Tall, Dark, and Deadly: Seven Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

by Laura Kaye

  Deafening wind tugged at her buckskin dress and pushed her back, but she continued to run. Her life depended on it.

  Scrambling through the brush and over the rocks, she ignored the pain as the rough terrain ripped at the bloody soles of her feet. With a glance over her shoulder, she saw him closing in, his face veiled in shadows.

  She ran faster, her lungs aching with pain. Her heart raced as erratically as the rabbits that darted in front of her. Blood from her split lip burned the back of her throat.

  How much longer could she stay ahead of him?

  “Tala,” he yelled, his voice loud enough to startle her. He had drawn closer. “Hay en ninguna parte funcionar.”

  She didn’t agree. Escape was still an option. If she reached the boulders, her pursuer would have to abandon his horse or risk the animal losing its footing. If the Spanish guard were on foot she would have the advantage. He didn’t know the terrain as well as she did.

  The pendant around her neck thumped against her chest with every stride. Her arms and legs felt weighted with stones as sweat rolled down her face and stung her eyes. Clinging to hope, she pushed herself, pounding her aching heels into the rough dirt and pumping her arms faster.

  Until her foot tangled in an exposed root.

  She hit the ground hard, knocking the air from her lungs. Gasping, she scrambled on her belly, her fingernails scratching into the dry granite soil as she tried to drag herself away.

  The thump of his boots on the dirt spurred her on.

  She had to get away.

  Before she could struggle to her feet, he grabbed her ankle. She kicked his wrist with her free foot, but he didn’t loosen his grip.

  When he flipped her over, she screamed until he covered her mouth with a dirty, calloused hand. Tala stared at him in shock. She recognized the guard from the Mission de Alcala, but the lustful hunger in his eyes was new and turned her stomach.

  She slid her bloodied fingers over her slightly rounded abdomen and murmured a soft apology to her unborn child.

  He pressed a knife to her throat and tore at her dress with frenzied, rough hands. She struggled to break free, but his weight pinned her to the ground. When she scraped her broken nails across his cheek, he grasped her wrists with one hand and held her prone. And then he violated her.

  She closed her eyes, praying for the spirits of her Kumeyaay ancestors to guide her soul.

  …

  Kate screamed, waking herself from the dream. Her nightshirt stuck to her sweat-drenched body. Coming to San Diego brought back the nightmare that had haunted her since childhood. She shuddered, pushing her hair back from her face. She thought by now it wouldn’t terrify her so much, but the dream felt real, the scent of sagebrush, the ache in her feet, the panic.

  Too real.

  Shaking off the dream, she got up and did her best to get a jump on the last few items on her to-do list. Since the renters moved out, she had the perfect opportunity to get her parents’ home ready to sell. But instead of making calls to carpet cleaners and painters, she surfed the web on her laptop, searching for Calisto Terana in San Diego.

  The search engine’s hourglass turned over and over like it used a hamster running in a wheel as its only power source.

  “Oh come on.” She clicked the refresh button again. Maybe he wasn’t from San Diego. He might’ve been a tourist visiting from Europe or something.

  Finally the screen shifted, and she stared at the page in shock.

  All of the search results showed a Calisto Terana, philanthropist and founder of Foundation Arts, the same charity her mother had supported. The same charity slated to inherit her mother’s piano. Kate glanced at the baby grand sitting in the corner and sighed. She’d tried to take care of everything last year. As the only child, no one else stood beside her to help with the loss, the loneliness, and the demands. In the end, it was too much too soon.

  Losing both parents at once, without warning, left her bereft and barely functioning. Lori and Edie helped her box up most of their things and put them into storage, but Kate fell apart at the thought of selling the house. She didn’t make arrangements to donate her mother’s piano and sheet music, or many of the things her mother requested in the will.

  In the end, she left the house furnished, rented it out, and left Point Loma for her new life in Reno. She’d deal with the rest of the estate later when her emotions weren’t so raw, she’d told herself.

