Shades of Honor (An Anomaly Novel Book 2)
Page 27
Coming from someone who thought they could take on half the universe by themselves, that wasn’t comforting.
“Would money help?”
Ash tilted her head. “You offering to fund me, Rip?”
“Yes.”
Her teasing smile vanished.
“If you need to pay someone off,” he continued, “I can help.”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but my funds have finally been unlocked. I’m good.”
So there had to be another reason she was going back.
He tapped his fingers on the table, thinking. “You never told me what Specialist Teal found in Trevast’s files.”
“Teal triggered a trip wire,” Ash said. “It destroyed the data.”
Her carefully neutral tone told him the crypty had found something important, but he wouldn’t pry. If she wanted him to know, she would tell him. He didn’t want to inadvertently tug on the loyalty training.
Ash glanced down at the comm-cuff resting in front of him on the table.
“What are you working on?” she asked.
He hesitated a moment, then turned the cuff to face her and pushed it forward.
She read the first few lines of the doc he had open. Then she looked at him.
“I’m going to find a way to undo it,” he said.
“The whole point of the loyalty training is for it to be permanent. Permanent allegiance to the Coalition. Permanent allegiance to the Fighting Corps. Permanent allegiance to y— To keeping the KU safe.”
His jaw clenched. “Your loyalty to me was a side effect. Unintended according to the scientists. And Valt overrode it.”
Her expression turned stony. “No one is getting in my head again.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that. I was using it as an example to show it’s not one hundred percent infallible.”
“It doesn’t matter, Rip.”
“It matters to me.” He rested his forearms on the table, leaned forward, and looked into her eyes. “I know you’re afraid to hear it, but I love you. I don’t expect you to say the words back to me, change your behavior or the way you get under my skin, but I need you to know how I feel. You’ve captured me. I want to be with you.” Her hands were clasped on the table, so he reached out and covered them with one of his own. “I’m going to Javery. You’re going to Glory. I know we agreed to serve separately, but I don’t want distance between us. I want you in my arms every night.”
“Ysbar Station—”
“It won’t happen again.” He squeezed her hands. “And I’m sorry for what I did. It was unintentional. I wanted you safe, but I would never purposefully disable you like that. Forgive me.”
The smile she gave him was a small one, but it was authentic, and it tugged at his soul. “I was going to say Ysbar Station was an accident. You’re forgiven, Rip. My guard was down. We were in combat, and I was focused on the enemy, not on subverting your influence.”
“You shouldn’t need your guard up around me. That’s why I need to break the loyalty training.”
“The doctors say it keeps me sane.”
“You’re too strong to snap.” That had been his mistake before, listening to Tersa and believing that a threat to him might make Ash lose her sanity.
She shrugged. “If you can’t break it, we’ll be fine. You’ll never intentionally trigger the compulsion, and I’ll keep my guard up and make sure I don’t follow any of your commands.”
The mischievous light that entered her green eyes told him just exactly how much fun she’d have with that last part.
He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice. “I’m not sure that’s a wise plan.”
“It never has been.” The table separated them. They weren’t close enough to kiss, but they were close enough that he could smell the clean scent of her skin. He wanted to taste it, to taste her.
Nearby, a speaker dinged, and a spacer made an announcement that the last transport dirtside for the day would be leaving in an hour.
A little smile crawled across Ash’s lips.
“I know I need to be on that transport,” she said, “but I still have an hour, and you and I know my timing has never been that great.”
Pure invitation laced her tone.
“You’re timing is perfect.” His voice had turned gravelly. He moved around the table and pulled her to her feet. There, in the middle of the coffee nook with half a dozen spacers still around, he put his arms around Ash and kissed her.
Screw the scandal they would cause. Ash was everything he needed: infuriatingly reckless, beautifully unpredictable, and undeniably addicting. She was his anomaly, and he would love her until all the stars of the universe aligned.
THE END
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THE END
The Shadow Reader
An Urban Fantasy Romance
Some humans can see the fae. McKenzie Lewis can track them, reading the shadows they leave behind. But some shadows lead to danger. Others lead to lies.
A Houston college student trying to finish her degree, McKenzie has been working for the fae king for years, tracking vicious rebels who would claim the Realm. Her job isn’t her only secret. For just as long, she’s been in love with Kyol, the king’s sword-master—and relationships between humans and fae are forbidden.
But any hope for a normal life is shattered when she’s captured by Aren, the fierce and uncompromising rebel leader. He teachers her the forbidden fae language and tells her dark truths about the Court, all to persuade her to turn against the king. Time is running out, and as the fight starts to claim human lives, McKenzie has to decide once and for all whom to trust—and where she ultimately stands in the face of a cataclysmic civil war.
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Also by Sandy Williams
The Anomaly Novels
Shades of Treason
Shades of Honor
The Shadow Reader Novels
The Shadow Reader
The Shattered Dark
The Sharpest Blade
Shades of Honor, Anomaly Novel #2
Copyright © 2016 by Sandy Williams
Cover design © Damonza.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-0-9963231-2-3
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About the Author
Sandy Williams is the author of high-octane science fiction and urban fantasy. All her books come with a strong shot of romance. She’s always loved reading. When she was a teen, she finished her class assignments as quickly as she could so that she could read as much as possible before the bell rang. Her grades didn’t suffer (much), and she was able to enroll in Texas A&M University. She didn’t sneak in novels there, but every other line of her college lecture notes are filled with snippets of stories. After she graduated, she decided to turn those snippets into books.
When Sandy isn’t writing, she sneaks in time to read books by her favorite authors, and she loves playing EuroGames like Dominion, Castles of Burgundy, and Caverna.
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