Read Online Forbidden by Jacquelyn Frank - Free Book Online Page A

the end of each hall, no one was going to get close to her. Ram was actually quite surprised Jackson Waverly had left her for an extended period once he’d brought her home. How could he be so careful for so long and then suddenly turn his back on her? Then again, the actions of the young originals were always a bit careless. He remembered what it had been like when he’d had only one life to live, before he’d touched the Ether the first time, before he’d learned what it meant to be an enduring copy. He too had squandered the gift of his life, had taken very little care of it.
    It was the curse of mortality, he supposed. Or perhaps it was the blessing of it. If you knew you were going to live forever, would you take life much more slowly? Would you savor it? Or would you ignore the preciousness of each moment all the more?
    He knew the answer to more speculations on the matter than he cared to. And even this lost little bird, would she one day come to know the true potential of one of the greatest queens ever to have lived, or would she devolve into the corruption and moral abyss that was equally available to her free will? That was the troublewith a copy, was it not? Each carbon layer became a little fuzzier than the original before it. A little bit more off center, a little bit harder to see and read. And sometimes, sometimes it was completely unreadable. Completely lost.
    “Why do you keep staring at me?”
    She asked him the question in a meek little voice as she sat hunched forward toward the blasting heat of the car vents. He had stripped her of all protection from the cold, but something inside him had balked at seeing her one moment longer in that ridiculous too-small thing she was using as an excuse for a jacket. Down had been leaking out of it in two places, bloodstains streaked it, and he suspected those had been coffee stains spattered across the chest of it. She was torn and tattered enough in her own skin; the jacket had only made her look twice as pathetic.
    And there was nothing pathetic about her. Even that meek-voiced little question had the backbone of a tiger behind it. She could have sat there shivering, accepting her fate, but instead she challenged him. The question he had was … was that his queen he saw leaking outside of her edges, or was that something she had always been?
    “I am concerned. You are taking a long time to regain your warmth.”
    “Of course I am! You took my coat off in twenty-degree weather, stole me out of the warmth and safety of my home, away from the protection of my brother … oh, and let’s not forget the part where I just got out of the hospital after a seriously violent brush with death!”
    There was a snort from the backseat. Presumably Asikri’s amusement at the idea of Ram having his turn at an upbraiding by their queen.
    No. This was definitely not a leak. This had already been there. The way she had taken Asikri in hand earlier,
that
had been a leak. A definitive one. And a good lesson for the other man. He had far too much contempt for the originals of the world. Although, to be fair, he had a great deal of contempt for Bodywalkers as well. It was a wonder Asikri tolerated
his
company at all. But antisocial tendencies aside, Asikri was a devoted warrior. He knew his place in the order of things, and he would rather die than fail. The Politic had been in a dark time these past decades, the ravages of civil war taking their toll. The struggle against the Templars was going badly. But there was light ready to shine on this dark night of theirs, and it was hopeful that it was going to start with her.
    “I’m sorry for all of that. You will be warm and safe soon. Trust me.”
    “Trust you? Oh, sure. Because we go way back, you and I. A whole, what, fifteen minutes?”
    “The value of a relationship can never be measured in time, but instead in the worth of what each member involved brings to the connection. I bring you trust, protection, and strength that