Free Forbidden, Tempted Series (Book 1) by Selene Charles Page A

toe-pointed like a peacock toward the tower, looking at everything and nothing all once. A natural-born showman, his steady but slow walk amped up the crowd; an expectant hush fell instantly over the chatter.
    “Wow,” Abel breathed.
    She grinned. “I know, right? And he hasn’t even started flying yet.”
    A part of her had worried that too many weeks of heavy drinking and not enough training would have turned his muscles to mush, but her father slinked up the tower like a cat. Smooth and graceful. The girls followed close behind, their red and orange stripes streaking like flames down their legs whenever the light pinged off them.
    Her dad gripped the swing and Flint sucked in her breath, holding it between clenched teeth when he hopped on and hooked his knees over the catch trap before dropping down, suspended fifty feet above ground.
    Flint’s stomach dipped, clenching her fingers tight to her knees as she willed her dad to work through the initial dizzy rush of blood to the brain. His eyes were wide and so were hers, then he smiled, waved his arm, and she released the breath that’d made her vision start dancing with spots.
    The first woman to grab the bars was the blonde. She took the jump smoothly, raising her legs in a perfect hold, and for a moment Flint studied her. Thin, as all fliers tended to be. Too high for Flint to make out the eye color, but the shape of her face and the curve of her lips made Flint think of her mother.
    With a sinking heart, she realized this must be the woman.
    Dad always did have a thing for blondes.
    Blondie released the bar, flying effortlessly through the air. Twirling once, twice, and a half, before grasping her father’s forearms in a tight grip. The butterflies in Flint’s stomach never stopped dancing through the entire routine.
    At one point she’d stopped watching the act completely, failing to join in when the crowd gasped in awe at something the brunette had done. Some sort of jackknifing flip. Why? Because Flint had eyes only for Blondie.
    A knot building and brewing each time the woman latched arms with her dad, Flint judged the woman’s skills as a performer, sneered when she over rotated, and if not for the quick thinking of her father, Blondie would have landed in an ungraceful heap in the net. Blondie bit her lip when her dad yanked to keep her from falling. Flint knew how much that hurt. It felt like getting a bone wrenched out of socket.
    But she’d stopped making that mistake two years into her training. Her father would have never let her fly until she’d become proficient.
    She tapped her finger on the armrest, hating that she felt so petulant at the moment. But a side of her wanted to grab her dad and tell that woman that she didn’t get to do that. Not now. Not when she was only just getting her dad back from the pit he’d been living in the past year.
    Flint was grateful the moment it was over, not even having the heart to clap.
    “Your old man’s good, DeLuca.” Abel elbowed her with a wide grin, still heartily clapping along with the rest.
    “He’s okay,” she mumbled and stood. “You ready?”
    Strobe lights flashed around as a loud roar punctuated her statement. Spectators cried out with glee and fright as a huge striped tiger made its way to the center ring, its handler walking slowly behind it with only a whip as protection.
    Flint’s heart seized and her mouth went dry. Not without a cage, not legal without a cage . Panicked, she glanced at Abel and he chuckled.
    “It’s only Janet and the gang.” He snorted and pointed and sure enough, what had appeared to be a tiger in the dim and crazy strobe lighting was now four people taking a bow.
    “Let’s go.” Abel gestured.
    “How did they do that?”
    He wiggled his fingers. “Magic. You ready or what?”
    Still shaking from an excess of adrenaline, she nodded. “Wasn’t Janet supposed to come?”
    He glanced at his watch. “She’ll be done in another fifteen