Sun Catch Her (Book 1: Three Rivers Deep series) COMPLETE

BOOK TWO PREVIEW | PROLOGUE | D

"Why ever not?" Micah grumbled. He paced at one of the downstairs windows, one of eight. The building's octagonal design deemed the number so. It was a two-story building, constructed of heavy stone, and plastered and whitewashed inside and out to smooth perfection. Downstairs held the entryway, a sitting room, and a cozy nook to eat, while the upstairs was a splendid combination of living quarters, bed chamber, and master bath.

I tried for a soothing tone. "They will fly her in through the upper balcony, and then you can go see her," I said, excluding myself. Up until this point, my presence had been needed. Now that she was mended, I was no longer required.

Micah had been more than tolerant with me, and I didn't want to press my luck. Even now, he was back to his moody self. His purple black eyes of earlier, when he first arrived at the estate, returned to him. He turned that turbulent gaze upon me, where I leaned on an inner wall with my arms crossed. A flicker of light, like lightning threatening, danced within each iris. I was beginning to recognize this look of his as angry contemplation. The way he seemed to be directing those thoughts my way made me think he was unhappy with me. But what had I done?

My own anger stirred. Like a serpent rising from murky depths, a bitterness arose to curl around the thoughts of all that I had done this night. Saved his charge. Invited him back to my estate, my home, to finish the task of mending her. And now he looked upon me with what? Disdain? Perhaps jealousy, for all I owned and all that I was? None of it has done me any good anyway. Not in the long run. With my past loves dead or fading to death. And the recent death of my mother.

I struggled against the urge to look away first from the staring contest we were engaged in. I fought it, and I almost won. The depression-laced rage for Mom's murder that possessed me from time to time rode the back of the emerged serpent. It laid waste to my patience with Micah, that tolerance already riddled with so many holes.

For him to have offered me the blessed chance at Aurora's intimacy, the power pull with set limitations, only to look upon me now with disdain. It made no sense! Was he testing me?

I looked away first, and I didn't count it as losing or flinching. I averted my gaze so he wouldn't see the contempt in it that wasn't for him. Not really. He didn't warrant this much ire.

"You beat me back to the estate." Micah was back to gazing out the window when his words drew my attention to him once more. "You got here first."

"I did," I answered, and briefly opened my mouth wide, almost akin to a yawn, to flex my jaw. I'd been clenching so hard that the stretching motion pained me clear up through my skull, even as I broke apart the trace amount of ice that had formed between my teeth. I was beginning to get a migraine.

"You took the river."

"Sure did." And why do you seem so upset by this?

"Could you transport her as such?"