Birthday Shift (9 page)

“It’s gorgeous!”
she exclaimed. “It looks like you’ve done a lot of work on it.”
And in only
a few short months.
When she’d heard that Lukos was in the human worlds
passing as a carpenter a part of her, the part that still was a spoiled fairy
princess, had thought it foolish that her lover would try to be a common
laborer. Then, the more she thought about it, the more she realized this might
be her chance to make her fairytale come true. Thus, the bag she held with her
other hand. He’d come far from his humble beginnings. She had wondered if he’d
even known how to work with his hands.

Now she knew.
Heat swept through her body thinking about all the ways back in fae that he’d
demonstrated mastery with his fingers, how he coaxed her body to the heights of
passion and made her feel things that no other fae man could. She squared her
shoulders, expecting a battle.

“What are we
going to do?” Lukos asked. He closed the door behind her, then flipped the
lock.

The tiny snick
reinforced the fact that she was alone with him, had gone with him, and in some
ways was completely at his mercy. Her breath caught. Her nipples beaded. If she
were lucky, before the night was over, she’d end up beneath him, utterly
helpless as he did whatever he wanted to her body.

“I can sense your
arousal, Lise. If I thought sex would fix things, I’d scoop you in my arms and
show you what I’ve done with the master suite.” He shook his head and rested
his hands on her shoulders. “But I think we’ve gone too far for that.”

“No!” She brought
her hands up to cover his, sensing the strength in his digits that could craft
wood to show its beauty or give a woman the most pleasurable night of her life.
The bag, with its precious cargo, banged against her back. “What if I told you
I don’t feel very comfortable in Caroann anymore?”

Lukos rested his
forehead against hers. A heavy sigh issued from his chest. “If you know how
much the sight of that gilded cage haunts me… I could never have done it. But
we had to in order to force the
Quartanine.
What I wouldn’t give to tell
Cheri that I’d never hurt her, that I’d sent the alchemist to her when I heard
her shop was failing, all because I knew she wouldn’t be able to resist, and I
could send Riley into her arms. It worked out well, but what if it hadn’t? What
if I’d sentenced your sister to a life with Iver? Goddess bless, Lise. Don’t
you know the hell we’ve caused?”

She did and it
weighed on her soul as heavily as it did on his. “Funny the things we do when
we have secrets we want to keep.” She bit her lip. “I think if we went to Cheri
and explained things to her that she’d forgive us. And then, maybe, we could
forgive ourselves.” She trailed the fingers of one hand over his arm, up to his
shoulder to trace the strong line of his jaw.

“I can’t,” Lukos
rasped. “I can’t forgive myself for what we did. Ever.”

“You have to.” In
the months it’d taken her to hunt down Lukos, she’d done a lot of thinking,
much of it on the subject of her sister. If she and Lukos couldn’t forgive not
only themselves, but each other, then their relationship would fail.

Lukos pressed a
soft kiss to her forehead. “It’s not that easy for me. You’re a royal and
regardless of your actions, your caste will accept you. I’m not. I rose too far
above my station and now the royals who once called me Prince will rejoice in
how far I can fall. It’s not going to be pretty. You shouldn’t have to be a
part of it.”

Lise traced his
full, lower lip. Her chest tightened, her heart seizing with the fact that
Lukos seemed determined to break it. Closing her eyes, she traced his mouth,
his cheeks, his chin in an attempt to memorize his features. Returning to
Caroann without him would kill her. She drew a deep breath and rose onto her
tiptoes. Lise pressed her lips to his, sliding her hand around to touch the
back of his head. She spread her fingers there, feeling his short hair, once
luxuriant against her.

Lukos groaned.

Taking the sound
as acquiescence, she slid her tongue along his lower lip. His hands tightened
on her shoulders, his body rigid. Whether to push her away or pull her closer,
she didn’t know, though every cell begged for the latter. She delved into the
warm cavern of his mouth and pressed herself against his body.

Their legs
brushed, and against her stomach the hard length of him proved that he still
wanted her. She pulled her hand free, setting the bag on the floor next to
them, before wrapping her free arm around his waist, grabbing his buttocks to pull
him closer. A soft whimper emerged from her throat.

Lukos stood
unmoving, not returning her kiss.

She growled her
frustration, nipping at his lower lip. He used to like it when she got rough,
like the one time she tied him to the bedposts and rode him until they fell
asleep as the sun crested the castle walls.

For a moment she
thought he might give in. His fingers tightened on her shoulder, one hand
sliding over her ribs.

He pulled his
lips from hers and shoved her away. “No. We can’t.”

Lise stumbled backward.
She grabbed the large knob at the end of the railing to steady herself, half
afraid she might fall. When she raised her gaze to look at Lukos, he stood
there, the tips of his ears blazing with arousal, and yet, in his eyes, the man
who looked back at her bore no resemblance to the man she loved.

Unbreak Me by Lex Valentine

Chapter One

Tait stepped through the
portal into Crossroads. Her power, the magic that she’d been born with, that
permeated every iota of her flesh and spirit, went null. She’d known it would
happen, but it still made her feel strange and a little nauseous. She’d
voluntarily powered down in the past, turning off her magical energy, and she’d
also had her power taken from her by force, but this didn’t even come close to
either of those sensations. When she voluntarily turned off her magical power,
she still knew she could call upon it if needed. When her power had been
forcibly locked within her, denied release, she’d still known it was there.
Here in this no-man’s land where human magic did not work, her power was simply
gone. She had nothing left but non-magical skills which made her feel every
inch the vulnerable human. She knew full well that non-human, immortal
creatures such as angels, demons, and the fae, did not become null in
Crossroads. However, their powers were shielded for the protection of the
inhabitants of the realm; therefore, they couldn’t use them.

