Master of the Island- Invitation to Eden (FREE prequel!) Prologue

Master of the Island- Invitation to Eden (FREE prequel!) Chapter Three

I’ve never slept under the open sky. I’d thought it might feel strange, being out here all alone, when I’m so used to the crush of the city. Instead, I haul my sleeping bag out of my tent and lie on my back under a velvet dark sky dripping with silver stars.

I’m exhausted, but I feel as though I could stay awake forever like this and be perfectly content, lulled by the gentle sound of the waves lapping at the shore, washing away my pain—the cold light of the stars filling me back up with something new and clean and pure.

I’ve always been a man with a plan, but right in this perfect moment in time, I could care less about where I go from here. Instead, I wallow in the strange sensation of peace. And I’m not afraid of sleep the way I have been since the accident, which is yet another triumph.

For the last six months, my memories have terrorized me each time I close my eyes. Haunting me. Reminding me of the pain I’d brought on myself. Of bitterness and betrayal.

Here, I fall asleep without even being aware that it is happening.

The next time I open my eyes, I am standing in the middle of the woods. My toes curl, digging into a tangle of roots and the moistness of soil.

In front of me is a small, rugged wooden shack of sorts. It’s barely bigger than two outhouses placed side by side, constructed roughly from branches, woven together with plant matter.

“What the fuck?” I’d be lying if I said that my pulse doesn’t pick up speed as I blink the grogginess from my eyes and realize that, somehow, I’ve made my way into the island’s forest in my sleep.

My body tenses, a human’s instinctual response to the possibility of nature. But as I take a deep breath, the calmness of the night filters back in, the quiet of the island soothing my inner animal.

When I purchased the island, every scrap of information that I could find on it said that it was deserted, and likely always had been. But this tiny, crude building is evidence that someone was here first.

When I press my hand against the low door, the cool night air pulses with something that feels a lot like magic.

Before I can ruminate too much on what might be inside—bats, rats, a human skeleton—I press my weight against the door. It swings inward on loose hinges made of what appear to be braided palm leaves; I squint, and all I can see inside is darkness and dust.

Then I enter the shack, and the sight before me takes my breath away.

She is kneeling at the base of a large flight of stone steps. Beyond her I can see a castle, a crown atop the mountain of the island. It is beautiful, and the details etch themselves into my mind even as my eyes greedily devour her.

Blue is what I see first—eyes of the purest, most intense sapphire, surrounded by a thick fringe of golden lashes. The amber colored half veil that hides the rest of her face only serves to emphasize those orbs, which look up at me as though she can see into my very soul.