Monster (A Cassidy Edwards Novel - Book 1) (26 page)

“You’re not supposed to give in that easily,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

“So, you’re sorry, love?” he asked in quite the conversational tone accompanied by a very long, very nasal, and very, very annoying giggle.

“No, not sorry at all,” I denied a bit more genuinely this time.

Diving for the peanuts, he perched on the edge of the bowl. “Suppose you couldn’t add a dash of turmeric now, could you?”

“Yeah, well, you’re not staying,” I snapped at him. “There’s a reason I left you behind.”

He flattened his ears at me.

Reaching over, I swished his head away from his body, just for old time’s sake.

“What are you doing here—” I began, but I didn’t finish the sentence.

A distinct scent filled my nostrils.

I looked over my shoulder just in time to see my mother stepping lightly onto my porch, wearing a white stole, a matching hat, and a tight black cocktail dress.

“Did you just fly down from above?” I asked, a bit surprised.

She peered over my shoulder at Ricky, who was blissfully chomping his peanuts, and she arched a perfect brow. “Still keeping that thing?” she asked in disgust.

I ignored her question. “You’re looking well,” I said. “What’s up? Who sent you this time?”

I figured she wouldn’t have looked me up on her own.

And I could tell by the way she quickly averted her gaze that I was right.

“What are 
you
 up to?” she just asked awkwardly in response.

“Really, Blair?” I asked, facing her and folding my arms. Judging by the way she was beating around the bush, I figured it had to be a message from Emilio. I decided to be blunt. “What does he want you to say to me?”

“Don’t hate him,” she pleaded at once.

I couldn’t prevent my eyes from rolling. They just did it on their own. “Is that what he said?”

She looked like she wanted to slap me.

I knew he hadn’t said anything of the sort, but I replied anyway, “Well, you can tell him that I’m only growing to hate him more each day.”

“He wants to meet you, Cassidy,” she said then.

Meet him.

“No,” I said at once. “Not unless he’s going to hold still while I target practice with my knives.”

She left after that. We both knew it would only go further downhill from there.

I heaved a sigh.

Of course, my mother would be on the opposing side. But then it was nothing new, we’d been on opposite sides my entire life.

I stomped into my kitchen.

Ricky followed. It wasn’t like I could really keep him out. He could suck himself under doors and through keyholes. Leaving him snuffling through the empty cupboards, I headed off to the shower.

I figured since I didn’t keep any food in the house—i.e., turmeric—he really couldn’t cause me any trouble.

When I returned, I saw that the little imp had opened the back door and had left it propped open wide. He was nowhere to be seen. Had all that moping around been an act?

I should never have trusted the little beast.

Annoyed, I reached for the door, but before I could shut it, a dark figure stepped around the corner.

Tall. Broad-shouldered.

I couldn’t smell him. There had been no warning.

Lucian.

I tried to slam the door shut, but he blocked it with his forearm before it could close. It must have hurt.

And then Lord Lucian Rowle stood in my tiny kitchen, looking down at me with his piercing blue eyes. Dressed in a fine black suit and with his dark hair pulled back in a suave ponytail, he looked like anything 
but
 a destitute warlock.

He was hot. Sizzling hot. Beyond sexy.

Crud. I’d forgotten how physically overpowering his presence could be. And it only seemed to have gotten worse.

“I have nothing to say to you,” I snapped. “Go away!”

Crooking the corner of his lip into a smile, Lucian arched a brow and said, “Oh, Cass, when will you stop being so mulish?”

That did it. I mean, that really did it. After all these weeks, to show up and call me “Cass”? Quicker than a blink of an eye, I had a knife unsheathed and pressed against his throat.

Mistake number one: I was much closer to him now.

I could feel the heat of his skin—the crackling energy that only seemed to leap up between us faster each time.

Frowning in the effort to concentrate, I poked the base of his throat with the tip of my knife. “Should I bury the knife here?” I asked.

He just stood there, as cool as all get out. “We both know that you can’t harm me, sweetheart,” he said in a pleasantly low rumble. With eyes soft as velvet, he asked, “But have you hired Terzi assassins to hunt me down yet?”

Mistake number two: I shouldn’t have engaged him in conversation.

“Oh 
please
,” I snorted, “I wouldn’t sink that low, but I 
am
 plotting your downfall.”

There was a gleam in his eye. I knew he was going to kiss me.

Mistake number three: I let him.

A kiss of raw, powerful mastery. Traitorously pleasurable. Startling. Memorable. Rivaling Dorian’s—no, exceeding it.

Every cell in my being responded. After all, it was what I’d been wanting to do since I’d met him.

So, for several long, passionately glorious, lust-filled moments, I kissed him, transported with sensations, as his tongue thrust between my lips to tangle with mine in a dance that only made me want more. All of him. There was passion in that kiss. Lust. Gentleness. Desperation. Complete abandon. His palms slid up my spine, scorching my skin.

It was all so right.

So right that it had to be 
wrong
.

The angry, wild beating of my heart tore me away from the heaven of his lips. My hand had whacked him across the face before I’d even realized what I’d done.

He didn’t even really look startled. His lip lifted in a half-smile. “You’re no match for me, Cass. Why waste your energy?”

“The name is Cassidy,” I breathed in confusion. “What kind of spell have you cast over me?” Oh, how I would wish I’d never asked that question.

A smile of the smuggest kind entered his magnificent blue eyes. “That attracted to me, are we?” he practically purred.

For a moment, I thought he would pin me against the wall and kiss me again. And honestly, I was vastly disappointed when he didn’t. I stood there, wanting to hate him for his betrayal. Wanting to hurt him. Wanting to get even … even as I wanted him to kiss me, claim me, make me his.

