Munro (Immortals After Dark #18) by Kresley Cole

            When he returned his attention to her, she asked, “What does your Instinct tell you about this place?”

            His expression grew stark. “I sense that no humans perished here—apart from you. Kereny, you . . . remain.”

            So the hunters had buried her body here. “I see. I wonder if my spirit made it to the afterlife.”

            “I think it did but was brought back to be embodied when you passed through the gateway.”

            She had seen a flash of light. Maybe she was more than a replica. She certainly was more than moldering remains.

            Because of Munro.

            He’d journeyed back in time and had taken her from this place, carrying her into the future. He’d kissed her for the first time here, and together they’d been touched by the hands of gods. She might have died in this field, but she could also embark on a new life here. “Can I have a moment to myself?”

            He straightened. “A short moment. Keep your head on a swivel.” He crossed the field, his gaze combing the woods for threats. The sun was setting, and the waxing moon rose in the sky. Night neared. The time of the immortals.

            Alone, she walked to the heart-shaped boulder, then reached into her bag. She retrieved her ring from the envelope within. Pressing a kiss to it, she laid it on the cool stone. If another found it, she wished it would bring them fortune.

            She whispered, “My heart is with you, Jake. With all of you.” Not a good-bye. Because they lived on.

            Then she turned toward Munro. Toward the future.

            She had a feeling her life was only about to get more interesting. A new adventure was beginning: a hunt for a secret kingdom of super vampires, with a werewolf companion, under the countdown clock of the full moon. . . .

            When she rejoined Munro, the last of the day’s sun stole through the pines to light his eyes. Beautiful male. Comprehension struck her like a stallion’s kick to the chest: He was right—I am going to fall for him.

            Which was a problem. Despite all the developments between them, little had changed outside their relationship.

            Before, she hadn’t worried too much about his misguided intent to transform her. As long as she had her blade, she could prevent him from turning her against her will. But if they were ever going to share a meaningful future, Munro needed to be a male who understood why the choice had to be hers.

            And why Ren must eliminate a key player in his own plans.

            The Night War demanded the sorceress’s death. If Ren secured the Ring of Sums before taking Dorada down, then all the better, but it wasn’t a requirement.

            Which meant Ren needed to drag Munro to her way of thinking before her blade flew—or the wolf might not ever forgive her.





FORTY-THREE





            Andoain, House of Witches Coven

            New Orleans





            “I do not know one thing,” Nïx the Ever-Knowing mused aloud. “Why my friends implore me not to tell bedtime stories to their offspring. I’m utterly ace at it.” Confused look. “Or ass at it. One or the other. Or both!”

            As she regaled her audience—half a dozen young witchlings and a bat—with a heartwarming tale, they hung on her every word, slurping juice boxes with widened eyes. Even Bertil, Nïx’s bat, held a box in his tiny talons.

            “What did Slimeator the Gutsucker do next?” asked Ruby, a seven-year-old witch with a pleasingly big attitude. She’d been a prisoner in the Order’s installation, losing her mother to them. But with some help from a very special Valkyrie soothsayer, she’d found two doting adoptive parents.

            “Accessions giveth and taketh. As do I.”

            “What’s that, Nïx? Are you talking to yourself again? Get back to the story!”

            “Ah, yes.” In a dramatic voice, Nïx continued her uplifting bedtime tale: “Slimeator clawed open the industrial polluter’s stomach cavity and plunged his wrinkly extraction probe inside the grisly wound. The man shrieked, his limbs juddering as Slimeator sucked the guts from his body like you would a spaghetti noodle.” She made a Hannibal Lecter-esque sucking sound. “Sucking . . . sucking . . . all fifteen feet of intestines, inch by bloody inch, until the polluter screamed his last.”