UNHOLY KISS

different. It was heavier, charged with something unseen. Isolde's hands tremble

ced with iron. He had spoken her name as though he had always known it. And when he had asked if she longed to

was something

to steady herself. The cathedral had its ghosts-legends of forgotten figures, whispers of things lost to time. She had r

's flame s

e shifted, a creeping cold un

pulse s

eek an

jerking up f

w. The dim candlelight flickered across his features, accentuating the sharp planes

she whispered, though the

ghtly, considering her

nsity, as if he could see beneath her skin, past her gua

d the edge of her desk, grounding

the bookshelves. "A relic of the past," he mu

ng it on the desk between them-an ancient book, its leather

ou," h

beneath her fingertips, and the moment her hands rested on

his?" she

voice a dark promise. "A k

sharp cheekbones. His eyes-black as midnight-watched her with unner

his to me?"

t meant for an ordi

down her spine. A warmth-dangerous an

," she said, but t

was slow, knowi

on. But there was something else in his gaze, some

d-glass windows, and the candleli

raven turned, moving toward

e threshold. "And when the whispers

n he wa

moment; her fingers still pre

med at her to

trayed her. Slowl

n an archaic script, the ink faded but legible. Strange symbols

few lines with her

neither living nor dead, boun

eath c

of shadow and blood. A creature who had once rul

her page, her p

s is both ecstasy and damnation. His touch is a prom

ing deeper, something more dangerous, w

t of Drave

to

around her name lik

breath esca

e become en

eyes, visions plagued her-dark corridors, flickering can

ys, the feeling

ay shrouded in quiet, she found herself back in the archives. Th

her wanted

part of her

ad it, hav

rly knocking ov

e edge of the shad

t. "How do you do t

into a half-sm

ike-like

t tracing the contours of his face. "

ed her fists.

voice lowered, deep and intimate. "I am no ghost. No tric

een them, heavy wit

tur

tuttered. "That

able. "You have seen the truth written in that

mouth to protest

he *did*

bout him wa

ng about him was be

or an ordinary life, Isolde. That's why you've

eath c

zing her hand. His touch was impossibly c

re was something more, h

parted.

trayal to reason, but

h something unreadable-sat

ws, *cara mia.* And the sha

kered, casting strange, shi

aze never

n her life, Isolde reali

sn't a

of h

darkness

was the most dang