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  PRAISE FOR FORBIDDEN

  by Syrie James and Ryan M. James

  “A YA novel that hits all the right notes … The plot and storyline are great, and the characters strong … If you enjoy angels, ‘forbidden’ romance and dashing heroes, then this should be added to your TBR.”

  —USA TODAY

  “This new entry into the angelic fiction genre is written in both Claire and Alec’s voices. Both main characters are well-drawn, with believable motivations and reactions to their situations. The ending leaves enough room for a sequel, and fans of the genre will definitely demand one.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Quite effective paranormal suspense and intense-but-quixotic high-school romance … Genre addicts will enjoy it.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “An addictive read. It isn’t like the other angel paranormal books out there. This will make you want more more more.”

  —Beneath the Cover

  “A must read. My top 24 of all time favorite books. The characters were very unique and will grow on you … By the way it ended, it only promised that the following book would contain more action and the move to be more intense. Highly recommended.”

  —Jean Book Nerd

  “Hands down the most fascinating book I have read in quite a while. It has wit, humor, action, mystery, and is filled with just the right amount of tension. As the characters develop and the story unfolds you will find yourself wrapped up in their world, indulging in every kiss and holding your breath with every twist. Simply magic!”

  —Luxury Reading

  “Forbidden has the best trio since Harry Potter! I loved it! It had plenty of humor, romance, action, mystery, and suspense. The villain was totally badass. What truly drives this story is its amazing characters. Oh! and the cliffhanger – SO cruel. But in that I can’t flippin’ wait to read book two kind of way. 5 stars!”

  —The Book Slayer

  “Like angels meet X-Men … The characters had a lot of depth and they were easy to like. The next novel in the series has a lot of potential.”

  —Books: A True Story

  ALSO BY SYRIE JAMES & RYAN M. JAMES:

  Forbidden

  OTHER TITLES BY SYRIE JAMES:

  Summer of Scandal

  Runaway Heiress

  Jane Austen’s First Love

  The Missing Manuscript of Jane Austen

  Nocturne

  Dracula, My Love

  The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë

  The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen

  Propositions

  Songbird

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places, and incidents portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  EMBOLDEN. Copyright 2018 by Syrie James & Ryan M. James.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or in any other manner whatsoever, without written permission of the publisher except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address LDLA Publishing, 121 West 27th Street, Suite 1201, New York, N. Y. 10001.

  For fans of YA and paranormal romance everywhere.

  And for the many, many readers who asked us to please continue Claire and Alec’s story … this is for you.

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Forbidden

  Also by Syrie James & Ryan M. James

  Other Titles by Syrie James

  one

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thirteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eighteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  epilogue

  About the Authors

  one

  The December morning air made Claire Brennan shiver but did nothing to dampen her excitement. She stared up at the redbrick town house, just one in a row of similar buildings on the residential Brooklyn street. It was a sight Claire had been longing to see for months.

  “This is it,” her mother, Lynn, said.

  “We cannot find out anything by just standing here,” commented Claire’s grandmother, Helena, in her cultured British accent.

  If only Erica and Brian were here, Claire thought. They’d be as excited as I am to see this place. Claire missed her best friends big-time. But it was the holiday season, and they were home with their families. And this was a family mission. If she was ever going to find her father, Claire needed her mom’s memories and her grandma’s psychic mojo.

  And her boyfriend.

  Alec MacKenzie gave Claire’s gloved hand a brief, affectionate squeeze. “Let’s do this.” He ran up the stone steps and rang the buzzer to the third-floor apartment. Glancing at the name tag beside the buzzer, he called down to them, “Someone named Arrividera lives here now.” Alec’s charming Scottish burr, and the way he rolled his R’s, was just one of the many things Claire loved about him.

  Claire, Lynn, and Helena followed more carefully, holding on to the black wrought-iron railing and avoiding the snow and ice that had accumulated along the stair edges. On the landing, Claire wrapped her arms around herself, cold despite the parka and wool hat she was wearing. Helena and Alec, of course, looked comfortable in just leather jackets. “It’s so not fair that you guys aren’t freezing.”

  “Grigori constitutions,” Lynn noted with a shrug.

  “If we were in the Arctic, my dear,” Helena stated matter-of-factly, “I might be wearing an outfit similar to yours. But in a far more stylish design, and a milder shade of blue.”

  A smile tugged at Claire’s lips. Although she’d only met her grandmother a few months ago, she’d come to appreciate Helena’s sense of humor.

  Alec sighed, running a hand through his dirty-blond hair. “Looks like nobody’s home.”

