The Last Guardian Rises (The Last Keeper's Daughter) Read Online Free PDF Page A

touched.
    Lily’s fingers twined in his hair and pulled him down to her body. One-handed he started to lift her, to take her and lay her out before the flames of the fire.
    Before her feet left the floor, she pushed back from him. “I’m sorry.”
    Krieger’s dark side silently roared in anger and frustration at relinquishing what he’d lusted after for so long. He held her softness against his hard body with arms strong as iron.
    “Please.” She tried to untangle from his hold. 
    “Why do you fear this?” He inhaled the floral fragrance of her hair. “Is it my size? Are you afraid I would hurt you?”
    Her flush turned to a blush and she averted her eyes. “I’m afraid of myself.”
    Relenting and hating the loss of her, he relaxed his arms and let her step back from their embrace, only allowing himself the feel of her skin through fingertips grazing along her arms.
    “How can you love me? I killed your brother. What if I’m evil?” She ran her hands over the tops of her thighs. “What if I’m the cause of the rift, the gates opening? Maybe it would be better for everyone if you had let me die.”
    Her words rocked him back on his heels. This was her fear? “My brother lost his soul.” He went to her and cupped her face in his hands. “You did what had to be done. What I should have done. There is no evil in you, my love. Only the loss of you could ever hurt me.” His thumb captured a lone tear. “You must trust in me.”
    Her lovely eyes were bright with emotion. She lightly kissed his hand before leaving his touch to stand next to the fire. 
    “If I can help, then I want to go with you to the meeting.” She gazed at Catherine’s portrait. “It’s silly but I hate to leave the archives.”
    He hadn’t realized the intensity of her connection with them. It was said the Elder had this same ability. They all assumed Huthwiat, the Elder, was dead. How that was possible was inconceivable to him. The Elder had always been. He was the Supreme Being who had ruled over all the Others and vampires. Long ago when the Great War between the humans and the Others was fought, there had been five Elders, and then, there was only Huthwiat who alone had ruled amidst his archives, with the doorman, Mathers, at the Legacy Foundation in London.
    Hadn’t the Elder traveled from his home, bringing Detective Hunter with him, to Krieger’s castle to see Lily with his own eyes? No one who had witnessed their meeting would forget how the two of them had stood facing each other, their hair whipped around by a ghost wind and then, implausibly, their levitating slightly into the air. There was no denying that the Elder had recognized something within Lily and that she resembled him with her long white hair and her opaline skin that glowed. “Do all books speak with you?”
    “No. It’s…” Lily stared off into the now raging storm outside. “Well, I can’t explain it.”
    There was something indecipherable yet sad in her gaze. How long can I rein in my carnal yearning for her? What would I do if she gave herself to another?  
    “Catherine was forged with a will strong as steel. Throughout the ages I’d see her smile, or a gesture, or even the color of her eyes in her offspring, but never before has anyone possessed her strength of character. Not, that is, until I met you. It seems fitting, doesn’t it? The alpha and omega of the Ayres line should both be female lionesses.”
    “There’s a poet inside that warrior body of yours.”
    It took him a moment to realize she was teasing him, and for the first time, in a long time, they both laughed together.

The Guardian Rises
    Jason’s shift was almost over. He rubbed his weary eyes, forcing them to focus on the gauges of the continuous mining machine. He was part of a team on an exploratory mission in Western Australia. The mine had been shut down decades before because of a cave-in that occurred in the early fifties. A new consortium thought it could now be