“Bring it in, everybody.” Sawyer gestured for them to move closer. “Grab hands and hold on to your hats. This is going to be a hell of a ride.”

Sasha looked up into Bran’s face, laughed.

And it was a hell of a ride.

*   *   *

In her cave, Nerezza seethed. She’d eased her pain, but no matter how much blood, how much potion, how much will, the streak of gray remained snaking through her dark hair. Lines fanned out from her eyes and mouth.

She broke another mirror, and cursed. And her tears ran like blood down her face.

They would pay for marring her beauty. They would pay for defying her. No matter what world they ran to, no matter what magicks they devised, she would follow, she would destroy.

She would not rest until the stars shone for only her.

Picking up her globe, she ran a hand over it. There were ways, many ways. She had only to choose another.

As she looked, as she watched, she smiled. And began to see, began to plot. Began to laugh.

Keep reading for an excerpt from

The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

Available April 2016 from Berkley Books

Having a houseful of men had some advantages. Xander and Kevin carted out Naomi’s shipping boxes and the smaller box of prints she’d framed for potential sale locally.

It left her free to carry her camera bag.

“Thanks. I’ll get these shipped off this morning.”

Xan tapped Naomi’s camera bag. “Going to work, too?”

“I am. I’ll take an hour or two before I head to town.”

“Where?” When her eyebrows raised, he kept it casual. “Just wondering.”

“Down below the bluff. We’ll see if the rain washed in anything interesting. It’s a pretty spring morning. Boats should be out.”

“Good luck with that.” He yanked her in for a kiss, gave the dog a quick rub. “See you later.”

She’d be within sight of the house, he thought as he swung onto his bike. And he’d already had a short, private conversation with Kevin about keeping an eye out.

Best he could do, but he wouldn’t be altogether easy until they found out what happened to Marla.

*   *   *

Naomi considered taking the car. She could drive nearly a half a mile closer, then take a track down through the woods—since she wanted shots there first—and make her way down to the shoreline.

But quiet area or not, she didn’t like the idea of leaving her car on the side of the road with her prints locked inside.

She got the leash, which immediately had Tag racing in the opposite direction. Since she had his number, she only shrugged and started down the curve of road.

He slunk after her.

She stopped, took a dog cookie out of her pocket. “You want this, you wear this until we’re off the road.” She held out the leash.

Dislike for the leash lost to greed.

He strained against the leash, tugged it, did his best to tangle himself in it. Naomi clipped it to her belt with a carabiner, stopped to frame in some white wildflowers the rain had teased open like stars on the side of the road.

He behaved better in the forest, occupying himself by sniffing the air, nosing the ground.

Naomi took carefully angled shots of a nurse log surrounded by ferns and blanketed with lichen and moss—yellows, rusty reds, greens on wood studded with mushrooms that spread like alien creatures. A pair of trees, easily ten feet high, rose from it, the roots wrapped around the decaying log as if in an embrace.

New life, she thought, from the dead and dying.

The long rain had soaked the green so it tinted the light. It seduced wildflowers to dance in sunbeam and shadow. It scented the air with earth and pine and secrets.

After an hour she nearly headed back, left the shoreline for another day. But she wanted the sparkle of sun on the water after the misty damp of the forest. She wanted the deeper, rougher green of those knuckles of land, the strong gray of rock against the blues.

Another hour, she decided, then she’d pack it up, run her errands.

Thrilled to be off the leash, Tag raced ahead. She turned onto the bluff trail, one he knew well now. He barked, danced in place whenever she stopped to take other pictures.

“Don’t rush me.” But she could smell the water now, too, and quickened her pace.

The trail angled down, and proved muddy enough from the rains that she had to slow again. Considering the mud, she realized she’d now have to wash the damn dog before running into town.

“Didn’t think of that, did you?” she muttered, and used handy branches to support herself on the slick dirt.

All worth it. Worth it all in that one moment when the water and pockets of land opened up through the trees.

She balanced herself, risked a spill to get shots of the view through low-hanging branches with their fernlike needles.

Down below it would be bright, sparkling, but here, with the angle, the fan of branches, the inlet looked mysterious. Like a secret revealed through a magic door.

Satisfied, she picked her way down to where the dog barked like a maniac.

“Leave the birds alone! I want the birds.”

She scraped her muddy boots on rippling rock, climbed over them. Caught the diamond glint she’d hoped for, and happily, just beyond the channel, a boat with red sails.

She blocked out the barking dog until she got what she wanted, until the red sails eased into frame. When he raced back to her, she ignored him, took a long shot of the inlet at the twin forks of water drifting by the floating hump of green.

“Look, if you’re going to tag along, you just have to wait until I’m done before— What have you got? Where did you get that?”

He stood, tail ticking, and a shoe in his mouth.

A woman’s shoe, she noted. Open toes, long skinny heel in cotton candy pink.

“You’re not taking that home. You can just forget about that.”

When he dropped it at her feet, she stepped around it. “And I’m not touching it.”

As she picked her way down, he grabbed up the shoe, raced ahead again.

She stepped down onto the coarse sand, the bumpy cobbles of the narrow strip. Tag sent up a fierce spat of barking, a series of high-pitched whines that had her spinning around to snap at him.

“Cut it out! What’s wrong with you this morning?”

She lowered her camera with hands gone to ice.

The dog stood at the base of the bluff, barking at something sprawled on the skinny swatch of sand. She made herself walk closer until her legs began to tremble, until the weight fell on her chest.

She went down to her knees, fighting for breath, staring at the body.

Marla Roth lay, wrists bound, her hands outstretched as though reaching for something she’d never hold.

The bright, sparkling light went gray; the air filled with a roar, a wild, high wave.

Then the dog licked her face, whined, tried to nose his head under her limp hand. The weight eased, left a terrible ache in its place.

“Okay. Okay. Stay here.” Her hands shook as she unlooped his leash, clipped it on him. “Stay with me. God, oh God. Just hold on. Can’t be sick. Won’t be sick.”

Setting her teeth, she pulled out her phone.

*   *   *

She didn’t want to stay; she couldn’t leave. It didn’t matter that the police had told her to stay where she was, to touch nothing. She could have ignored that. But she couldn’t leave Marla alone.

But she went back to the rocks, climbed up enough to sit so the air could wash over her clammy face. The dog paced, tugged on the leash, barked until she hooked an arm around him, pulled him down to sit beside her.