Keep Me

by Anna Zaires

  “Of course. I hope he recovers quickly. Is he your relative?” Kate was proud of the casual steadiness of her tone. Hopefully, the man wouldn’t realize how he affected her.

  “My bodyguard.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. So she’d been right—this man was a big fish. Bodyguard? Did that mean— “Was he shot in the course of duty?” she asked, holding her breath.

  “He took a bullet meant for me, yes.” The man’s tone was matter-of-fact, but Kate got a sense of tightly suppressed rage underneath those words.

  Holy shit. “Did you already speak to the police?”

  “I gave them a brief statement. I will talk to them in more detail once Igor is stabilized and regains consciousness.”

  Kate nodded, not knowing what to say to that. The man standing in front of her had been shot at today. What was he? Some Mafia boss? A political figure?

  If she’d had any doubts about the wisdom of exploring this strange attraction between them, they were now gone. This stranger was bad news, and she needed to stay as far away from him as possible.

  “Well, I wish your bodyguard a speedy recovery,” Kate said in a falsely cheerful tone. “Barring any complications, he should be fine—”

  “Thanks to you.”

  Kate nodded again, gave him a half-smile, and took a step to the side, hoping to walk around the man and go to her next patient.

  But he shifted his stance, blocking her way. “I’m Alex Volkov,” he said quietly, looking down on her. “And you are?”

  Kate’s pulse picked up. She could feel the male intent in his question, and it made her nervous. “Just a nurse working here,” she said, hoping he would get the hint.

  He didn’t—or he pretended not to. “What’s your name?”

  Kate took a deep breath. He was certainly persistent. “I’m Katherine Morrell. If you’ll excuse me—”

  “Katherine,” he repeated, his accent lending the familiar syllables an exotic edge. His eyes gleamed with some unknown emotion, and his hard mouth softened a bit. “Katerina. It’s a beautiful name.”

  “Thank you. I really have to go . . .” Kate was feeling increasingly anxious to get away. He was so large, standing there in front of her. She needed some space, needed a little room to breathe. His nearness was overpowering, making her edgy and restless, leaving her craving something she knew would be bad for her.

  “You have your job to do. I understand,” he said, looking vaguely amused.

  And he still didn’t move out of her way. Instead, as she watched in shock, he raised one large hand and lightly brushed his knuckles down her left cheek.

  Kate froze, even as a wave of heat moved through her body. His touch had been casual, but she felt branded by it, shaken to the core.

  “I would like to see you again, Katerina,” he said softly. “When does your shift end tonight?”

  Kate stared at him, feeling like she was losing control of the situation. “I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

  “Why not?” His blue eyes narrowed, and his mouth tightened again. “Are you married?”

  For a second, Kate was tempted to lie and tell him that she was. But honesty won out. “No. But I’m not interested in dating right now—”

  “Who said anything about dating?”

  Kate blinked. She had assumed—

  He lifted his hand again, stopping her mid-thought. This time, he picked up a strand of her long brown hair, rubbing it between his fingers as though enjoying its texture.

  “I don’t date, Katerina,” he murmured, his accented voice oddly mesmerizing. “But I would like to take you to bed. And I think you would like that, too.”

  * * *

  If you’d like to know when White Nights comes out, please visit my website at www.annazaires.com and sign up for my new release email list.

  Excerpt from The Krinar Captive

  Author’s Note: This is a prequel to the Krinar Chronicles. You don’t have to have read Mia & Korum’s story in order to read this book. It takes place approximately five years earlier, right before and during the Krinar invasion. The excerpt and the description are unedited and subject to change.

  * * *

  Emily Ross never expected to survive her deadly fall in the Costa Rican jungle—and she certainly never thought she’d wake up in a strangely futuristic dwelling, held captive by the most beautiful man she had ever seen. A man who seems to be more than human . . .

  Zaron is on Earth to facilitate the Krinar invasion—and to forget the terrible tragedy that ripped apart his life. Yet when he finds the broken body of a human girl, everything changes. For the first time in years, he feels something more than rage and grief . . . and Emily is the reason for that. Letting her go would compromise his mission, but keeping her could destroy him all over again.

  * * *

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please, please, please, I don’t want to die.

  The words kept repeating over and over in her mind, a hopeless prayer that would never be heard. Her fingers slipped another inch on the rough wooden board, her nails breaking as she tried to maintain her grip.

  Emily Ross was hanging by her fingernails—literally—off a broken old bridge. Hundreds of feet below, water rushed over the rocks, the mountain stream full from recent rains.

  Those rains were partially responsible for her current predicament. If the wood on the bridge had been dry, she might not have slipped, twisting her foot in the process. And she certainly wouldn't have fallen onto the rail that broke under her weight.

  It was only a last-minute desperate grab that prevented her from plummeting to her death below. As she was falling, her right hand had caught a small protrusion on the side of the bridge, leaving her dangling in the air hundreds of feet above hard rocks.

  I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Please, please, please, I don't want to die.

  It wasn't fair. It wasn't supposed to happen this way. This was her vacation, her regain-sanity time. How could she die now? She hadn't even begun living yet.

