Heart of Darkness by Jaide Fox Read Free Book Online Page B

interior pocket of a rumpled-looking jacket.
She said nothing, until she awoke from her stupor and realized that
he did not intend to return it.
     
    * * * *
     
     
    “Wolfe! Give me it back!” she demanded
insistently and held out her hand to prompt him into action.
     
    When he simply stared at her and did not make
a move towards returning the ring to her possession, she glared at
him. Feeling truculent, almost like a child whose parents had taken
away her most favored toy, she slammed her hand down against the
mattress.
     
    “It is my ring, Wolfe. I demand that you
return it to me,” Isabeau stated coolly, her voice was smooth and
free from strain, but she felt it.
     
    Inside, her mind ran from one to two to three
to forty!
     
    What happened if he did not return it?
     
    What happened if he never returned it?
     
    What and why was he behaving like this?
     
    She swallowed at the somber look he bestowed
on her and softly, politely, she murmured, “Please, give me the
ring back, Wolfe.”
     
    “I see you have not entirely lost your
manners then, Isabeau,” he retorted firmly and although his lips
twitched as though he were amused, she felt floods of mortification
as she realized he'd been baiting her.
     
    It was a welcome reminder that this man was
no friend.
     
    While he had saved her from that brush with
the intruder, it would do her well to remember that he was her
captor, not her companion. She was not in this sleeping chamber out
of choice, but because he had brought her to this manor, had led
her to this room and then had locked the door so as to keep her
imprisoned.
     
    These were not the actions of a friend. Nor
was his earlier...indiscretion in regards to the supping at her
finger with his tongue!
     
    “Wolfe, please, just return it to me. It's my
ring, one of the only remaining possessions I have that once
belonged to my mother,” she said and huffed in a deep breath, then
continued, “Please. I have to wear it.”
     
    “Why do you have to wear it?”
     
    She shrugged, but the gesture wasn't smooth,
it was jerky and tense.
     
    “My mother told me that I was the last one in
our line to yield the kind of power that could control the magic in
the stone. My mama and papa had no brothers or sisters still living
and I was an only child.”
     
    “So you're a witch?”
     
    Isabeau glared hotly at him. “Are you doing
your level best to insult me today?”
     
    He chuckled and she damned his very
existence. She was not a joke, for Goddess' sake! Nor did she have
to be ridiculed in such a manner by the man. He may have abducted
her, but that did not give him the right to mock her as well.
     
    Honestly, it was a further injustice!
     
    When no response came to her question,
she brushed it off. It had been rhetorical anyway, and instead
retorted, “No, I'm not a witch. My mother...well, she never told me
what we are. Just that I was one of the very few remaining
of... whatever we are. I
believe that she thought to tell me what I was would place me in
danger.”
     
    “She was correct, although it is a shame that
you aren't entirely aware of your heritage.”
     
    “I take it that means you know what I
am?”
     
    “Of course,” he said with a mocking nod.
     
    Inwardly, she fumed. Had she ever met such an
exasperating character?
     
    Rather than ask, as he so obviously wanted
her to, she murmured, “How did this Jaegar's man enter my bed
chamber?”
     
    Her words were mock-sweet but at their heart,
they were blocks of ice. His face hardened and a nasty glimmer
appeared in those almost-black eyes. Had his ire been focused upon
her, then she would have quaked in her stockings! Damn, the man had
a fierce face.
     
    She was not sure why it appealed to her so,
when it seemed always to be set in harsh and unforgiving lines.
Even moments before, when he had thought to prod fun at her, there
had been laughter in his voice and a slight merry tinkle in his
eye, but the rest of his face had remained the