White Fire: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 5 Read Free Page A

everyday citizen.
    She wasn’t. And neither was the male sitting across the bar, staring at her like he knew, like he could see her through the wig and contacts.
    The Mark on her ankle sent a jolt of pain through her leg, like she’d just been stung by a bee. She jumped in her seat. Scared. Surprised.
    No.
    Not now. She wondered what the Immortal would do if the Triscani walked in. Help her? Or walk away?
    She was afraid she was about to find out. Too bad, really. He was hot. Smoking hot. Tangle me up in the sheets and not get out of bed for a week hot. Not that it would do her any good. No, her whole life, the only thing her parents or Bran had told her was that she had to wait, meet the Lost King, fall in love, save the world, and live happily ever after. Not once had her dad said, “Go hook up with a smoking-hot criminal in a bar and have some fun. It’s all right, honey. Just get it out of your system.”
    Shit. She had to get the hell out of there. Now. She’d have to take her chances with the Hunters. If she waited for the human bartender to try to take her home, she was afraid she’d be in deep, deep trouble with that sexy Itaran across the bar. She couldn’t touch him, even accidentally. If her Mark jumped onto his ankle, there was no way she could get it back unless he chose to reject it, and her. And if not? Lifelong commitment to an Immortal criminal, one who was most likely linked to a Triad on Earth? Marriage from hell wouldn’t even come close to an apt description.
    He had to be living here. Which meant he was in exile, a criminal condemned to the chute. The Itarans had few absolute laws, and only two punishments for their people. Execution by Angel’s Fire at the hands of the House of Judgment, or shot off into a trans-dimensional portal like an egg down a tube. Destination? Permanent exile on Earth. Earth was their freaking penal colony.
    If he lived here, he’d arrived via option number two. Which meant he’d survived the other Immortals already here, and joined one of the dangerous and very territorial Immortal ruling Triads. From what Bran told her, they made the human mafia look like kindergarten bullies.
    There were three crimes that ensured an Immortal’s automatic execution on Itara, murder of another Immortal, possession of a soul stone, or treason to the Queen. The rest, the millions of possibilities, from rape to theft, got the chute. Most died as soon as they arrived here, hunted and executed immediately by the Itarans already here. Every Immortal who survived the chute was a threat to their rule, their power base here on Earth.
    Bran had explained it all to her years ago, said she needed to know everything if she was going to rule with her Lost King. Said she needed to know what she’d be up against if she survived the battle with the Triscani.
    But there was no King here, just a sexy-as-sin Immortal criminal, two run-of-the-mill Triscani Hunters, and the other, the patient one, the captain. The evil being who stalked her dreams and called her name while she slept. He was close. She could feel his anger and frustration. Maybe he couldn’t deal with the fact that she continued to elude him. And she would again.
    Four Immortals at one damn bar was waaaaay over her limit.
     

Chapter Two
    Emma tossed a twenty-dollar bill on the counter and ducked down below the bar top to grab her bag. She’d make it to the bathroom and replace the wig she wore with the shorter, blonde one she always carried in her giant shoulder bag. She’d switch her short, black leather jacket for the dark green and gold Oregon Duck’s hoodie, wait for someone to leave, and fall in behind them like a leech. As soon as she cleared the parking lot, she’d run like hell. Time for a new everything.
    Nothing but dust and a few clothes at her apartment. And her job at the Daily? Nothing. Something to keep her busy. The thought hurt, but she didn’t dare even say goodbye to her friends. If the Hunters were outside,