Forever The World of Nightwalkers - By Jacquelyn Frank Page 0,66
much more thoughtful than that.”
“Do not turn this around on me,” she bit out, floored by his audacity.
“But it is about you. All of this is about you. You who are so fair-minded and so tolerant of so many people caught in so many difficult circumstances, and yet when you feel that a man might have potentially betrayed you, you do not even wish to slow down and think you might be misinterpreting. Tell me, hummingbird, why do you fly so swiftly? What makes you think you can’t sit still for a moment lest a predator snatches you up and hurts you?”
“Stop touching me, Jackson!” She reach to make me feel …inihIed to shove him off of her but the moment she did so she felt the overwhelming strength of him through her palm and fingers. He would not move, she realized, until he wanted to be moved. She was weak and insignificant to him. Not just woman to man, but immortal to mortal.
“But I like to touch you. I like to look at you. And I very much like the way you smell, Marissa.” The timbre of his voice dropped even lower on that last statement, making her breath catch as her lower legs went traitorously weak under her.
“Get off of me,” she demanded through her clenched teeth.
“Ask me what my motives are, Marissa.”
“Intimidation? Bullying? Selfishness? Why ask? I already know.”
“Ask me,” he said, his head lowering so he was breathing the request across her lips. Her entire body clenched, going weak as if she were a hormonal teenager about to be kissed for the first time. Damn him! Damn her. God, all she wanted to do was go back home, go to bed, and wake up knowing all of this had just been a ridiculous nightmare.
“Back. Off.” She gritted both words out, using all of her strength of will to keep from lashing out and physically punching him in the eye. She wasn’t by nature a violent person, and as mad as she was, the impulse still shocked her. When he didn’t move, keeping himself that barest breath of distance away from her mouth, she was shocked to find her entire body reacting on a visceral, physical level, her chest rising and falling hard with each rapid breath, her mouth craving, as though wishing for him to close the distance between them. How could her body react one way when her mind and emotions were so powerfully motivated in the opposite direction? It was confusing and embarrassing because she felt as though he knew very, very well the effect he was having on her. “I won’t ask because I don’t want to know,” she said, her eyes burning, the sting in her nose warning her that if she didn’t regain control she was going to cry out of frustration.
“When I entered the Ether,” Jackson said, “Menes was there waiting for me. A human can only enter the Ether when on the cusp of death … and only very specific kinds of impending deaths. Far enough to take life, but not so far it can’t be reclaimed once the powerful strength and healing abilities of the Bodywalker has joined with its human host. When I came into the Ether, Menes, like all of the lawful Politic, asked permission to join with me. They make it as clear as possible, pull no punches, make you see the good and the bad of what you are about to become. Menes was especially careful, knowing that he is pharaoh over a warring race. It cannot be just anyone, you see, to Blend with a being of such heavy duty and responsibility … not to mention having a target painted on your back.
“But he asked, Marissa, and I said yes. And now I am asking. I’m telling you everything you need to know, I am seeking out in you everything I need to seek. Menes wasn’t a part of me five minutes before he knew what I had been hiding from myself for so long now. He knew you were special. He knew I wanted you. And he knew that, had we not been restricted by ethics and protocol, I would have done anything to make you mine.”
“You … b-but …” she stammered.
“Her name is Hatshepsut. In her original life she was one of the most powerful queens of Egypt. She is going to need a very precious host, a woman of strength and beauty. A around him and huggeds danger woman of