The Dark Huntsman: A Fantasy Romance of The Black Court (Tales of The Black Court Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

shot into her head. The two of them, his long limbs wrapped around her, his mouth nearly touching hers. Heat washed over her, through her, and her whole body shook.
    Her sluggish brain tried to tell her something. Finally, it poked a small hole through the fog of her exhaustion and near arousal. She swallowed hard, loosening the constriction in her throat.
    “You can take something from the future, something I don't have yet.” She sat up, grabbing the blanket to prevent flashing an indecent amount of breast.
    “What? Like your first born son?” His voice iced over. “What need have I for an infant, now, or in the future? I'm not a dirty old man like Rumplestiltskin.”
    “No… I didn't mean…I just meant…” Worse and worse. Not only had she insulted him, but she’d moved the bargaining from her body to her future offspring. “I knew the fae were cruel, but my life, my body, or my child? There’s not one good choice among them.”
    “Not one, hmm.”
    He stood.
    The fire crackled. He watched her. The pine logs popped loud in the stretched out silence. The movement of the gloves began again, the long black leather of the empty fingers slapping hard.
    He put his boot on the coffee table. Resting an arm on one knee, he bent over her. His pupils were huge and dark. His blue eyes ringed by astonishing black rims. She grew light-headed. If she didn’t watch out, she’d be begging to be his sex slave.
    “You are on to something, Alice.” Trina forced herself to listen. “The classic bargains for a life are magical objects, sex, and family members. But there is one more option…” The next word fell between them like a grenade.
    “Servitude.”
    Her breath stopped. A hole opened in her chest as big and wide as an abyss in the ocean.
    She blinked slowly and evenly as the word sank in.
    “Servitude?”
    “Servitude. Seven years is the classic number. Seven years, and the queen might even stop looking for you.”
    “But…my aunt, my cousins. They'll think I'm dead. They’ll wonder what happened to me, scry for me. And who will protect them? My aunt is old.” With sudden, sick certainty, she was sure he would hide her away. Would her cousins even be able see to wherever he’d take her? “Seven years is too long.”
    “For the queen to leave you alone, your family will need to think you dead.”
    “But seven years. That may be nothing to you, but to me it’s huge. It’s my life! To not see my family for seven years? You’re insane.”
    Hot tears pushed behind her eyes, her voice rose higher and higher despite her best efforts at control. “And what would I be doing?”
    She pictured herself slaving a chunk of her life away. Washing stone floors with a scrub brush while he lounged in a chair with a drink and watched her with hot, disturbing eyes.
    “Enough!” He paced back and forth between her and the fireplace, his power flaring. Trina held still, she didn’t want to draw his anger. “We’re wasting time. I can only spare your life if we make a bargain. Those are the rules. I need to go back and leave something… something to convince her you’re dead. Bargain or no, I still have to answer to the queen or she will be after me instead.”
    He took Trina's shaking hand in his warm, surprisingly calloused one and ran his thumb in a soothing motion over her palm. She resisted closing her eyes and sinking into the sensual stroking sensation.
    “We seal this bargain now, or I take you back and kill you.” His soft voice stroked her, capturing her, despite her knowledge that none of this attraction was real. His thumb slid up and down her skin and she repressed a responding shiver. “Seven years is customary, but one will do for us. One year and a day. You will still be young, your family will still remember you.”
    The fire crackled and popped in the silence and Trina understood the meaning of eternity in a moment as his compromise dangled, a sharp knife wrapped in his velvet voice.
    For one year,