Free Anne Stuart's Out-of-Print Gems by Anne Stuart

thick, smothering cocoon of blackness, when she knew she was going to die. It was a strange thought, to die in such an odd place, away from all who loved and cared for her. But she wasn’t alone. Even through the all-encompassing darkness, she could see him, sitting by her bed, as insubstantial as a shadow, watching over her.
    The old man came, too, when the other was asleep. He seemed to drift through walls, ghostlike and ethereal. Between the two of them, it was surprising she’d survived this far. But there was nothing insubstantial about the dark stranger’s hands on her body, holding her as she coughed and choked, pouring that sickly sweet medicine down her throat.
    She lay in the bed, so hot she could scarcely bear it, her chest on fire, as she listened to the thunder and lightning outside the turret windows. She was neither awake nor asleep, and she could feel herself floating toward death. Except that she wasn’t floating, she was being carried along by a rip tide that she fought against, struggled against, kicking at the covers that were smothering her, kicking at the thickness of the air that couldn’t penetrate her lungs.
    She felt her body being scooped up, and for a moment, she fought, afraid that death had come to claim her.
    â€œBe still,” his voice hissed in her ear, and she knew she was safe. It was her caretaker, her savior, holding her trembling body high against his hard chest as he carried her to the casement window.
    He kicked it open, and for a brief moment, she wondered whether he planned to throw her out onto the slate terrace far below. No, he wouldn’t do that. He’d jump with her, she thought hazily.
    The cool rain whipped through the open window, bedewing her face, the chilly breeze was like needles, icing its way into her body. But it was reaching her lungs, desperately needed breath, and she gulped it in greedily.
    Another streak of lightning sliced the darkness in front of her and she looked up at the man holding her as he was illuminated for one brief moment, and he looked like a phantom from hell. In that short flash, she saw only one side of his face, and that was possessed of a beauty that was positively unearthly, a fallen angel gone to rule in hell. He seemed to have no other half to his face at all.
    And then the room was pitch dark, the wet wind from the open window guttering the candles that had provided the only illumination. She was alone in the darkness with a monster, and she should have been screaming and struggling in panic.
    It took all her limited strength, but she lifted her hand, touching the loose white shirt he wore, clinging to it as she sank her head back against his shoulder. That small gesture of trust, of acceptance, was all she could make, but it was enough. She could feel the faint lessening of the tension that wired his body.
    He managed to drag a chair over to the window, sinking into it as he tucked her in his lap. “You need another dose of this stuff,” he said in his low, beautiful voice, a seductive voice to match the seductive beauty of his half face. He tipped the thick medicine down her throat and she swallowed obediently, leaning back against him.
    â€œTastes like bubble gum,” she croaked, and he bent his head closer. He had long, silky hair, and it brushed against her mouth.
    â€œWhat did you say?” he asked, his low voice urgent.
    â€œI said the medicine tastes like bubble gum,” she repeated patiently, every word a painful struggle, one she was determined to make.
    â€œI’ve never tasted bubble gum,” the dark stranger murmured. “What does it taste like?”
    She could no longer see anything but his vague outline in the darkness, feel the strength of him beneath her weak body. “Try it,” she suggested, meaning the bottle of medicine.
    He could see her clearly in the blackness, she knew that. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness, and he could see every nuance of