NocC 021 - Jessa Slade - Dark Hunter's Touch - Harlequin 2012-08 by Nocturne Read Free Book Online Page A

running.
    But finally he pushed himself up off her and looked down. “This
is how I will imagine you.”
    She had been smiling—a satisfied, sleepy smile that made him
want to summon another hundred Hunters just so he could fend them off by kissing
her again—but at his words, a faint shadow crossed her eyes. “You will
forget.”
    “Never.”
    “Then maybe I will, with the phaedrealii walls around me. When I fade back into the nothing
again.”
    “No. You aren’t like that.”
    “You don’t understand.” The edge of her wing curled to cover
her. “I was exactly that.”
    Careful not to fall off the narrow bed, he rolled to one side
and pulled her close. “That is why you ran away.”
    She nodded against his chest. “At first, when she took power
after the Iron Wars, the Queen would send phae out
here just to watch. She has always been curious about humans—many of the phae are—and since you purified your iron into steel,
we can walk more freely in the sunlit realm. Sometimes humans would follow us
back to the phaedrealii .”
    He kissed her crown. “I’d follow you anywhere.”
    She twisted her head to frown up at him. “Don’t say that. You
must never enter the court, or you might never leave.”
    “Maybe I wouldn’t mind—” he kept his gaze fixed on hers “—if
you were there.”
    She bit her lip, hard enough to leave crescents like tiny,
blood-red moons. “That would make it worse.” Her eyes glimmered. “If you are
feeling something… The Queen uses emotion to enhance her power. The rush of
anger that speeds the tongue. The lightness of laughter that makes the heart
seem to float. The swell of desire that makes the world narrow and deepen. These
are magics she wants to take for her own. But she wants more, more than the phae can give.”
    He reached up to smooth his thumb over Imogene’s lip. “How bad
could it be?”
    “Bad.” She let out an unsteady breath. “Not long before I ran
away, I was summoned to the Queen’s chambers. When I arrived, her chancellor
made me wait in the corner, because she had a man—a human man—in her bed. He was
one who had followed a phae —followed me —from the world back to court.”
    Vaile lifted one eyebrow. “I’ve read the story of Tam Lin.
Fairy queens seem prone to such behavior.”
    “And fairy princesses too?” She echoed his raised brow. “Yes,
some phae take human lovers, but this man wasn’t
just enthralled. He was…empty. The Queen had taken everything from him.”
    “She killed him.” Vaile kept his voice matter-of-fact.
    Imogene shook her head. “All that remained was a husk, but he
lived, if you want to call it that. She was still working with her glass knives
and burning steel when I arrived, and she spoke aloud as she took the man apart. She was saying, And
this is his heart, which we will call love, because we save the cock for
other uses .”
    Vaile’s arm tightened around her. “What sort of dissection is
that?”
    “The chancellor keeps a dozen stolen smart phones, and he was
so thrilled to show me pictures of what they had done to enhance the Queen’s
power. They had taken the man’s spleen to render down for anger, a lung for
laughter, his leg for fear because the chancellor said cowards run.” She tucked
herself tighter against him. “That is when I knew I would run. I looked into the
man’s eye—they had plucked out one, and all I can think is the eyes are the
window to the soul, and they took his soul—and I saw he knew what he had lost.
That man was losing himself, as the phae have
already lost themselves. As I will lose myself again and become the nothing I
feared.”
    “Imogene—“
    She surged up to kiss him, hard. “When you say my name, I think
maybe it is possible I could be more, with you. But I won’t risk you.” She
kissed him again.
    When she lifted her head, he smoothed back her hair. “Skin to
skin, we can’t lie, you said. I see there is something more in you. You have
something