  Images of the last two years slid through her brain, like the PowerPoint presentations she'd spent so many hours making. Every late night, every weekend spent in the office—it had all been for nothing. She'd lost her job during the layoffs, and now she was about to lose her life.

  No, no!

  Her legs flailed, her nails digging deeper into the wood. Her other arm reached up, stretching toward the bridge. This wouldn't happen to her. She wouldn't let it. She had worked too hard to let a stupid jungle bridge defeat her.

  Blood ran down her arm as the rough wood tore the skin off her fingers, but she ignored the pain. Her only hope of survival lay in trying to grab onto the side of the bridge with her other hand, so she could pull herself back up. There was no one around to rescue her, no one to save her if she didn't save herself.

  The possibility that she might die alone in the rainforest had not occurred to Emily when she embarked on this trip. She was used to hiking, used to camping. And even after the hell of the past two years, she was still in good shape, strong and fit from running and playing sports all through high school and college. Costa Rica was considered a safe destination, with a low crime rate and tourist-friendly population. It was inexpensive too—an important factor for her rapidly dwindling savings account.

  She'd booked this trip Before. Before the market had fallen again, before another round of layoffs that had cost thousands of Wall Street workers their jobs. Before Emily went to work on Monday, bleary-eyed from working all weekend, only to leave the office same day with all her possessions in a small cardboard box.

  Before her four-year relationship had fallen apart.

  Her first vacation in two years, and she was going to die.

  No, don't think that way. It won't happen.

  But Emily knew she was lying to herself. She could feel her fingers slipping further, her right arm and shoulder burning from the strain of supporting the weight of her entire body. Her left hand was i
nches away from reaching the side of the bridge, but those inches could've easily been miles. She couldn't get a strong enough grip to lift herself up with one arm.

  Do it, Emily! Don't think, just do it!

  Gathering all her strength, she swung her legs in the air, using the momentum to bring her body higher for a fraction of a second. Her left hand grabbed onto the protruding board, clutched at it . . . and then the fragile piece of wood snapped, startling her into a terrified scream.

  Emily's last thought before her body hit the rocks was the hope that her death would be instant.

  * * *

  If you’d like to know when The Krinar Captive comes out, please visit my website at www.annazaires.com and sign up for my new release email list.

  Excerpt from The Thought Readers by Dima Zales

  Author’s Note: If you want to try something different—and especially if you like urban fantasy and science fiction—you might want to check out The Thought Readers, the first book in the Mind Dimensions series that I’m collaborating on with Dima Zales, my husband. But be warned, there is not much romance or sex in this one. Instead of sex, there’s mind reading. The book can now be ordered at most retailers, including Amazon US (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N37BF1A) and Amazon UK (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00N37BF1A).

  * * *

  Everyone thinks I’m a genius.

  Everyone is wrong.

  Sure, I finished Harvard at eighteen and now make crazy money at a hedge fund. But that’s not because I’m unusually smart or hard-working.

  It’s because I cheat.

  You see, I have a unique ability. I can go outside time into my own personal version of reality—the place I call “the Quiet”—where I can explore my surroundings while the rest of the world stands still.

  I thought I was the only one who could do this—until I met her.

  My name is Darren, and this is how I learned that I’m a Reader.

  * * *

  Sometimes I think I’m crazy. I’m sitting at a casino table in Atlantic City, and everyone around me is motionless. I call this the Quiet, as though giving it a name makes it seem more real—as though giving it a name changes the fact that all the players around me are frozen like statues, and I’m walking among them, looking at the cards they’ve been dealt.

  The problem with the theory of my being crazy is that when I ‘unfreeze’ the world, as I just have, the cards the players turn over are the same ones I just saw in the Quiet. If I were crazy, wouldn’t these cards be different? Unless I’m so far gone that I’m imagining the cards on the table, too.

  But then I also win. If that’s a delusion—if the pile of chips on my side of the table is a delusion—then I might as well question everything. Maybe my name isn’t even Darren.

  No. I can’t think that way. If I’m really that confused, I don’t want to snap out of it—because if I do, I’ll probably wake up in a mental hospital.

  Besides, I love my life, crazy and all.

  My shrink thinks the Quiet is an inventive way I describe the ‘inner workings of my genius.’ Now that sounds crazy to me. She also might want me, but that’s beside the point. Suffice it to say, she’s as far as it gets from my datable age range, which is currently right around twenty-four. Still young, still hot, but done with school and pretty much beyond the clubbing phase. I hate clubbing, almost as much as I hated studying. In any case, my shrink’s explanation doesn’t work, as it doesn’t account for the way I know things even a genius wouldn’t know—like the exact value and suit of the other players’ cards.

  I watch as the dealer begins a new round. Besides me, there are three players at the table: Grandma, the Cowboy, and the Professional, as I call them. I feel that now almost-imperceptible fear that accompanies the phasing. That’s what I call the process: phasing into the Quiet. Worrying about my sanity has always facilitated phasing; fear seems helpful in this process.

  I phase in, and everything gets quiet. Hence the name for this state.

