Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
In high school, Malia Clark found the man of her dreams.
Darius Tucker.
But life hits them full in the face way before it ever should. Darius makes a drastic decision to keep his family safe and Malia leaves town with a secret.
When Malia returns, she seeks Darius to share all, but Darius finds out before she can tell him. At the same time, she finds out just how much Darius has changed in the years she’s been away.
She just refuses to give up on him.
Until he forces her hand.
Secrets come between Malia and Darius, at the same time Malia has to worry about weird things going on at the law firm where she works, her kid wants a car and she’s stuck in slow-cooker hell. Luckily, her ride or dies have her back.
And in the meantime, she might just learn she never should have lost hope in Darius Tucker.
**Every 1001 Dark Nights novella is a standalone story. For new readers, it’s an introduction to an author’s world. And for fans, it’s a bonus book in the author’s series. We hope you'll enjoy each one as much as we do.**
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One Thousand and One Dark Nights
Once upon a time, in the future…
I was a student fascinated with stories and learning.
I studied philosophy, poetry, history, the occult, and
the art and science of love and magic. I had a vast
library at my father’s home and collected thousands
of volumes of fantastic tales.
I learned all about ancient races and bygone
times. About myths and legends and dreams of all
people through the millennium. And the more I read
the stronger my imagination grew until I discovered
that I was able to travel into the stories... to actually
become part of them.
I wish I could say that I listened to my teacher
and respected my gift, as I ought to have. If I had, I
would not be telling you this tale now.
But I was foolhardy and confused, showing off
with bravery.
One afternoon, curious about the myth of the
Arabian Nights, I traveled back to ancient Persia to
see for myself if it was true that every day Shahryar
(Persian: شهريار, “king”) married a new virgin, and then
sent yesterday's wife to be beheaded. It was written
and I had read that by the time he met Scheherazade,
the vizier's daughter, he’d killed one thousand
women.
Something went wrong with my efforts. I arrived
in the midst of the story and somehow exchanged
places with Scheherazade – a phenomena that had
never occurred before and that still to this day, I
cannot explain.
Now I am trapped in that ancient past. I have
taken on Scheherazade’s life and the only way I can
protect myself and stay alive is to do what she did to
protect herself and stay alive.
Every night the King calls for me and listens as I spin tales.
And when the evening ends and dawn breaks, I stop at a
point that leaves him breathless and yearning for more.
And so the King spares my life for one more day, so that
he might hear the rest of my dark tale.
As soon as I finish a story... I begin a new
one... like the one that you, dear reader, have before
you now.
Prologue
His Father
“Don’t make me check that backpack,” I shouted to my son.
“Mom!”
I’d had sixteen years to navigate the wide spectrum of my son’s different varieties of Mom! and get a lock on each version.
This one said, I don’t need my mother to check my backpack. I haven’t since I was twelve. I’m all grown up. Stop already.
And yet, the boy was always forgetting something.
I was in the kitchen, dealing with the pork in the slow cooker.
I was doing this against my will.
Not against my will when it came to cooking. I was a damn good cook, and I did say so myself. Also, I liked doing it.
No, it was because it was summer. Summer wasn’t about slow-cooker meals. That was winter. Winter was stews and chili and enchiladas. Summer was meat on the grill and some kind of salad (preferably one with potatoes or macaroni in it, let the good Lord bless the woman—and it had to be a woman—who deemed those “salads”).
It almost hurt to put that pork shoulder in the crockpot that morning.
But I was a single mom. I worked. My kid was busy with end-of-school-year stuff (though, Liam loved to cook, just right now, with finals and friends and parties and making plans for the summer, he had less time than me).
And, I told myself, I was making barbeque pulled pork (the vinegary North Carolina style, and don’t give me any guff about that goodness, I was a barbeque aficionado, and I could appreciate all the different styles, but if you were pulling pork, you went NC).
Pulled pork sandwiches were a summer thing.
Though, I wished I had a smoker. That said summer to me.
Also winter. A smoker didn’t discriminate.
These were the thoughts on my mind so I didn’t think of other things.
Like the weird stuff going on at work that was giving me a very bad vibe.
Or more importantly, like the chat I’d had with Lee and Eddie yesterday. About the decision I’d made. About the conversation I’d had with my son that morning. About the decision he’d made.
And about how his father was going to handle it.
(My take: he wasn’t going to handle it very well.)
(My next take: my first take was an understatement.)
Liam walked into the kitchen, all tall, gangly teen.
As I watched him, I took the hit I always took once the boy started to fade out of him and he began to look like the man he’d become.
In other words, he began to look just like his father.
“You do my head in sometimes,” he grumbled.
Liam was a master grumbler. There was some backtalk, and he made an art of being a moody teen, but that was as far as it went. I’d never had any real trouble with my son. Not a day of it.
Wait, no. I referred to his terrible twos as my torrential twos. I’d never seen a more fearless, curious, intelligent child in my life. He found ways to get into everything. It was ingenious and exhausting.