Queen of The Hill (Knight Games) Read Online Free Page A

threaded my fingers into his and lowered his offered arm to my chest. “Just tired, and I was nauseous this morning. I’m better now though.”
    “I discovered something on your bathroom floor.” From my bedside table, he lifted the pregnancy test. “Can you explain this?” The concern in his voice tugged at my heartstrings. I hadn’t intended to tell him about this afternoon, but I felt the truth press against the inside of my teeth, an unrelieved pressure. After all we’d been through, why keep secrets?
    “I thought I might be pregnant with your baby,” I blurted. The confession slammed awkwardly into the space between us.
    The corners of his mouth twitched, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “ Mi cielo , I explained to you, I am unable to produce children. Immortals are sterile,” he said kindly. He brushed my hair back from my face.
    “The candle made you human. Maybe not completely, but I thought, maybe …” The waterworks started again, and I turned my face away.
    He placed a finger under my chin and returned my gaze to his. “You wanted to be pregnant?”
    I sighed. Sitting up, I tried to put it into words. “Not really. Not initially anyway. But then I started to think about it. Now is not the best time, but when is? I just feel like I missed our only chance.”
    “If it is important to you, we can explore alternatives once we are married. Although, I beseech you to consider the inevitable hardships of raising a human child. We will live forever. Our child will not.”
    His point wasn’t lost on me. Still, I picked at the corner of the quilt. “I was thinking, what if we bought another candle.” I shrugged. “When we are ready, we could try again. We could make you human temporarily. I could use magic to improve our odds.”
    His face fell. “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I cannot obtain another.” Eyes shifting away from me, he moved to stand.
    “Why not?” I demanded.
    With a groan, he placed his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Isn’t it enough to adopt? Perhaps a supernatural infant?”
    I shook my head. “Don’t change the subject. Why can’t we get another candle?” I gave him my strongest I-will-not-let-this-go look.
    He sighed. “Will you walk with me? The story is not a simple one.”
    I nodded. “Give me a minute.”
    Ten minutes later, hair and teeth brushed properly for the first time all day, I wrapped myself up in my puffy white snowman parka and followed Rick into the woods across from my house. A thick layer of snow crunched beneath our boots as we wound between the dormant trees. The sky above was gray but bright. I couldn’t see the sun behind the clouds.
    “I need to tell you about the candle,” Rick began. “When I saw you kiss Logan—”
    “ He kissed me,” I clarified.
    “So I have learned, but at the time, given the circumstances, I was convinced that you would choose him in my place if given the opportunity.”
    “I see.”
    “I visited Salem’s Witch, Tabetha. She comforted me.”
    I stopped abruptly, my women’s intuition perking ears at his words. “Define comforted .”
    He sighed, ignoring my request. “I’ve known her for hundreds of years. She offered to help me. To free me.”
    “She sold you the candle.”
    “She made me the candle. There has only ever been one.”
    Holy shit . This witch made Rick the candle from scratch. A custom spell was a lot of work to do as a favor or at any price. “How close were you two?” Jealousy crept into my voice, and I saw a muscle in Rick’s jaw twitch. Oh my God, had he had an affair? “How close, Rick?”
    He looked away. I had a feeling he was going to say more, but at that moment, the sound of splintering wood demanded our attention. I squinted, leaning forward to get a better look at the tree nearest us. “Is that—?”
    A face formed in the bark, fine boned and feminine. The eyes popped open, sending me jumping back with a yelp. Rick barely flinched.
    “She is coming,” the bark