Softly at Sunrise

Also by Maya Banks

Seducing Simon

Understood

Overheard

Undenied

Brazen

For her Pleasure

Stay With Me

Reckless

Love Me, Still

Into the Mist

Into the Lair

Golden Eyes

Amber Eyes

Be With Me

Songbird

The Billionaire’s Contract Engagement

Pillow Talk (Fourplay Duology)

Soul Possession (Men out of Uniform Anthology)

Long Road Home

Exiled (Cherished Duology)

Anetakis Trilogy
:

The Tycoon’s Pregnant Mistress

The Tycoon’s Rebel Bride

The Tycoon’s Secret Affair

Passion and Pregnancy Series
:

Enticed by His Forgotten Lover

Wanted by Her Lost Love

Tempted by Her Innocent Kiss

Undone by Her Tender Touch

Sweet Series
:

Sweet Surrender

Sweet Persuasion

Sweet Seduction

Sweet Temptation

Sweet Possession

Sweet Addiction

KGI Series
:

The Darkest Hour

No Place to Run

Hidden Away

Whispers in the Dark

Echoes at Dawn

Softly at Sunrise

Shades of Gray (January 2013)

Scottish Historicals
:

In Bed with a Highlander (McCabe trilogy)

Seduction of a Highland Lass (McCabe trilogy)

Never Love a Highlander (McCabe trilogy)

Never Seduce a Scot (Montgomerys & Armstrongs) September 2012

Highlander Most Wanted (Montgomerys & Armstrongs) February 2013

For more information on Maya and her books, go to her website, connect with her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter!

http://www.mayabanks.com

http://www.facebook.com/authormayabanks

http://twitter.com/maya_banks

Softly
at
Sunrise

A KGI Novella

Maya Banks

Softly at Sunrise (A KGI Novella)

All Rights Reserved © 2012 by Maya Banks.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by Maya Banks

Note to Readers

Softly at Sunrise
takes place in a gap of time that occurs in
Shades of Gray
(KGI book 6, which releases in January 2013.) Reading this novella will in no way spoil
Shades of Gray
, though there are some brief mentions of events that occur in the upcoming book.

With love to every single reader who read and loved “The Darkest Hour” and wanted to know more about Ethan and Rachel and how they were doing down the road. This is for you.

Contents

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

Sample Chapter from Shades of Gray

Chapter 1

Rachel Kelly stared back at her reflection and then heaved a sigh before taking her hair down from the loose bun she’d fashioned. She brushed out the long strands and let them fall over her shoulders.

She was overthinking this too much, and if she couldn’t get it together, Ethan would never let her out of the house. He was already worried over the fact that she was returning to work. If he had his way, she’d remain at home, cocooned in his and his family’s embrace.

She understood his concern, and she loved him dearly for it. But it was time to move on with her life—a life that she’d once thought was over. After being officially “dead” for an entire year only to be resurrected when her husband and his brothers’ special ops group, KGI, rescued her from imprisonment, she was ready to live fully again.

For the last couple of years, she’d tiptoed through life, as if she were afraid to take any risks at all. She’d surrounded herself with family—and it was ever growing with new additions as more of the brothers and team members married—and had contented herself with complacency.

No more.

New house. New start. She was young and had her entire life ahead of her, even if she’d taken that life for granted in the past. She’d never do it again. Every day was precious, and she was grateful for every minute with her husband and her family.

She smoothed a hand over her flat belly, a flutter of nervousness welling up from within. Excitement over her dreams of the future. Of the possibilities that could even now be realized. It was hard to be calm and tell herself the unlikelihood of it happening so quickly.

She and Ethan—after long and careful consideration—had decided that she’d go off birth control a few months earlier. They hadn’t even confided in family…yet. Ethan had been reluctant, and it had taken convincing on her part for him to agree. Not because he didn’t want a child, but because he worried for her.

Once before, seemingly a lifetime ago, she’d been pregnant and had miscarried while Ethan was away with his SEAL team on a mission. That event had been the catalyst for so many things. Ethan had walked away, resigning his commission in the Navy because he’d felt guilty that he wasn’t there when she needed him.

The decision had made him desperately unhappy, and it had strained their relationship to the breaking point. She’d known things were bad, but she hadn’t known just how bad until right before she’d left on a mercy mission with other teachers to South America. Ethan had presented her with divorce papers, looked her in the eye, and told her he was ready to end their marriage.

She closed her eyes, because even now, so many years later, it had the power to gut her.

And then she’d left for South America and hadn’t returned until a year later when Ethan and his brothers had come for her.

It had been a new chance, a fresh start, one more opportunity for them to make things right. And they had.

She knew there was no guarantee after all she’d endured that she could even get pregnant, and if she did manage it, she could very well miscarry again. It could take them months or even years to conceive, which was why she’d wanted to go off her birth control now.

But the thread of hope was there. Alive and burning inside her. She had only to look at her niece, Charlotte, and she was filled with fierce yearning for her own child.

Ethan appeared in the door, and he stared intently at her with those piercing blue eyes.

“Are you sure you want to do this, baby?”

She smiled, warmed by his concern and the love she could see burning in his gaze.

“I’m only substituting for now. It’ll be a good test run. If I hold up well, then maybe I’ll consider going back full time next year if a position is open.”

Wordlessly, he stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. He was damp with sweat from his morning run. He got up every morning for his workout regimen that he did on his own, but he also trained with his brothers at the KGI facility. The compound where she and Ethan would be moving to in just a few days.

She inhaled his scent, the muskiness of sweat and the faint hint of soap from his earlier shower. Hugs were something else she never took for granted. During her captivity, something as simple as human touch had been a craving that had been as crippling as the torture she’d endured.