Beyond the Horizon Read online

  Contents

  Blurb

  Bea Paige’s Books:

  About Bea Paige

  Beyond the Horizon Playlist

  Note to readers

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part II

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Part III

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Coming soon

  Delinquent Excerpt

  Author Note

  Copyright ©: Kelly Stock writing as Bea Paige

  First Published: 23rd March 2020

  Publisher: Kelly Stock

  Cover by: Eve Graphic Design LLC

  Kelly Stock writing as Bea Paige to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Blurb

  He arrived on a warm summer’s day…

  Malakai Azaiah Dunbar, a loner whose home was the ocean I adored.

  I was eighteen, he was thirty-six.

  My foolish heart was stolen by a man who refused to accept I existed. A forbidden kiss sending him back into the arms of the ocean.

  I was nineteen. He was thirty-seven.

  He was changed. Cruel. Abrasive. Until he wasn't and I gave him something precious.

  I'm twenty. He’s thirty-eight.

  Just like the ocean we both adore, Malakai is mysterious, tumultuous, dangerous and not to be tamed. Fear has kept us apart for too long, but I'm not afraid anymore. It's time to lay everything on the line. It's time to bring him home.

  Bea Paige’s Books:

  Academy of Misfits (academy reverse harem romance)

  #1 Delinquent https://books2read.com/AcademyMisfits1

  #2 Reject https://books2read.com/AcademyMisfits2

  #3 Family https://books2read.com/AcademyMisfits3

  Finding Their Muse (dark contemporary romance / reverse harem)

  #1 Steps https://books2read.com/Steps

  #2 Strokes https://books2read.com/Strokes

  #3 Strings https://books2read.com/StringsFTM

  #4 Symphony https://books2read.com/FTM4

  #5 Finding Their Muse boxset https://books2read.com/FTMBoxset

  The Brothers Freed Series (contemporary romance / reverse harem)

  #1 Avalanche of Desire https://books2read.com/AvalancheOfDesire

  #2 Storm of Seduction https://books2read.com/StormSeduction

  #3 Dawn of Love https://books2read.com/DawnOfLove

  #4 Brothers Freed Boxset https://books2read.com/BrothersFreed

  Contemporary Standalones

  RH Fairy tale retelling

  Cabin of Axes https://books2read.com/CabinOfAxes

  Age gap romance

  Beyond the Horizon https://books2read.com/Beyond-the-horizon

  The Sisters of Hex series (paranormal romance / reverse harem)

  Prequel to The Sisters of Hex series:

  Five Gold Rings: https://books2read.com/FiveGoldRings

  Sisters of Hex: Accacia

  #1 Accacia’s Curse https://books2read.com/AccaciasCurse

  #2 Accacia’s Blood https://books2read.com/AccaciasBlood

  #3 Accacia’s Bite https://books2read.com/AccaciasBite

  #4 Accacia’s Trilogy https://books2read.com/AccaciasTrilogy

  Sisters of Hex: Fern

  #1 Fern’s Decision https://books2read.com/FernsDecision

  #2 Fern’s Wings https://books2read.com/FernsWings

  #3 Fern’s Flight https://books2read.com/FernsFlight

  #4 Fern’s Trilogy https://books2read.com/FernsTrilogy

  The Infernal Descent trilogy (co-written with Skye MacKinnon)

  #1 Hell’s Calling https://books2read.com/HellsCalling

  #2 Hell’s Weeping https://books2read.com/HellsWeeping

  #3 Hell’s Burning https://books2read.com/HellsBurning

  #4 Infernal Descent boxset https://books2read.com/InfernalDescent

  About Bea Paige

  Bea Paige lives a very secretive life in London… she likes red wine and Haribo sweets (preferably together) and occasionally swings around poles when the mood takes her.

  Bea loves to write about love and all the different facets of such a powerful emotion. When she’s not writing about love and passion, you’ll find her reading about it and ugly crying.

  Bea is always writing, and new ideas seem to appear at the most unlikely time, like in the shower or on driving her car.

  She has lots more books planned, so be sure to subscribe to her newsletter:

  beapaige.co.uk/newsletter-sign-up

  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeaPaigeAuthor/

  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beapaigeauthor/

  Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/bea-paige

  Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/beapaigeauthor/

  Beyond the Horizon Playlist

  The theme song for this book has to be Island by SVRCINA. This hauntingly beautiful song absolutely sums up Malakai and Connie’s love story.

