Page 39 of Forbidden Desires

“Wait, did you just ask someone to help you with me?”

“It was a general plea sent to the universe. Maybe one of the deities will feel charitable and help. Back to the shield. It is being forged from the material at the center of the universe. Think of it as the place of life emerged from. Some may call it heaven, others will call it something else. But allow me to confirm that all life came from one place. Please don’t ask me where the life came from that made that place. It’s above my pay grade.”

“You’re so funny.”

Amelia’s mini-me had all of her attention. Her shield, which was now a wall, wasn’t coming from inside of her but from where her soul touched the source of all that was and would ever be. That was a heady thought to think she was connected to that kind of power. It made her feel like someone and not like ‘the nothing’ she had been feeling for the past few months.

Amelia Astor was someone special, and it only mattered because she wanted to present Zylar Astor with the best mate possible. She wanted to be worthy of him.

Her mind was preoccupied, but her ears were working just fine. Amelia heard Stacey as she crossed the floor, the opening and closing of her blade getting closer. Amelia was putting her life on the line that this shield worked, and she communicated that with the source when it relinquished the wall into her highly untrained hands.

That swishing sound, the one you sometimes hear, the blade cutting through the air as it comes at the victim who might be the bad guy. The sound that takes you out of the movie as your brain goes that’s impossible. That sound. Amelia heard it and her brain was apologizing for all the times it called her an idiot for believing that she could hear that particular sound.

Amelia rolled, and every bone in her body protested.

A rib bone hit against her lung, causing pain to start. It was mild enough to tell her there was a problem, but it was incessant. The pain was going nowhere. One of her legs might be broken from one too many kicks. The rest of her body, as well as her head, was an enormous bruise. A groan of pain came out of her as she turned over and flung the wall that was doubling as a shield in front of her.

Before she could get it up, Stacey stabbed her with the knife. It went through her back and nicked a lung. She wasn’t completely sure. The wall did its job. When it was up, it repelled Stacey and her knife. The knife being forced out might not be good for not being unalive.

A roar of pure rage came from Stacey as she picked herself up. “Bitch!”

Amelia had been called worse. She tried to shrug it off, but her shoulders weren’t down for the movement.

“What kind of shield is that?” Stacey asked as she moved her head from side to side, cracking her neck.

Amelia wasn’t fooled. Stacey’s brown eyes were no longer placid fields of Mother Earth, ready to give birth to a spring crop. Amelia could see the calculations happening behind them.

“I’m going to kill you. Can we both agree with that? It might be harder with your new shield, but it’s going to happen.”

The problem Amelia was having was that she agreed with Stacey. Someone, her or Stacey, was going to die in the room. Right now, Amelia was looking like she’d volunteered to be the sacrifice.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. You did your job. You can go back to your master and say I kicked her ass and lived to fight another day.”

Stacey gave a belly laugh before she took off her pointed high heels. “It doesn’t work like that. You kill what you target, or you go home in a body bag.” Stacey threw one of her heels at Amelia, testing for a weak spot. When it bounced off without hitting Amelia, Stacey didn’t respond.

“Go to your real home, where you were loved.” Amelia was clutching at straws, not everyone was loved. She thought of her cousins with their father.

“Would I be here if I knew the loving embrace of a family? Maybe or maybe not. I might have hated them the way I do now. Well, the way I did. I unalived them the first chance I got. There’s nothing to go back to. Nothing except rotting corpses sitting around the dining room table. The last I heard, they still hadn’t been found. It’s a powerful look-away spell thatHetaught me.”

Amelia was having trouble breathing. It was something she should have honed into immediately, but with so many other aches and pains, she didn’t notice it until her hand went to her throat. Her lungs were filling with fluid. It could be blood or water she didn’t know. It was making it hard to breathe.

Why was she about to offer sanctuary to a killer?” Because that’s who she was.

“We could put you up, protect you.” Even as Amelia said those words, made that promise, the blackness of Stacey’s soul was being revealed.

There would be no redemption or second chances for Stacey. When a soul was that dark, it couldn’t find its way to the light.

Stacey laughed. “I’d rather die than accept help from the likes of you.”

“Challenge accepted.” Amelia didn’t feel smug or good about what was to happen, but she wanted to live. There was a male around here somewhere she wanted to kiss until their lips fell off and cousins whose shoulders she needed to cry on.

Amelia had never killed before, although she came close to being part of Jenna’s death. Stacey, on the other hand, had killed more than her family. If she were a betting woman and she wasn’t, she’d say that Stacey had killed more than one empath. Was she looking for Amelia or just clearing the playing field?

Stacey threw the second shoe that was still clutched in her hand, along with her knife. It hit Amelia on the side. This time, it didn’t bounce off. Instead, it caused Amelia to gasp. It hadn’t hurt in the traditional thought of pain, but she had felt something unknown. Whatever it was, she didn’t think it was good for her or Stacey.

The smile on Stacey’s face made her think of the Cheshire Cat from ‘Alice in Wonderland.’

“Don’t do it, Stacey, I’m begging you.”

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