Inescapable (Eternelles: The Beginning, Book 1) Read Free Page A

his arms for a dance away from the prying eyes of the ball’s guests, when this complete stranger had kissed her, and seared his presence into her heart. If she were to look the truth in its face, she would acknowledge that she had spent the past thousand years looking for hints of that masked man in the face of every male she encountered.
    His kiss and his touch had ruined her for others, and she still had no clue who he was.
    “...looking for a scroll and I told him you would be the authority on that,” Susan said.
    Adri blinked out of her memories, to realize her hand had limply fallen to her side when Des had released her. A soft tingle remained in her fingertips. Definitely strange, but not enough to suggest that he could be a supernatural creature. This man was as human as one could get.
    Not a threat, then. Or was he?
    “Adri?” Susan asked with a quizzical lift of her silver brow.
    “I’m sorry,” she forced through suddenly dry lips. “You were saying?”
    “Susan, sweetheart, why don’t I escort Miss Dionysios to the dinner table? It seems to me the board’s president is trying to attract your attention.”
    “But of course.” Susan patted Adri’s arm. “You’ll be in good hands with Des.”
    Adri watched her drift away. She still couldn’t shake off the impression that something was wrong with her friend.
    When a warm, strong hand settled under her elbow, she nearly jumped. Dieu du ciel , if Ares could see her today, he’d throw her for scraps to the hounds of Tartarus. Her brother didn’t tolerate fools gladly, and she was acting like the epitome of the hormonal fool instead of the trained warrior he had made of her.
    “I hope you’ve eaten before coming here,” Des said in a whisper against her ear.
    His warm breath feathered through her loose hair to tickle the nape of her bare neck like a delicious caress. Et merde, encore— of all the times to feel sexual need. The energy pulsing off the crowd was driving her batty, pushing her buttons and sending her in a state of quasi-permanent arousal.
    Come on, Adri. She could hold a normal conversation, couldn’t she?
    “Why...why do you ask that?”
    He started to lead her toward a table in the front row. Thankfully, he idled to the side and she found herself staring at the place card with her name artfully scrolled on it. Something told her to risk a glance to the right, and her heart sank when she read the name Desmond Roxburgh on the card. So he was her dinner companion. She’d bet Susan had manipulated that outcome. Her friend would have some explaining to do when Adri cornered her. She hated it when acquaintances tried to play matchmaker.
    “Look at the plates coming in,” Des murmured in her ear.
    She glanced around to see waiters marching around in a well-orchestrated ballet.
    “Barely enough food for a kitten,” he continued. “You’d think that at eleven hundred dollars a seat, they’d give people some decent food. But no, all five courses will be as artfully skimpy as the one just placed before us.”
    She couldn’t help but quell a little smile at the dejection in his tone. She, for one, loved her substantial portions of food. And please, none of that super-size-me fast food crap her daughter adored, or the innovative nouvelle cuisine that looked like doll’s food.
    “So why did you come, then?” she found herself saying.
    He eyed her for long seconds, during which she squirmed and resisted the urge to lower her head so she’d escape the intent perusal.
    “It was high time we met.”
    Adri blinked. “I’m sorry? Do I know you?”
    Before he could answer her, the guest on her left turned to her, and Des moved toward the woman seated on his other side. The rules of politeness stated she had to converse with her dinner partners equally, so she had no way out of listening to the old man’s rambling diatribe as she picked at the non-existent food on her Limoges porcelain plate. At Des and the woman’s soft laughter, she