Waking Eden (The Eden Series Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

intense it was a wonder her shirt didn’t fizzle to nothing. “Did it bother you?”
    Heck yes, it bothered her. But not in the way it usually did.
    He tilted his head and his panther-like scrutiny sharpened. “Where are you from, Trinity?”
    Tingles broke out along the back of her neck, and a loud buzzing roared in her ears. A warning. The same one she’d experienced the day her adopted father died and countless times after. “I need to go.”
    She darted through the crowds, zigzagging to avoid contact. She failed one too many times and her head spun with erotic, vivid images, most centered on sweaty, wild sex. The kind she’d never be able to have.
    From somewhere behind her, Ramsay shouted her name.
    Trinity kept going, digging in her purse for her cell phone. No way in hell was she sticking around him any longer. His touch felt good. Great, actually. Insidious, check-your-brain-at-the-door-and-touch-me-all-night great.
    But he was asking questions too. With her father’s mysterious rumblings and promises of destiny still stomping around in her mind, no way was she taking chances. Better to stay touch-starved and safe than say more than she should.

Chapter 3
    S erena smoothed the pale blue chiffon of her long-sleeved gown, making sure the grayed-out mark of her now-dead mate didn’t show. Thyrus’ voiced droned behind her. Do this. Don’t do that. Typical lawyer-speak. The same blasted instructions she’d heard for the last four weeks.
    She pushed from the table and paced to the tall arched window. Gold winked from Cush’s taupe and ivory brick-laid streets, and the morning sun reflected off a row of weathered white domed roofs. The crowds had been thick when she’d arrived in Eden’s capital two hours before, some having camped out overnight. Now they were even worse. “You’d think I was a Salem witch.”
    Thyrus paused mid whatever monotonous topic he’d been on. “Pardon?”
    “A witch hunt from human history. Fanatics desperate for a hanging.”
    Thyrus waddled over, his maroon solicitor’s robe stretched a little too tightly over his belly. He guided her away from the window. “Hardly that. More like curiosity. It’s not every day a woman stabs her mate in the heart, let alone the leader of the Lomos Rebellion.”
    He pulled out her chair, the same one she’d been planted in since her arrival at daybreak. “Now, remember. Keep to your innocence. They can see your memories, but not the emotion that goes with it. It’s the intent behind your actions that will sway the ellan one way or the other. If you keep to your claim that killing Maxis was all done out of love for the malran and a desire to protect him, the council will be hard pressed to convict.”
    “And my involvement in Lexi’s kidnapping?” A stupid miscalculation on her part. She’d be smarter in the future. More distanced from the action. More effective in the outcome.
    “Correct me if I’m wrong, but the truth of the matter is that Maxis did the actual kidnapping. You merely delivered the lure to the malress. Is that accurate?”
    Serena nodded. Thyrus might be one of the most slovenly creatures she’d ever met, but he was damned handy in legal matters. Not to mention a staunch, yet quiet supporter of the rebellion.
    “Then keep to that angle,” Thyrus said. “Expound on your feelings of remorse as you carried out the act, but explain that it felt necessary to go along with Maxis’ schemes to protect the malran. Trust me. They haven’t a scrap to hold you to. Not with you taking Maxis out when no one else could.” Thyrus shook his head. “A loss for the Rebellion, but a genius move on your part given how it makes you appear as though you’d meant to fight on behalf of the malran all along. Remind me never to piss you off.”
    A knock sounded on the door and a young man barely past his awakening stuck his head through the opening. “The council is gathering and the royal couple have arrived. You’ll need to make