EMBRACE THE DARK (The Blood Rose Novella Series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

very pretty, another reminder that much of Merhaine life was lived at night.
    He waved her to a chair by the hearth, in which burned a large log fire and after a few minutes, returned with tea service in white and green ivy.
    Because she had come to the castle often to chat with him when she delivered her orders from her bakery, he knew how she liked her tea. He handed her the cup and saucer, prepared his own, then sat down.
    The tea was redolent of cloves and cardamom. Now what was that novel she had read recently where the hero of the story, a great warrior, had smelled of cardamom. It was something like ‘Ascending’ or ‘Accelerating’, she couldn’t quite remember. She had enjoyed reading that version of vampires. But how strange that now she was caught in her own world of not just vampires, but about every childhood tale she had ever heard of.
    Gus’s feet manipulated the footstool with the skill of his hundred and thirty years, until he was perfectly comfortable. All realm-folk were long-lived, which meant that Gus was still fairly young by Merhaine standards.
    He met her gaze and lifted a brow.
    This was her cue. She took a deep breath. “Why did the mastyr dismiss me?”
    “Ah, the best question first. I like that. He told you to leave the castle because he is feeling too much for you, and you must trust me in this. I have known Mastyr Gerrod most of my life. You are the only castle supplier he ever seeks out. And the strangest thing is, he seems to know the moment you have come. Have you not noticed that he often brings an entire army to help you unload a few boxes of cupcakes?”
    “I thought that was your doing?”
    Gus chuckled. “And he always insists you stay for tea, have you not noticed that?”
    “But he never sits down with me.”
    Gus appeared to be very knowledgeable as he nodded his head slowly. “But he hovers. Once you leave, I often find him standing about the great room.” He gestured to a shorter hall behind her that led to the massive room where an annual fae ball was held.
    She frowned. “He really does that?”
    Gus nodded. “I don’t think the mastyr quite understands his feelings at this point.”
    Gerrod felt too much for her? She wanted to know more, but the subject seemed too personal to her, as though Gus was sharing private things Gerrod wouldn’t want her to know about. Gus might have few scruples about sharing everything , but she decided to draw the line.
    Instead, she took a sip of tea, then asked, “Has he always been so tense?”
    Gus sighed, his shoulders drooping. “Always. Since I have known him. He bears the burden of the entire realm on his shoulders.” He brought his teacup to his lips and drank. Trolls tended to drink their tea in hearty gulps.
    “But why is that? I mean I know that he has a lot of battling power so that he can fight the Invictus, but why isn’t there a government in place to support him?”
    Gus snorted. “Have you not been in Merhaine a year now? Do you not see the greater problem?”
    She was afraid to give her opinion. She didn’t know if it was politically correct to speak of the differences in the species. There was a lot of intermarriage among realm-folk, but it was still in the range of ten to fifteen percent, which meant that a majority could still be hostile and disapproving.
    “Well,” she began, trying for tact, “I have noticed that fights tend to break out between trolls and elves, elves and fae, fae and shifters, shifters and vampires. I even watched a forest gremlin start shouting at a fae who was ten times his size.”
    He nodded several times slowly. “Then you understand. Each folk believes they are the smartest, the best, the most reasonable, the strongest, the prettiest, you name it. And the older the realm individual, the more profound the belief in superiority.”
    “Oh, yes, I saw a fae woman spit on the ground in front of a troll. I was later told she was over five-hundred-years-old.”
    He shook his head,