Authors: T. C. Archer
“I won’t let you go.”
“Would you have your friend go in my place?”
“It’s not an either or choice.” Jace pointed at Aeden. “That asshole is going to leave.”
Her chest tightened. “You’re wrong. A choice is exactly what it is. I can’t send your friend to
Shade
in my place.” She started toward the vortex.
Wind gusted through the room.
“No!” Aeden shouted. “She’s mine.”
Lorna pivoted to face him.
His eyes locked on her. “Ten times I ventured into this wretched place.”
Lorna gasped.
Ten times?
Understanding struck like lightning. This explained his presence here. He had arranged to have a particular man here in the hotel to meet her. He was manipulating her. Not just her, but the other men she had met. But how? Only Fate knew who was to be tested. Why had Aeden been allowed to interfere?
Aeden’s glare shifted to Jace. “You weren’t meant for her.”
Jace stared back. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
He was right. Tears filled her eyes. She hadn’t doomed innocents to Shade. Those men had been chosen by Aeden because of their deceit in order to ensure her curse wouldn’t be broken. Jace hadn’t been chosen by Aeden…he had been chosen by a higher power
for her
—for her final test. The question had never been whether or not she could be loved, but if she could love.
Lorna riveted her gaze onto Aeden. She had never lacked beauty. Her beauty was the very reason he had granted her wish…the reason he had chosen her as his queen. What she had lacked was the ability to see beyond her common life. He had been right; they were well suited.
Once.
Fury twisted within Aeden’s irises.
Yes, he read her too well.
His body spun and vanished into the vortex. The swirling mass closed shut behind him. An instant later, Jace reached her side. He grasped her shoulders and hugged her close until her trembling subsided.
At last, Lorna pulled back and looked up at him. Confusion muddled her mind. “I was supposed to return. I was always supposed to return.”
Jace gave a gentle smile. “I told you it wasn’t an either or.”
“But how did you know?”
“I could see it in his eyes.”
She stared. “But how did you know I would stay?”
He traced her cheek with a finger. “I saw that in your eyes the moment you walked in the door.”
Chapter Thirteen
Lorna crossed the hotel foyer, arm-in-arm with Jace.
He nuzzled a kiss on her neck as the door slid open and they stepped into the bright morning sun. “Remind me to thank Ryan for running the Bar-S while I took these three days off,” he said. “I owe him big time.”
She was the one who owed Ryan. The three days she and Jace had spent together had given her the chance to tell him the truth—about everything. He’d listened, then told her he accepted what she told him, even though he couldn’t fathom half of it.
“Not to mention,” Jace went on, “keeping the two women busy who were supposed to be our dates.” He laughed. “That’s a night—and a morning—Ryan won’t forget anytime soon.”
They stopped at the curb and Lorna gripped Jace’s arm when a mammoth black, metal creature came to a halt beside them. She looked up to find him staring.
“You’ve never seen an SUV?”
She glanced at the monster. “What is it?”
“An SUV, a car.” She frowned, and he added, “A horseless carriage.” He released a breath and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “This will take a while.”
He reached toward the thing and opened the door. Lorna hesitantly took a step toward the beast, then paused when movement drew her attention to the firs just beyond the hotel. A shadow flickered among the trees, then a huge silver wolf stepped to the forest edge, amber eyes set on her. She drew in a quick breath. It wasn’t possible.
What’s wrong?”
She glanced at Jace, then looked back at the trees, but the wolf was gone.
Lorna’s heart swelled. “Nothing.”
Jace’s arm slid around her and he pulled her close. She looked up into his face and read the reflection of her love in his eyes.
The End
We hope you enjoyed
Sin Incarnate
as much as we enjoyed writing it.
To learn more about our books stop visit our website.
Evan and Shawn
T. C. Archer
Other Titles from T. C. Archer
Full Throttle
Chain Reaction Book One in the Phenom League
Sasha’s Calling
Winter in Paradise
The Pickle My Little Friend
For His Eyes Only
Coming Soon
In the Company of Kate
About the Author
T. C. Archer is comprised of award winning authors Evan Trevane and Shawn M. Casey. They live in the Northeast. Evan has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, and Shawn is a small business owner. Their collaboration began on a lark with the post WWII film noir story The Pickle My Little Friend, and has evolved into nearly a dozen works, which includes their new series
The Phenom League
, and the Daphne Du Maurier winner, romantic thriller
For His Eyes Only
.
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Special excerpt from
Labyrinth
by Tarah Scott
It’s a Mississippi Deputy Sheriff’s duty to bring a serial killer to justice…even when he’s a three hundred year old Scottish lord.
It’s an SAS agent’s duty to save her.
Chapter One
Murderers weren’t born. They were made. At least, that’s what Margot had told herself these last four years. She opened the door to Castle Morrison and stepped inside the small entryway. Her hand tightened on the strap of the duffel she carried. She’d left Mississippi behind fifteen hours ago and was now on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, about as far north as a person could get in the Scottish Highlands. The countryside was just as remote as Wilkinson County, and probably just as wild.
Gooseflesh crept across her arms with an unexpected desire to turn and head back home—back to her father, the job she’d left behind and the front porch swing that squeaked too loudly on sultry summer nights. Exhaustion, she told herself. That and the fact she was about to face a murderer.
