Bride of Fae (Tethers) Read Online Free PDF Page A

was only by love. At least she’d have tonight to herself, rescued by Lord Dumnos. When she got home from Bausiney’s End, she’d crack open the new novel she was reading, A Woman on the Edge of Time .
    Or maybe she’d just listen to the storm and dream of true love.
    “Igdrasil.” She ran her hands over the smooth root. “Is true love possible in an age of free love?”
    The pill had set them all free. She wouldn’t want to live like her mother’s generation, without it. Scary. But so far the connections she’d made with men had only left her lonely. George Sarumen being a prime example. There was something to be said for a time when a guy didn’t expect a girl to leap into his bed after drinks and dinner then disappear forever when she did.
    “Oh, bollocks!” The red Lagonda pulled off the Ring and into the car park beside her Beetle. While George and not-George put up the top, Felicia and Mona started toward Igdrasil. Beverly got to her feet.
    “Bevs!” Felicia called.
    Oh, groan. She should have known they’d come out here. She again looked up at the branches bending with the winds. If only she were younger and braver, she’d climb up there right now and hide.
    “Igdrasil . I wish I were somewhere else,” she said. A tingle of superstitious fear flashed up her spine. Not that she believed in magic, but just in case, she made the wish more specific. “With my one true love, where or when he may be.”
    A hint of nausea washed over her, and she closed her eyes and swayed. She shouldn’t have eaten the fish after it went cold. She reached out to Igdrasil for balance, but the tree was as insubstantial as a ghost. She fell through the trunk and stumbled over the cliff.
    She screamed as the rocks and waves flew up toward her, but then she felt caught and held by…something. She was surrounded by something like a force field in a science fiction movie. Carried. Was this what dying was like?
    Strange vibrations pummeled her , irritating but not painful. There were sounds like a record played backwards, muffled and warped. A massive headache seared through her brain.
    The vibrations stopped, and the force field dropped her face down on dry wild grass.
    “U nh!” The sound of her breath anchored her, and she grabbed onto the world with her senses. The sweet air she breathed bore no hint of the sea. A sparrow sang nearby, answered by another. Wobbly, she got to her knees, then to her feet, her head still pounding.
    She was beside a stand of leafless wild lilac covered with woody buds. Nothing felt familiar. She leaned against an ash tree and picked straw-like grass out of her miniskirt and her ruined pantyhose.
    This was a nature preserve-ish area, and the stand of lilac bordered a walking path. Wherever she was, it was a lovely day, the sky cloudless and warm. If only her head wasn’t killing her.
    A man’s voice sounded too far distant to make out the words but the tone was pleasant. Sane. Happy. Not likely an axe murderer. Even better, he was answered by a woman’s easy flirtatious laugh.
    The path toward the voices led to a marvelous expansive park. Four people dressed in Victorian costume were having a picnic beside a small lake. One of the guys wore a straw hat with a blue band and a blue and mustard scarf draped loosely over his shoulders. His short black hair was cut to the nape of his neck, and he had a thin dark mustache. He was familiar, but Beverly couldn’t place him.
    The other guy’s head was bare, his loose brown hair parted in the center. Of the two men, he appeared less uptight, but his outfit was rather formal for a picnic. A black top hat lay on the ground beside him.
    The girls’ hair, piled on their heads, cascaded down their backs in complicated designs. Peacock feathers were worked into the blonde’s tresses. The thought of all that hair piled on her head made Beverly’s headache worse. Peacock girl drew a bottle of wine from a wicker basket and handed it to straw hat guy.
    They