  Other favourites are:

  End of the Road cover by Blame Jones

  Different Kind of Love sung by Hannah Grace

  No Ordinary Love cover by Christine and the Queens

  Ocean sung by Grace Grundy

  A Sky Full of Stars sung by Mother’s Daughter

  Listen to the full playlist on Spotify HERE

  Note to readers

  Dear Readers,

  As you may or may not know, Beyond the Horizon is a spinoff story to the Academy of Misfits trilogy where Malakai and Connie first appeared in the final book, Family.

  Whilst this is a standalone book and can be read and enjoyed on its own, there are scenes in this book that may have spoilers if you haven’t read the Academy of Misfits books.

  I’ve tried to keep these spoilers to a minimum, but if you’re planning on reading the trilogy, I strongly recommend you read it first before diving into Beyond the Horizon.

  At the back of this book is the first two chapters of Delinquent, so you can have a little taster of the Misfits trilogy.

  Anyway, back to Beyond the Horizon… Why don’t you grab your favourite drink, a box of tissues, and lock yourself away in peace. I�
�ve been told that this book is a tearjerker. Happy tears though, because, of course, all my stories have a HEA. Oh, and there’s lots of smexy scenes… so you, erm, might enjoy that too.

  Love Bea x

  Sometimes, the kind of love we dream of can only be found within the pages of a book.

  I can’t give you your own happily ever after, but I can give you theirs…

  Bea Paige

  xoxo

  “How ravished one could be without ever being touched. Ravished by dead words become obscene and dead ideas become obsessions.”

  - D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover

  Prologue

  In the beginning…

  Connie

  The first time I saw him I was eighteen. I was sitting on my family’s private beach humming along to Hozier as it played through the iPod that I carried with me everywhere I went. My toes were dipped in a shallow rockpool, the seawater warmed by the midday sun. I remember so clearly the tiny see-through fish swimming about my bare ankles. I remember the swathe of emerald seaweed gently moving in the current made by my wiggling toes and the smell of briny sea air.

  It had been a peaceful summer’s day. Idyllic.

  The sun had been high and hot, the August rays warming my tanned skin, drawing out a rash of freckles across my cheeks and shoulders, and colouring streaks of blonde in my coffee-brown hair. I’d been wearing a dark blue swimsuit with a pair of cut-off denim shorts that showed far too much skin according to Grandma Silva.

  “Save something for the imagination, child. Real beauty is a gift that doesn’t need to be flaunted,” she’d often said to me.

  But I was my mother’s daughter.

  I was free-spirited, headstrong, and far more womanly than I had any right to be at such an age. With a fresh face, cupid bow lips, long dark tresses and eyes as deep blue as the sea I adored so much, I knew I was pretty, and I liked that because people never look too deeply when all they see is a pretty face. My soul, however, belonged to someone who’d lived far longer than my eighteen years, and I never let anyone else get close enough to see into the depths of me. Maybe that had to do with the fact tragedy had struck my life so young, or maybe I was always born to be that way. Either way, I felt older than I was, even back then.

  Perhaps that was why I’d remained behind whilst my friends had visited the mainland in search of fun, wanting nothing more than the hustle and bustle of a busy town or city. My best friends were bored with living on our little island nestled off the coast of Kent, cut off from the world and as backward as a third world country when it came to mod-cons. The only way in or out of the island was by boat and if a bad storm hit no one was going anywhere.

  But despite my friends’ desire to leave, I’d been happy and content to spend time in my own company writing lyrics and listening to my favourite kind of music, the kind that can move a person, can change them just like the gentle waves that moved against an ever-changing shore.

  In my hand I’d clutched my notepad, my pencil scratching against the cream paper, my round cursive filling the pages with lyrics that I’d kept hidden inside my heart. I’d been so engrossed in the words flowing from the pumping organ within my chest that I hadn’t noticed the schooner dropping anchor a mile out to sea. I hadn’t noticed a lone figure dive into the water, until strong shoulders and powerful strokes came into my peripheral vision and I’d looked up from beneath the shade of my straw hat.

  I’d been immediately entranced, so caught off guard by this sudden intrusion into my most sacred place that I’d dropped my notepad into the pool of water at my feet. I hadn’t even bothered to try and rescue the waterlogged paper, too intent on trying to get a better view of the mysterious stranger swimming towards my family’s private beach, Broken Shores.

