Read Online Dark Alpha's Embrace by Donna Grant - Free Book Online Page B

with a table and an assortment of food. She looked over croissants, sausage, bacon, toast, eggs, cereal, pancakes, different pastries, and fruit.
    “I’m guessing it’s dawn?” River asked.
    Jordyn grinned. “It does become difficult to keep track of time in these caves. I keep a watch so I know. The guys don’t understand. I suppose it’s my human side that likes to know what time it is.”
    “I think I’d be the same way.” River grabbed a croissant and an apple.
    “Coffee?”
    River wrinkled her nose. “I hate the smell of it.”
    “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that before,” Jordyn said with a laugh. “Just tell Baylon what you’d like.”
    River carried the apple as she ate the croissant on the way to the library. They had a lot to do and only a little time to do it.
    She settled back in the chair from the night before and looked at the books spread out on the table. Thirty books with different stories, each in a long-forgotten Fae language, and each with something in the pages that could help them.
    “Do you remember reading anything about the Netherworld?” Baylon asked.
    River looked up to find him at the doorway. “Yes. It’s mentioned at least once in each of the books. Some just speak of it in passing. Something like the way humans would talk about Hell. The way it’s worded, sometimes it seems as if they expected whoever was reading the books to know a lot.”
    “And in others?” Jordyn asked.
    River pointed to the book in dark green leather. “In that one, there’s an entire chapter devoted to it. It speaks about the horrors of the Netherworld. About how all Fae are terrified of that place.”
    Baylon moved into the cavern and picked up the book she spoke of. “Did any make mention of escaping?”
    “No.”
    Jordyn sank into her chair with a sigh. “If you can get into a place, then you can get out.”
    “That was my thought,” River said.
    But Baylon was shaking his head. “The Netherworld is a prison.”
    “People break out of prisons all the time,” River stated.
    Jordyn made a face. “This is getting us nowhere fast. Who made the Netherworld?”
    “No one made it. It just came into being like the rest of the universe,” Baylon explained.
    River finished her croissant and dusted off her hands. “Who decided to make it into a prison?”
    At this, Baylon shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    “Death probably,” Jordyn said.
    River leaned up, grabbed the green leather book, and flipped the pages to look for the chapter on the Netherworld.
    “Do you really remember all that you read?” Baylon asked.
    She glanced up at him. “You’re Fae, and you actually sound surprised at the idea of that.”
    “I am,” he admitted.
    “You shouldn’t be. I don’t recall all of it word for word. Some pieces stuck with me while others didn’t. The Netherworld intrigued me, because you could read the fear each family had of it in the written words.”
    Jordyn tucked one leg under her. “You must remember a lot, because you know what’s in each book.”
    “I couldn’t recite the books front to back, no. You must understand that before I could read, I heard the stories. Once I learned to read, I devoured the books as often as I could.”
    Baylon leaned a hip against the table. “How often was that?”
    “Up until I was thirteen, it was once, maybe twice a year. I used to beg to see Aunt Maureen more. She loved having me there, and my parents adored her. It wasn’t that far to see her, so I never understood why we didn’t visit more. Until she was killed, and I learned the truth. Every time I visited, I put her at risk.”
    Jordyn’s smile was sad as she caught River’s eye. “Apparently your aunt felt the risk was great enough.”
    “It killed her.”
    Baylon stood, his silver gaze direct and unflinching. “The risks she took to teach you would’ve killed her eventually. She lived far longer than any of your other family.”
    “Yes.” That was true. And River would