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IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN
before. I am finding it& somewhat unsettling.
Never? My brows climbed high with surprise. In all this
time, you ve never before faced the death of someone you cared
about, and wanted to prevent it?
He came back to my side, his expression pensive. He sat on the
bed s edge with a long sigh that made me want to press in against
him and ease all the tension away. No, he said quietly. Never.
I tried to speak, but found I couldn t. He glanced up at me and I
expected a wry smile or a joke, but he just looked bleak. There
hasn t been another of my kind in over a hundred years, Seth.
There used to be many of us, but&
He trailed off, and I waited for him to continue, but a moment
passed and he still didn t speak. What happened to them?
I killed them.
I rocked back, my mouth falling open in surprise. He smiled at
me, but there was no humor or warmth in the expression at all,
only dark rue. When we are in our full strength, there s no man
who can harm us. You learned that well enough for yourself. But
we can hurt and kill our own kind as easily as men do one another.
It was a very long time ago, and I was young and prideful and
power-hungry. I wanted to rule. He tipped his head back, looking
up at the ornate ceiling of his chambers. So I killed everyone who
was a threat, before they could kill me. I am not proud of it.
Everyone? Gods. A thought worked its way slowly to my
consciousness. Weren t you lonely?
Yes. He glanced sidelong at me. The corner of his mouth
turned up in a wry smile. Hadn t you noticed?
I grimaced, chagrined. I had, or should have. It seemed much
clearer in retrospect. Why would you do that? I looked down at
my hands. You went to so much trouble to protect yourself, and
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IN THE SHADOW OF THE SUN
now& I spread my hands open wide, palms-up, then clenched
them into fists. I could kill you.
You could, he agreed. Though it seems to me it would
rather defeat the purpose of getting yourself gutted in the first
place.
But why? I stared, imploring him to make some sense of this
for me. You trust me that much?
Trust? Aten gave a hollow laugh and shook his head. It s
nothing to do with that, though I do. He took my face in his
hands, met my gaze with his. The intensity that I saw there rocked
me. Ask me if I love you that much.
I stared at him, hardly able to breathe, as everything in me grew
still and tense. Do you?
More, he answered, and pulled my mouth to his.
My breath stuttered against his kiss. I wrapped my arms about
his neck and hurled myself at him, sending us both tumbling back
onto the bed. He rolled me over beneath him and rose up over me,
holding me down when I tried to kiss him again.
I love you, I said, and there they were the words I had
struggled for and been unable to find as I lay bleeding in the
atrium. They rose up in me now, so clear and vital that it seemed a
wonder I had ever wrestled with them at all. They rose up like
water, like the Nile flooding its banks, washing over me. I said
them again and again, until Aten s face broke into a wide grin and
he kissed me silent.
Until death? he teased, his lips curving against mine.
I flipped him over beneath me and laughed at his surprise, that
our strength was now equally matched and he was caught. Oh,
longer than that, I should think. He pulled me down on top of
him. Much longer than that.
116
AISLINN KERRY
Aislinn Kerry wrote her first romance on a whim and hasn t been
able to stop since. She has always been fascinated with the misfits,
the misunderstood, and the things that go bump in the night. She
blames it on an unnatural obsession with Beauty and the Beast at
an impressionable age.
To learn more about Aislinn and her writing, please visit her
website:
http://www.aislinnkerry.com
* * *
Don t miss Smoke
by Aislinn Kerry,
available at AmberAllure.com!
Loving another man is a sin& but loving a vampire is worse&
In deeply religious 19th-century Italy, Valentino knows that
admitting his attraction to men, even to himself, could put him in
grave danger. The church prefers to burn vampires to keep their
congregation living in fear and paying their tithes, but a sinner like
Val would also do in a pinch.
Val suppresses his sexual desires and joins the clergy, hoping to
live a life of piety and devotion, until the day Dante, one of the
devil s own vampires, comes to him begging to confess his sins.
Val can t help his attraction to the vampire, and refuses to
succumb to it, even as Dante tries to seduce him. But Val soon
realizes he can no longer deny the truth of who he is, or what he
wants.
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