Descending Into Madness (Winterland Tale, #1)

by Stacey Marie Brown

Seclusion coated me like a jacket, and the feeling of desolation prickled my skin.

The feel of dozens of eyes watching me chilled my backbone and clenched my lungs.

“Crazy ones don’t need to joke because we are mad. The sane ones joke to feel insane, and the insane joke to feel sane. Or is it the other way around?”

“Adventure is a state of mind. Not the path.”

I was always impulsive and quick to act. I had jumped into many bad relationships because of it. But deep down I always knew it wasn’t about them. It was the thrill of something new. The hunt. Half the time I didn’t even like them.

since he lost them, he’s been angry, aloof, vacant. Full of hate and bitterness. Stingy and cruel.

Never in my life had I felt such annihilating desire for someone, where no part of me didn’t need this like a drug. I got caught up and jumped into a lot of relationships and sex because it felt good in the moment, but this wasn’t even in the same universe. A single touch from him set my blood boiling, rendering me numb to the reason I came out here at all.

So many times I had let myself believe a man cared for me more than he did, only to be crushed under his feet as he walked off with another woman. Or the times I leaped into a relationship only to find myself bored and restless, wandering away like a lost child, seeking the next shiny object.

His mouth crashed down on mine. Devouring. Violent. Demanding. It shattered any resolve I may have had left into dust. Sparks of heat shredded down my veins.

I would never recover from him. He would compare every woman to Belle, and I would always compare every man to him. This should have stopped me, but it didn’t. The thought of never feeling his touch or experiencing how his mouth felt on mine scared me more.

“Lie is such a restricting term. I’d rather think of it as being optimistically ahead of the truth.”