Free The Color of Twilight by Celeste Anwar Page A

of insatiable longing for the woman who would not have him, even when he gave his heart freely.
    She'd crushed it until it was as cold as his namesake, barren as his homeland in winter's grip.
    She would know what it was to be spurned, to be destroyed.
    There would be no escape for her this time.
    * * * *
    The steady pulse of music, the tinkle of glasses, the roar of a hundred laughing, talking revelers—they all faded away, muted by the harsh thump of her own heart. Darcy MacNair felt like she was drowning in blackness, being swallowed by a great void that wiped away her sensation to everything else but the man standing across the room.
    Movement surrounded him in a vortex of energy. He stood in the center, like the eye of the storm—untouchable and dark with mystery, an unmistakable threat of some kind that her mind couldn't—wouldn't—comprehend.
    He was no more than a stranger in black, a somber force against all that bright color surrounding him, and yet, she felt he was guarded, shielded somehow from her vision. There was something more to him that she couldn't understand. She felt, inherently, that she knew him, and yet there was nothing of the familiar in him. Despite that dismissal, the feeling nagged her, holding her in thrall when she would have otherwise turned away.
    More so than the niggling familiarity, some subtlety of his stance suggested a peril to her. Some danger; a flexing of fingers, a tightening of the jaw, tension potent and powerful as her own, apparent even at the distance.
    He wanted her. His look of desire was unmistakable, undisguised by the half mask he wore. It fair hummed on the air like a plucked chord.
    Darcy was unable to tear her gaze from him. She was trapped mentally, as if she'd sprung a snare. Something wasn't right. Her brain screamed with warning, racing to discover the stranger's identity. It eluded her, remaining just out of reach. She begged her feet to move, to carry her away.
    As if tiring of his game, he dropped his gaze, allowing her freedom that she couldn't take. Enraptured, she felt the caress of his eyes touch her breasts, her waist, the apex of her thighs. She felt his look over her entirety as though he physically touched her. Her body responded. She blushed with heat, broke into a fine sweat that misted her upper lip and the valley of her breasts. She felt chilled and hot all over, probed ... naked.
    Her nipples hardened under his deliberate stare as though plucked by rough, callused fingers. Tingling, they pressed into the opaque body stocking of her costume like rosebuds seeking the light.
    She was suddenly keenly aware of the fact that she wore nothing beneath the body stocking but skin. Why had she not worn something more substantial to the Mystery Ball? Why had she not anticipated this encounter? Had she been gone so long from the community that her Fay powers had deserted her?
    His lingering look left her skin feeling electrified, sizzling from awareness. Without conscious volition, Darcy slipped her glamour on like it was some shield that would defend her from his probing. In that moment, his eyes flashed with darkness, apparent to any who looked, though none did. The air shimmered around him, growing hazy and indistinct as his charm slipped one betraying second.
    Had she been dowsed in ice water, she couldn't have frozen more.
    By the holy mother, it was him !
    The moment she knew it, the shreds of his glamour stripped away. She met the full force of his natural self like a wall of ice.
    She felt beaten by surprise, shocked into stillness. It pained her even to look at him, to have the memories she'd blanked out brought back full force in one blinding, heart stopping moment. Her chest ached; her belly fluttered with nervousness; threads of fear and excitement drenched her veins. His mask did nothing to obscure the fatal beauty of his face. How she remembered it, those eyes that glowed with blue fire; the sensuously cruel, taunting mouth. She cursed her