AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Laura was right about hope. Even after everything that had happened, I was surprised how much I still had in reserve.
Declan stood up and held out his hand to help me up. “Let’s get out of here.”
I felt shaky, my body ached, and my throat was tender. I’d lost a whole lot of blood. I hadn’t found a solution to my Nightshade problem. The scientist who claimed he could help me was dead, an act of vengeance for the sins of his past. There was a nest of vampires beneath our feet that had an extermination to look forward to rather than a juicy, human jugular to snack on.
I’d nearly died, but I was still alive. I had a chance to heal and to figure out what my next step was going to be.
And surprisingly enough, I felt rather hopeful about that.
One amazing kiss from Declan had made me see that nothing was permanent—there were always loopholes . . . or glitches. If his so-called permanent serum could be brushed aside once, it could be again. And if he could be healed, then so could I.
It was far from perfect, but I was okay with that. I already knew perfection was highly overrated.
Turn the page for a preview
of Jill and Declan’s first thrilling adventure
by Michelle Rowen . . .
Nightshade
Now available in paperback from Berkley Sensation!
Life as I knew it ended at half past eleven on a Tuesday morning.
There were currently thirty minutes left.
“What’s your poison?” I asked my friend and co-worker Stacy on my way out of the office on a coffee break.
She looked up at me from a spreadsheet on her computer screen, her eyes practically crossed from crunching numbers all morning. “You’re a serious lifesaver, Jill, you know that?”
“Well aware.” I grinned at her, then shifted my purse to my other shoulder and took the five-dollar-bill she thrust at me.
“I’ll take a latte, extra foam. And one of those white chocolate chunk cookies. My stomach’s growling happily just thinking about it.”
Stacy didn’t normally go for the cookie action. “No diet today?”
“Fuck diets.”
“Can I quote you?”
She laughed. “I’ll have it printed on a T-shirt. Hey, Steve! Jill’s headed to the coffee shop. You want anything?”
I groaned inwardly. I hadn’t wanted to make a big production out of it, since I hated making change. Unlike Stacy, math was not my friend.
By the time I finally made it out of the office I had a yellow sticky note clenched in my fist scrawled with four different coffee orders.
Twenty minutes left.
The line-up at Starbucks was, as usual, ridiculous. I waited. I ordered. I waited some more. I juggled my wallet and my purse along with the bag of pastries and take-out tray of steaming caffeine and finally left the shop, passing an electronics store on my way back. It had a bunch of televisions in the window set to CNN. Some plane crash in Europe was blazing. No survivors. I shivered, despite the heat of the day, and continued walking.
Five minutes left.
I returned to my office building, which not only housed Lambert Capital, the investment and financial analysis company where I currently temped, but also a small pharmaceutical research company, a marketing firm, and a modeling agency.
“Hold the elevator,” I called out as I crossed the lobby. My heels clicked against the shiny black marble floor. Despite my request, the elevator was not held. The doors closed when I was only a couple of steps away from it, a look of bemusement on the sole occupant’s face who hadn’t done me the honor of waiting.
One minute left.