It was all so … complicated.

Revenge. Love. Were both possible? If not? Which one would I choose?

Revenge?

I’d taken a step back before I’d realized it.

Revenge. The desire for revenge just ran too deep within me.

I wouldn’t let myself forgive him. I couldn’t. What would happen to my revenge then? No. I couldn’t let any of it go. Everyone who’d cursed me to this life would have to pay.

Everyone
.

He followed my thoughts. I know he did, because he murmured, “One day soon, you’ll discover that your darkest secret will become your greatest threat.”

Who was he to preach to me? “I’d never get into the same mess as you,” I hissed.

His brow arched in irritation. “And you have no secrets?” he challenged. “What of the mist that night in the churchyard. The fog? The blanket that shrouded the Chosen Ones from finding us? Do you remember?”

I held still. Of course, I remembered that night. The entire thing was burned into my brain from beginning to end. “What of it?” I meant to snap the question, but my voice suddenly lacked the strength.

And then Lucian said the last thing I’d ever expected him to say. “Calling the mists of the Nether Reaches, it’s not something that I can do.”

I shuddered. In an instant, I knew he was speaking the truth. “But you saw it,” I gasped in denial. “It had to be you. You saw it, even though everyone else didn’t!”

Leaning forward ever so slowly, his lips brushed the top of my head. And then he whispered into my hair, “Oh, there may be other reasons for that, my dear. You’re no different than I. We each keep our secrets. And I’d wager yours won’t let itself hide much longer. It will come to find you soon.”

He knew. With a cold, nasty jolt of insight, I realized that he knew. He knew about the beast slumbering in me.

Closing my eyes, I drew a long, shuddering breath.

When I opened them again, he was gone.

* * *

Revenge.

It still drives me.

Revenge against those who betrayed me, who sought to use me for their own purposes. Even after all that had happened, I still wanted revenge. In some ways, even more than before.

But … what of my heart? Did what it want even count—especially if it prevented me from achieving my ultimate goal of revenge?

I honestly didn’t know.

Want more Cassidy Edwards novels?

Leave a review of this book and let the author know!

Click this link for a list of Carmen's books on Amazon

Like many of us on this planet, Award-winning and Bestselling author Carmen Caine (aka Madison Adler) is from another world. She spends every moment she can scribbling stories on sticky notes that her kids find posted all over the car, house, and barn.

When she is not working as a software engineer, she is busy ferrying her kids to various appointments, writing lyrics for her husband's songs, raising her Doberman Ajax, attempting to tame her three insane cats, befriending her rescue llama named Cusco, scratching her three Nigerian Dwarf Goats behind the horns or coddling her flock of thirty bizarre chickens from around the world.

Although I am terrible at tweeting and posting on Facebook (though I do strive to improve), please find me at the following places:

Carmen and Madison's Facebook Fanpage

Facebook friends with Madison Adler ( aka Carmen )

Facebook friends with Carmen Caine ( aka Madison )

Madison's Twitter - more paranormal content

Carmen's Twitter - more medieval content

Carmen and Madison's website

Carmen Caine Collections and Other Books

The Glass Wall – A Contemporary Paranormal Faerie Romance Series

From Award-Winning Author Carmen Caine,
a Contemporary Paranormal Faerie Romance: The Complete Glass Wall Collection - Four Full-length Novels and the Prequel Short Story.
The Glass Wall Series
What if humans were more powerful than they thought? What if an alien race had a reason to keep humanity entrenched in fear? And what if ancient beings that we've met before were still trying to protect us? And just what if the fate of Earth depended upon an average 17-year-old girl with a few secrets of her own?
Would she discover that the power of love was truly the strongest of all?

"The Glass Wall" - Book One of the "Glass Wall"

- A mysterious and
dangerously handsome stranger
...
- A slightly
jaded
17-year-old girl ...
- A
paranormal world
hidden within our own ...

17-year-old Sydney's only interest in life is flying under the radar. But destiny has other plans when the tall, handsome, and unusual Rafael Channing moves into the neighborhood. Athletic and with killer looks, he wears black eyeliner like a magician and always seems to be there when she needs him the most.

What starts out as a light-hearted investigation with her gadget-happy foster father takes a serious turn when she discovers that Rafael isn't human. Add Jareth, the country's latest rock sensation, into the mix and Sydney is swept into a mysterious world of Tulpas, the Fae, and the Brotherhood of the Snake.
Sydney doesn't know she's a Blue Thread of Fate. She doesn't know the fate of humanity depends on her choice of whom to trust--Jareth or Rafael. And she certainly doesn't know that she's taken the first step on the unexpected path of love.

"The Brotherhood of the Snake" - Book Two of the "Glass Wall"

- The first
kiss
...
- A
secret
revealed ...
- The arrival of the
Mesmers
...
After breaking the Glass Wall, Sydney finds herself on the run with Rafael. And as her feelings for him awaken, danger arrives in the form of Mesmers, agents of evil sent by the Brotherhood of the Snake.
But when Jareth struts back onto the scene, it isn't long before Sydney finds herself immersed in sinister secrets, and the subsequent whirlwind of events leaves her wondering just who is right and who is wrong?

"The Inner Circle" - Book Three of the "Glass Wall"

- A
love
is born that cannot be denied ...
- The
Brotherhood of the Snake
just might be winning ...
- A
Decision of Fate
is made ...
As Sydney navigates through the supernatural dangers surrounding her, she seizes control of her destiny and begins to fight back. And as she spies on the Inner Circle and the Brotherhood of the Snake, she discovers the power of human thought.
And finds out she can no longer deny the love that she feels. But then both Rafael and Jareth's secrets are revealed and a Blue-Threaded decision of fate is made. But is it the right one?