Taken before I ever got to make her mine.
* * *
The story continues in Deal with the Demon, The Mate Games: Pestilence Book 1.
Keep reading for a sneak peek...
ChapterTwelve
ROSIE
“Fake your own death, Roslyn. Save your family. Go on the run. It’ll be fine,” I grumbled as I trudged through the cold, muddy Alaskan terrain, heading toward my goal. Asher Henry, hacker extraordinaire.
I snorted. “Extraordinaire, my tight rear end. I found you in less than a day.”
My whole body was frozen, teeth chattering, exhaustion weighing me down. If I didn’t get to his forking house soon, I’d actually die—nothing fake about it.
A pang went through my heart at the romanticized version of Gavin I held onto. Him finding my note, hoping I’d be true to my word and return to him. It must’ve worked, or the vampire would have come and stolen me away, back to the Donoghue castle. He had to know I was dead now too. Good.
The sight of a house at the crest of the hill had me picking up my pace. Almost there. I stepped on a root as I continued, the uneven ground sending me tumbling into the mixture of slushy snow and mud. But I was nearly to my goal. Asher would help me. He’d make sure Roslyn Blackthorne never appeared again. Give me a new name. A new life.
I reached his front door and weakly knocked, a bone-deep shiver clattering my teeth together. No answer. No lights. No sign of him.
“I’ll just wait here, then,” I mumbled. “You have to come home sometime.”
I lost track of the hours as I sat on his porch, curled in on myself to try and stave off the worst of the wind. I may not be a human, but I wouldn’t survive out in the elements like this for long. I’d already lost feeling in my fingers by the time wheels finally crunched through the snow. It was enough to make my heart stutter.
A door opened, and a deadly voice growled, “Don’t fucking move.”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I unfurled myself, my gaze traveling up the bundled form of my would-be assailant, gun raised and trained on me.
Asher Henry, my black-hatted knight in technological armor. He didn’t know it yet, but he was about to become my hero.
If I could convince him not to kill me first.
* * *
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Sneak Peek: Deal with the Demon
ASHER
Aurora Springs, Alaska
That witch was going to be the death of me after all. A hiss escaped me as a burn shot through the mark she’d saddled me with years ago. A parting gift for my unfortunate misstep.
I checked the spot on the back of my hand; just a small star right in the center. What the fuck? Was the thing growing? Instead of a single star, there was now a small cluster. Dread curled in my gut. What did this mean? How could I stop it? Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
A loud crash from behind me pulled me out of my spiral of doom. Two wolf shifters and a burly lumberjack were locked in a scuffle. I had to get the hell out of here before this turned into a full-on bar brawl.
I pulled my collar up higher as I left the Tipsy Moose behind. I hadn’t even been able to enjoy my beer before those fucking Mercer twins started a fight. They had thirty other days to act like a bunch of assholes, and they chose the one night a month where I came into town for my supply run. It was my only chance to stop in for a taste of semi-normal existence, and it had been ruined by dick-swinging shifters.
Fucking typical.