Title: The Beautiful Ashes
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Expected Publication: August 26th, 2014
In a world of shadows, anything is possible. Except escaping your fate.
Ever since she was a child, Ivy has been gripped by visions of strange realms just beyond her own. But when her sister goes missing, Ivy discovers the truth is far worse—her hallucinations are real, and her sister is trapped in a parallel realm. And the one person who believes her is the dangerously attractive guy who's bound by an ancient legacy to betray her.
Adrian might have turned his back on those who raised him, but that doesn't mean he can change his fate…no matter how strong a pull he feels toward Ivy. Together they search for the powerful relic that can save her sister, but Adrian knows what Ivy doesn't: that every step brings Ivy closer to the truth about her own destiny, and a war that could doom the world. Sooner or later, it will be Ivy on one side and Adrian on the other. And nothing but ashes in between…
Jeaniene Frost is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of the Night Huntress series, the Night Prince series, and the upcoming Broken Destiny series. To date, foreign rights for her novels have sold to twenty different countries. Jeaniene lives in North Carolina with her husband Matthew, who long ago accepted that she rarely cooks and always sleeps in on the weekends. Aside from writing, Jeaniene enjoys reading, poetry, watching movies with her husband, exploring old cemeteries, spelunking and traveling – by car. Airplanes, children, and cook books frighten her.
For information on Jeaniene's books, reading the first 20% of each book free, book trailers, deleted scenes, creature mythology, and more, please visit: www.jeanienefrost.com
A
familiar song was playing, but I couldn’t remember the name. That bugged me
enough to open my eyes. A wall of black met my gaze, slick and smooth like
glass. I reached up to see what it was, and that’s when I realized my hands
were tied.
“Silent
Lucidity” by Queensryche, my mind supplied, followed immediately by, I’m
in the backseat of a car. One that was well taken care of, going by that
flawless, shiny roof. With those details filled in, I also remembered what had
happened right before I’d passed out. And who I was with.
“Why
are my hands tied?” I said, heaving myself into an upright position.
For
some reason Adrian didn’t have a rear view mirror, which was why he had to
glance over his shoulder to look at me.
“Does
anything make you panic?” he asked, sounding amused. “You’re tied up in the
backseat of a cop-killer’s car, but I’ve seen people get more upset when
Starbucks runs out of pumpkin spice flavor.”
Anyone
normal would panic, not that it would do any good. Besides, I ran out of
“normal” a long time ago, when I realized I saw things no one else did.
Speaking
of which, why wasn’t I in pain? The lump where Mrs. Paulson had whacked me was
gone, and my shirt was red from blood, but aside from a mild kink in my neck, I
felt fine. When I pushed my shirt up, somehow, I wasn’t surprised to see
smooth, unbroken skin on my abdomen. Well, that and a bunch of crumbs, like I’d
eaten a dessert too messily.
“Why
does it look like I have angel food cake on my stomach?” I wondered aloud.
Adrian
snorted. “Close. It’s medicine. You were injured.”
“You
can tell me how I’m not anymore,” I said, holding out my bound hands, “after
you untie me.”
Another
backwards glance, this one challenging.
“You
may be the calmest person I’ve ever been sent to retrieve, but if I tell you
now what you want to know, that will change. So pick—the truth, or being
untied?”
“Truth,”
I said instantly.
He
let out a laugh. “Another first. You’re full of surprises.”
So
was he. He’d just admitted that he regularly kidnapped people—which was how I
translated “retrieve”—so I should be trying my damnedest to get free. But more
than anything, I needed answers. Besides, I still wasn’t afraid of him, and
somehow, that had nothing to do with him magically healing me.
“Truth,
Adrian,” I repeated.
He
turned once again and his gaze locked with mine, those odd blue eyes startling
me with their intensity. For a moment, I could only stare, all thought frozen
in my mind. I don’t know why I reached out, awkwardly touching his arm to feel
the hard muscles beneath that bulky jacket. If I’d thought about it, I wouldn’t
have done it. Yet I couldn’t make myself pull away.
