Two Thousand Years | The Empire Saga #1

Chapter One

The streets were quiet for a Friday night in the city. Alexandra Ross clenched her coat collar tighter around her neck as the wind began to pick up, unseasonably cool for so early in a Boston September. Her heels clicked along the damp cobblestones of the old sidewalks as she headed toward her apartment. She had to take extra care while walking in her four-inch heels.

Especially when she knew she was being followed.

The city had been her home for three years now, so the late-night trek home was familiar, almost a comfort. In her now twenty-two years of life, maintaining her independence was as much of a priority as the switchblade in her jacket pocket was a security. A part of her truly enjoyed the peaceful solitude these walks could bring, but she wasn't stupid enough to do it without protection.

She was aware he had remained a short distance behind her ever since she left Faneuil Hall.

Unlike other similar evenings was no different, she was celebrating her twenty-second birthday, which also may have involved too much alcohol. Perhaps it was the intoxicated appreciation of her city within the quiet of the early morning hours that distracted her from her surroundings.

Even the reflections in the familiar storefront windows she passed by reminded her that she wasn't alone.

Either way, her attention was focused anywhere but where it belonged. It wasn't until her heel caught in the sidewalk, and a hand grabbed her arm to keep her upright, that she realized she tripped and started to fall.

And that the one she believed to be a stalker turned out to actually be a rescuer.

His grip remained firm as his other arm wrapped around her waist to steady her on her feet. As she composed herself, trying to clear her head, her hand went toward the knife in her pocket while she glanced toward the individual who just saved her from needing a nose job.

The stranger's hair was dark under the streetlights, side swept and held loosely in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He was dressed casually in a dark, button-down shirt over clean denim jeans and sensible dress shoes as if he, too, had just emerged from the bustling social atmosphere that brought so many to Boston's Faneuil Hall Marketplace.

His features were thin with chiseled cheekbones beneath skin too tanned to make him a local, but then she looked into his eyes. They were the most piercing blue she had ever seen—almost too blue, especially without the sunlight's shining assistance. They radiated with their own luminescence, which was odd at first, but the color was similar to the refractions off the ocean's waves. As she continued to stare, the more familiar they seemed. Looking up and into his eyes felt as if she had stared into those eyes before—been lost within them too many times to count.

The feeling was almost nostalgic, though she was certain she'd never met him before. She would have remembered those eyes, regardless of how many cosmopolitans she may have drank.

By the time she realized she was staring, he had already released her from his grasp.

"I—" She blinked, struggling for words as her grip tightened around her knife.

"A simple thank you would suffice." His words purred with a foreign accent—familiar, but she couldn't place it. Irish? Scottish? Perhaps Welsh, she thought, though she wasn't even certain it was European.

"Oh," she said, clearing her throat. "Thank you." She moved to smooth out her short, black dress, awkwardly running her hands over her legs, her ass—anything she could do to avoid his gaze. "I didn't even hear you behind me."

"I know." He smirked. Again, that sense of nostalgia clenched at her chest, her stomach, lower. Before she could inquire further, or at least find out where he came from, he had already moved past her, continuing on his way down the street.