Free Novel Read

Inferno of Darkness (Order of the Blade) Page 18


  His voice was so soft and tender that her throat tightened. How she’d yearned for so many years, for a lifetime, for someone to speak to her like that…until she’d finally become smart enough to relinquish that dream. And now, here it was, in the form of a man who would disappear from her life in forty-eight hours, maybe never to return. Which was why it was okay, because she didn’t have to worry that he would want more than she could give, or that she would give him more than she could afford. Maybe she didn’t belong in the room of couples and families, but for this brief moment, she belonged out in the night, with a man who lived the same existence that she did.

  “Emma?” Astrid’s footsteps sounded on the deck, and Harlan released her.

  “Don’t tell her I was here,” he said. “I’ll come by Wright’s in the morning. Now is not the time.” Then, without a sound, he faded into the darkness, vanishing so quickly she almost wondered whether she’d imagined him.

  Buy Prince Charming Can Wait at Amazon

  Stephanie Rowe Bio

  Four-time RITA® Award nominee and Golden Heart® Award winner Stephanie Rowe is a nationally bestselling author with more than twenty published books with major New York publishers such as Grand Central, HarperCollins, Harlequin, Dorchester and Sourcebooks.

  She has received coveted starred reviews from Booklist and high praise from Publisher’s Weekly, calling out her “…snappy patter, goofy good humor and enormous imagination… [a] genre-twister that will make readers…rabid for more.” Stephanie’s work has been nominated as YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers.

  Stephanie writes romance (paranormal, contemporary and romantic suspense), teen fiction, middle grade fiction and motivational nonfiction.

  A former attorney, Stephanie lives in Boston where she plays tennis, works out and is happily writing her next book. Want to learn more? Visit Stephanie online at one of the following hot spots:

  www.stephanierowe.com

  http://twitter.com/stephanierowe2

  https://www.facebook.com/StephanieRoweAuthor

  The Order of the Blade Reader’s Group

  Select List of Other Books by Stephanie Rowe

  (For a complete book list, please visit www.stephanierowe.com)

  PARANORMAL ROMANCE

  The Order of the Blade Series

  Darkness Awakened

  Darkness Seduced

  Darkness Surrendered

  Forever in Darkness (Novella)

  Darkness Reborn

  Darkness Arisen

  Darkness Unleashed

  Inferno of Darkness

  Darkness Possessed (Coming Soon!)

  The Soulfire Series

  Kiss at Your Own Risk

  Touch if You Dare

  Hold Me if You Can

  The Immortally Sexy Series

  Date Me Baby, One More Time

  Must Love Dragons

  He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot

  Sex & the Immortal Bad Boy

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

  The Alaska Heat Series

  Ice

  Chill

  Ghost (Coming Soon!)

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  Ever After Series

  No Knight Needed

  Fairytale Not Required

  Prince Charming Can Wait

  The Knight Who Brought Chocolate (Coming Soon!)

  Stand Alone Novels

  Jingle This!

  NONFICTION

  The Feel Good Life

  FOR TEENS

  A Girlfriend’s Guide to Boys Series

  Putting Boys on the Ledge

  Studying Boys

  Who Needs Boys?

  Smart Boys & Fast Girls

  Stand Alone Novels

  The Fake Boyfriend Experiment

  FOR PRE-TEENS

  The Forgotten Series

  Penelope Moonswoggle, The Girl Who Could Not Ride a Dragon

  Penelope Moonswoggle & the Accidental Doppelganger

  Release Date TBD

  Inferno Of Darkness

  ISBN-10: 1940968003

  ISBN-13: 978-1-94096800-1

  Copyright © 2013 by Stephanie Rowe.

  Cover design and book layout by Pete Davis. Cover photos courtesy of iStockphoto.com.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, disseminated, or transmitted in any form or by any means or for any use, including recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the author and/or the artist. The only exception is short excerpts or the cover image in reviews.

  Please be a leading force in respecting the right of authors and artists to protect their work. This is a work of fiction. All the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel or on the cover are either products of the author’s or artist’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author or the artist.

  For further information, please contact Stephanie@stephanierowe.com