The Egg (Return of the Ancients Book 4) by Carmen Caine Read Free Book Online Page B

completely overwhelmed. Soon? Surely not. He had no way of telling. Did he? I thought he’d told me that it could be years and years in the future before I was faced with my Blue-Threaded choice. What had changed? I felt sick. I’d just grown comfortable with the idea of pushing my Blue-Threaded choice way off into the future so I could pretend it didn’t exist.
    Panic began to form in me, deep in my stomach, but before it could really catch hold, a sudden gust of wind blew around me. The wet rhododendron leaves smacked me in the face and I shivered, glancing over my shoulder.
    For the briefest of moments, I saw him. The man in the black top hat. He was standing behind me, close. And then he was gone, melting back into the shadows of the fence.
    All other thoughts fled as I jumped back and whirled around with no other intent than to get home as fast as I could.
    But Ajax didn’t let me leave.
    With a sharp yipping bark, he announced our presence, and jamming his shoulder against my knee, I lost my balance and fell forward into the rhododendrons. Sharp sticks jabbed my hands, and my knees sank in the mud as wet rubbery leaves scratched my face.
    “Thanks, Ajax,” I hissed at him in a shaky voice as I struggled to my feet.
    Light flooded the backyard as Raven and Rafael both descended upon us.
    “Sydney,” Rafael greeted me, extending a helping hand. I could see by the pulse in his neck that he wasn’t as calm as he appeared.
    “I was just walking with Ajax when I tripped,” I said quickly, clearing my throat as I waved his offer of help aside.
    But my footing was unsteady and losing my balance, I would have fallen right back into the shrubs if Rafael hadn’t caught me by the elbow and tipped me up straight.
    “Thanks,” I muttered self-consciously.
    I felt like an idiot. I should have known Ajax would have picked the worst possible time to rat me out. I shook my hands a little in the effort to clean them.
    “Imbecile!” Raven exploded.
    My eyebrows yanked up in surprise as I saw that I’d splattered a bit of mud on her immaculate red dress. I opened my mouth to apologize, but Rafael intercepted me.
    “Such infantile displays of temper do not befit you, Raven,” he said calmly.
    Raven’s mouth snapped shut and the look she sent him was a furious one.
    “I’m sorry,” I quickly said anyway as her vicious eyes shifted to skewer me.
    “What I have to share with Rafael is private,” Raven said, her voice thickening with anger. “You have no right to interfere.”
    Feeling a tad guilty about eavesdropping, I took a step back, but Rafael’s strong fingers closed over my forearm. “I have no secrets from Sydney,” he told her.
    “That’s really ok,” I said, wanting nothing more than to leave. I nodded at the back door. “I’ll just wait inside.”
    Without waiting for a response, I dashed up the steps, across the back porch, and entered Rafael’s house.
    I’d never been in that part of the house before. I stood in some kind of small den. A door to the right apparently led to the kitchen and straight ahead I could see into the living room. Or what had once been the living room, anyway. Now, it housed the Fae Command Center, filled with technology I was certain our government would drool over. Though, they’d probably never recognize it for what it was. It just looked like an art gallery filled with different-sized glowing, colored crystals that chimed at random intervals.
    Not yet knowing exactly who I could trust amongst the Fae Protectors in the living room, I opted to wait for Rafael in the kitchen and pushed the door open.
    I paused in the doorway.
    It really wasn’t a kitchen. I guess someone had used one of those programmable atoms to create some kind of atrium, complete with a bubbling brook, tropical plants, and colonies of butterflies. It was so huge that I figured it had to be some kind of optical illusion, but an immensely relaxing one.
    In the far corner, there was a modern bar made of