Noah Read Online Free PDF Page B

close to it. We’re left hurting and jaded as we fail over and over again. But here your people have a guaranteed path, through me, to finding that very thing, and they approach it like complex dental work or a plague! Maybe you can explain that to me, Noah, because I know I don’t understand it.
    “Am I wrong when I say you were all raised on fairy-tale stories of the glories of an Imprinting?” She realized she’d struck a chord when the King no longer met her eyes and shifted his weight uncomfortably. “If I were suddenly told that stories like Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty were absolutely true and all I had to do was knock on a certain door to find my Prince Charming, I would fall all over myself to do it.” Then she smiled and blushed, memories of waking for the first time to find herself tethered to a perfect man scudding through her mind. She recalled the undeniable craving for unity with Kane. “I’d never heard of the Imprinting,” it provoked her to say passionately. “It wasn’t part of my folklore. Yet now I accept it in my life with enormous pleasure and gratitude. Why is it your people can’t?”
    The King didn’t respond immediately to the sharp scrutiny in the question. Instead, he looked directly at her at last and reached to touch two fingers to her chin, making her turn her eyes directly up to his. She looked into the smoke and jade swirls of emotion as he studied her for a long, silent moment. Corrine somehow managed to remain still and relaxed under that unnervingly penetrating gaze. She had no idea what he was looking for, nor how he was searching for it, but she suspected it was important that he find it before answering.
    “You let me lead myself quite neatly into your little trap, did you not?” he accused softly, but without any real malice.
    Corrine didn’t pretend at ignorance.
    “Noah, you’re their King and you’re unmated. If you won’t come to me when you so clearly long to, so clearly need to, why would any of your subjects do otherwise?”
    “Have I been that obvious?” he asked, his tone tight with his tortured feelings on the topic, his hand reflexively tightening around her jaw.
    “I would have to say…only since your Warrior Captain married the Lycanthrope Queen. He was the last highly positioned bachelor you kept close to you. First Jacob; then Gideon and your sister; and then when Elijah fell in love with Siena, it wasn’t long before you started grumping around the castle.”
    “Damn it,” Noah cursed softly, releasing his hold on her roughly. He paced away from her, running an agitated hand through his hair.
    Corrine was abruptly aware of her husband’s telepathic presence flaring to alertness in her thoughts. He was protesting the way Noah was treating her, but she pushed him firmly away, scolding him to mind his own business, that her discussion with Noah was a private one. Kane backed off with impressive immediacy, respecting her desire to respect his King.
    “You have to understand,” Noah said at last as he stared out of a nearby window, “it has been a very long time since the Imprinting has become an issue any of us have had to give any true thought to. For centuries it has been as rare as…as…”
    “A snowball in hell?” she offered.
    This time Noah wasn’t inclined to laugh or let himself be eased by her humor. His fingers curled into a fist that he pressed against the window frame. “Hell.” He laughed mirthlessly. “The human concept of hell has always amused me, especially considering the fact that ‘demons’ are reputed to be its main occupants. I am forced to admit that there is some truth to that imagery today, Corrine. I fall asleep every day at sunrise, but I get no rest. This is because I visit my own personal hell, where agonizing beauty, pleasure, and a gluttony of satisfying emotions lie always just out of sight and reach. I dream of her. Every time I close my eyes, I dream of this woman you are meant to find for me. I