Read Online Emma (Dark Fire) by Jodie B. Cooper - Free Book Online

suddenly appeared in her chest, a blank spot that hadn’t been there five minutes ago.
    What the crap had Tyler done to her?
    She didn’t doubt it was his fault. She’d been fine until he blew a gasket. His freaked-out reaction was too much of a coincidence.
    “Okay,” she said in a long drawn-out voice, trying to make sense of Tyler’s actions. “What was that all about?” asking the obvious, anything to take her mind off her own aching body.
    She glanced at her uncle, but refused to say anything about the frigid place growing inside her. If he realized she felt weird, he’d have her at the hospital so fast her head would spin.
    Her earliest memory was of curling up on a chair in the emergency room, and knowing her daddy wasn’t coming home. Nope, no way, no how was she going to the hospital. She hated them.
    “That boy is mentally unstable,” her uncle said firmly. “Emma, I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
    “It’s not his fault.” Lydia’s face blanched of all color, looking sick. Her voice filled with anxiety. “Oh God, Keith, how old are you?”
    His eyes narrowed as he answered her. “I’m forty-seven. Why?”
    Lydia’s lip trembled. Turning her head away, her voice sounded strangled as she admitted. “Tyler thought Emma might be his mate.”
    “Mate?” he asked, giving a fair imitation of Tyler’s growl. “She’s seventeen. Mate sounds a bit too permanent. We, the people of Earth, don’t have mates. We date and sometimes we marry, most of the time the marriage ends in divorce.”
    “Divorce?” Lydia shook her head. “The word doesn’t translate. What do you mean?”
    “No word for divorce? How can any society function without divorce?” Keith demanded.
    Knowing divorce was a touchy subject for him, Emma eased forward. “Maybe we’re misunderstanding each other. On Earth, two people date for a while and then sometimes they either live together or get married. I think people plan to stay together, but the majority of couples eventually,” she sighed and shook her head, “well, either one of them cheats or they just stop getting along or no longer love the other one. For whatever reason, they leave each other and go their separate way. That’s divorce.”
    By the time Emma finished, Lydia looked horrified. Her mouth had opened in a wide snarl, clearly showing her canines. Her teeth looked like Tyler’s, but Emma was getting a really up-close and personal view of Lydia’s sharp arsenal. “We don’t have divorce on Tuatha. We have one mate and only one mate.”
    “And when that wonderful mate cheats?” Keith snapped at her, his face a mask of anger. “What happens? Do you just look the other way?”
    “I would never cheat on my mate!” Lydia shouted, her face twisted, mirroring the sound of her revulsion. “No one would. The misery reflected in our mate mark would be unbearable.”
    “You totally lost me,” Emma said, butting in before Keith could snap at the woman. “What’s a mate mark and how can it see emotion?”
    “A mate mark can’t see anything. Once a mate is marked, the mark reflects their mate’s emotions.”
    “You mean like if Tyler bit my neck or something?” Emma asked, drawing on her wide reading experience of how mates marked each other.
    Lydia snorted. “An animal might mark a mate with a bite, not people. After mates meet for the first time, dorcha energy activates, heating an area of our body until the skin is warm to the touch. The energy pooling under the skin soon appears as a skin marking. Once complete, the dorcha flame reflects the emotions of our mate.”
    “That doesn’t explain why you don’t have divorce,” Keith said obstinately, glaring at her.
    She shook her head, frowning. “You don’t understand. The mark doesn’t simply reflect our mate’s emotions. If I had a mate, and I touched my mate mark, I would feel everything he was feeling. A rejected mate feels nothing but desolation inside them.”
    Desolation? The word