Immortal Promise by Magen McMinimy, Cynthia Shepp Editing Page A

to send them when she finally got them off the island. Holly knew part of her was holding back. That little part of her brain that feared coming clean to her family was working against her instead of helping her to take them back. She was going to have to figure out how to reconcile her conflicting emotions and how her family fit into it.
    Holly nodded. “This might take some time. So you’re not allowed to get mad at me.” She reached up and smoothed her finger over his brow, and then down along his stubble-covered jaw. “And quit scowling, you look too adorable.”
    Lothar shook his head. Few had ever called him adorable.
    “Adorable?”
    “Yep. Adorable, sexy, handsome… there are so many ways to describe you, but when you scowl at me, you’re just adorable.” She snickered.
    Lothar lifted her into his arms, pulling her legs around his waist. “Come on, we’re done for the day. It is too damn hot to stand out here any longer.”
    Holly smiled. “Ocean or lake?”
    “I was thinking naked in the cave.”
    “Mmm, I like the way you think,” she purred.
     
    ****
     
    “Acacia! What are you doing?” Jelena shrieked as she entered their archives. Acacia stood behind the sacred scrolls, chanting a summoning spell.
    Acacia had finished the ancient words before lifting her head to meet her sister’s furious gaze. Meriah ran into the room only moments later.
    “What did you do?” Jelena demanded.
    “What I had to. We need to know what’s coming and how to stop it. I figure the best place to start is to see who is on the island.”
    “Acacia, we are not meant to meddle. Did you not learn that lesson with Kale?”
    “Who says? Why do we have access to things like this?” She slammed her palms against the scrolls that were housed in a thick, leather case. “Why would the answers that could save you be readily available if we’re not meant to use them?”
    A tear slipped down Acacia’s face as she pleaded with her sisters.
    Jelena sighed. “Because our wants affect the free will of our charges, don’t you see that?”
    Meriah stepped in then. “Deep down, you know right and wrong, I don’t want to lose her either but these scrolls and the spells they hold, are our past, not our future. They’re learning tools, not meant to be used.”
    Acacia shook her head. “It’s too late now.” She shrugged. “Right or wrong, we will have some answers soon.”
    “What did you send to the island?” Jelena asked.
    Acacia shook her head. “I sent nothing.”
    Meriah and Jelena exchanged desperate looks.
    “What’d you do?” Meriah all but whispered the question.
    “I woke the island.”
    “You didn’t, tell me you didn’t?” Jelena pleaded.
    “It’s done,” Acacia stated flatly. “We will soon know who breached its soil.”
    Meriah shook her head. She knew that the spell Acacia would have used to awaken the Fates Island would connect her to the creatures that would now stalk the lands in search of what did not belong. The real question was—what would they do when they found what they were searching for?
    “This will not end well. You know not what you’ve done ,” Jelena said, turning from her sisters as she walked out. She didn’t stop when Acacia called out to her.
    “Where are you going?”
    She was returning to the one person she knew could ease the fear that rippled through her. Uriah.
     
    ****
     
    Uriah sat in his room. Discarding his shirt, he then pulled his boots off. He and Bain had scoured the woods around Bain’s childhood home. There was nothing to find and something told him Rowan knew that. He had a deep suspicion that she was trying to keep Bain preoccupied. That meant he was back in the game, following the pissed-off warrior. They had all gotten so used to the happy Bain, thanks to Izzy, but since the vampires stepped in, and Rowan shut him down on his concerns about trusting them, he was a growling, irritable bastard again. Uriah chuckled to himself as he sort of missed