Jacob's Ladder (String of Fate) Read Free Page B

believe me. Even Gina knows about it. My gift was hard to hide from our closest friends growing up.” If Ria wouldn’t take the word of his sister—a human—she would probably give more credence to the testimony of a fellow shifter and monarch, his sister’s best friend, Gina.
    But Ria didn’t say anything for a long moment. She merely stared hard at him, her eyes narrowed.
    She seemed on the verge of saying something that would tip the balance, but instead, she turned away. Her gaze sought the dark waters in front of the helicopter.
    “Where are we going?” she asked, dodging the really tough topic of whether or not she believed his claim. He’d let her wriggle free…for now.
    “There’s a yacht awaiting our arrival,” he said, adjusting a few controls as he began the approach that would take them to the helipad of the multi-million dollar craft.
    “Really?” Her tone was suspicious. “You own a yacht?” That last bit had a definite, unspoken yeah, right after it.
    “I never said it was mine. It belongs to a friend. A friend of yours too, actually. Samson Kinkaid loaned me the use of his yacht and helicopter when I asked.”
    “You know Sam?” Those lovely eyes of hers pinned him once more. How he wished he could erase the ever-present suspicion in them.
    He would have to work on earning her trust. He wanted her to look at him as she did in his visions. But that would have to wait. He knew those particular glimpses of the future were nebulous at best. A lot would have to happen to make that part of the future into a reality.
    “Sam and I go way back. We first met in Tibet. We studied together there for a while. We’ve been friends ever since, even though our paths don’t cross often these days. I don’t hang out with the jet set much.” He smiled ruefully as he turned back to his controls. He could just see the yacht’s lights in the distance, which meant Ria must have seen them already. He knew she had much sharper eyesight than he did. That was just one of the gifts of her shifter heritage.
    “Tibet, huh? What were you studying there?” She kept her eyes focused ahead as she spoke.
    “Life. Spirit. Martial arts,” he answered with an inner grin. He would feed the curious cat, but on his terms. He’d spent enough time in Tibet to learn the art of being mystical.
    “Where did you study? At a temple or something?”
    “You could say that.” He saw he was losing her interest, so he decided to drop another little tidbit. “It was the snowcat enclave, in fact.”
    Now he had her. She turned to look at him, her eyes wide.
    “No way.”
    He couldn’t help the grin that spread over his face. “Way.” He sensed she didn’t quite believe him. “I’ll take you there one day.”
    Damn . He hadn’t meant to tell her that. He had seen them there, in that village high in the Himalayas. Together. It was one of his most precious visions because in that small snippet of a possible future, they were both happy and smiling, and the look in her eyes as she gazed at him held a kind of love he had never experienced.
    He wanted that. He wanted to make that future into a reality. Had he ruined his chances by saying too much?
    “Of course you will. And then I’ll fly to the moon on the back of my pet pegasus.” She seemed to let the comment pass, turning back to the lights that were growing ever clearer as they approached the yacht.
    Jake let the silence stretch as he brought the helicopter in for a landing on the helipad positioned on one end of the giant yacht. He didn’t radio the captain, having already alerted the man that he would be running silent, but the man had his crew ready and waiting to secure the chopper when they landed.
    Ria didn’t need any instruction on when and how to get out of the helicopter and she seemed to assess everyone she saw before her gaze came back to rest on Jake. She joined him near the stairs that led down from the helipad to the deck.
    “What now?” she asked.