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Category: Dark Fantasy/Romance
Description: Two centuries of not existing is about to change. Lost in a place between living and dying, confined to roam endlessly over the same grounds for all eternity and cursed to never be seen again, Jareth wanders through time alone and longing for the sea once more. When he realizes there is one thing he yearns for more than he ever did the sea, he is tossed into a world he is unfamiliar with. Stuck with a life that never goes her way, Miranda is determined to get at least one thing she wants. When that one thing turns out to be a sexy pirate that lived over two hundred years ago, she finds herself faced with more than one challenge to have him. Can they break the curse and be together? Excerpt: Grasping the steering wheel she slowly lowered her forehead to rest on it. A strange, yet familiar prickling feeling went across the back of her neck. She didn't raise her head, just smiled into the steering wheel. "You could do something to help."She lifted her head slowly, afraid to move too fast and turned to look beside her. She watched the image of the man she'd been seeing for years become clearer and if she focused hard enough he would appear to be almost real. She'd had many moments over the years of thinking she was seeing things or possibly seeing ghosts, but it was only ever him. His eyebrows shot up. "How ... you can see me? Truly?" Randy sat there wanting to reach out and hug him. Hallucinations didn't talk -- did they? His voice was rough and deep and she'd never been happier to hear someone speak. "I more or less sense you most of the time, but if I focus hard enough I can see you." She looked at the scar across his left cheek for a second. "You've very clear today." He frowned. "And you hear me?" Randy smirked. "I'm answering you aren't I?" He nodded slowly. "That's impossible ...""And yet, here we are talking and being all visible like." She looked at him, from his long ebony black hair down to his black worn boots.
eBook Publisher: Eternal Press/Damnation Books LLC/Eternal Press, 2010 2010
eBookwise Release Date: October 2010

13 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [254 KB]
Words: 57393
Reading time: 163-229 min.

Chapter One

He watched the child in silence, not that he could be heard if he wanted to be. If his math were correct, she was three years now. Stepping farther into the room away from the window, he watched her small body shake as she pressed an ear against the door. He couldn't see her face with the fall of wavy black hair covering it. But he knew what the face looked like under her messed hair, round and angelic.

On the other side of the door she was carefully leaning against, he could hear the yelling...again. Her parents spent most of their time screaming at each other and breaking things. He'd sat with the child many times in the last year while the adults in her world showed her all the wrong ways to live.

It worried him that she no longer cried when it happened; she no longer curled her tiny body into the corner and tried to make herself invisible. At least the quarrelling adults had never brought it to her; he didn't know if he could stand to see her hurt in any way. He closed his eyes and cursed himself; what could he even do to help her if they did?

A loud crash brought him back to the moment; he opened his eyes to see the girl remove her ear from the door. Her face was visible now and it pulled at his heart to see tears rolling down her round cheeks. It made her dark brown eyes seem blurry and vague. She hugged her tiny arms around her middle, trying to comfort herself. A small part of him wanted to take her in his arms and shelter her from the sadness, not that he knew how to hold a child.

She took two steps back from the door but still looked at it, as if she was afraid it was going to fly open. She sniffled once and raised her face, then looked right at him. Did she actually see him? He was tempted to look behind his form to see if there was something there that would catch her attention, but he was afraid to look away and go back to being invisible to all.

She blinked and cleared the tears from her eyes yet continued to look right at him. With her chin up she used her sleeve to wipe across her face, then raised her chin with a determination he knew all too well. Her eyes appeared as if they were looking right into his, causing his heart, if he truly still had one, to jolt inside of his body.

Finally, she turned from him, went to her little table in the corner, and sat on the small chair that went with it. She opened a book, took the coloring sticks from their messy carton, and scribbled in angry motions over the outline of the picture in front of her.

Sighing, he closed his eyes. She would be fine; he really needed to stop coming here.

He had tried to stay away, as he knew he should, and had been able to just watch from a distance for the last while, but the child on the bed lay there with her face hidden, shaking and distraught. He didn't know what he could do, but he liked to think his presence would be sensed and she would somehow be comforted by it.

Glancing away from her to the papers crumpled up on the floor. He couldn't pick them up to look at them, but he could read part of one. "Happy 7th birthday." She was seven already? Had it not only been a few months past when she was that tiny cherub-faced child? He frowned. How had he lost track of four entire years' time? What did he have to keep track of except time? All he had was time, endless decades of time.

Shaking his head, he stepped closer to the bed. If only he could offer a calming touch on her shoulder, to let her know she wasn't alone. But in truth she was; he could hear the screaming outside of the walls of her room and knew that she was very much alone in this world.