Anew: Book Three: Entwined Read online

  ANEW: Book Three: Entwined

  Josie Litton

  Amelia and Ian's story comes to a stunning conclusion in Book Three of this erotic retelling of "Sleeping Beauty" set in the near future. Escaping deadly danger in the glittering city of Manhattan, the lovers find refuge on an island sanctuary where beauty disguises lethal intent.

  As they seek to bridge the chasm of lies and half-truths that threaten to destroy them, they discover a new, far deeper love that opens the way to healing and redemption.

  But when a deadly enemy threatens to strike again, Ian and Amelia have no choice but to return to the world beyond the island. There they must confront their ultimate fears and together find the means to save everything that matters most.

  *Contains sexual content. Intended for mature audiences only.*

  Praise for the ANEW Trilogy by Josie Litton

  “It’s rare to find a fresh storyline with all the books that are available these days. However, Josie Litton has not only delivered a fascinating set of characters, but she has taken a classic story to a completely different level…a series destined to blaze new ground.”—Romancing the Book

  “Josie Litton has a wonderful way in painting the scene of her futuristic world with her descriptive and enchanting words. While this is the first book I’ve read by Josie Litton it won’t be my last and I’m looking forward to reading about the rest of Ian & Amelia’s story in book #2 – Hunted”—Nice and Naughty Book Club

  “This story is very unique and I loved every minute of it. I can’t wait to see what happens next for Amelia and Ian. **5 Deliciously Wicked Stars***”—Deliciously Wicked Books

  "Most beautiful, erotic twist of Sleeping Beauty! Can't wait til the next book!!"--Chrissy Dyer, Goodreads Reviewer

  "...a new twist on futuristic romance! And let me tell you, it's totally worth it!!!...Cannot wait for the next installment. FIVE STARS FOR THIS AUTHOR!!!"--Summer’s Book Blog

  "5 Explosive stars...nothing less than spectacular..sensual, explosive and revealing."--DawnMarie Carpintero, Goodreads Reviewer

  "I loved every minute reading this book...What an amazing start to this series, thank you Josie Litton."--Kerry Callway, Goodreads Reviewer

  "…a completely unique and creative story that had me captivated from the start."--Melissa Cheslog, Goodreads Reviewer

  "I love Josie Litton's creativeness. She will capture you and keep you conquered in everything she writes."--Twin Sisters Rockin' Book Reviews

  “As an avid lover of romance novels of all genres, I am always so happy when I discover a new type of plot line or a book that has a superb story to support all of the steamy bits that make me blush. That’s definitely what you’ll get in this book."--Loredana, Goodreads Reviewer

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Dear Reader

  AVAILABLE NOW

  Dedication

  With heartfelt thanks to my readers over the years. Your steadfastness and encouragement have been amazing!

  Prologue

  Ian

  May, 2059

  Island of Manhattan

  “Those who hold power in this city and beyond must be held accountable for their actions by all citizens.”

  I’m facing the camera, explaining on the record why my men raided the elite sadomasochistic club favored by the city’s powerbrokers, when I hear Amelia cry out.

  “Ian!”

  She sounds upset, even frantic. Why? What’s happening? I break off, turning, at the same time starting toward her. That’s when I see it. Drone. Armed. Incoming.

  My brain only barely has time to grasp that much. My body has even less chance to react. I throw myself to the side just as the world explodes in blinding light that turns instantly to darkness, swallowing me whole.

  Pain! Intense, savage, eating me from the inside out.

  Screaming. My own? Maybe, but others as well. So many screams.

  Amelia!

  I smell smoking metal and blood but all I can think of is getting to her, protecting her, keeping her safe. My soul rips apart at the thought that she could be hurt and I can’t reach her. But my body no longer obeys my commands. I’m detached somehow, floating outside it.

  I look down and see the body of a man, lying twisted and broken on the ground. There are other people, yelling, running, but I focus on him. I need a moment to understand who I’m looking at.

  Myself.

  Dying.

  The clarity of that realization gut-punches me but it also brings a strange measure of calm. I’m not afraid, on the contrary a sense of peace wells up in me. As it does, the darkness gives way to a circle of glowing light that expands outward, drawing me irresistibly.

  I try to struggle but my connection to the world and everything in it is fading fast. I’m not going to make it--

  Suddenly, Amelia is with me. My head is in her lap. I’m cold, so cold but she warms me. She’s the air and light, hope and promise. She’s everything to me. I can’t leave her. I won’t…

  Chapter One

  Amelia

  “Go!”

  I stumble to my feet, clinging to Ian as four of his men lift him and run toward an armored vehicle that has screeched to a stop beside the curb. Barefoot, wearing only his jacket and the diaphanous gown I was put into in the Club, I struggle to keep up. Amid the chaos on the street--the sirens and screams, the burning fragments of metal and the crumbled bodies--I only know that I can’t be separated from him.

