Is she crazy?
Finally letting go of his clothing, the old woman’s eyes glimmered with mirth. “No, Esmae not crazy.”
His heart skipped a beat.
Is she a mind reader?He shook his head and clamped his jaw.
Impossible.
She stepped closer, her withered, sunbaked face set in a grimace. “The spirits are awake. They choose you for challenge,” she whispered.
“What challenge? I haven’t challenged anyone.” He was a fool for continuing the ridiculous conversation, but he found himself grudgingly intrigued anyway.
The old woman sighed heavily and tilted her head once again. “Spirits hear heart.”
That isn’t an answer.
Stretching to her full height, just reaching his third button, she leaned in and lifted her hands to catch his face. Shocked, he held his breath. Her glare raked over him, exposing him, laying his soul open for her examination. Dissection. He cleared his throat, making to step back, but she held him in place.
“Yes, chosen and unprepared.” She dropped her calloused hands, hissing as if she’d been burned.
He liked a challenge as much as the next red-blooded male, but he wasn’t keen on being challenged bythe spirits. He’d heard enough. The woman knew nothing.
He spun on his bootheels and strode from the clearing. Harry followed.
Mounting his horse, Logan spurred it into motion, leaving the old woman behind. Relief washed over him…if only for a moment.
Despite his resolve to put the Romany elder’s maniacal words out of his mind, they echoed between his ears, leaving trails of chills in his blood.
“Chosen and unprepared….”What did she mean?
The old Romany woman’s shrill cackle interrupted the echoes in his head. A tremor of trepidation raced uninvited up his spine.
As the glow from the campfire gave way to the night, the Sixth Duke of Caspire raced hell-bent across the moonlit pasture, unaware that something dark, sensual, ageless, and relentless in its hunger was in heated and gleeful pursuit.
The shadows castby the darting flames danced across the ceiling above the bed, like harem dancers moving seductively, desperate to appease their wrathful master. Though the fire in the hearth roared, a chilling breeze skittered along the floorboards and slid over Logan’s feet. Despite the chill making its way up his legs, he couldn’t stop the compulsion to go somewhere, do something—but what?
The drink in his hand forgotten, he paced between the foot of his towering four-poster bed and the back of the chairs facing the fireplace. The floor, covered in expensive handmade Moroccan rugs, was soft, plush, and utterly unwelcome beneath his feet. He didn’t want soft. He wanted to pound on a surface that wouldn’t give under his blows. Clenching his jaw, he growled.
The force of his grip on the glass of brandy made his knuckles ache, but even that didn’t stop his pacing. The invasive chill made its way over his chest. A violent shiver hit him, and the glass slipped from his grasp, hitting the floor, and rolling to a stop against his toes.
“Damn.” He recovered the glass and replaced it on the table beside him. Dizziness overwhelmed him. He stumbled to the back of the chair and closed his eyes to aide in the fight to keep the brandy from revisiting his throat. His shadowed room, black shapes, blurry faces, bright cascading stars, and swirling blue lines flashed and spun within his vision.
Grimacing against the flittering images, he took a deep, calming breath before he straightened and turned in the direction of his bed. One foot in front of the other, slow andmethodical, unwilling to fall and let the haze overtake him. After long, groaning minutes, the hard edge of the bed pressed against the front of his thighs. Heaving a breath of relief, he let the surging darkness swallow him.
He was unconscious before he hit the bed.
Her eyes captivated him. Brilliant jade stones, burning bright beneath slashing blue-black brows. Above her brows cascaded a crown of hair so luxurious his palms tingled in anticipation of threading through the lush, black locks. He couldn’t see her face clearly; a churning, smoke-like mist danced between them, throwing most of her into silhouette. Behind the smoky veil, she wore nothing but a seductive playful look in her eye. Between swirls of mist, her hand emerged and her fingers crooked in a motion to ‘come closer.’
He didn’t understand, but he didn’t want to. It was a dream, but the mist sliding along his naked chest teased the wiry hairs, and coaxed tingling bumps from his heated skin.
Before he could take a step forward and touch her as he ached to do, the smoky veil closed around her like a gray silken sheet. He groaned in protest and struggled to move closer, but the mist at his feet bound him like steel manacles. His own dream held him prisoner, but he didn’t care. As long as the sheet between them parted again and he could catch one more glimpse of those glorious jade eyes, he would gladly stay bound for eternity.
He stared into the haze, praying she would reappear.
“Please, come back! I have to know who you are,” he cried out, his voice thick with need and edged with sharp desperation.
Need didn’t come close to the depth of emotion, the absolute desolation of his soul as it cried out.
