Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) Read Free Page A

balcony overlooking the lake. ‘What a magnificent spot—and so close to the center of the city.’
    Georgina prowled around the room, twitching at the rose colored cushions on the corner couch and straightening the matching satin quilt on the bed.
    ‘You've got an ensuite—um towels—um everything's here I think—um—’
    ‘George, you're positively wound up like a top.’ Fran stepped in from the balcony. Eyeing her sister with concern, she hugged her then said, ‘Relax. It doesn't matter. Nothing does. It's just good to be here!’
    Georgina hugged her back.
    ‘Fran—when you see auras, what do you see?’
    ‘Auras?’ Fran leant back in her sister's embrace, looking startled. ‘Well, colors. That's what auras are. Why?’
    ‘Ah—nothing. I think I'm just tired.’ Georgina pulled away to open the bathroom door. ‘There's probably about an hour until Mum and Merryn and Case get here. There's plenty of hot water if you want a shower. Towels in the cupboard. There's a spa pool downstairs on the patio—where I intend to be five minutes from now. You're welcome to join me—or—whatever. Just make yourselves at home.’
    ‘George?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    Georgina eyed her sister warily.
    ‘Relax for goodness sake! It's only me! And Torr—well his name sounds like a bull but he's just a big pussy-cat.—Aren't you, darling?’ Fran addressed the man entering the room and moved across to caress the dark mask of his face that was about the only part of him not obscured by luggage.
    A fire-breathing dragon more like!
    The hard green gaze softened as it slid from Georgina to her sister and Georgina was appalled by the claws of jealousy raking through her gut.
    She wanted her sister's fiancé.
    ‘Come down when you're ready,’ she called, halfway down the stairs before even mentally acknowledging that the ` fire-breathing dragon ' phrase might have been written in flaming letters a foot high in the air between them, though neither had opened their mouths. She scarcely noticed Katja waiting for her in the hall but the dog fell into step beside her, her mystical ice blue eyes steady and watchful.
    Ten minutes later Georgina had checked the beef casserole simmering in the slow cooker and put a roasting dish filled with vegetables into the oven. Clad in her old black maillot swimsuit instead of her usual bikini, and cradling a glass of chilled wine to her forehead, she slid beneath the bubbling water of the spa and commanded herself to unwind. Focusing on the delicious spears of ice cold numbing her brain, she could almost keep at bay the wild thoughts skittering along the fringes of her mind. She was afraid to let them crystallize into something that must be examined, acknowledged.
    Her mother, her sisters, Merryn in particular, had always been psychic. But her? Never! She'd simply refused to allow it. So why now? She had to be imagining things. She who had as much imagination as cold, day old porridge.
    It hadn't occurred to her to `imagine' her fifty-four year old husband could have four grown sons, all older than herself, when she'd married him. Or that one of them could harbor such malice, even as his father lay dying. As usual, her mind shied away from the bitter memories, but the fact remained she almost consciously repressed any tendency to the fanciful.
    So how was she to explain the ephemeral, but absolutely clear, auric outline she'd seen of an ancient Warrior Lord towering behind Torr Montgomery, complete with burnished gold horned helmet and massive iron broadsword? Or those words burning themselves into her mind at the airport?
    The Warrior Lord, greatest of all the Sons of the Dragon. A fire-breathing dragon?
    It had to be something she'd seen on the dust-cover of a book recently, dredged up by an over-tired, over-wrought mind. She really must take a break after this book launch. No, make that after the conference at which she was speaking on what a café-cum-bookshop could do to promote a writer's work.