  Thrust into the back of the vehicle, I huddle at his feet as grim-faced medics go to work on him. His clothes are cut away. Tubes and sensors are attached. There’s so much blood! On him, on me. I can taste it in every breath I draw.

  A desperate sob rises in me. I force it down, knowing that if I give in to the fear and grief clawing at me, I will come apart. Instead, I concentrate on Ian. He is so pale! The strength and vitality he normally exudes are nowhere in evidence. I can barely see the shallow rise and fall of his broad chest but I cling to that motion with my eyes, terrified that if I look away for an instant, it will stop.

  My back slams against the side of the vehicle as it careens around a corner. Out the windows on the back doors, I catch sight of a chain link fence thrown open. I’m confused. Where are we? We should be going to Pinnacle House, Ian’s fortress headquarters in the center of the glittering, decadent city. Nowhere else could be safer and he would have the medical care there that he so desperately needs.

  But instead the vehicle speeds out onto a broad tarmac already occupied by numerous armored cars and trucks. They are clustered around a sleek supersonic jet that looks la
rge enough to carry several hundred people. Two other smaller but deadly looking fighter jets idle on the taxi-way nearby.

  The doors of the vehicle are thrown open. Men in the black uniforms of Slade Enterprises reach for the stretcher. I catch a quick glimpse of Ian’s number two, Colonel Hollis shouting orders but I can’t hear anything above the roar of the large jet’s engines, already revving for take-off.

  This is insane! He needs a hospital. I’m torn between trying to reach Hollis to demand an explanation and staying with Ian. Staying wins hands down.

  We are inside the plane, which I note quickly is comfortably but not luxuriously outfitted. This is clearly a working transport equipped with a state-of-the-art communications center and, I see with relief, an extensive medical bay.

  Ian is whisked in there. I’m about to follow when a young, grim-faced doctor bars my way.

  “I’m sorry, Miss McClellan,” he says, not unkindly. “You’ll have to wait outside.”

  I open my mouth to protest when a hand touches my arm.

  “Amelia.” The petite blonde woman looks at me gently.

  Daphne. We met only recently but we’ve already become friends, linked by the common bond of loving people who don’t hesitate to put themselves in danger. I meet her understanding gaze and my composure cracks. The tears I can’t hold back any more pour down my face.

  “Ian--” I gasp as sobs wrack me.

  She puts an arm around my shoulders, leading me away from the streams of uniformed men and women pouring into the plane and rapidly stowing their gear for take-off. I find myself in a small but graciously furnished private cabin toward the rear of the plane. Daphne eases me into a chair, sits down next to me, and leans over to fasten my seatbelt.

  “He’s is getting the best possible care,” she says softly. “You’ll see him soon.”

  I want desperately to believe her but after the events of the past day--the madness of Carnival, the depravity I witnessed in the club, the deadly struggle in the tunnel beneath it--my wits are scattered. It’s all I can do to breathe.

  “Why are we here?” I manage to ask. “Pinnacle House would be better--”

  “Gab said something about a protocol that Ian himself put in place in case he was ever incapacitated in an attack,” Daphne says. “I didn’t get any details. She only had a minute when she called to tell me to get my ass in gear and evacuate.”

  She manages a smile but her eyes are bleak. I don’t have to guess why. Daphne hasn’t made any secret of the fact that she’d prefer for Gab to be in a safer line of work but she knows that will never happen. As Ian’s head of cyber-intelligence, Gab has a chance to make a real difference for good in the world. No amount of danger will ever convince her to give that up. Daphne can’t ask her to any more than I could ask Ian to change who he is. All I can hope and pray is that he will come back to me.

  Time slows to a crawl. The plane takes off and climbs steeply. Through the cabin portholes, I can see the fighter jets flying alongside us in escort. When we level off, Daphne undoes both our seatbelts and stands.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” she says quietly.

  It’s only then that I realize I’m still wearing the jacket Ian put on me in the tunnel, now soaked with his blood. Part of me wants to hold onto it, the only point of contact I still have with him. But I’m also repelled by everything it represents.

  I don’t argue as Daphne takes me into the cabin’s small bathroom or when she matter-of-factly strips off the jacket and the tunic below it. She turns on the shower and helps me into it.

  “I’m going to find you some clothes,” she says as I turn my face up to the soothing water. “Will you be all right for a couple of minutes?”

  I nod despite how shaky I feel. Some of Ian’s blood has soaked through onto my skin. I watch it sluice down my body and swirl around the drain as bile rises in my throat.

  Daphne returns as I’m washing my hair. The sudden, all-consuming need to be clean won’t be denied. I stay under the shower until the water begins to run cool. Only then do I get out and wrap the towel she holds out around myself.

  She insists on drying my hair but gives me privacy to dress. Someone--I’m guessing it was Ian’s steward, Hodge--must have put a bag together for me. I find a soft chamois blouse and pleated slacks, along with lingerie, shoes, and a few other items.