Luckily, she’d once been the
best of the best at fighting without magic. It had been one of her most prized
skills, and Tait hoped like hell she hadn’t lost much of her edge over the past
six years. Walking the hard packed dirt of Crossroads wrapped in a cloak filled
with weapons wasn’t the smartest thing she had ever done, but she had no
choice. It wasn’t as if the portal had a coat check. Not that she would have
taken off the Alizar cloak anyway.
 
Alizar women wore it so that they could keep men from fighting over
their beauty. Tait wore it to keep people from cringing.

She strode toward the group
of buildings that seemed to be the only thing Crossroads had to offer. The
biggest building had a sign with gilded letters on the front. Spellbound
Treasure.
 
Of all the realms in the
universe, no other place dealt with the buying and selling of objects infused
with magic. It took great skill to deal with cursed objects, and even enchanted
items could be troublesome to handle, yet the enigmatic staff of Spellbound
Treasure did it regularly and without issue.

Staring up at the building,
Tait began to tremble. Six years ago, the tremors had begun, manifesting while
she’d been under extreme duress. Although her situation had improved greatly in
the past three years, she’d been unable to stop the shaking that wracked her
body at the slightest sign of stress. She figured one day the trembling would
get her killed. After all, an assassin whose hands shook while holding a gun or
sword had to compensate for that flaw and the extra seconds it took to steady
the weapon gave her opponent the advantage.

Inside the building, the
object she’d come for called to her. Her body hummed like a tuning fork despite
the fact that her magic – and all magic – had no power in Crossroads. Still,
the heartstone drew her like metal shavings to a magnet. Her heart thundered,
her breath quickened, and painful memories wrapped around her, clouding her
perceptions and numbing her to everything but the heartstone—and her memories
of a happy past.

Tait pulled the cloak tighter
around her. She adjusted the mesh veil portion of the hood so it obscured the
lower half of her face. Burrowing deeper into the hood cast her face in shadow.
She knew the hood and veil made it difficult for anyone to see her features
clearly, but that was the whole point of the cloak. Anonymity.

Silence enveloped her when
she stepped into Spellbound Treasure. The eerie quiet set off alarms inside her
head.
 
Her back burned; someone watched
her from a hidden spot. A door opened and a tall man entered, a rueful smile on
his handsome face. Tait’s nose twitched as she caught his scent. Her well-trained
sense of smell sent up the alarm.
Demon!

The man’s brows rose as if he
could hear her thoughts. “Can I help you?” he asked politely.

Tait would wager a commission
that he knew exactly why she was there. “Etienne told me to come. She said the
man who won the heartstone auction would be picking it up today. She said I
could speak to him about offering more money for it,” Tait replied, her voice
gruff.

It went against her instincts
to come to Crossroads, begging for the chance to buy the heartstone from the
anonymous man who'd outbid her for it online. But she needed the stone almost
more than she needed her next breath. Now that she stood inside the building
where it resided, she could hear it humming, singing to her soul. Her eyes
closed for a moment as pain lashed her sharply.

“Are you alright?”

The tall man’s cool voice
pulled her from the raw ache that threatened to consume her. She shuddered, the
movement hidden within the voluminous folds of the cloak.

“You know, weapons aren’t
allowed in Crossroads,” he told her in a matter-of-fact voice.

“Then you should have a gun
check at the portal,” Tait hissed. The fact that she’d expressed her momentary
annoyance proved that her control had already unraveled to the dangerous point.
She needed to complete this transaction soon, before she fell apart in front
the proprietor.

The man eyed her
thoughtfully, refusing to rise to her bait. He gestured toward a chair in the
corner. “You’re welcome to sit and wait. Can I get you anything? A glass of
water? A cup of coffee?”

She shook her head. “No.
Nothing.”

The chair he’d pointed to had
mismatched legs but looked comfortable nonetheless. She sat down, her eyes
shifting to survey the room automatically, checking for other entrances and
exits.
 
After three years of searching
for her heartstone, she’d found it at one of Spellbound Treasure’s online
auctions. The moment she’d seen its photo, the stasis she’d lived in for six
years had cracked open. She needed the stone.
 
Her body ached to hold it in her hand, and let its magic, and the
emotions trapped within it, heal her. Her old life might be gone, who she once
was might be gone, but that stone lived on, and her heart needed it badly.

She’d bid relentlessly on the
stone. She hadn’t cared how much it cost. She could afford it. Living frugally
while making huge commissions for kills meant that she could pay almost
anything for the heartstone. Yet, every time she’d upped her bid, someone had
topped her. She outbid him, and he came back with another higher bid. For a
week, they had dominated the auction, pushing the price into a zone most buyers
couldn’t touch. In the end, the rat hole she lived in with its spotty
electricity had lost her the heartstone. The power had gone out and her
wireless connection flickered just at the ending point of the auction. Her bid
had not gone through in time and the buyer named Vengeance had won.

Instantly, Tait had been on
the phone to Spellbound Treasure and Etienne, the owner, had told her that
Vengeance had emailed stating that he would pick up the stone in person.
Etienne told Tait to arrive at the same time and bargain with the man in
person. For the first time in three years, Tait had ventured beyond the
confines of her own realm for something other than work.

Her trembling increased as the
clock reached the appointed hour and still the buyer had not arrived. Hiding
her shaking fingers within the folds of the cloak, Tait wondered what would
happen if Vengeance wouldn’t budge. She had had the vague notion of following
him back to his realm and taking the heart from him. She certainly had the
skills to do so. In fact, once out of Crossroads, if she was close enough
physically to the heart, she could just call it to her. The magic from her soul
permeated the heartstone. It was as if it were a part of her, so taking it from
Vengeance would be like taking candy from a baby. She could call the stone to
her and magick herself away before he’d even know the stone was gone.