Read Online Embrace the Night by Caris Roane - Free Book Online Page A

looked into the past. “We were all devastated when we heard the news. Did you know they’d been killed in the small, peach orchard on Jude’s property? On Castle Island?”
    “Yes, but that’s all I really know and I never probed for details.”
    “No, of course not.” Vojalie gave herself a shake. “Now, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, but there are a few things I must know. You’ve made love with Jude, right?”
    Maybe it was the enthrallment, but Hannah didn’t feel embarrassed, not even a little, as she nodded. The memories came sliding back quickly about what they’d done in the bunkroom. Her cheeks grew warm because she only had to think about Jude and her whole body heated up.
    Vojalie laughed, a bright sound like bells chiming. “You don’t need to say anything more. I can feel your experience. It glows from your entire being.”
    She didn’t know about ‘glow’, but she definitely felt all fired up again.
    “Hannah, this probably won’t help at all, but you are the woman I would wish for Jude, warm and loving, very unselfish. But my opinions aside, what do you need from me?”
    Hannah spoke from her heart. “Can this thing be undone? Do I have to be a blood rose?”
    “I’m afraid that die is cast. Your issue now will be all about the mastyr with whom you bond.”
    Hannah sorted this through in her mind. “But if I don’t bond with Jude or anyone else, I can keep my life as it is.”
    “Theoretically, but as you must already know, the blood rose drive is very powerful.”
    “Tell me about it.”
    Vojalie chuckled softly. “But let me ask you, when you’ve reflected on your life, and to me you seem like the kind of woman who would do that often, did anything in particular surface repeatedly as a desired hope or dream?”
    Hannah thought back to the journaling she’d done over the years, even a few of the altered books she’d made pasting in all kinds of things into several old books. “I guess if there had to be a recurring theme it would be a desire to make a difference.”
    “And would being a blood rose make the kind of difference you envision?”
    “In Jude’s world, maybe. But I meant Port Townsend, my world, the human world. Not Kellcasse.”
    “But your world, the one you live in and delight in is at least half-realm. Just because the borders haven’t changed, that doesn’t mean Jude, his Guardsmen and many other realm-folk crossing the access point to Port Townsend haven’t already altered the dynamic in your world.”
    “I suppose you could look at it that way. I just don’t want this. The worst part is I’m told that other mastyrs will come after me if I don’t bond with Jude, and I know that they’re not all as wonderful as he is.”
    “My dear, can you hear what you just said?”
    “You mean the ‘wonderful’ part.”
    “Yes, that bit.”
    “But why wouldn’t I feel that way about Jude? I’ve known him all my life, and I trust and respect him. He’s like family to me.”
    “Did you find it strange, then, to make love with him?”
    The question was deeply personal, but again Hannah didn’t mind. Aside from the fact that enthrallment was in play, she trusted Vojalie.
    Still, the question forced Hannah to pause and to think. Had it bothered her to have sex with Jude?
    She finally shook her head. “I was only troubled because he’s realm, I’m human, and I’ve never seen myself going long-term with a realm-man. But no, it was easy to make love with him. I wasn’t even nervous. The whole experience was amazing and charged with, I’m not sure how to say this, passion, I suppose.”
    “I can sense what your time with Jude meant to you, but I’m also sensing that you’re unaware of the layers of your affection for the mastyr. So let me ask you this: if you’d had this kind of sexual encounter with a human male, what would you be thinking right now?”
    Hannah blinked for a moment, her thoughts becoming perfectly clear. “I would start seeing