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So I took a deep breath and raisedinto the beautiful dark pools that were his eyes "May the ether"

He sently brushed the sweaty strands of hair away from my forehead "And what the moon has bound, let no man or woman sunder"

He leaned forward and kissed athered a se by his feet "And now, for the hu two identical, black onyx rings He plucked the ser "With this ring, I thee wed"

I s et away from me now, vampire You’re mine until eternity ends"

"And a better place to live and die I couldn’t think of"

"Run with us tonight"

"Oh, I intend to No bride of ht with her brother and his lover"

I laughed and kissed him, with all the fierce joy in ht, then suddenly Rhoan and Liander were all over us, hugging and kissing and crying

It was the perfect way to start our new lives together As a faot fiercer and fiercer, and the thrule across our skins, Liander ht just that little bit more perfect

"Here," he said, and handed me a small photo

I took it and looked at it, but wasn’t really able to e "What is it?" I asked, looking up

"Those," he said with a grin that lit up his entire face, "are our babies Riley Jenson, you and I are having twins"

At long last, Keri Arthur’s riveting

Myth and Magic series

continues with

Mercy Burns

Co 2011

This stand-alone novel expands on thewoer than she ever anticipated

Read on for a special preview

Mercy Burns

On sale Spring 2011

W e’ll have you out in a er"

The voice rolled across the gray ht no comfort, only confusion Why would he say I shouldn’tit just toto Rainey, who’d been driving the car?

Ignoring the advice, I shifted, trying to get hout in heated waves across heven as it tore a scream from my throat

If I could feel, then I wasn’t dead

Should I be?

Yes, so insideto ease the dryness in my throat What the hell had happened to us? And why did it suddenly feel like I wasinto ed and fat, like a serrated knife with a thicker, heavier edge, yet there were no knives in the car People like uns or any other sort of human weapon, because ere born with our own And it was just as dangerous, just as accurate, as any gun or knife

So why did it feel like I had a knife in my side?

I tried to open my eyes, suddenly desperate to see where I was, to find Rainey, to understand as going on But I couldn’t force theh the haze, fueling

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep caler had advised The air was cool, yet sunshine ran through it, hinting that dawn had passed and that the day was already here But that couldn’t be right Rainey and I had been driving through sunset, not sunrise, enjoying the last rays before the night stole the heat from us

Moisture rolled down the side of my cheek Not a tear; it was too warm to be a tear

Blood

There was blood on h hts,it difficult to breathe What the hell had happened? And where the hell was Rainey?

Had we been in soy depths of ht, though the resulting ies were little more than fractured flashes mixed with snatches of sound, as if there were bits my memory couldn’t - or wouldn’t - recall There was the deep, oddly faiven us our first decent clue in weeks And Rainey’s excitement over the possible lead - our chance to discover not only what had happened to her sister, but also to everyone else who had once lived in the town of Stillwater Our h thewith the hts that had appeared out of nowhere and raced toward us The realization that the driver wasn’t keeping to his own side of the road, that he was heading directly for us Rainey’s desperate, useless atte sound ofThe screa to stop us frouard rail The roar of the truck’s engine being gunned and a second, , sideways blow that buckled the doors and forced us through the very railing we’d been so desperate to avoid The fear and the panic and the realization that we couldn’t get out, couldn’t get free, as the car dropped over the ledge and s over, and over, and over

The sound of sobbing shattered the reeling iasps that spoke of pain and fear Mine I sought desperately to gain some control, to quiet the sobs and suck down some air Hysteria wouldn’t help Hysteria never helped

So pricked my ariving me probably wouldn’t work because human medicine almost never did on us, but the words stuck somewhere in my throat Not because I couldn’t speak, but because I’d learned the hard way never to say anything that ht hint to the humans that they were not alone in this world

And yet, despitewouldn’t work, then I becaroan offorced apart Close by, someone breathed heavily; I could smell his sweat and fear Further aas the murhing of the wind It had an echo, e of a precipice