  It was definitely time to finish up her parents’ trust.

  She set the laptop on the table, deciding to walk off some of her excess energy. It was a small world. What were the chances the founder of her mother’s favorite charity would be at the Mission de Alcala at the same time as her? What were the chances he’d be at the Mission at all?

  And what were the chances he’d be gorgeous?

  She sighed, remembering the way he approached her with the confidence and stealth of a jungle cat. He’d worn khaki slacks and a sage button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up loosely, exposing his muscular forearms.

  It seemed plain to her that he was successful and professional, but there was something more she couldn’t put her finger on.

  She reached up behind her neck, rubbing at a tight muscle. If she closed her eyes, she could still see him staring at her with dark, brooding eyes that warmed when his lips hinted at a smile. His broad shoulders and narrow waist made his athletic build impossible to ignore.

  He had a European air about him, and even discounting his accent, Calisto didn’t strike her as a San Diegan. He wore his dark hair just past his shoulders, but rather than allowing it to hang in his face like a La Jolla surfer, he tied it back. And despite his olive skin, he didn’t seem particularly tanned.

  The way he looked at her still haunted her thoughts and sent a shiver down her spine. Somehow Calisto had made her feel like a priceless treasure without ever saying a word. He hadn’t even touched her. And when he said her name...

  She shook her head. Snap out of it.

  In the den, she sat down at her father’s empty desk. She pulled her mother’s worn address book from her backpack and dug through it for the Foundation Arts phone number. Her mother wanted this, she told herself. She was fulfilling her mother’s wishes, not concocting a ploy to run into Calisto again.

  Not much of one anyway.

  What would be the harm if she happened to see him again? He was sexy eye candy. It wasn’t like she was going to marry him.

  Now she sounded like a moonstruck fifth-grader. Great.

  Kate rolled her eyes at her excuses and flipped pages in search of the number for Foundation Arts.

  Her mother supported the arts around San Diego for most of her life. Kate hadn’t been shocked to discover she left her baby grand piano and collection of rare sheet music to her favorite charity. On some level, it did hurt a little that her mother didn’t leave it to her. She was by no means a virtuoso, but she knew how to play, and a piano would have been handy for her job as a choir director. She could’ve used it to plan the music for her classes and student choirs.

  It didn’t surprise her, though.

  Her mother lived to support the foundation, to support “The Arts.” As if Kate’s work was less than art. Her mother had her own set of goals for Kate’s future. You have miles of potential, she’d tell her. She really wanted her daughter to be a performer of some kind. Although Kate aced her vocal performance juries in college, teaching was her true passion.

  The disappointment was plain in her mother’s eyes the day Kate turned down an offer for graduate school to study voice. Instead she entered the teaching credential program. She’d found her calling. She wouldn’t live her mother’s dream, but she wished her mom could’ve seen her work.

  If she had been able to witness the joy on the teens’ faces when they sang together on stage for the first time, maybe then she might have realized Kate hadn’t settled. She might have understood Kate was an artist, and better yet, her work ensured an ongoing love of music in t
he next generation of art lovers.

  If only.

  Finding the number, she went to the phone and made the call.

  “Foundation Arts, this is Betty.”

  “Hi, I’m Kate Bradley. My mother left her piano to the Foundation—”

  “Oh Kate, I’m sorry for your loss,” Betty said. “Martha was a wonderful woman. We all miss her. She spoke highly of you.”

  Kate was more than a little surprised. “She did?”

  “Of course,” Betty said, a smile coming through in her voice. “You’re a choir director in Nevada, right?”

  Kate’s surprise morphed into shock. “Yes. I teach middle school chorus.”

  “I’m sure it takes a lot of patience.”

  “Yes, it does.” Kate collected her thoughts. “Um, the reason I called though… My mother left her baby grand piano and her sheet music collection to your foundation. I just wanted to find out who to call about the piano moving.”

  “I can handle all of it for you. I’ll need your signature on a few documents, and I’ll take care of everything else.”

