Free Immortal Surrender by Claire Ashgrove

her apartment. Maybe the owners would believe she’d had a fight with her boyfriend and he’d left her on the side of the road.
    She glanced at the still street. Right. No car had passed in the twenty or thirty minutes since she’d made her grand escape. She dismissed the voice of her conscience with a shake of her head. What the owners believed didn’t matter. She’d get a ride to her apartment, grab her cat, and take refuge with Seth. There she’d stay until she reached Gabriel. When he called off his security guard, she’d go back home.
    The ladder loomed before her, and Noelle resisted the urge to shout in triumph. Easing to her belly, she poked her head over the eave to inspect the ladder. This time, she wasn’t going to be hasty. If that length of steel pulled out of the bricks, she’d have a whole lot more to worry about than getting away from Farran. Broken legs, arms …
    Her thoughts screeched to a halt as her gaze dropped to the ground below. There, standing not more than two feet from the bottom rung, Farran stared back. And he didn’t look at all happy to see her.
    Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
    “Come down, Noelle.” He didn’t raise his voice, but the low, even tone held strict warning. Come down, or I’m coming up.
    She dropped her forehead to the shingles with a mutter. She’d give anything for a nice spring day so she could outstubborn that man. As it was though, her teeth chattered in the December breeze, and the patches of snow left on the rooftop had soaked into her clothes. Still, she couldn’t accept defeat so easily. Maybe there was another way down.
    She inched backward, away from the ledge.
    “Noelle!” Crisp, clear, his voice cut through the stillness. “There is one ladder. The very one I am standing beneath.”
    Cringing, Noelle bit back a string of obscenities. How the hell could he possibly know what she’d intended? This was insane. Ludicrous. All she wanted to do was go home. At this point, if she’d had her cell phone she’d call the cops. To hell with Gabriel and his reputation.
    For now, the greater concern remained being in the cold. Before she could get home, she had to get down . She pulled in a deep, fortifying breath. Down it was.
    Stretched out on her belly, she inched around until her feet touched the top rung. She pushed backward, easing her knees over the ledge, then her thighs. As she grabbed for the handles, her right foot slipped on a patch of unseen ice. For a terrifying moment, everything moved in slow motion. Her legs went out from under her. The ground flashed before her eyes. Farran let out a shout. She twisted sideways.
    Noelle clamped her fingers around the handles and hung on. Half on the ladder, half dangling against the brick, a fierce burst of white-hot heat lanced up her arm. She cried out, and tears stung her eyes. Blinking them back, she edged herself back onto the ladder and wrapped the handholds through her elbows. She leaned against the cold metal, her heart drumming against her ribs.
    Trembles broke through her body. Paralyzed by fear, she bowed her head to the slick rung. She couldn’t go up, she couldn’t go down. “I can’t do this,” she whispered. Louder, she repeated, “I can’t do this.”
    “You can. Climb. Go slowly.”
    At the mere thought of letting go at all, her tears burst free. She bit down on her lower lip, trying to stop them. But it was useless. She was stuck and scared. More frightened by the prospect of moving than by the man at the bottom of the ladder. He might be crazy, but he hadn’t hurt her. As her tears coursed freely down her cheeks, she shook her head and choked out, “I can’t move.”
    *   *   *
    Farran stared up at Noelle, cursing her bad luck, the Almighty, and his fate. He well knew how terror could trap a person, had seen it countless times with unseasoned knights. In her unmoving position, he recognized the signs too clearly. This was no act meant to gain his sympathy. ’Twas no ploy to