Forbidden by Jacquelyn Frank Read Free Book Online Page A

given moment during most of her travels, allowing her to adapt to each situation with that childlike openness and skill only the young possess. You are not as fortunate.”
    Was he trying to tell her that she was in danger? Well, that had to be one of those things that were stupidly obvious. Right? If the past events of her life had provenanything to her, that most certainly had to be the ringing truth of it.
    “I don’t understand it,” she found herself confessing to this stranger in a way she hadn’t been able to admit to her law enforcement sibling. “What did I do? I’m no one special. Why would … ?” She tried to look back over her shoulder again, but this time he held tightly to her arm and encouraged her to remain facing forward.
    “Your specialness is not a matter up for question,” he said, the tone he used almost scolding. “Every breath you presently draw is proof enough of that. That and, I do not doubt, all the rest will become clearer to you over time. For the present we must move from under the watchful eye of the night sky.”
    Before she could even think to form an argument, she was being swept into her own home and he was crossing her threshold and closing the door behind them. He took a moment to pull aside the beads she had acting as a sidelight curtain, that attentiveness sweeping the street once again. He was beginning to make her paranoid. Or perhaps he was just making her aware of how paranoid she ought to have been all along, considering the evidence to date.
    But now he was in her home. In her safe space. By virtue of taking his strange, strong golden self over her threshold, he had somehow taken the dangers of
out
there
and brought the awareness of them
in here
.
    “Who the hell are you?” she demanded, resenting that she was letting herself be swept so passively into this situation. She backed into her living room, feeling suddenly nauseated as she stumbled toward the receiver for the landline. The only way to fix this, she knew, was to call Jackson and get him here ASAP. But just when she turned to pounce on the phone, a powerful brown hand was covering it, pulling it out of her reach.
    Choking on a screech, Docia looked up … and up … and up … the length of a male body seemingly twice as huge as the already impressive man behind her. The breadth of his shoulders loomed over her, making her feel like an ant scrambling over a picnic blanket that was suddenly spied by an enormous human who hovered over it, blocking out the sun and most of the world.
    “Don’t be afraid,” the warmer, safer of the two evils said to her from behind, a hand of what she could only assume was comfort resting at the side of her neck. Either that or he was getting ready to snap her head off. “Asikri looks imposing, but he is harmless.”
    “Fuck you, Ram,” the giant man spat at the other, clearly taking offense at being labeled “harmless.” He needn’t have worried. Docia didn’t believe it for a second. Size and bulk aside—
could those things ever really
be an aside?
she wondered— the blackness of his eyes, seemingly larger than was appropriate for the white space of the sclera surrounding them, and the blue-black sheen of straight, flat hair pulled back tautly in a high-set braid were more than enough to countermand the ridiculous claim. Even the soft tip of this brute’s baby finger couldn’t be considered harmless. The deep burst of his voice as he spoke profanely to his companion confirmed all conclusions that this man was very, very dangerous.
    “Asikri! Respect for your queen,” Ram demanded, his tone brooking no argument.
    Asikri looked Docia over coldly and ruthlessly. “There’s no way in the great night that
this
is my queen.”
    The level of insult and contempt must have been the final straw somewhere in the damaged parts of her bruised brain, because it was the only way Docia could explain what she did next. She reached out and grabbed the beast by his middle finger