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.Then, it was gone.Taking a breath to reply, she halted when he held his hand up.Thecrested ring flashed in the firelight.“Many have had mates, and control their need to covet and hoard away their women.But I am Alpha,and you are now the Alpha-mate.You must watch yourself with other men because I may never master theterritorial compulsion to protect you from another’s touch.”Dark warnings from a dangerous man who even now closed the distance between them.Her heartraced.Fire flickered through her and set off a conflagration deep inside.He stood over her and slipped one leg to the other side of the chair.Straddling her lap, he leaned against his desk.His long legs did not quite touch her.The red velvet robe parted with his legs, and she blushed, her body hot and nervous to see his muscular thighs so near her face.Last night, he had used this prime form to bring her to ecstasy.The power in his taut legs broughtflashes of longing for the dominant thrusts he’d used to drive her into the bed.She shook her head.She wanted the simplicity of a dark bedroom and the passionless act of a wife doing her duty.She’dalways been a good girl, perhaps straying from proper decorum at times, but the urges to fall into bed and spend the day were untoward, especially for a wife.She was no courtesan.This yearning tore at her soul and made her wicked.The intimate details between a man and a loverhad been a mystery to her all of her life, but now, with the mystery dispelled, the heat they shared waseasier to contemplate than the long years ahead.A marriage to be lived in, not, as she’d thought, a uniting in church and a separate existence in the same household.But rather, Rukh’s every word to her impliedthey would lead their lives as one, enmeshed.He sighed, and his breath blew through her hair.Long fingers, sure and strong, tipped her chin upuntil she had no choice but to face him, so very close.His sharp features had not softened, but his bodywww.samhainpublishing.comElla Drakerelaxed.He leaned further back and gave her much needed space.He murmured, as if speaking anendearment.“What is troubling that delightful mind of yours?”The man may be powerful, strong, and definitely handsome, but did he purposely forget the turmoilhe’d made of her life?“What is not troubling me? In the span of three days, I arrived at a house party to find a wife murdererbent on marrying me.Then, caught out and ruined.United in a rushed ceremony to a man I do not know,but fear.Carted off to the marital bed.Told of an incubus behind a closed door who will kill me if I attempt to sleep in my husband’s chambers.Scared to death when my husband changes into a giant raven.And lastbut not least, exposed to my new husband’s jealousy and warned he may rend apart any man who mayplease to speak to me.”“I believe that is the longest speech you’ve made to your wife-murdering, giant raven, jealoushusband.” He chuckled, as if she wasn’t panting with anger and frustration, gritting her teeth, and clenching her fists.Arms crossed over his chest, his pose inched his robe wider apart.Isabel choked.One full leg nakedto her view, his muscles bunched when her eyes strayed there and remained.She couldn’t hide her coloredcheeks, but she did try to dispel her disquiet.“I found something,” she whispered.Voice hoarse with a tight throat, she clutched the nearlyforgotten book in her lap.“Did you now?” he purred, shifting his leg so that the robe fell away.The garment caught on hisenlarged shaft, that obstacle being all that held the fabric from displaying his full nudity from the waist down.His smooth voice rumbled through her when he lowered his tone to a husky whisper.“What did youfind?”His nearness brought tingling in her tightened peaks, and she nearly reached for his tantalizing skin.When her fingers moved to follow the path of the precariously perched robe, the book in her hand broughtlucidity.Anger crashed through her.His teasing showed callousness over the lives of his dead spouses.Shejerked back from him, but her shoulders hit the padded chair before she could move far enough away.“Why don’t you sit in that chair over there?” she asked, exasperated with how his proximity threw herjudgment to the wind.“You are in my chair, dove.” He raised a brow at her but did not move away.Leaning on his owndesk, he looked down at her, sitting in his chair.She huffed but stayed in the seat and steeled herself against his allure.“I found a clue.”“A clue to what, my sweet?”“This book has a marker in it,” she held the proof toward him, inches from the beckoning naked fleshof his muscular chest.“On a page that details how a witch calls an incubus.”www.samhainpublishing.comElla DrakeThe Forbidden ChamberRukh recoiled from the book as if it poisoned the air he breathed.He retreated around the desk in aflurry.A haunted look upon his face, he sat down in the chair in front of her.He’d moved so quickly she was astounded.With a pale face, quiet and unmoving, he studied his family ring.The hollows of hischeekbones more pronounced, as if some of his strength and vitality had fled, he turned the signet around his finger with his thumb.The flirtation of a moment before, abandoned.Cold and harsh, his voice rangbrittle, no longer the seductive timbre that warmed her blood.“Where did you get that?”“Here.On the bookshelf.” The bottom dropped out of her stomach, and she thought she might retch.What was bad enough to make such a strong man’s hands tremble?“That is my grandfather’s symbol on the bookmark, the same as the family crest on my ring.” He heldup the jewelry in question, lodged on his left hand, as always.“I’ve never seen that volume before, and I’ve combed this library and spent many long hours reading book after book.How could I have missed it?” heasked, steady and sure once again.“Well, I accidently pulled the shelves down.That’s when I found it.Perhaps it was lost behind otherbooks?”“No, I would have seen it, my wife.With two and a half centuries in the same house, I havememorized every title, its location, and its origin.”“But you recognize it?” Unable to fathom why it mattered where she found it, she was sure thetension in her husband’s rigid posture did not bode well.“Not directly, no.But I know what it is.My father described it to me, and we both searched this housefor my grandfather’s book.Neither of us ever found it.Hopefully, you are correct that it’s a clue.Desperation for answers drove my father to hunt for it.I stopped my search over a hundred years ago.”“If you’ve looked for it for so long, why do you not want it now? Why did you back away from it?”She had dared hint at Rukh’s fearful reaction to the book.Though she was surprised by her audacity, shehad to follow through, to find the means to save her life and to live in peace with a man for whom she’dalready formed an attachment.Graceful movements regained, Rukh rose from the chair and paced before the fireplace.His robeswished with his sleek stride and left trails of sage and smoke behind
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