  Great, Claire thought, disappointment spearing through her. Ever since she’d learned about her true nature as a Halfblood Grigori (translation: half angel) she’d been dying to learn how and why her father had disappeared sixteen years ago.

  She tried to peer in through the leaded-glass window in one of the mahogany doors, but it was too cloudy to see inside. “Should we come back tomorrow?”

  “Why wait?” Alec pulled on a pair of gloves and rested his hand on the doorknob, staring at it intently until it made a soft, clicking sound. “Got it.”

  “Alec!” Claire whispered insistently. “We can’t just break into somebody’s apartment!” His Jedi-grade telekinesis might be handy to unlock doors, but it wasn’
t exactly legal.

  “I thought you wanted to get a reading off the place?” Alec looked to her and Helena.

  “We do,” Claire replied, “but what if there’s an alarm?”

  “If you were about to step into danger, I would know, remember?” Helena’s hazel eyes were reassuring, but Claire knew that her grandmother’s psychic ability wasn’t foolproof.

  “And if you’re wrong? A breaking-and-entering charge will look great on all of Claire’s college applications,” Lynn warned.

  “I spent two years keeping the Grigori off Tom’s trail when he left to marry you, Lynn,” Helena hissed. “He vanished because I could not protect him—because I was locked up for obstructing the investigation. I haven’t been able to sense his essence or call up a vision of him since. This is the last place he lived before disappearing, and there is no way I am going to walk away just because the Arrivideras are not home.”

  Lynn threw up her hands in defeat.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be in and out before anybody knows a thing,” Alec insisted. “I’ve done this a million times.”

  Claire winced at his words. She hated to think about Alec’s former life, before he went AWOL from his celestial duties policing those members of the Fallen (the hundreds of thousands of descendants of the Nephilim, offspring of Grigori-human relationships) who used their various talents for immoral purposes instead of good.

  Before he found her and helped protect her.

  He was everything to Claire now; she couldn’t imagine her life without him.

  “Third floor,” Lynn reminded them, as Alec pushed the door open.

  “Are you sure this is going to work?” Claire asked Helena under her breath, as they all entered and headed up the stairs.

  “No, but it is a good place to start.”

  The apartment’s front door looked freshly painted. Alec knocked firmly.

  There was no answer.

  Alec glanced at Lynn, as if waiting for her permission to proceed. The suspense was killing Claire.

  Lynn sighed. “No guts, no glory. Go ahead.”

  Claire’s stomach tensed nervously as she watched Alec unlock the door and dead bolt as easily as he had downstairs, using only his mind. He motioned for them to stay put. “I’ll check if it’s clear.”

  Alec slipped inside. Claire had seen him do this type of routine plenty of times, sweeping his own apartment for potential intruders. He returned a moment later and silently gestured for them to enter.

  The apartment was about a fourth the size of Claire’s old apartment in L.A., with one bedroom, a small kitchen, a narrow living room, and a balcony overlooking a tiny yard.

  “Wow,” Lynn said softly, taking it all in. “The furniture is different, of course, and the walls are a different color. But otherwise, it’s exactly the same.”

  I can’t believe my mom and dad actually lived here when I was a baby, Claire thought. Pulling off her gloves, she touched a wall, hoping to access some memory of her father. She waited for the familiar sensation of heat that usually preceded a vision, thankful that she’d outgrown the nausea that used to accompany them.

  Nothing happened. Claire gripped the bedroom doorknob, something her dad’s hands must have touched. Her spirits sank. “I’m not getting anything.”

  “Try the kitchen,” Lynn suggested. “Your father and I used to love cooking together.”

  Claire crossed the room and placed a hand on the handle of a kitchen cabinet. She frowned. “Why isn’t it working? When I touched Dad’s old jacket back home, it triggered a flashback.”

  “That’s because the jacket belonged to your dad,” Alec pointed out. “He’d worn it enough times that it retained a strong memory of him. These are just walls and doors, and they look like they were just painted. I suspect too many people have lived here since your parents did for your tactile ability to work.”

  “He’s right. This flat’s history is quite crowded,” murmured Helena.

  Claire’s grandmother was sitting on the living-room rug in the lotus position, a peculiar expression on her face.

  “Now she, on the other hand,” Alec said with a smile, “might have better luck. She’s a psychic antenna with legs.”

  Helena tilted her head. “If only that were true, young man.”

  “What about now, Grandma?” Claire joined her in the living room. “Are you picking up anything?”

  Helena sounded distant, distracted. “I am working on it. Would you like to see? You are all welcome to join in if you like.”

  Claire exchanged a look with Alec and Lynn, who nodded eagerly. They all sat down on the floor beside Helena, forming a circle.

