EMBRACE THE DARK (The Blood Rose Novella Series) by Caris Roane

the car and haul her to safety even though he knew she wasn’t in any real danger. The press could be obnoxious but never abusive.
    His heart started pounding as though it knew what it wanted and his personal frequency began a dreadful kind of wail that he hadn’t felt before or was he hearing it?
    This is ridiculous .
    As he looked her up and down, however, he realized she must have borrowed clothes from his staff. Somehow that made her more real in his life and his heart set up a new kind of racket.
    How calm she appeared, gesturing to the crowd of reporters with her hands. Her back was straight although her neck arched forward.
    Ethan rolled down the window. “I can’t hear what she’s saying but the tone of her voice sounds very passionate.”
    Gerrod had grown single-minded and had only one real thought, that she had been very passionate last night.
    And he wished like hell he could do it all over again.

Chapter Five
    “Are you dating the Mastyr of Merhaine?” one of the reporters called out.
    This question, which Abigail decided would be the last of the interview, startled her and apparently everyone else because the crowd fell silent. She thought of Augustus and his trollish, efficient, but very gossipy self. Had the news spread so fast about events last night?
    Evening had descended but at least two stands of bright floodlights kept her blinking.
    “Am I dating the Master of Merhaine?” she asked. “I don’t see what that has to do with my rights to open the bakery in Hollow Tree, a business that the good City Council approved with a vote of five-to-two? If you have complaints, you should seek out the council members, not me or my wonderful business partner, Elena Goshanne. And now, we have some invoices to review.”
    She turned her back on the crowd of microphones and reporters and flashing cameras. Really, the news in Merhaine must be thin today if the press corps had turned out to hassle two women intent on selling cupcakes to realm-folk. Surely, all these reporters should be doing some heavy investigative work on the latest Invictus attack.
    She watched for traffic and when she saw an opening, she started to cross. She glanced up the street and recognized a castle car in the distance, a big black car, a car meant to hold Guard-size bodies. Her heart added a few extra beats, but she kept walking. If Gerrod was in there, she didn’t want the press to know. That they had even asked about whether or not she was ‘dating’ him, couldn’t be a good thing. What a rumor-mill Merhaine was, feeding , nay feasting on every morsel of gossip however insignificant.
    She went inside the shop. It was modeled on the one in Flagstaff, just bigger since there were a lot of sweet-tooths in the realm panting for Just Two Sweet! to open.
    Two dozen round tables in stainless steel were scattered at the front of the shop, then wrapped around to the right side of the bakery. The far right wall housed a long row of red booths. At each table were stainless steel chairs and red leather upholstered seats, both types of seating comfortable yet not necessarily designed to keep anyone talking for hours.
    The bakery was not a coffee shop but had a self-serve counter for baked goods and another bar for coffee and tea. All the baking would be done by a well-trained staff in the back behind stainless steel swinging doors, everything to code. Yep, there was even ‘code’ in Merhaine.
    Of course larger orders would be handled separately.
    She didn’t find Elena at first, but eventually tracked her down in the storeroom sitting on the floor. “What’s going on?”
    Elena put her hand to her chest. “I…I don’t like having the reporters shouting like that.”
    Abigail shrugged. “They have to shout because it’s their job to get the story. If they don’t, the managers of the Times, or the Merhaine Star, or the Hollow County Enquirer will fire them.”
    “You must do this a lot then.”
    Abigail laughed. “Never. When we