Prince of Shadows by Susan Krinard

It was almost as if she’d never seen his eyes before. They were lambent, rich with the promise of summer and green foliage and endless light. Brilliant was too tame a word for them. Liquid gold, that she would willingly drown in. Suns bringing life to the sterility of the universe. Perpetual fire that had burned from the dawn of time…

Before she could think of another metaphor his breath touched her mouth and his lips came down on hers.

The kiss in the snow had been gentle, hesitant, tinged with uncertainty. She had pushed Kieran away then. This kiss robbed her of such choices as it robbed her of thought. There was desperation in it, sadness, newborn passion. He held her gaze until she was blind to everything but brilliant burning yellow, until his mouth parted her lips and his tongue pushed deep inside her.

His kiss drained away her anger, her fear, her confusion, and left a void only he could fill. Everything became simple, the world reduced to the taste of him, the strength of him, the need and hunger that consumed her with its incandescent power.

Kieran spanned her waist with his hands, lifting her from her feet. The heavy pressure of his arousal pushed at her belly. Sensual, unreasoning joy sparked within her, stirred to life where only the ashes of old dreams had remained. Parts of her body that had lain dormant for so long came awake with heat and fire.

She arched up into him, gripped his taut shoulders, caressed the perfect symmetry of muscle and bone. The beauty of him, the scent of him, the feel of him was familiar to the depths of her soul.

“Kieran,” she whispered before his mouth silenced her again. His hands slid beneath her shirt. His fingers left a burning trail as they pushed cloth up along her ribs and reached the barrier of her breasts.

She remembered. She remembered that first morning in her bed, half-awake, feeling Kieran’s innocent caressed and dreaming of Peter.

But Kieran’s caresses were anything but innocent now and Peter…

“No,” she whispered.

She might have shouted. Kieran let her go instantly, leaving only a cold void where the heat of his body had been. She looked up, saw his eyes, saw them change like the sun gone dim and strange.

“Complications, Alexandra,” he murmured, and touched her face with the back of his hand. And then he walked away from her. Turned his back and walked away, and all she could think was that she had almost lost herself. Almost let herself believe. Almost let her body come fully awake after she’d learned to let it settle into quiet acceptance. Almost let herself feel again what she’d once felt for Peter, when she’d thought loving was worth the risk.

She had come that close.

“Kieran,” she said. But she couldn’t think of a single word to explain, to call him back.

He’d been right. She was afraid.

She closed her eyes as cold outside wind rushed into the room, stirring her hair. The cabin door closed with a whisper of sound.

For a long while she stood there, her arms wrapped around herself. Her fault. All her fault. She’d let things get out of hand. Let Kieran too close. Not only today, but all the times before when she’d begun to feel so at ease with him. Thinking of him as Shadow. Someone who would never judge her.

She had been afraid to be honest with him. About Peter, about everything. And then she’d let him hold her, kiss her, forgetting her admonishments to him, to herself. Only to push him away. Not able to tell him that it wasn’t what he was she rejected.

She’d responded to him as a man. Not as Shadow, or the boy she’d met so long ago, or a miraculous creature of legend, but a man.

Her fault. Her weakness. She was the one who’d slipped, who’d forgotten every lesson she’d ever learned. And Kieran had solved her problem by walking out the door.

She put her hands flat on the wall and pushed away. Her legs were not quite steady. She made her way to the bedroom and pulled her journal from the bedtable’s single drawer.

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