Completely Smitten Read Online Free PDF Page A

thousand feet into the river.
    The strain pulled at her barely healed shoulder. She could feel the rocks scraping her skin, but she couldn’t seem to hold on to anything. She was sliding faster and faster and she couldn’t stop.
    And the worst part of it was, no one was here to see her fall, to help her, to record her death. She would plunge into the river and she might never wash up again.
    No one would ever know what had happened to her.
    She struggled harder, her fingers raw and bleeding. Her knife was finally slowing her fall. She could feel the movement ease, her body remaining stationary while the dirt slid beneath her. All she needed to do was dig herself in somehow and she would be all right.
    Carefully she shoved her toes into the ground, then stuck the fingers of her free hand in as well. She found herself hoping to see the crazed arrow guy. She’d pay him to haul her off this mountainside. She’d even explain to him how to do it, since she doubted that anyone who ran around the woods while wearing diapers thought of carrying rope.
    The mountain seemed steady. The little landslide had ended and she hadn’t slid any farther. She breathed a deep sigh of relief.
    Then her blade snapped and the fall started all over again, faster this time. Suddenly she was in free fall, no longer touching the ground at all.
    This was it then. She was going to die, alone, unnoticed on this mountainside.
    The portents had been right after all. This trip was a strange one—and it was going to end in her death, the strangest journey of all.
    Darius hurried out of the trees, running toward the path. The woman was sliding on her back like an overturned turtle. She wouldn’t be able to do anything from that position.
    Then, to his surprise, she righted herself and pulled out her knife all in the same elegant movement. She dug the blade into the ground, trying to slow herself.
    She didn’t seem panicked at all.
    It had been years since he’d seen an ordinary mortal who was so calm in the face of death. The last one had been Napoleon, and he hadn’t been calm, he’d been crazy.
    Darius stopped just shy of the place where the slide began and watched her fall. She was slowing down—the blade was working—and he knew then that she would be all right.
    He stayed above her, though. She might need his assistance getting back up the mountainside. Normal, humanlike assistance, with rope and a lot of effort. No magic at all.
    She stopped sliding near the edge of an embankment. The mountainside turned into a cliff face not a hundred yards from her feet. She dug her fingers and toes into the dirt and sighed with relief. Darius started the spell for the rope, hurrying toward her as he did so.
    With a crack, the knife blade snapped, and she was sliding again, faster than before. He ran toward her, but he was too late. She slipped over the edge of the cliff and vanished.
    She didn’t even scream.
    He knew what that edge looked like. It was a sheer drop to the river. No one would survive that fall.
    Not without help, anyway.
    Darius raised his arms and cast a spell, one he hadn’t used in a thousand or more years. He made it as specific as possible. He was creating a ledge, one that would break her fall, so it had to appear below her.
    He only hoped he got to her in time. If the ledge was too far down, he’d kill her, and nothing he could do would bring her back. Not even the Fates would let him revive her.
    The air crackled with lightning and thunder as the magical power left him. Then he heard a thud. He started down the slope, but more ground loosened, and he nearly lost his footing. So he murmured another spell and floated over the edge.
    The ledge had formed about thirty feet below him. She was sprawled on it, face down, her body twisted at an unnatural angle. He floated toward her, terrified that she was dead.
    He landed on the ledge and crouched over her. She was breathing, but she had been badly injured. Blood trickled out of her nose,