Opal's Wish: Book Four of The Crystal Warriors Series Read Online Free PDF

Liza seemed to be in charge of directing it.
    Gods save them all….
    Before he could close his sagging jaw, movement caught his eye. There. A twitch of the cloth draping a window in the abode to the left.
    Friend or foe?
    The spy remained concealed inside the building. Danbur’s natural inclination was to leave nothing to chance, and he knew he should march up to the door and interrogate whoever was inside as to their intentions. He could not help but feel grateful when Sera grasped his hand and demanded his attention. The dull throb in his head had escalated to a steady pounding. His eyesight had blurred. Nausea roiled in his belly and his gorge rose in his throat. If he didn’t sit down soon he’d fall on his face.
    “You okay, Dan?”
    He blinked, wondering how he’d gotten back inside, and ended slumped on a couch that was comfortable as any mattress he’d ever encountered in a pleasure house.
    “You don’t look so good,” Sera informed him.
    “My head aches.” The admission was a grudging response to the pleating of her brow and the worry shadowing her eyes.
    “You stay here. I’m gonna get some stuff Mommy gives me when I’m feeling sick.”
    He must have responded in the affirmative, for when he peeled open his eyelids again she was holding out a small bottle with a flat white lid.
    “Mommy gives me one pill,” she said. “But that’s just for little kids like me. Bigger kids get two. You’re real big. So maybe you should take three?”
    Danbur blinked at the double-image of Sera. He needed to be quickly rid of whatever malaise he was suffering. “Four,” he said firmly, and extended his hand palm up.
    He lost time again while Sera disappeared to get him water to “wash them down ’coz they taste yuck”. And when she returned, she held the tumbler to his lips while he swallowed the pills. The water tasted strange. It seemed fresh enough, though—not that he cared at this precise moment. He drained the tumbler’s contents and closed his eyes.
    Sera clambered up onto the seat and snuggled into the crook of his arm. He shifted, making more room for her. And his last conscious thought was that when the child’s absentee mother returned, he would treat her to a stern lecture about her lamentable choice of guardian.
    ~~~
    You can do this, Opal told herself sternly. It’s not New York Fashion Week, for God’s sake. And this isn’t Bryant Park or Lincoln Center—it’s an exhibition center in Brooklyn. With tables of diners looking on. You can do this. But the clammy sweat pearling her brow and her lamentably wobbly knees told her she was a liar.
    God. What was I
thinking
?
    Panic tightened her throat, and when she turned to the woman behind her, all that escaped from her mouth was a whimper… which was drowned in the explosion of music heralding the start of the main event.
    “Here we go!” Desiree tossed her a wide grin, obviously mistaking terror for excitement. And then Desiree’s gaze focused inward, psyching herself up for the coming, uh,
ordeal
. Opal had known Desiree mere hours but she felt like an old friend already. An outspoken friend with a sixth sense about how best to support you when you needed it most. And if there was ever a time Opal needed a confidence-boosting mini-lecture, it was now. Unfortunately she was on her own.
    She turned her focus to the music. Her heartbeat pounded so loudly in her ears it almost drowned out the cue to start. Oh God. Too late to back out now without making a dreadful scene and screwing up the entire show.
    Desiree patted her on the butt. “Knock ’em dead, hon!” she mouthed. And when Opal balked, the pat became a firm push that propelled her forward…. And then long-buried instinct took over and she was strutting down the runway as though the camera-flashes weren’t distracting as all hell, her ridiculously high ill-fitting heels didn’t threaten to pitch her on her face, and she wasn’t being jabbed by a pin from a hastily mended