Free Twilight Magic by Shari Anton Page A

Darian broke the kiss and swiftly set her down on the bed.
    “If we continue this folly, we may rip asunder all hope for an annulment,” he stated before spinning around and leaving the chamber.
    Emma groaned and she snuggled into the bed, a spot low in her belly aflame and yearning.
    Damn, her head hurt, but her thoughts weren’t as muddled as usual, and she clearly understood Darian’s comment. He might want her, but he also wanted an annulment. Apparently he believed not consummating the marriage the best way to go about it.
    Lack of consummation wasn’t the only grounds for an annulment, and if her vision came true, it certainly wouldn’t be the reason for
their
annulment.
    Of the several visions she’d suffered before learning to halt them as they formed, only three had come true: her brother’s fall from a horse, a fire in one of Camelen’s storage barns, and her mother’s death.
    There were others, of places and events that as yet made no sense to her, but she assumed would appear in time. Like the set of tall oak doors with a huge, finely carved rose set into the center of each panel that had intrigued her for nigh on two years now, but hadn’t appeared as yet. ’Struth, she truly didn’t want to know what she’d been about to see in the bloody water in the washbasin. Some horrible event, no doubt.
    She’d never purposely swayed events to suit her visions, until yester morn when she meddled in Darian’s affairs.
    Darian might want her, but he was resisting. Would she ever see his glorious smile, ever experience the pleasure his kiss promised?
    After that kiss, this was the one vision she
wanted
to come true.
    Darian took another long swallow of ale to ease his dry throat. Gar had insisted on hearing why the earl had sent him to Hadone, and Maura had hung on his every word.
    The tale hadn’t been complete, of course. No one at Hadone need know about the king’s giving the order for de Salis’s assassination, or the names of the informants he’d spent most of the night with, or how he now mistrusted his fellow mercenaries.
    “So William sent us here to stay out of sight for a time. I expect I will hear news from him shortly.”
    At least he hoped so. Being exiled to Hadone was bad enough. But being exiled with Emma—ye gods.
    He should have taken Emma at her word and allowed her to walk up the stairs. From the moment he’d picked her up, his body had suffered the tortures of the damned. Wanting what it couldn’t have. Desiring the forbidden. He hadn’t been sweating from merely the exertion of carrying Emma up the stairs.
    He shouldn’t have given in to her obvious invitation to kiss her. An extraordinary melding of mouths. He’d come frighteningly close to joining Emma in the bed. Only knowing she hurt had stopped him. Had she been well, they would likely be scuffling in the bed, limbs entangled—consummating the marriage neither of them had expected or wanted.
    Gar shook his head like a father at a child who’d misbehaved. “So where were you that you could not produce witnesses?”
    Darian almost didn’t answer. Gar’s attitude of superiority irked him, and keeping peace with Earl William’s steward might prove the most difficult part of staying at Hadone.
    “Southwark. Bishop Henry would not have considered the men I was with trustworthy.”
    “Out getting drunk with the cutthroats and thieves. Had you naught better to do?”
    Those cutthroats and thieves sometimes provided useful information. Unfortunately, he’d learned nothing from Hubert or Gib that night to make what had followed worth the time or price of several tankards of bad ale.
    “What I do on my own time is of concern only to me.” “Except when your heathen ways almost get you hanged.”
    “I did not kill de Salis.”
    “Then who did?”
    He wished he knew. “Whoever stole my dagger, most likely.”
    The hall grew quiet again. The hour was late, and servants, craftsmen, and laborers alike had taken to their