She took three paces through the arched doorway into the reception area and stopped. Caterine Bowers, the new owner of Castle Morrison, stood alongside a young brunette behind a mahogany reception counter at the far end of the room.
Cat hadn’t changed in the four years since Margot had seen her. The boys back home had gone wild over her perfect thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six body. With lustrous, jet black hair that brushed her waist and the feminine walk she’d perfected, she’d fucked her way through half of Wilkinson County. Margot didn’t blame her for that. Hell, she’d had her share of those southern boys. It was the fact Cat had murdered Donny four years into their marriage—and gotten away with it—that Margot hated.
Cat’s invitation for Margot to visit her in Scotland offered the opportunity that had been lacking when Cat fled to L.A. six months after Donny’s death. Eighteen months later, Cat dropped off the radar. Margot couldn’t let that happen again—couldn’t let Cat murder again. And she would.
Cat looked up from the papers she and the brunette were studying. The emerald green eyes that had gotten her name shortened from Caterine to Cat lit up. Margot chilled. As Deputy Sheriff of Wilkinson County, she’d convinced criminals she was their friend in order to get their confessions. But none of those criminals had been her best friend…and none of them had murdered her husband—Margot’s cousin. So how was she going to hide the fact she was here to prove that Cat killed Donny?
Lie.
Margot smiled. Cat skirted the counter and hurried toward her. Margot dropped the duffel and started forward. They met in the middle of the room and Cat pulled her into a warm hug. Margot relaxed as if embracing the same friend she’d shared everything with, from make-up to Jimmy Thornton in the twelfth grade.
Cat pulled back and looked into her face. “You look exhausted.”
Margot startled at hearing the clipped Yankee tones coming from Cat’s mouth. What had happened to her Mississippi drawl? The four years she’d been gone from Mississippi wasn’t nearly long enough to lose that southern inflection.
Margot gave a tired smile. “Beyond exhausted.”
Cat grinned. “Sorry, there are no direct flights from Wilkinson County to Scotland.”
“Wilkinson County?” Margot grunted. “There aren’t any direct flights from anywhere in Mississippi to Scotland.”
Cat slipped an arm around her shoulders. Margot forced herself not to stiffen when Cat gave her a squeeze.
“Come on, I’ll show you to your room.” Cat looked past Margot, and Margot glanced back to see her cab driver standing at the counter, her suitcase and duffel beside him on the floor.
“Hold on.” She started to pull free.
Cat’s arm tightened around her. “Never mind. Dahlia, see to him, will you please, and have Margot’s bags sent up right away.”
The brunette smiled and turned her attention to the driver.
Cat directed Margot across the foyer to a staircase on the left wall. “You’re going to love Morrison Castle,” Cat said. “There’s nothing like it in Wilkinson County.” She released Margot and went ahead of her up the stairs.
Margot followed, grimacing when the entrance disappeared around a hard right turn and the narrow stairwell closed in behind her like a coffin. Her legs moved as if slogging through mud and she released a tired breath when the stairs finally opened into a hallway that was expansive by comparison. Cat turned left.
Margot looked back at the slit in the stone wall that held the staircase. “Those stairs would challenge the most seasoned spelunker. How do people pass on them?”
Cat laughed. “The Scots are big on togetherness.”
Margot imagined two men coming face to face, backs pressed against opposite walls as they sidled past one another. If the men were anything like the large specimens she’d seen working the castle grounds, they would exchange more than just greetings.
“Staircases were built narrow,” Cat said, “so an enemy had to charge up one man at a time, which gave the defenders a chance to kill them before they reached the upper levels.”
They passed four doors before Cat stopped. “This is the last of the unrenovated rooms. I didn’t want you to have to worry about moving while you’re here.”
She opened the door and stepped inside. Margot followed, catching sight of the bed. The brandy colored quilt looked like heaven on earth. She halted, her attention riveted onto a painting that hung over the fireplace where a low fire burned. The painting’s three dimensional depiction of Castle Morrison made the picture feel as real as the wing backed chair sitting in front of the low burning fire in the fireplace.
Battlemented towers on each corner of the oblong castle rose above the keep’s three stories. Like a velvet caress, ivy crawled up the stone surrounding the heavy, central oak door. Sunlight glinted off narrow, stained glass windows as clear and vivid as newly cut glass.
“Damn,” Margot breathed.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Cat asked.
“Magnificent. Who’s the artist?”
“Unknown. The picture’s three hundred years old.”
“Three hundred? But that’s impossible. It’s so…”
“Perfect?” Cat said.
“That’s one way of putting it.”
Margot crossed to the fireplace. The castle came into sharper focus as if she had hit the zoom button on her web browser. “The detail’s amazing.” She reached a hand to touch the ivy, then thought better of it. Three hundred year old paintings weren’t meant to be touched. She faced Cat. Hair on the back of her neck stood on end and she recognized the feeling of being watched. That’s what happened when you stood in the presence of a killer.
A knock sounded on the door.
“Your luggage,” Cat said. “Come in,” she called.
The door opened and a young man entered carrying Margot’s luggage. He murmured a hello, then lifted the suitcase onto the stand to the left of the door and set the duffel on the carpet beside it.
He faced them. “Will there be anything else?”
“Hold on, sugar.” Margot started toward the duffel where she kept her money, but Cat lifted a hand.