Read Online Blakeshire by Jamie Magee - Free Book Online Page A

into me and kissed me in that crowded diner. It was so slow and so sensual that he had to brace his arm around me when I began to sway. We left right after that, giving the illusion that we wanted to continue our embrace in a more private setting; truth was, I just had to get out of the public scene because the emotions that ranged from shock to jealousy were slicing into my soul, shredding me to bits.
    “You can think about our first and second kiss any which way you want. I know what my intentions were. What I was feeling. I knew it the first second I saw you.”
    The first time I saw him conscious, he wasn’t even in his body; he was in The Realm on the brink of death. I pulled him back from that cliff, not caring what it would cost me, which would have been my life if Landen weren’t there to save me—he was the healer of our little dysfunctional group.
    I smirked. “You did smile when I pulled you from death’s door. You smiled because you thought that Willow had saved you.” Shut up, Madison. You know that’s a lie.
    He reached to pull my chin up again. His other hand clenched my waist. “I smiled because for the first time in this godforsaken life, I saw love looking back at me. I saw devotion. I smiled because I knew you were in love with me. That alone brought me back from death.”
    Angry tears welled in my eyes. “And what did you do right after that? Let me think. Right, you told Willow that it didn’t matter that she found someone that looked like her, that you loved her soul.”
    Those dark eyes became denser; the pull in them had me under his spell.
    Anger saturated his emotions. “We have been over this at least three times now, Madison Marie. You of all people should know that the palace is haunted. That I have to say and do things in certain rooms to fool said ghosts or demons.”
    “So you were on stage?” I said with ire in my tone.
    “I’m always on stage. And if you think for one second I was going to give Donalt or any other demon a reason to target you, the one soul that gets me in a glance, then you have lost your mind, too.”
    Truth. But the words still hurt. “If ruling a damned kingdom doesn’t pan out for you, then you should sign up for improvisational acting; you have a raw talent.”
    My words brought pain to his eyes and regret to his soul. “I can’t do this, Madison. I can’t spend every precious second I have with you defending what I have done, how or why I feel the way I do about Willow. At some point, she was in a past life of mine, and I have been groomed to believe that she was mine, that she would be my queen. I knew her energy was off the first time I saw her, but I assumed it was because of this hell that I knew was about to break loose. I assumed that my own emotions were taking her in differently. Every time I even bothered to mention to Alamos that she was not right for me, within hours something would happen to her, to me, to the kingdom, to my family. Something that put me right at her side. I’ve been played, and I’m over it. If you truly have no emotions, then you are bound to see all of this with reason. You will be able to see my actions as they were—a mistake that I was forced into. And if that is the case, then forgiveness should be given to me.”
    Bold. Especially since I could sense he didn’t believe that reason was on his side.
    “And if I did still have emotions, as you think I do?” I pushed, knowing I could still feel anger and jealousy all too well.
    “Then I’m prepared to prove to you that under it all…I was looking for you.” My heart hammered so loudly that I was sure that he had heard it. He absently glanced to my chest, then to my eyes. “Am I forgiven …?”
    I hated it when he did that. When he demanded an answer to a question that I had created on my own. If I told him that being with him right now was bringing me back around, he would take it as a sign that we could overcome the recent past and find a way to get to