[Corine Solomon 5] Agave Kiss Read Online Free PDF

Booke studied me, alert for the first time since our arrival.
    “You went to Sheol.” Certainty rang in his plummy voice, no less beautiful for his age. “That’s why I couldn’t raise you in any fashion.”
    I nodded. My eyes burned with tears, just from that reference. For a few precious moments, I’d forgotten, absorbed in his troubles, but mine came tumbling down on me like an avalanche. The fact that he wanted me to stand his death watch and handle the funeral arrangements? Inexpressibly painful.
    “She went to save me,” Shan said soberly.
    Booke’s astute gaze flickered between us, making educated deductions about why our faces already held a funereal cast. “Chance was with you in Mexico, last I heard. Where is he now?”
    My throat hurt so badly; I sipped my tea, but it didn’t help. Still, anything to delay saying the words. In the end, Shan said them for me.
    “Chance didn’t make it.”
    No. He promised me. He said, Even death can’t keep me from you. It was madness to believe those words, but they were all I had.
    “It’s late,” Booke said, seeming to recognize my inability to function. “Perhaps we can continue in the morning?”
    That would be four days in the real world. I couldn’t bring myself to care.
    He went on, “Things will look brighter then, I’m sure.”

Falling Action
    Sleep came in the shape of familiar nightmares.
    I couldn’t count the number of times I’d watched Chance die over the past week. To make matters worse, I had to live with the fact that my choices had led me to that dead-end road. I saw Chance’s face; in my sleep, the knife pierced his chest again and again. His blood spilled down the stone ledge, opening a gate for us.
    All along, I intended to die, if that was necessary to save Shannon. But it didn’t work out that way. Sometimes no matter how hard you tried there was no good outcome. I would’ve paid any price to see Shannon safe . . . I just didn’t realize it would come down to a choice between my best friend and the man I loved. In all likelihood, I should’ve seen it coming. A trip to Sheol wasn’t a walk in the park—and you didn’t return without dire consequences.
    It was still dark when I gave up on sleep. The ticking clock hanging on the wall in the kitchen read 4:45 a.m. Soon, the dawn colors would light the sky; or at least, in the real world, they would. I didn’t know how day and night worked in this tiny pocket universe Donal Macleish had created with a curse.
    I wasn’t entirely surprised when I found Booke already awake. He didn’t bear the appearance of a well-rested man. “Are you feeling better, Corine?”
    That was so like him. He was the one dying of a slow, evil spell . . . and yet he worried about my state of mind. I didn’t see how I could fail to do as he wished, provided I possessed the means. Afterward . . . well, I couldn’t consider the necessary civil responsibilities. How would I even explain his existence? As far as the authorities knew, Ian Booke vanished in 1947. It would be difficult to explain how he’d turned up seventy-some years later, looking fifty years younger than he was.
    “Not really,” I admitted. “But we’re here to focus on your problems.”
    My issues weren’t just emotional, however. That morning, it was all I could to do keep last night’s sandwich in my stomach. The nausea I’d blamed on the train stirred again, growing sharper with each movement. I tried to cover how bad I was feeling, but Booke had sharp eyes, despite his age. He leveled a direct stare on me.
    “Mine will keep,” he returned quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
    Now I understood why he had been so enthralled by the idea of traveling the world via my dreams. If he hadn’t gone anywhere before the curse hit, then he’d never seen anything but the U.K. I couldn’t imagine being trapped in the same small house for so many years—and likely it had been at least fifty before he got on the