20 Feb Trace & Jemma: Book 8 Teaser
Teaser from Book 8 of The Marked Saga featuring Trace and Jemma.
Hope you enjoy it, please don’t unalive me 
Note: The teaser is unedited and may be different in the final book
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Solidifying my resolve, I lowered my foot down onto the first step, and then the next until I’d somehow managed to make it down the entire flight of stairs.
The window shades were drawn shut, and all the lights were turned off, bringing the large space into absolute darkness save for a single lamp illuminating the homemade prison cell I’d constructed for Dominic all those weeks ago.
And then I found him—Trace—his familiar form sprawled on a mattress in the corner, his forearm draped over his eyes as if to block out the entirety of a world he no longer wanted part of.
My heart pinched and lurched beneath my ribs as the urge to go to him—to comfort and take care of him—swelled inside of me. And suddenly, my feet were moving again, taking me to him before I’d even consciously made the decision to move.
As if sensing my approach, he bolted upright and in one fluid move, pushed off the bed and swung around to face me, his back flattened against the concrete wall as a low rumbling growl sounded from someplace deep within him. An angry place. A place I wasn’t familiar with.
Shaken, I gasped, freezing mid-step as I took in the sinister outlines that skewed his features and made it seem as though he were sneering at me. It was hostile and aggressive and completely unlike Trace. Everything in me was screaming at me to leave; to heed his warning and put space between us.
But my stubborn heart refused to let my feet move.
It’s still Trace, I told myself again, repeating the words like a wish I’d desperately wanted to make true. He’s still my soulmate.
Taking a courageous step toward the cell, I opened my mouth to say something—to greet him but was immediately cut off.
“You need to leave,” he snarled, his voice ripping through me like frozen shrapnel. “I don’t want you down here.”
Mind-numbing pain hit me from every direction. I tried not to react to his words, tried not to let them flay me from the inside out, but I couldn’t seem to pull off the feat. It felt like a fatal blow to the heart, and I was already reeling from its internal damage.
“Trace…please,” I begged, my words sounding small and uncomfortably desperate. “Can we just talk for a minute?”
His gaze never left mine as he leaned down over the speaker sitting on the end table beside him and then raised the volume all the way up before straightening again, the menacing scowl never leaving his face.
A wiser woman might have taken that as her cue to leave, but I wasn’t exactly known for being quick on the trigger anyway.
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