Stopping Time, Part 1 Read online

  “I’m…not. I tripped, Ren.” She tried to keep the waver from her voice.

  What do I do?

  Letting him into her home seemed stupid. Calling out for help seemed dangerous. Her brother had been behind the horrors she couldn’t forget. If I call for them, they’ll kill him. Once, she had wanted to believe he was sick, that he could get well if he got help. Addiction is a disease, that’s what she’d reminded herself. It didn’t mean the things he’d done, the thing he was currently doing, were okay, though. Not every addict wants to get well.

  “We’ll go to your place, and you can call them,” Ren said. “He can pay me more, or I can take him to them. His choice.”

  Leslie felt numb as she walked with her brother. If she called Niall, help would come. Irial would know too. Gabriel would know. And my brother will die. If she didn’t call, she wasn’t sure what would happen. Niall would call her sooner or later; Irial would notice when she wasn’t at the coffee shop; and the guards would notice. Neither Dark King would invade her privacy—unless she was in danger. She knew that. What would happen if Ren shot them? If he knows what they are, what sort of bullets does he have? She thought about seeing Niall when he was sick from steel exposure. If the bullets were iron or steel, if that entered a faery’s body—any other than a regent—it would be horrific. Leslie wasn’t ready to make the decisions she felt like she had to make, nor was she able to ignore them. Ren was here.

  WILL SAVING FAERIE MEAN LOSING LOVE?

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  The future of Faerie rests on the choices of two unlikely individuals: Ani, half mortal and half fey; and Devlin, assassin and brother to the High Queen. Drawn together by their natures, each has reason to fear the other—and to fear for each other. But with enemies gathering and the threat to Faerie mounting, the two face an increasingly perilous dilemma…

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  Copyright

  STOPPING TIME, PART 1. Copyright © 2010 by Melissa Marr. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition © February 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-200744-5

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