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

by Laura Kaye

  “Lexine?” Jett called.

  “I’m fine.” She stood and rinsed her face in the sink. Jett waited for her in the bedroom with a bottle of water in his hand.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  She accepted the bottle and took a long gulp of the cleansing water. “Don’t worry, really. Just my standard post-nightmare freak-out.”

  “Standard? How often does this happen?”

  “Every time I sleep.” She sighed and rubbed the spot over her heart. “I don’t know if you know this, but when demons have recurring dreams, they always depict the future.”

  He blinked. “I didn’t know that.”

  “It’s rare.” She took another sip of the water. “But true. I say it’s ‘just a dream,’ but that’s bull. I just don’t understand how I could ever love a heartless killer. I’ll have to turn my back on everyone I care about and leave the colony to have a life with my mate. He’d never be welcome in Sanctuary. Thing is, I do believe love is that powerful. Love overcomes everything.” She drew in a shaky breath. “But right now, I hate him. I hate myself knowing that I’ll one day love him.”

  “Lexine.” Jett took a step forward, his gaze steady. “I agree love is powerful. I’ve seen it in action. But nothing trumps free will. If you don’t want him, you can choose.”

  “I will love him and be his mate freely. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it.” She sighed. “Sorry. You barely know me, and I’m unloading all of this—”

  “It’s fine.” Jett frowned, the expression most intense in his eyes. A shiver ran down her spine. He looked…hurt. She recalled their earlier moment on the bed, when she’d thought he might kiss her. It hadn’t been an accidental lean-in or a trip. He’d seemed entranced. Something deep in her chest clenched. Jett came from a nightmare of a past, but had turned his back on that evil and saved Raphael. He was complicated, but honorable. A good man who would be someone’s loving mate one day.

  Lucky tramp.

  She worried her lower lip with a fang. After the dreams had started in her late teens, she’d dated with abandon. If she took a demon mate, she’d change her fate, or so she’d hoped. But she hadn’t found love, and though she would have settled for less to escape a future with a poacher, none of the males deserved to be used like that.

  But, this male made her heart race and her fingers tremble. Should she give dating another try? Would he be even remotely interested, or would he head back to forest and his hermit ways?

  “Hey, Bryce,” Jett said.

  Lexine turned to see her little brother rubbing his eyes.

  “Hey, Guardian.”

  “Call me Jett.” His shoulders visibly stiffened. Lexine sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed Bryce’s hair.

  “Vin’s here,” Jett said, staring toward the window.

  A black SUV pulled up in front of the motel room and Vin got out of the driver’s seat, a deep frown on his face. Jett went out to meet him. She followed a moment later, holding Bryce’s hand.

  “…not a goddamned thing,” Vin was saying to Jett. “No scents, no paper trail. Not even a pencil was left behind in the house. The locals know nothing. It’s like he dropped off the face of the earth.”

  Jett swore and shoved a hand through his uneven haircut. He took a deep breath. After a pause, he said, “Okay. So we don’t have a trail. Not an obvious one, anyway.”

  Lexine got Bryce settled in the SUV with a pair of sunglasses. She shut the door so he couldn’t hear them talk about the attack.

  “Not an obvious one?” Vin echoed.

  “Today’s events make no logical sense whatsoever,” Jett said. “They killed three children and an adult and kidnapped a fourth child only to drive him three hours away to kill him, too? At the abandoned lab? What could the humans possibly gain from such a show?”

  Lexine shuddered.

  “They could have dumped Bryce anywhere,” Vin said. “They meant for us to find him. Here. No wonder they didn’t kill you.”

  “Yeah, I’m the only one who knew to come here. But how did Lawrence know I’d be there last night, if my role was so important in his plan? How could he even know I was in Sanctuary? He’s the one who raised me to hate the place.”

  Vin’s voice darkened. “I don’t know, but if this is about you, there is something I need you to be very clear about.”

  Lexine glanced from one demon to the other, wringing her hands. Shit, Vin wouldn’t kick Jett out, would he?

  “And what’s that?” Jett said, his tone dry.

  “That we have your back, if you’ll let us.”

  Lexine let out a heavy sigh of relief.

  Jett paused, glanced at Lexine, then back at Vin. “I…”

  “What?”

  “Lexine,” Jett said. “Any luck calling the colony?”

  “I haven’t tried since I woke up,” she said. “Why?”

  Vin pulled out his phone and made a call. He listened for a moment, shook his head, and put the phone away. “Tower’s down, been down for a couple hours…” Vin froze for a long moment and shut his eyes. “Son of a bitch…”

  “They murder demons and kidnap a child,” Jett said. “The Guardians, of course, send their best to get him back. I lead them to a location three hours away.”

  Lexine opened her mouth to ask what he was talking about when the meaning behind his words hit home.

  The colony. This was about the colony. Bryce had been merely a means to weaken Sanctuary’s Guardian protection. This whole thing had been a trap.

  Chapter Six

  Raphael perched on a narrow, rocky outcrop that jutted out from the lakeshore, unable, unwilling, to move. The midmorning sun reflected off the still water. All around him, Sanctuary sat in withdrawn silence and stillness, the buildings hidden from sight by the deep green, late-summer foliage of the forest.

  The attack in the woods had stopped every resident of the colony in their tracks. Jac and three of the children under his supervision: slaughtered. One five-year-old, Jac’s little brother: kidnapped. Human scents all over the scene. Raphael had rushed to them as soon as he’d sensed the injuries, the energy of his healing talent crawling over his skin in warning, but Jac and the children had died during the precious moments it had taken the Guardians to check the area and for Raphael to arrive. Now, his white wings drooped until his flight feathers rested on the surface of the water.

