Cassandra Marston has lived an ordinary twenty-nine years. She has always looked forward to meeting the right man, falling in love and growing to a comfortable old age with him. She wants to become what her grandmother had been. A loving protector.
When immortal Keegan fell from a tree at age seven in 443bc, his breaks healed unnaturally quick. His superstitious mother believed him a child of the Sidhe who’d replaced her true son. Fear drove her to disown him and remove him from their home. For thousands of years, Keegan has taken care of no one but himself.
Until now. After watching Cass die and return to life, he must learn to put someone else's needs before his own.
Read on for an excerpt from Forever Love...
For the first time in days, Cassandra Marston wasn’t freezing. Cocooned in a warm blanket, she felt a soft mattress beneath her. Was she dreaming? Nope. There was no way she could be sleeping with the tiny men building a town in her head. They were definitely using sledgehammers. If that weren’t enough fun, her mouth felt like it’d been filled with cotton and any remaining moisture sucked out.
She stretched under the warmth of the blanket and shoved herself up, leaning against the headboard. She was in a real bed and her body only slightly ached. Amazing since she’d been in constant pain for days. This was almost heaven. Maybe her kidnapper had finally killed her.
Cass shook her head. Pain shooting sparks through her brain forced her to close her eyes before they could adjust to the dim light. She was absolutely, positively not dead. Okay, not heaven but it still wasn’t the hell she’d been in either.
Why had he moved her? Why couldn’t she remember being moved?
She shifted her legs. No soreness between them, so far as she could tell. Whatever his intent, it wasn’t sexual. She was convinced she’d know if it was, or at least she prayed she’d know.
Sighing, she eased her eyes open and looked around. The room was softly lit by a lamp on the nightstand next to her and a fireplace’s glowing fire on the other side of the room. She could see enough to know the room was large and decorated in rich creams and browns with paintings lining one wall. Cass couldn’t see them well, but some looked like artists she recognized, although the subjects were unfamiliar. Someone was good at copying the styles of the masters.
Lifting her hand to rub her eyes, she realized she wasn’t wearing glasses. How was that possible? Normally she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her nose without them, now she could see perfectly across the room. What was happening to her? Contacts? But why would her captor put contacts in her eyes? No, she couldn’t feel anything in her eyes, and she’d know if he’d done surgery on her, wouldn’t she? More questions to pile on top of a million others.
Cass ran her hands over the brown down-filled comforter, it was soft and lightweight. Where was she? Scrubbing her hand over her face it felt dirty and when she looked, she saw dried blood on her fingertips. She stared at them for a moment before pushing her hand through her hair, her fingers caught in the tangled, slightly damp mess. She yanked her hand back and found more blood than she’d gotten off her face. What had he done to her now? Why had she been bleeding? It seemed to have stopped and pressing carefully, she couldn’t find anything that hurt. Well, no wonder she had a headache.
What in the world’s going on here? I have to be having a nightmare.
Sure she was. She’d been telling herself that for days, and she’d never woken up. She knew no matter how much her mind fought against it, she’d been kidnapped leaving her bookstore and thrown into a van. Before she could think about struggling, she’d felt the sting of a needle and remembered nothing more.
The door across the room opened and two men entered. One flicked the switch and the room flooded with light from an overhead fixture. Cass blinked as her eyes grew accustomed to the change.
Both men were tall and despite the size of the room, Cass felt as if the space had been filled by them. Disappointment and fear hit her at the same time. She’d never seen either of them before, so she hadn’t been rescued.
She squashed the feelings before either could take hold. She couldn’t afford to let fear control her and disappointment wouldn’t do her any good. She’d done her best to keep her captor from knowing how much he scared her so far, only letting it take hold when she was too tired to fight it anymore and he wasn’t around. She wasn’t tired now, and she refused to let them know they were succeeding in scaring her. She really wished she’d thought to appear asleep.
“You’re awake, then.” The taller and more dangerous looking of the two said. His sexy Irish lilt made her want to curl her toes.
Dangerous had wavy black hair that touched his shoulders and he was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen. His sharply squared jaw was covered with at least a day’s growth of dark beard that was seriously sexy. Her attention turned to his full sensuous mouth, bracketed by deep creases that would undoubtedly form into dimples if he ever smiled. She looked into dark chocolate, almost black, bedroom eyes that tilted down at the outer corners giving him a “come hither” look.
He stood six foot plus easy. His black, long sleeve Henley accentuated his muscled chest and slim waist. His build reminded her of a ballet dancer. Powerful and graceful as a panther. There was an energy that resonated from him and touched her like a caress. Irrationally, she wanted to run her hands up his chest and through his dark hair.
