The Third Fate Read Online Free PDF

heating the small room, Paige undressed. She stared, studying her reflection intently until steam fogged the last corner. She felt different, aware, ridiculous. Yet, still…
    Her eyes stopped abruptly on the red marks on her neck.
    Love bites?
    She laughed at herself.
    You are cracking up, Paige Kinnell. That’s impossible…
    An odd sensation passed through her, chilling her to the bone. The words of her night-time phantom played in her thoughts, poetic, enchanting.
    Who? Who are you? And why am I conjuring you in my dreams?

Chapter Three

    Brooke examined each flower for sign of wilting.
    “ Paige, will you double check the stems before placing these? I want everything to be perfect.”
    “ Stop worrying! Everything is going to be beautiful!” Paige smiled.
    Shooting her a sheepish grin, Brooke smiled back.
    “ I know I’m acting like a loon. It’s my first wedding of this stature. I’m nervous is all.”
    They worked in silence side by side a few minutes longer.
    “ Thanks, Paige, for being here. You’ve got your own career to keep you busy, and I’m begging your help just about every weekend.”
    “ What else would I be doing?” Paige snorted in sisterly teasing. “Besides, when you make it big you can finally afford to pay me for all these hours!”
    “ Oh, yeah! Won’t that be a check! What will you do with the money?”
    Paige considered, leaving an opening for Lara to jump in.
    “ I’ll be traveling. Hopefully to a white sand beach in Greece where I’ll meet the man of my dreams! That is if – and I say if mind you – Brooke and I ever land it big! I’ll have to hire help to cover my absences, I’ll be running off so often to see my Greek lover…”
    “ Lies! It’s all lies, Lara Kinnell!” Brooke balked, smiling devilishly. “You wouldn’t be able to stay away from this shop if your life depended on it!”
    A quiet pause spanned the seconds preceding peals of laughter that erupted, the trio filling Triad with sounds of their mirth.
    “ All right, chickies,” Lara admonished. “We’d better finish up. Sissy will be here at half past eleven. We’ve got a wedding reception to stage!”
    Three hours later, tired but satisfied with the lovely reception hall, Paige bid her cousins farewell and stole away to indulge in her Saturday afternoon reading binge. One medium latte later, she sought her favorite nook in the library armed with notebook and pen and opened the tome, Caesar’s Gallic Wars Book VI , eager with hope of gleaning new information on Druid ritual and tradition. Sadly, not much had been recorded but for what the biased Romans wrote. Druid sages remained convinced that writing down beliefs lessened their power, and instead committed vast amounts of information to memory. Unfortunately those memories died with the priests as the practice of Druidism waned. Still, Paige had gained much to fill her journals on the subject and derived countless hours of pleasure in her discoveries.
    The scratch of pen against paper, the smell of old pages settled and soothed inexplicably, the words humming through her mind as eyes scanned the pages. Basking in the light which flooded down through the skylights Paige wiled away the hours, lost in a history that fascinated her. Sissy had warned her to leave these things alone, insisting that the Druids and their magic had died out for a reason, but her dire faces and warnings continued to fall on deaf ears.
    In familiar habit she reached up to fiddle with the Celtic cross around her neck as she read on, fumbling at not finding it. Twice she checked her neck in hope of finding what she now knew to be missing. Frustration birthed tears that shimmered in her green eyes. It had been a gift from Sissy on her thirteenth birthday, a keepsake more than a thing of monetary value, a memento from a happy time in life. Now it was gone.
    Jotting the final page number in her tan journal, Paige closed the volume and gathered her belongings. Dinnertime approached,