  The small cove had been named by my great-grandmother who’d lost her heart and soul the day her beloved had lost his life to the waves many, many years ago. According to my grandma, the women of our family are cursed when it comes to love. We might be destined to find our soulmate, but we’re never allowed to keep them. My grandma believes that where true love is concerned for the women of our family, tragedy always strikes, ripping hearts in two and shredding souls apart.

  “Never fall in love, Connie. Keep your heart guarded. Save it from the pain, child.”

  Like my great-grandmother, Grandma Silva also hated this cove just as much. Grandpa John had died on this beach, a massive heart attack taking him from her at the age of forty-five. So I understood why she’d refused to visit, why she’d hated Broken Shores so much, but I could never hate such crushing beauty. How could I, when it had brought me him?

  Malakai Azaiah Dunbar.

  A bronzed god with rippling muscles and black swirling tattoos that covered his skin in designs that had made my heart ache and my core clench with strange new feelings, awakening something forbidden, something… dangerous.

  That day he stole my heart without even realising it, but that didn’t matter to me because I had given it freely despite my grandma’s warning, maybe even because of it. When he’d looked up at me, his eyes narrowing on mine, salty seawater running in rivulets over his taut golden skin, the sun glittering on the ocean behind him, I’d known at once that he was my soulmate. I’d known it deep down in the very marrow of my bones even when he’d refused to believe it. Even when he sailed away from it, from me, I still believed.

  I still do.

  I was eighteen that day he walked onto my beach. He was thirty-six.

  The expanse of eighteen years kept us apart back then.

  But like the terns that nested in the cliff face of Broken Shores, he returned the following summer. He returned the year after that too, and with every day that passed, the gap shrank until the only expanse that kept us apart was his schooner sailing beyond the horizon and his refusal to believe in us. Perhaps I should’ve heeded my grandma’s warning. Perhaps I should’ve guarded my heart against him. Only I didn’t.

  I still refuse to do that. What you’re about to read is our love story, or perhaps our very own tragedy. I guess that still depends on how it ends…

  One

  Connie

  I have a thing for shells. The delicate shapes, the pretty colours, the sharp points and curved edges. My bedroom is full of them. Jars line my window ledge, each one filled to the brim with all manner of shells. Not one is the same, but all of them are beautiful in their own way.

  When I replace the lid to one of the jars and pop it back next to the others, I see my friends Jack, Alice and Georgia walking up the garden path. They’re laughing, happy to be getting off the island, even if it is only for a few days. My best friends since we were toddlers, we’ve grown up together. Just a few weeks ago we all graduated from our tiny village school, leaving only a handful of children behind.

  Living on a small island means that our school is made up of one class and twelve kids ranging from four to eighteen, eight kids now we’ve left. Come September, my three best friends will be going to Kent University in Canterbury, but this four-day minibreak to the mainland is a chance to check out their halls of residence and the bars and clubs they’re so looking forward to getting drunk in. In contrast, I refuse to leave the island. It’s my sanctuary. I don’t long for the fun of the city like they all do. I’d rather be here, safe, surrounded by the ocean, cut off from the rest of the world and all the trouble it harbours.

  Below, Grandma Silva calls for me to answer the door and I run out of my room, bounding down the stairs two at a time. I rush towards my friends in a whirl of happiness and excitement, not because I’m leaving the island with them, but because I feel like the universe is smiling down on me today. As though something good, something life changing is about to happen.

  My grandma thinks I’m ‘empathic’. According to her I’m just like my mother, that I have an innate ability to know when both good and bad things are going to happen.

  I still don’t know whether it’s a gift or a curse. Maybe it’s a little
bit of both.

  The day my parents died was one of those days when my ‘gift’ felt like a curse. A few days before they died I’d watched them drive away, my heart galloping and my stomach churning. The hair on the back of my neck had stood on end, my skin prickling as goosebumps scattered in an unpleasant rash up my arms. I remember my mum turning to me and waving and I’d felt this heavy kind of feeling in my chest. I’d begged them not to go. Begged and pleaded. But they didn’t listen to my ten-year-old self. They’d left the island. They’d left me, returning three weeks later in two identical mahogany coffins.

  Refusing to think about that time, I push all thoughts of my parents and their tragic deaths out of my head. When my feet hit the hardwood floor of our hallway, Grandma Silva steps out of the kitchen at the end of the hall, her hands covered in flour. She’s baking again. I can smell blueberry muffins and my stomach rumbles.

 
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