  “Where are you taking us?” Lynn held her hands out expectantly.

  “Not where, when,” Helen replied in the same, preoccupied tone. “I have been scouring this precise location, searching for Tom’s aura sixteen years ago, and … Ah! Aha!” Her eyes twinkled, and a hint of a smile spread across her lovely face. “Take my hands, now.”

  Claire’s heart drummed to a new beat as they all clasped hands in a closed circle. Claire instantly felt the jolt of energy that connected her to Helena’s consciousness. Suddenly, the room changed around her. The apartment walls were white instead of blue, the furniture was more modern, and the sky outside the window was dark.

  But that wasn’t the biggest change. Prickles of awe traveled up and down Claire’s spine as she stared at the couch in front of them.

  Sitting on the couch, reading the paper, was the same handsome man she’d seen in previous visions. He looked to be in his early twenties although Claire knew he was more than a century older. He had olive skin and dark brown wavy hair, just like hers.

  It was her father. Tom.

  A pretty blond woman was asleep beside him, her head nestled cozily on Tom’s lap, her feet curled up on the couch. Claire’s mother.

  Claire gasped. This was incredible. She was actually seeing a moment in the past, when her parents lived in this place! Her mom gasped, too—her mom in the present, that is. It was so strange.

  “Is that him?” Alec asked.

  “It is indeed,” Helena answered.

  “Oh …” Tears gathered at the edges of Lynn’s eyes as she whispered, “He’s so beautiful … and I look so young.”

  “You need not whisper, my dear,” Helena said. “They cannot see, hear, or feel us. We have no corporeal presence.”

  The sound of a crying infant erupted from the next room. Tom glanced up from his newspaper. The Lynn on the couch yawned sleepily. “Your turn.”

  Tom leaned over and kissed her affectionately on the forehead. “On it.” He stood and headed toward the bedroom.

  Helena shook her head. “This is totally useless.” The moment froze, then a blur of images flew past and around them, as if they were watching it all on fast-forward.

  “Wait, wait!” Claire cried. “Wasn’t that me crying?”

  “We only had the one daughter.” Lynn smiled.

  “We do not have time to look at everything that transpired here,” Helena replied. “Our focus is to find the day Tom disappeared and hope he returned home, however briefly, so we can find a clue as to where he went.”

  Claire wanted to see more of that sweet moment with her parents. But it was gone.

  Outside the window, time zoomed by, shifting between day and night, through all types of weather and seasons. A potted tree on the balcony began twig-like and bare, then burst into leaf and bloom. Claire watched wistfully as her mom and dad zipped around the apartment on fast-forward, entering and leaving, cooking and cleaning, dining and relaxing, often walking right through her and the others as if they were ghosts.

  “I’ve been inside your head before, but I had no idea you could do this.” Alec sounded impressed.

  “I can attain a more accurate and detailed history when I
am in the actual, physical place I need to explore,” Helena explained over the various sights, sounds, and aromas.

  Claire was thrilled to catch glimpses of herself as she grew from a helpless newborn to a pudgy baby. It was also kind of spooky—especially when her parents in the past stopped and stood in the exact same spot where she and her group were sitting in the present, or parked a stroller or something there.

  “I’m starting to get dizzy.” Lynn’s face was pale.

  “Try closing one eye for a moment,” Helena instructed. “It will shut off the images of the past.”

  Lynn followed this advice and sighed in relief. “Better. Thanks.”

  Claire tried the technique herself. Sure enough, when she closed one eye, the whir of sights and sounds in the past disappeared, and all she saw was her mom, Helena, and Alec sitting on the rug in the peace and quiet of the present. By opening and shutting that eye, she could toggle back and forth between the two scenes. “This is amazing! I wish I could do this.”

  “With a quarter of my genes, you may find that you can,” Helena answered, “but it would take greater concentration than you are used to. And in your case, I believe you are limited to what you touch.”

  “Can you do this for the future, too?” asked Claire.

  “Only to a certain point. As I told you before, the future is malleable. Each moment branches into the next depending on the choices people make.”

  The wall behind the couch suddenly changed from white to a deep burgundy. “Oh!” Lynn took an excited breath. “We’re getting close. We painted that wall a couple of months before Tom disappeared.”

  As Helena nodded, the visual show began to slow down, enough to register the images of Tom, Lynn, and baby Claire going about their daily routines. A light dusting of snow now covered the balcony outside. They reached a nighttime moment where Lynn walked in through the front door, carrying the baby, when Claire’s mother (in the present) cried, “Stop! Stop. This might be it. A few days before Tom left—you were six months old, Claire—he bought you that pink jacket. For months afterward, every time I saw it, it made me cry.”