Then
I gasped when his hand covered mine. At some point, he’d taken off his gloves,
and the feel of his warm, bare skin sent a shock wave through me. The touch
seemed to affect Adrian, too. His lips parted and he edged over the back of the
seats—
He
yanked on the steering wheel, narrowly avoiding another car. A horn blared, and
when the driver passed us, an extended middle finger shook angrily in our
direction. I leaned back, my heart pounding from the near collision. At least,
that’s what I told myself it was from.
“Dyate,”
Adrian muttered.
I
didn’t recognize the word, and I was at a loss to place his accent. It had a
musical cadence like Italian, but beneath that was a harsher, darker edge.
“What’s
that language?” I asked, trying to mask the sudden shakiness in my voice.
This
time, he didn’t take his eyes off the road. “Nothing you’ve heard of.”
“I
picked truth, remember?” I said, holding up my bound hands for emphasis.
That
earned me a quick glance. “That is the truth, but you don’t get more until you
meet Zach. Then we can skip all the ‘this isn’t possible’ arguments.”
I
let out a short laugh. “After what I saw on Detective Kroger’s face, my
definition of ‘impossible’ has changed.”
Adrian
swerved again, but this time, no other car was near.
“What
did you see?”
I
tensed. How did I explain without sounding insane? No way to, so I chose to go
on the attack instead.
“Why
were you in my hotel room? And how did you heal me? There isn’t even a mark—”
“What
did you see on his face, Ivy?”
Despite
his hard tone, when my name crossed his lips, something thrummed inside me,
like he’d yanked on a tie I hadn’t known was there. Feeling it was as
disturbing as my inexplicable reaction to his clasping my hands.
“Shadows,”
I said quickly, to distract from that. “He had snakelike shadows all over his
face.”
I
expected Adrian to tell me I’d imagined it, a response I was used to hearing.
Instead, he pulled over, putting the car in park but keeping the engine
running. Then he turned to stare at me.
“Was
that the only strange thing you saw?”
I
swallowed. I knew better than to talk about these things. Still, I’d demanded
the truth from Adrian. It didn’t seem fair to lie in return.
“I
saw two versions of the same B and B earlier. One was pretty, but the other was
old and rotted, and my sister was trapped inside it.”
Adrian
said nothing, though he continued to pin me with that hard stare. When he
finally spoke, his question was so bizarre I thought I’d misheard him.
“What
do I look like to you?”
“Huh?”
“My
appearance.” He drew out the words like I was slow. “Describe me.”
All
of a sudden, he wanted compliments? I might have finally met someone crazier than
me.
“This
is ridiculous,” I muttered, but started with the obvious. “Six-six, early
twenties, built like Thor, golden brown hair with blond highlights, silvery
blue eyes…you want me to go on?”
He
began to laugh, a deep, rich baritone that would’ve been sensual except for how
angry it made me.
“Now
I know why they came after you,” he said, still chuckling. “They must’ve
realized you were different, but if they’d known what you could see, you never
would’ve made it out of that B and B.”
“You
can stop laughing,” I said sharply. “I get that it’s crazy to see the things I
do.”
Lots
of kids had imaginary friends growing up. I had imaginary places, though at
first, I didn’t know I was the only one who could see them. Once my parents had
realized that what I kept describing went far beyond childhood fancifulness,
the endless doctor visits and tests began. One by one, diseases and psychoses
had been crossed off until I was diagnosed with a non-monoamine-cholinergic
imbalance in my temporal cortex.
In
other words, I saw shit that wasn’t there for reasons no one could figure out.
The pills I took helped a little, though I lied and said they got rid of all my
hallucinations. I was sick of doctors poking at me. So whenever I saw something
that no one else did, I forced myself to ignore it—until Mrs. Paulson and
Detective Kroger had tried to kill me, of course.
Adrian
did stop laughing, and that unblinking intensity was back in his gaze.
“Well,
Ivy, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, you’re not crazy. The bad
news is, everything you’ve seen is real, and now, it’ll be coming for you.”
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