TailWind Read Online Free PDF Page B

at the edge of the boundary where light and dark blended, about twelve feet away—obviously the darkness had advanced within the last two days. She was standing in a high-domed gilded cage, her hands wrapped around the bars, and her dress was in tatters around her, her feet bare. With a growl of pure venom, he started toward her but she yelled at him, thrusting a staying hand from the bars to halt him.
    "Don't take another step! Look down!” she ordered.
    The ground around his booted feet was heaving like the turbulent waves of the ocean. Where the plates of the stones lifted, fiery heat shot up, the deep crimson glow hissing like a coiled serpent. Stones sank then bubbled up, emitting a vile odor that made him lightheaded then rolled like magna in a moat around her cage.
    Blaez tore his gaze from the stones and sought hers. Her face was bruised, her lip torn, her knuckles scraped and bleeding. He whimpered for the first time in his life. The solid ground beneath him shifted toward her, her cage shifted toward him but there were still a good nine feet, then eight, then seven between them. The bubbling, hissing moat would not allow him to get to her.
    "Who did this?” he asked, experiencing an emotion that was threatening to tear him apart. He was so enraged he couldn't re-take his humanoid form and stood there in his werewolf state, shamed that she was seeing him as he truly was.
    She stretched her hand toward him for the cage and land had shifted again. Tears were in her eyes. She wanted—she needed —to touch him. He extended his hand toward her, balancing precariously on the stable ground but wanting to touch her just as desperately. He shifted his shape in a heartbeat, his humanoid other half reaching out to her. He strained forward until the tips of their fingers met and hooked together—his palm down, hers up.
    "I need you,” she said. “Please help me.” Fresh tears spilled down her bruised cheeks.
    "Rozenn.” He said her name so softly, so achingly. “Your tears are breaking my heart."
    And with that the cage and the land on which he was standing began to separate again, pulling them apart.
    "No!” he howled, struggling to maintain contact with her without falling into the roiling lava but he lost his grip and as soon as he did, the cage was sucked back into the darkness, Rozenn's scream reverberating all around him. “No!"
    His own scream of denial echoed a dozen times. The heat of the buckling stones seared the toes of his boots and he moved back instinctively.
    "Give me back my woman!" he thundered.
    The light vanished completely as though a switch had been thrown. Not even the slivers of light around the edges of the stones could be seen. Thick, cloying, oppressive air wrapped around him and he took a step back, his foot touching something spongy, something that gave. He stilled, testing the ground to his left. It, too, gave. To the right—the toe of his boot pressed into nothingness.
    He dared not move for fear he'd fall into some bottomless miasma between him and his ship. Frustrated, sick at heart, he hunkered down like a wounded animal and for the very first time in his life, he began to cry.
    "Rozenn,” he groaned, wrapping his arms around himself.
    Having spent a lifetime scoffing at the follies of men who allowed women to rule their hearts and souls, he now knew how easily such a thing could happen. He had not been seeking a mate, had never wanted one. He'd always been a lone wolf, an alpha male who took his pleasures when he wanted. Love-'em-and-leave-'em had been his motto but love had meant ‘fuck’ to him before now.
    Hot tears scalded his cheeks but he made no move to brush them away. He didn't even realize he was making a keening sound low that seemed to come from his very soul. Unable to keep his mate safe, he believed he had failed his job miserably and not only his ego had been damaged but his pride had as well.
    "I didn't know werewolves were capable of crying."
    Blaez heard the