The Light and Fallen by Anna White

the sounds of the lake, the feel of the breeze caressing
his skin, the delicate scent of her perfume.
    She reached for his hands and pulled them
onto her knees. Her thumbs rubbed tiny circles across the backs of
his fingers as she cradled them between her own. "Have you ever
wanted to memorize a moment?" she asked. "Learn it by heart and
hide it forever?"
    She reached out with one hand and stroked her
thumb over his eyebrows, down his nose, and around the curve of his
lips. "Maybe longer?"
    Lucian felt like Time was standing still.
Seconds had to be marching by. He knew they did; that was
the way of the human world. But for the first time, he couldn't
sense them.
     
     
     

Chapter 35
     
     
    Jack lounged in a massive overstuffed chair
and pretended to watch football on TV. He had a clear view of the
indoor pool through a glass wall that separated the swimming atrium
from the den, and he could see Desiree's toned arms slicing through
the water as she swam laps. After twenty minutes she climbed out of
the pool. She shook out her hair, wrapped a towel around herself,
and came into the den.
    "Quit brooding," she snapped. "You're acting
like a child."
    She perched on the edge of one of the leather
couches and glared across the room at him. "I know coming across a
human girl impervious to your many charms has been quite a shock to
you, but she doesn't matter."
    Jack snorted. "Are you sure?"
    He refused to dignify Desiree with a glance.
"If I didn't know better," he said, "I'd swear you were
jealous."
    Desiree narrowed her eyes and her nostrils
flared. "We both know," she hissed, "that if she wasn't with that
Dominion, you wouldn't be interested in her."
    "That's probably true. But since I have to
follow the Dominion, I'm forced to watch them make googly eyes at
each other every day."
    Abruptly he sat up and slammed his hand into
a side table. The table rocked, and his water glass fell to the
floor and shattered against the tiles. "I can't believe she turned
me down!"
    "That is a mystery." Desiree smiled at Jack
with mock sweetness. "How many times has it been? Twice?"
    She ignored Jack's murderous look and
strolled across the den. She rested her arms on the back of his
chair. "I think," she taunted, "that you're losing your skills. You
can't find out what the Dominion is doing. You can't even catch the
attention of a lowly little girl. Maybe you've been one of them for
so long, you're going soft."
    She trailed her fingertips up his jaw line
and over his cheekbones, and Jack felt his breathing grow ragged
with rage. He longed to leap up and pin Desiree against the wall,
but he knew she would enjoy it too much. Instead he flung his chair
around and seized Desiree's wrists. He jerked her close to him,
forcing her head back.
    "Don't underestimate me," he growled. "I can
take care of this. I don't think even Lucian knows what he's doing,
but I'll know if he figures it out. If he ever does. That girl is a
better distraction than anything I could've devised.
    "As for the girl," he continued, "we'll have
our moment. When the Dominion finds himself otherwise occupied, I'm
going to swoop in, and I'm going to break her."
    Jack shoved Desiree away from him and stalked
out of the room without giving her a chance to respond . Samara
should never have turned me down , he thought. She didn't know
it yet, but it was the biggest mistake of her life.
     
     
     

Chapter 36
     
     
    Lucian spent the week rocketing between
feelings of elation and nausea. Every moment that he was away from
Samara dragged by pointlessly, but when they were together, time
hurtled past. Lucian was disoriented by the strange way that time
seemed to be morphing around him. Instead of staying orderly and
linear, the way it was supposed to, it was adjusting itself around
her.
    The key, his elusive task, faded into the
background. He knew he had to find it. And he would. Just not now.
All he could focus on now was keeping her near.
    He was in his room getting ready for