  Kate raised a brow. “You’ll handle finding piano movers?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Great. How soon can we get this going?” Kate asked.

  “Well...” Kate heard pages flipping on Betty’s end of the call. “I have a meeting at six o’clock tomorrow night. I can be a little early. How about five-thirty at The Fish Market? It’s the one near Seaport Village, on the bay.”

  “Sounds great. I’ll see you then.” Kate placed the phone back on the receiver with a little smile. Maybe her mother respected her work more than she ever realized. Too bad it was too late to tell her how much it meant to her.

  …

  1775

  Gregorio lived with the tribe for nearly three months before they took him to the Old One. He still mourned Tala’s death, unable to move past the pain and emptiness weighing down his soul. He drank very little and ate only when someone reminded him.

  The pain of her loss became his only reality. Shadows and loss colored every part of his world.

  Every time he saw the Romneya bloom in the valleys, he ached with memories of Tala, of the way she wore them in her hair and how they perfumed her skin. The sight of the ocean waves where they learned each other’s customs now tore him apart.

  As the weeks passed, he found some solace in the tribal beliefs and eventually became involved in spiritual discussions with the Shaman about death, spirits of the dead, and the belief they might one day live again.

  The night of the full moon, after the tribal ceremonies ended and embers were all that remained of their community fire, the Shaman told him stories of the Old One. The white-haired man lived on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. They believed he could delve into the minds and hearts of men. If the Old One found Gregorio worthy, he would bestow on him a new title, and Gregorio would become a member of the tribe.

  The Shaman honored him with his invitation to meet the wise old man and make Gregorio a part of their tribe. But it did little to raise his spirits. A new name, a new life, it didn’t matter. Tala would not be part of it, and his soul would still be empty.

  Each night when he slept, he saw her, held her, tasted her lips, and drank in the sound of her laughter, and each morning when he woke, his loss felt raw.

  He began to hate the sun.

  Chapter Three

  Calisto’s eyes fluttered, and he knew the sun had set. His chest rose and fell, breathing even though his body no longer needed the oxygen. His heart beat in a slow rhythm once more.

  After a hot shower, he dressed in jeans and a black, button-down shirt, checking his reflection before heading upstairs to his office. Kate’s face haunted him, making it difficult to focus. Sitting behind his large oak desk, Calisto thumbed through the mail Betty left for him, paying more attention to the voices he heard in the night than the envelopes that bore his name.

  The name he used in this lifetime.

  He hadn’t used his real name in centuries. Every few decades, when it became apparent he was not aging, he would drop from sight, usually staging some sort of horrific death that made identifying his body impossible. No one suspected the charred remains weren’t his. But with the advancements in crime forensics, his next demise would probably be at sea without a body to recover.

  After a few months away, he would re-establish himself with his new identity, purchase a new home, and begin again. But this time could be different.

  He had remained in San Diego anticipating Tala’s eventual return. Now that he had found her again, they could move away together. He had been Calisto Terana for nearly twenty years now, and he would probably be able to keep this identity even longer if they moved to a new city. If things remained quiet.

  But it was not always quiet. Over the centuries there were people who sought to prove he was not what he seemed. The Fraternidad Del Fuego Santo, the Brotherhood of Holy Fire, still confronted him from time to time. The monks were part of a rogue sect of the Roman Catholic Church, living in the same monastery where he had trained lifetimes ago.

  For decades they attempted to end his immortal existence. Righteous fanatical fire burned in their eyes when they confronted him, seeking to kill what they considered an abomination before God. He still bore a scar from one of their encounters. His right forearm had an indentation where one of the monks sliced off a chunk of his flesh. As a Night Walker, he healed rapidly, but flesh torn from his body would not regenerate.

  The scar was the closest the Fraternidad had ever come to wounding him. During the last century, their physical attacks were rare, but they still watched him. He sensed their presence at times, heard their thoughts and prayers. While most of the monks kept their distance, unsure how to kill him, every few years an especially righteous warrior would show himself and force an inevitable battle.

