful. I
haven’t been able to sense them anywhere near us, yet they always seem
to know where we are.”
Ashton nodded as though this made sense. “My sources have informed me of
a great surge in numbers this last few weeks. Terrell has found a new
source of power from somewhere and he’s not wasting any time using it. I
think it’s only a matter of time before his forces close in on you.”
“Are you a spy?” I blurted.
Ashton blinked. Then he broke into a deep rumble of laugh. “No, but I
make it my business to keep feelers in all things noteworthy, and
Terrell has particular place in my interests.”
“Isaiah tells me you’ve been rescuing the children Garrison—”
“He’d be both wrong and right,” Ashton interrupted. “I do my best to
rescue those I can, but they aren’t as many children as there once had
been. There are a few, but those remaining, Terrell guards very closely.
I haven’t rescued anyone in nearly a year.”
“If not children, then what—”
Ashton put his hand up, stopping my tumble of questions. “Let’s talk
about all that later. Right now, I want to hear your news.”
I wanted to press. I still had so many questions. But he was right. We
could talk about those things later. We had, after all, all the time in
the world.
“I told you about our run in with Maia and Yuri,” Isaiah began.
Ashton nodded. “Yes, how they found Fallon. Terrell no doubt sent them
out of desperation. Maia is not someone Terrell would send if the
situation hadn’t gotten out of hand. She’s the most evil creature I have
ever encountered and that is saying quite a bit.”
Isaiah nodded. “We managed to evade him for a while, before we were
captured. We were taken to Garrison’s home just north of Whistler. I
don’t know the exact location, but I can find it if I tried.”
Ashton shook his head. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve known for a while
where he calls home. However, had I known you were there, I would have
come to get you myself.”
“Contact was impossible,” Isaiah replied. “We were heavily guarded,
right until the end when we managed to escape.”
“And did he ever tell you what his plans were?” Ashton wondered.
I shook my head before Isaiah could tell him otherwise. Ashton may have
been my father, the man whose blood ran through my veins, but he’d also
been partners with Garrison once upon a time and I was too paranoid to
trust anyone. I trusted people who lied even less. Whether or not he’d
ever been a doctor was a moot point. It was him lying about it that only
increased my distrust. Plus I hadn’t forgotten Mom’s last warnings to
me not to trust Ashton.
Isaiah must have sensed my need not to share the fact that we were
potential weapons of mass destruction, because he didn’t bring it up.
Instead, he veered the topic back to our escape.
“Fallon saved my life.” Isaiah cast me a level glance as though
daring me to contradict his claim.
He was wrong. I hadn’t saved his life. He may have gotten shot, but with
his accelerated healing, he hadn’t been in any real danger.
“Well, you did what you had to,” Ashton said at once, voice unwavering.
“Had it not been them, it would have been you.”
Was that how murderers looked themselves in the mirror? Justification?
How did one justify taking a life?
“After we escaped, we laid low for a couple of weeks and tried to
regroup before we contacted you,” Isaiah finished at last.
By laid low, he meant me vehemently dragging my feet on the whole
situation and him needing a month to convince me that it was time I met
my father.
Despite my need for answer and safety, I could never shake the
uncertainty the idea of meeting Ashton always provoked. But I was really
tired of running. I was tired of not having options. I was tired of
being tired. Plus, Isaiah was so adamant that Ashton was the good guy.
Maybe he was right.
Ashton, who had been listening attentively to Isaiah, beamed.
“Remarkable!” he said, shaking his head. “Absolutely remarkable. I
always knew Terrell was unstable, but this proves that his lunacy goes
much deeper than face value.”
You think? I wanted to say. His brilliant observation was, oh, seventeen years too late.
“There’s more,” Isaiah murmured, hesitant. “Garrison’s still alive and out for blood.”
Ashton nodded. “You’ll be safe at Luxuria. I made the mistake of letting you fend
for yourself once. I won’t—”
“I didn’t fend for myself!” My tone came out sharper than I’d intended.
“I had Mom and we were doing fine until this crap happened.”
Ashton visibly winced. “Yes, of course. I apologize.” He lowered his
head. “I should have done more to protect you both and for that, I am
eternally guilt ridden. I failed you.”
“You couldn’t have known,” I murmured.
He wouldn’t meet my eye. “Perhaps.” He placed a gentle hand on mine. “I
can’t replace what you had with your mother, Fallon, but I promise that I
will protect you in every way that I can. You’re safe now.”
It was daunting to accept. It seemed too easy, and even as a part of me
salivated at the possibility of being wholly and truly in the clear. Yet
the part of me that had seen and done too much, refused to believe it.
Also, I knew firsthand what Garrison was capable of. I knew that he
would never give up looking for me. I was too valuable. But my options
were slim. My life was in danger and because of me, Isaiah was in
danger. In order to keep him safe, I had to trust Ashton. I had to
believe that he meant what he said about keeping us away from Garrison.
The shriek of Isaiah’s chair sliding viciously across the smooth
laminate sent my heart scuttling up into my throat even before he
shouted, “We need to go!” and grabbed my arm.
I was hauled to my feet and dragged behind him.
Ashton was up and out of his seat with much less haste. He twisted his
body to the window even as his hand went around behind him. The movement
was so quick, so fluid like he’d done it a million times, a frightening
thought when, a second later, he was cradling a sleek, black handgun.
It was almost reassuring to know my father packed heat like some mafia
guy, if not a bit daunting. But even that wasn’t as blood chilling as
the three familiar silhouettes making their way with great ease across
the street in the direction of the cafe.
“Take her through the back.” Ashton passed Isaiah the gun, who took it
and seamlessly slipped it into the waistband of his jeans. “I’ll deal
with them.”
“Wait!” I lunged after him when he made for the door, ignoring Isaiah’s
grip on me when I grabbed Ashton’s arm. “You can’t go out there without
your gun! You have no idea—”
Ashton smiled calmly at me. It was so off-putting considering the
situation that I dropped my hand. “Don’t worry about me, dearest. I
don’t need a weapon.”
Then, with a wink that only sealed my theory that my dad was suicidal,
he strolled out of the café to meet the Shadow Brothers.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Airicka Phoenix
International Best-Selling author Airicka Phoenix lives in rainy British
Columbia with her beautiful family. When she's not pounding away at the
keyboard, she can be found reading, shining her collection of daggers
or chilling with her kids.
She is the author of the Touch Saga, The
Sons of Judgment Saga, The Lost Girl Series, Betraying Innocence
and Games of Fire.
Airicka also writes adult paranormal &
contemporary romance under her alter ego, Morgana Phoenix. Her first
novel, Capture Me, will be out 2014.
For more about Airicka, visit her website.
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Thank you so, so SO much, Jennifer!!! Love your review and I'm so happy you enjoyed it <3
ReplyDelete<3 I am so glad you love my review! ^_^ That makes me smile! <3 And...you know I've loved every book I've read of yours thus far. :)
DeleteThank you so much darling! That means the world to me! <3
Delete<3 You are very welcome, my friend! <3 XOxoXO <3
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