He was wearing faded blue jeans that were old enough to have formed around every wonderful contour of his body affording her a delicious look at what he had to offer. Her breath caught for a moment as she stared. Forcing her eyes downward, she noticed he was barefoot. He had beautifully formed feet. Ridiculously, she wanted to smile. Who had beautiful feet?
What in the world? Shaking her head, Cass forced her eyes away from him. How could she be attracted to a man who’d captured her? A man who looked like he could break her in half without a second thought? If her heart raced just from looking at him, what would happen to her if she ever touched him? If he ever touched her?
Whoa! These men are holding you captive. What are you thinking, girl?
“You’re scaring her, my friend,” the other guy said. He, too, had an accent but she couldn’t place it, not really. Perhaps something more Mediterranean, and definitely more cultured. His darker skin confirmed he was from regions farther south than Ireland. He was smiling at her as though he could read her thoughts and recognized her interest in his friend as normal. Did every woman who looked at Dangerous want to go to bed with him? Of course they did. That just made her one of the herd. Stupid, stupid.
The second guy was shorter than Dangerous, but not by more than a couple of inches and his black hair was short and curly. His brown eyes were more like dark honey, an almost golden hue. He, too, was good looking, but couldn’t hold a candle to his friend. His build was more that of a body builder, muscular without being hulky, his expression more open and friendly. More trustworthy. He was wearing a tailored black pinstriped shirt and sharply creased black slacks. His black loafers looked as expensive and as well taken care of as everything else.
“Your head’s up your arse, as usual, Greek. I didn’t say anything.” The look Dangerous directed at Curly scared the crap out of Cass. She breathed a sigh of relief when Dangerous turned toward her. His expression had softened to something akin to tenderness, as though she were a poor, hurt animal he’d found at the side of the road. She didn’t want to be a poor, hurt animal, she wanted to be someone he desired, someone he wanted to—
What the...Cass, stop that! What has gotten into you? It was the drugs, that was it, it had to be the drugs. They made her crazy in the head.
“You don’t have to, you just have to scowl at her like you do everyone,” Curly said.
Curly looked at her, his smile reassuring. “Don’t worry, my dear, we’re not going to hurt you. Do you remember how you got here?”
She frowned at him. What did he mean by that? “I was kidnapped.”
The two men exchanged looks before Dangerous asked, “By whom?”
O-kay now she was confused, what the heck was going on here? “I’ve no idea. It wasn’t you two?”
She’d never seen anyone look more affronted. She would’ve sworn she’d just thrown up all over their shoes. Or bare feet as the case may be.
All trace of humor and friendliness disappeared from Curly as he said, “If I didn’t know better, my friend, I’d think your reputation precedes you.”
“Go and shite, Derian, you’re not helping.”
Dangerous turned his dark eyes on her, and she wanted to crawl under the blanket and hide. Or better yet, run her fanny out of there. If only she knew where “there” was.
Dangerous’ look should’ve quenched any stupid desire she might have for him. Except she felt her fingertips tingling. She still wanted to touch him, still wanted to run her hands along his stubble-darkened jaw and back through his shoulder-length hair. Was it as silky as it looked? Okay not so quenched. Jeez, she was one sick puppy.
“You ran across the road in front of my car,” Dangerous said yanking her attention away from his hair.
Fear clenched her chest and she had to struggle to breathe. How did she get on a road? “At least you didn’t hit me.”
“I did.”
She really was in a nightmare, or the man was crazy, or drunk, or high or all three. She so had to get out of here, but she hadn’t been able to get out of anything for days, why would she think she’d have any more luck now?
One thing she knew for sure, her only hope of surviving this new twist to her life was to remain calm, or as calm as she possibly could. Not feeling deathly sick any more should help her at least pretend she was in control. Or she hoped it did. Taking a deep breath through her nose, she fought to sound in control. Holding her hand up, she looked at the blood. “That’s where this came from? Where am I hurt, am I going to die?”
“You were hurt all over, darlin’, and you did die.”
Cass stared at him before she squeaked, “I died? Did you do CPR? Why aren’t I in a hospital?” So much for sounding in control.
“I didn’t do CPR because you were dead and CPR wouldn’t help. You’re not in a hospital because your body decided it didn’t want to be dead and healed itself. Do you have any idea how that happened, since it’s impossible for a woman to heal like that?”
Oh God, he was crazy and she was going to die. She had to get out now or he was going to kill her. Sexy or not, he was certifiably nuts. With more strength and speed than she would have thought possible considering she’d been locked up and drugged for days, she pushed the comforter back and jumped out of the bed. Her bare feet momentarily sank into the thick brown carpet before adrenaline kicked in and she started to move.
To be continued in Forever Love...
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