  There were times Calisto welcomed the challenge. Anything to break the monotony of an unchanging existence.

  He straightened in his chair, holding a single parchment envelope. His name and address were written in a scratched script only achieved through use of a quill, and a single red wax signet sealed the contents inside.

  A signet he had not seen in over 200 years.

  He ran his fingers over the entwined flames of the ancient seal, his brow furrowed. He hesitated to open it and sat back in his black leather chair, quietly spinning his own signet ring around his finger with his thumb. He fought to make sense of the envelope he now held in his hands.

  The envelope had no postmark. It must have been hand-delivered. But seeing the signet told him enough about the sender. Fraternidad del Fuego Santo.

  He knew where the letter came from even if he wasn’t sure from whom.

  With a sigh of frustration, he broke the seal and carefully removed the letter inside. It read simply:

  We know where you sleep.

  Calisto crumbled the letter with a scowl. He slammed his fist on his desk, and then shot from his chair.

  They had no right to judge him. In fact, he still held them responsible for helping to create him. And they dared come to his home and threaten him. Did they have any idea of his power? It didn’t matter. He would put a stop to this.

  The monk came to his home while he slept. This messenger had gone too far. It would end now.

  Calisto raked his fingers back through his thick hair, snagged his black leather jacket free from the coat hook, and stormed into the night.

  Tala lived again, and he would not let the church come between them. Not this time.

  …

  Kate had spent the entire day shopping for something appropriate to wear to her meeting with Betty. She told herself that was the reason anyway. It wasn’t because she secretly hoped Calisto Terana might show up, too. No, it wasn’t that she wanted to see him again. Not at all.

  Ok, maybe just a little.

  It was dark by the time she got back to her parents’ house. She dropped her Macy’s bags and collapsed o
nto her dad’s overstuffed easy chair. She looked down the hall at the office. She should at least check her e-mail. But exhaustion weighed heavy on her shoulders. Instead, she reclined the chair and let her eyes drift closed. She just needed a little rest.

  Her breathing deepened, and gradually the landscape took shape. Her body tensed, her mind already anticipating the chase, the fear. But instead she saw... water?

  Waves lapped at her ankles, and a man walked beside her. His face was lost in the shadow of the bright sun that warmed her skin.

  She held a flower, studying it, twisting it with her fingertips. It wasn’t a rose. The petals were larger and more delicate. Then she recognized it. The same flower she’d seen at the mission in the courtyard. The scenery around her gradually shifted, fading and growing darker as the dream changed. The woman ran through dry brush, fighting for breath, for life.

  The sound of her own scream woke her.

  Kate sat up, sweating and shivering all at once. Her mind raced with receding terror and confusion. The dream had always been the same—until tonight.

  Why would it change now, after all this time?

  She struggled to keep the details fresh, fighting to remember. There was a man. Could he be the same man who chased the woman in her nightmare? She wasn’t sure, and the more she thought about it, she realized she didn’t want to know. She hoped she would never see that man’s face.

  Finally Kate managed to stand, then wandered into the dark kitchen for a glass of water. It was probably just her pent-up emotions about being back at her parents’ house, combined with her anger at Tom’s betrayal, that changed her dream. Either way, she couldn’t go back to sleep.

  The clock on the stove read 2:33 a.m. The sun would be up in a few hours, and she felt like she hadn’t slept at all yet. She dug through one of the plastic shopping bags on the kitchen counter and pulled out a box of instant hot chocolate. Maybe if she had something warm and soothing to drink, she might be able to sleep.

  It didn’t hurt that hot chocolate was her go-to comfort food.

  She dumped the packet into the cup, filled it with water, and after ninety seconds in the microwave, she had a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Leaning against the sink, she took a cautious sip in an effort to keep from scalding her tongue. She caught herself thinking about the man on the beach as she stared into the darkness. Kate wasn’t sure why the man had suddenly appeared in her nightmare but it was a relief to think about something other than the woman running for her life.