  It’s eerie to me, even now. Outside the Quiet, this casino is very loud: drunk people talking, slot machines, ringing of wins, music—the only place louder is a club or a concert. And yet, right at this moment, I could probably hear a pin drop. It’s like I’ve gone deaf to the chaos that surrounds me.

  Having so many frozen people around adds to the strangeness of it all. Here is a waitress stopped mid-step, carrying a tray with drinks. There is a woman about to pull a slot machine lever. At my own table, the dealer’s hand is raised, the last card he dealt hanging unnaturally in midair. I walk up to him from the side of the table and reach for it. It’s a king, meant for the Professional. Once I let the card go, it falls on the table rather than continuing to float as before—but I know full well that it will be back in the air, in the exact position it was when I grabbed it, when I phase out.

  The Professional looks like someone who makes money playing poker, or at least the way I always imagined someone like that might look. Scruffy, shades on, a little sketchy-looking. He’s been doing an excellent job with the poker face—basically not twitching a single muscle throughout the game. His face is so expressionless that I wonder if he might’ve gotten Botox to help maintain such a stony countenance. His hand is on the table, protectively covering the cards dealt to him.

  I move his limp hand away. It feels normal. Well, in a manner of speaking. The hand is sweaty and hairy, so moving it aside is unpleasant and is admittedly an abnormal thing to do. The normal part is that the hand is warm, rather than cold. When I was a kid, I expected people to feel cold in the Quiet, like stone statues.

  With the Professional’s hand moved away, I pick up his cards. Combined with the king that was hanging in the air, he has a nice high pair. Good to know.

  I walk over to Grandma. She’s already holding her cards, and she has fanned them nicely for me. I’m able to avoid touching her wrinkled, spotted hands. This is a relief, as I’ve recently become conflicted about touching people—or, more specifically, women—in the Quiet. If I had to, I would rationalize touching Grandma’s hand as harmless, or at least not creepy, but it’s better to avoid it if possible.

  In any case, she has a low pair. I feel bad for her. She’s been losing a lot tonight. Her chips are dwindling. Her losses are due, at least partially, to the fact that she has a terrible poker face. Even before looking at her cards, I knew they wouldn’t be good because I could tell she was disappointed as soon as her hand was dealt. I also caught a gleeful gleam in her eyes a few rounds ago when she had a winning three of a kind.

  This whole game of poker is, to a large degree, an exercise in reading people—something I really want to get better at. At my job, I’ve been told I’m great at reading people. I’m not, though; I’m just good at using the Quiet to make it seem like I am. I do want to learn how to read people for real, though. It would be nice to know what everyone is thinking.

  What I don’t care that much about in this poker game is money. I do well enough financially to not have to depend on hitting it big gambling. I don’t care if I win or lose, though quintupling my money back at the blackjack table was fun. This whole trip has been more about going gambling because I finally can, being twenty-one and all. I was never into fake IDs, so this is an actual milestone for me.

  Leaving Grandma alone, I move on to the next player—the Cowboy. I can’t resist taking off his straw hat and trying it on. I wonder if it’s possible for me to get lice this way. Since I’ve never been able to bring back any inanimate objects from the Quiet, nor otherwise affect the real world in any lasting way, I figure I won’t be able to get any living critters to come back with me, either.

  Dropping the hat, I look at his cards. He has a pair of aces—a better hand than the Professional. Maybe the Cowboy is a professional, too. He has a good poker face, as far as I can tell. It’ll be interesting to watch those two in this round.

  Next, I walk up to the deck and look at the top cards, memorizing them. I’m not leaving anything to chance.


  When my task in the Quiet is complete, I walk back to myself. Oh, yes, did I mention that I see myself sitting there, frozen like the rest of them? That’s the weirdest part. It’s like having an out-of-body experience.

  Approaching my frozen self, I look at him. I usually avoid doing this, as it’s too unsettling. No amount of looking in the mirror—or seeing videos of yourself on YouTube—can prepare you for viewing your own three-dimensional body up close. It’s not something anyone is meant to experience. Well, aside from identical twins, I guess.

  It’s hard to believe that this person is me. He looks more like some random guy. Well, maybe a bit better than that. I do find this guy interesting. He looks cool. He looks smart. I think women would probably consider him good-looking, though I know that’s not a modest thing to think.

  It’s not like I’m an expert at gauging how attractive a guy is, but some things are common sense. I can tell when a dude is ugly, and this frozen me is not. I also know that generally, being good-looking requires a symmetrical face, and the statue of me has that. A strong jaw doesn’t hurt, either. Check. Having broad shoulders is a positive, and being tall really helps. All covered. I have blue eyes—that seems to be a plus. Girls have told me they like my eyes, though right now, on the frozen me, the eyes look creepy—glassy. They look like the eyes of a lifeless wax figure.

  Realizing that I’m dwelling on this subject way too long, I shake my head. I can just picture my shrink analyzing this moment. Who would imagine admiring themselves like this as part of their mental illness? I can just picture her scribbling down Narcissist, underlining it for emphasis.

  Enough. I need to leave the Quiet. Raising my hand, I touch my frozen self on the forehead, and I hear noise again as I phase out.