Read Embrace Me At Dawn for Free Online

stood guard at the front of the yard. Downstairs was the same cozy sofa she’d loved curling up on for a good read. Through the upstairs window, she could see the same dark wood bed that she and Lucan had slept on and made love in for decades. The same bed in which she’d drifted off and…
    Anka stumbled back, shaking. She hadn’t been here since the terrible night Matthias had ripped her from the coziness of the almost perfect life she’d shared with Lucan. Mathias had abducted her, thrown her in his dungeon, and used her for his perverse pleasure for five hellish days that she could barely think of now without retching. He’d torn her from her mate. He’d robbed her of her sense of safety, self, of her shelter from the cruelties of the world. He’d left her a brittle shell.
    But she couldn’t look at this beautiful house without the other memories crashing in. Lucan leading her inside for the first time, smiling nervously, wondering if she’d like it as much as he did. Lucan serving her breakfast in bed wearing nothing more than a grin. Lucan across the table as they shared roast beef and Yorkshire pudding while he listened to her talk about her day. Lucan reaching for her in the dead of night because he couldn’t wait another second to touch her.
    Gone. All of that…just gone.
    “ Anka?”
    Her head snapped around to one side as a figure emerged from the back garden. Her heart stopped, and she felt frozen. “Caden.”
    “ Anka, you’re home. You look pale. Is something wrong?” her former brother-by-mating asked, coming closer. “Why don’t you come in?”
    Horror and longing washed over her at once. A part of her would have loved to be inside the space she’d once shared with Lucan to soak in the memories of him. And what would Lucan say if he found her inside, especially if he brought his surrogate here for the night?
    She shook her head furiously. “No. Thank you.”
    “ It will always be your home, too. Sydney and I can go…”
    “ Stay.” The word fell numbly from her lips.
    Lucan needed his brother. Sabelle had told her about his mate mourning and the stabilizing influence Caden had been after Lucan almost lost his soul and sanity. Anka hated that she’d been the cause of so much of her former mate’s pain. She hated even more that she’d added to it by being with Shock.
    But now, it was too late.
    “ Come in and let Sydney make you some tea,” Caden insisted. “You really do look pale.”
    “ I-I’ll be fine. Thank you. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude…” She felt the magic surrounding the house. Lucan hadn’t blocked her from going inside. Caden had added his magic, also recognizing her as mistress here. Why? They couldn’t possibly want her here now.
    She backed away. “Please don’t tell him I was here. He’s healing finally. Moving on.”
    “ Anka, don’t go.” Caden’s face hardened. “Lucan isn’t over you. He never will be.”
    The man she’d seen smiling at the pub? He looked more than a bit happy. She couldn’t disrupt that. His anger earlier that day? Well, Shock had always brought out his worst. Besides, what did she have to offer him now? Scars, secrets, nightmares, a whole new need he wouldn’t be able to comprehend. He’d been fond of the china doll he’d married. Perfectly feminine, always sweet, playing just the right role in his life. Genteel and mannered, never raising her voice. Never angry. She couldn’t be that girl anymore.
    The woman in her knew better now.
    “ I have to go. This was a mistake. I’m sorry.” Anka swallowed and darted outside the little picket fence surrounding the yard, ready to teleport to Shock’s.
    As she dipped into the shadows under a huge elm tree, Lucan and his surrogate suddenly appeared on the front steps, his arm slung around her small waist, hand curled around the woman’s hip. Anka couldn’t breathe again. God, that sight hurt so badly, like everything inside of her was bleeding out. She wrapped her