by Jenna Kernan
This perked Daeva up. There were only a few important keys up there in the world. “What kind of key, do you know?”
“Not sure. But I did hear it is supposed to open something of great value to demons. Something powerful. Something ancient.”
Daeva nearly dropped her teacup. She set it on the table, her hand shaking.
“Are you ill, Mistress?”
She swallowed, then gave him a small smile. “I must be a bit under the weather, Klix. Could we finish our game later? I believe I need to rest a bit.”
“Yes, of course.” He rose from his seat. “Shall I take the tea tray?”
“No, that’s fine.”
He bowed his bald head to her. “I will be back later to check on you, Mistress.”
“Oh, Klix, could you deliver a message to your sister for me?” Daeva reached for parchment and a quill. She scrawled three words on it, and folded the paper. She handed it to the goblin.
“I will do this right away.”
“Thank you, Klix. Please tell her to burn it after she reads it.”
The little goblin left her chamber, shutting the door firmly behind him.
Once he was gone, Daeva rose from her chair and went to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase along one wall. She ran her finger along the book titles until she found the one she needed. She slid it off the shelf and went to sit on the sofa.
She opened the thick tome on her lap and flipped through the pages. She stopped at a picture of a large wooden box with an elaborate lock on it. She read the text that went with it, then her finger circled another picture, that of a key. A skeleton key. The key that fit the lock. The key that opened a box that had been buried.
A plain wooden box she had buried herself, over a hundred years ago.
She sighed and leaned back against the sofa cushions. She prayed that this wasn’t the key Loir had gone topside to look for. As far as she knew, she was one of only a few people who knew who had the key. If someone was looking for it, then they were looking for the box.
The box had been entrusted to her more than a century ago by an elderly human scholar. He’d been an intelligent, well-read man who knew about the curse on the box. He knew exactly what had been sealed inside. And he had pleaded with her to bury it where no one, no human, no demon, would be able to find it again. He had been her friend, one of the few she had as a demon, so she did as he asked. With the help of a local man, she’d buried it deep in the earth in northern Canada.
They couldn’t allow what lay inside the box to be used again. Daeva feared what would happen if it fell into demon hands. It had been used against demonkind two millennia ago, used to enslave them and do one insane man’s bidding. But if it fell into demon hands, it could be used to subjugate the entire human population. It would overthrow humanity.
Recently, she had heard rumors and whispers about who possessed the key. And the last confirmed report had chilled her blood. If only she was still topside, she could’ve protected him, the key keeper, and he would never have even known.
Because she’d spent years right under his nose, hiding in plain sight. Hiding inside the woman he’d fallen in love with. The woman she’d been possessing for years, before she even met him. So, in Daeva’s mind, he had fallen in love with her.
And she had loved him. Damn him for it.
She pushed the book to the side and stood. Pacing the room she flicked her hand and all the candles in her chamber lit. She tried to warm her body with their flames. It would surprise everyone to know that even in hell she could be cold. She worried about what was to come, fretted about the future.
Daeva knew she would be called upon. There was only one being still alive who knew she’d hidden the box. The man she’d loved, the man who had sent her back to hell.
Soon, Quinn Strom, exorcist extraordinaire, would come a-knocking at her hellish “door.”
A knock startled her. It couldn’t be Klix; she had told him to come back later. Her heart thudding in her chest, she opened the door.
Two soldiers with swords at their sides stood waiting for her. “Daeva, you must come with us.”
“What is this about?” Although, deep down in her churning gut, she knew.
“Please comply, or we will be forced to be unpleasant.”
Swallowing the fear that was quickly rising, she nodded and stepped out between them, firmly shutting her door behind her.
Copyright © 2014 by Vivi Anna
ISBN-13: 9781460344453
The Shifter’s Choice
Copyright © 2014 by Jeannette H. Monaco
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com