  My hands are shaking so hard that I have to concentrate to put on each garment but finally I’m dressed. Glancing in the mirror over the bathroom sink, I see a pale young woman whose aquamarine eyes look to big for her face and whose long, chestnut hair is a wild tangle of curls. Grasping a brush from the bag, I wield it ruthlessly until my scalp tingles painfully and my hair is secured in a twist at the back of my neck.

  Feeling marginally more under control, I join Daphne again in the main part of the cabin. Before I can ask, she says, “Ian is still in medical. There’s no news yet.”

  At least that means he is still alive. I move toward the door. “I’d like to go back…be closer to him.”

  “Of course.” She jumps up quickly and joins me. We step out together into the main cabin. I’m struck at once by the grim sense of watchfulness on the faces of the men and women I see even as they go quietly about their tasks or simply sit, waiting. A few glance at me sympathetically but most are pre-occupied with their duties or their thoughts.

  I glimpse Hollis toward the front of the plane and head toward him. The blond, crew-cut Kentuckian sees me approaching and breaks off his conversation with another officer. He comes down the aisle to meet me.

  Before I can speak, Hollis takes my hand gently and says, “Ian’s as tough as they come. He’ll beat this.”

  “Of course, he will,” I say with far more courage than I’m feeling. “But why aren’t we at Pinnacle House? Wouldn’t he get better medical care there?”

  Hollis guides me over to a pair of empty seats nearby. He waits until we’re both settled before he says, “This aircraft carries a state-of-the-art medical evac facility. Ian couldn’t get better care anywhere. It might help for you to know that we’re implementing the plan that he put in place. He foresaw the possibility of something like this happening, which means we have a strategy for dealing with it.”

  As I absorb the implications of Ian having anticipated an attack that could leave him seriously injured or worse, I ask, “Where are we going?”

  “Slade Enterprises maintains a beta site outside the country. We call it the compound. We’ll be there in a few hours.”

  “What about all the people still in Pinnacle House?” There must be thousands still there, not to mention families including children. “Are they evacuating?”

  Hollis shakes his head. “They have everything they need and their position is easily defensible. Frankly, anyone would have to be insane to even think of taking them on. But Ian needs to be free to move around once he recovers and decides how to respond to this attack. He couldn’t do that holed up at headquarters.”

  The assumption that Ian will recover and be back in control calms me a little. But even so, the next hour passes with aching slowness. Daphne brings me a cup of tea and I try to drink it but I can only manage a few sips. I tune in briefly to some of the quiet conversations going on around me and find some reassurance in the calm professionalism of Ian’s people. But the doors to the medical bay remain firmly closed and no news emerges from beyond them.

  Daphne joins me and together we wait. It occurs to me that women have been doing this forever--waiting for loved ones to come home or not, waiting to know if they are safe or not, waiting for the inevitable moment when they leave again.

  I hate waiting.

  Finally, just when I think that I can’t bear it anymore, the doors to the medical bay open and the young doctor steps out. He’s red-haired with a linebacker’s shoulders and a military air. After a quick word with Hollis, he comes down the aisle to me.

  “Miss McClellan,” he says gently, “I’m Doctor Rosen. Mister Slade is out of surger
y. I won’t deny that it was touch-and-go for awhile but all his life signs are stable now. We’re optimistic that he’ll make a full recovery. You can sit with him, if you like.”

  I go limp with relief at the same time that my throat is too tight for me to speak. All I can do is nod and follow the doctor into a quiet area next to an operating room. Several nurses are there, monitoring the machines connected to Ian. They look up as I enter but quickly return to their work.

  In the silence punctuated only by the beeps of the machines, I’m aware of the heavy beat of my heart. My breath is labored. I can’t take my eyes off Ian. Part of me believes that so long as I can see him, he really will be all right.

  We will be.

  What he said in the tunnel about my being the one who put together the scattered pieces of him and made him whole again echoes in my mind. After agonizing over the fear that I could never be the woman he truly wanted, nothing could have come as a more profound gift. To have all that snatched away--

  “When will he be conscious?” I ask.

  “Soon,” Doctor Rosen says. “The nanobots will be out of his system before long. Some of them were keeping him anesthetized. Once they’re gone, he’ll wake up.”

  I nod, vaguely aware that the microscopically small, programmable bio-machines that he’s referring to have revolutionized medicine. The idea of someone actually having to cut into a human body in order to fix it seems barbaric now. Grudgingly, I have to admit that technology in general has brought some improvements. I owe my very existence to it. But it’s also caused undeniable problems that I fear are coming together in a hurricane-force storm that threatens to sweep everything away.

  Ian’s determination to prevent that has almost cost him his life.

  A long, shuddering breath escapes me. I take hold of his hand carefully and settle on a stool beside him. His skin is cool to my touch. I think again of how much blood he lost and have to bite my lip to keep from crying out.

  Time passes with aching slowness. I stare at his beloved face, pale now in repose, willing him to awake. Until he does, until I can hear his voice and know that he is himself, I remain frozen between hope and dread.