Twilight of Embers (Dragons of Ember Hollow, #1)

by Tessa Hale

I placed my hands over it as if I could somehow will the blood she needed back into her body. As if I could save her. But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t save myself either.

But even with that strike of luck and their kindness in the face of my tragedy, it wasn’t the same as the love of my own parents.

“Ember Hollow. I’m starting at Evergreen University.”

School had given me somewhere to lose myself.

“Work ethic is more important than ability any day.”

I’d always been the odd one out.

It was as if my classmates feared that someone losing their family was contagious.

That voice. It sounded like smoky promise and comfort all rolled into one. I had the bizarre urge to burrow into it. To roll around like I was a dog who’d found a deliciously muddy puddle.

I wasn’t tall by any stretch. A hint over five foot three on a good day. But this guy had to have a foot on me.

His sandy brown hair was laced with natural gold highlights that spoke of lots of time in the sunshine. His green eyes were kissed with flecks of gold in a pattern that had me wanting to lean in a little closer to discover them all. And his angular jaw could’ve cut stone.

He screamed captain of the football team or fraternity president.

“I’m heading to the bookstore anyway. So, you’re stuck with me.” Like that was a hardship.

It was as though I thought if I learned medicine now, I could go back in time and save my mom and dad.

I needed to learn it. To understand how to heal the body. And if I couldn’t save them, at least I could save others.

Knox could get me to divulge all my secrets.

But it was her violet eyes that were a sucker punch to the solar plexus. I’d never seen anything like them.

I could not lose it. Not now. Not here.

Pain was the best plan of attack to get me out of a rage state. Otherwise, I’d end up doing something regrettable, like gutting my friend in the middle of the quad.

Your girl. I liked that too much. Something about it just sounded right.

Is the real Knox up on some spaceship getting anally probed?”

“I don’t know, a little ass play’s nice sometimes.”

Not when I had too much to hide.

“I’m gonna shove a textbook up your ass if you don’t watch it.” “Careful,” Jason warned. “He said he likes ass play.”

“I—she—she crashed into me on campus. New freshman. I didn’t realize it at first, but then the wind shifted. I scented her. Mad, she smelled like one of us.”

I wondered if I’d ever have that. Friends. A sense of true belonging.

There was a chance here. A chance to start fresh. To erase the hard past and become someone new.

My packet told me that my roommate’s name was Delaney Barlow.

I was good at that. Fading so completely that sometimes I wondered if I’d disappeared altogether.

“And I’d stay far away from Cáel. He’d be more likely to murder you than anything else.” “I’d like him to murder my vagina,” Maggie muttered.

Five men and one woman. What a hell of a lucky woman she would be.

Knox handed me the sweatshirt, his fingertips brushing mine. The second they touched, a zap of electricity coursed through me. My vision tunneled. And then I was falling.

It was like fresh pine after a hard rain. I wanted to live in that scent.

People didn’t like when things got real or when you reminded them of all they had to lose.

“I’m so sorry, Hayden. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I know it changes you. I hate that you’ve had to go through that.”

“Did you just growl at him?”

“I think you might need to take a nap. Or maybe you need this other half of the muffin. You might be hangry.”

“I’m guessing you’re the piece of ass my brother won’t shut up about.”

Knox’s twin was an asshole.

There were no warm and fuzzies when it came to Mr. Grumpy Cat.

The library had always been a safe haven for me.

His full name packed a punch, just like the man himself.

“Knox,” Delaney breathed in a husky voice. “It’s so good to see you again.” She looked up at him through fluttering lashes. His mouth pulled down in a hint of a frown. “Have we met?”

“Are you trying to get me murdered in my sleep?” I hissed at him. “She’s, uh…intense.”

“It’s a real hardship to be loved and adored, huh?”

But if that was all people saw in you, the attention would feel pretty damn empty.

I’d never been more aware of someone, every minute shift of his body.

Contact with Knox was too damn dangerous.

I liked that about him. The judgment-free zone.

Easton. The name fit him somehow. Equal parts prestigious and wild.

But the reasons behind something didn’t matter; the actions were what counted.