  A dark crack rumbled in the distance, shattering the quiet. He glanced toward the sky. Thunder? The few white clouds didn’t hold much threat of a storm. The smaller feathers along the top of his wings stood on end as foreboding filled his gut. Was the tension getting to him, or were his instincts warning him of real trouble?

  The shrill cry of an infant pierced the air. A second joined in.

  His grandchildren. Raphael’s lips twitched, warmth competing against the ice for room in his chest. He shifted his gaze to the house. Solar lights edged the flight decks, still glowing faintly under the morning shade of the oak tree. The interior of the granite dwelling sat in stillness except for the new fourth-floor addition—his son’s home. His daughter-in-law’s wingless silhouette passed by the open French doors. Though she was half archangel like his son, Ginger took after her human parent.

  With a heavy sigh, he got to his feet and extended his wings, seeking the warmth from the sunlight that beat down. Since finding the bodies in the forest, he’d been unable to shed a deep chill that had risen to the surface, unable to banish the old pain from the time when his mate and his young son had been attacked in the woods. Wren had survived and so much had happened since then, but that sort of horror leaves permanent scars on a person’s soul.

  He stayed in that position, trying to clear his mind of everything but the sunlight on his body, until a voice pierced the silence.

  “Raphael.”

  He folded his wings to his back and turned. A redheaded demon emerged from the woods, the way he moved so subtle and deliberate he seemed to take form from the shadows. Lark, his personal Guardi
an.

  “Humans have taken out the cell tower with an explosive,” Lark said quietly.

  Poachers. Raphael turned his gaze to the house. Poachers, coming for his family, coming for him.

  Not again. Not again!

  “Please go inside,” Lark said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  He flicked his wings and focused on his old friend. “Bring yourself back safe, too.”

  Lark nodded and disappeared into the woods.

  Raphael winged himself to the fourth-floor flight deck. Though the French doors stood open, he wouldn’t have called on his newly mated son unannounced if circumstances had been normal. He tapped his knuckles against the door frame.

  Wren stepped into view, dressed only in black jeans. His white wings framed his body, the black markings at the tips of his feathers standing out like spilled ink. He held an infant, its tiny head resting against his collarbone. Miniature down-covered wings of black, gray, and traces of white, like a stormy sky, splayed across his chest. The newborn stared at Raphael sidelong with a wide, blue-green eye. Unlike human children, archangel young opened their eyes and explored their surroundings soon after birth, eager to take in the world.

  They had no idea what was coming for them.

  “Morning.” With a yawn, Wren stepped back, stretched his wings, and invited Raphael inside.

  Across the room, Ginger sat on a chaise, smoothing the second twin’s feathers. She glanced up, gathered the young, and got to her feet, every slow movement yelling exhaustion. It seemed they hadn’t gotten any sleep after the murders and the kidnapping, either.

  Wren wrapped his mate in the curve of his wing. “Any news of Bryce?”

  “Nothing yet.” Raphael shut the French doors behind him. “There’s something else.”

  “What?” Unease filled Wren’s voice.

  Part of him wanted to keep the information to himself. Silence wouldn’t protect them, though. “The colony is being attacked.”

  Wren and Ginger both blanched and stared in silence. Ginger’s arms tightened around the infant she held. The child, oblivious to the situation, reached up and tugged on her hair. Wren tucked his chin and pressed his cheek to the other infant’s head. When he spoke, his tone could have iced over the lake. “I will kill them myself before they lay a finger on my family.”

  With his ability to drain life with a mere touch, he wasn’t making an empty threat. As his mate, Ginger also commanded the ability. But even the two of them couldn’t take on too many enemies at once, should the worst come to pass.

  “It’s going to be all right,” Ginger said, her tone sur-prisingly calm. “The Guardians will handle it.”

  Raphael nodded, but the tension remained. By hitting the cell tower, the humans had given their presence away. Foolish. Why would they do that? More than thirty Guardians protected the colony—even without the small group that had gone with Vin—every one of them skilled enough to take on several humans at once. The last time humans had attacked, so many years ago, they’d exploited the colony’s central weakness: Sanctuary held five thousand acres of wooded land, surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of Vermont state forest. The attack had been mounted by only a handful of mercenaries, but they’d snuck through the woods and made it into the heart of the colony. Today, the fools would be lucky to live long enough to take two steps beyond the tower.

  They must know that. What did the humans hope to gain?

  Beyond the archway to the master bedroom, Wren and Ginger settled the twins in the double bassinet, a gift from Ginger’s adoptive demon father. Devin had carved the cradle himself from a fallen maple tree over the winter.

  Raphael closed the drapes over the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the exterior wall. He glanced over his shoulder. Wren stood with Ginger in an embrace, his wings bent forward to enclose his mate’s body as they kissed. She dropped her head to his shoulder.

  His shoulders and wings heavy, Raphael headed for the kitchen. No words could express his happiness for Wren and Ginger—they needed each other’s comfort at a time like this. But seeing them together like that added to the unbearable pain already revived by the murders. The anniversary of his own mate’s death had passed the previous week. While imprisoned, he’d never properly mourned, and now that he was free, he resisted. He couldn’t give in to that much pain.

  He leaned forward on the counter. “Nineteen years.”

  “Father?”

  He jumped, partially extending his wings.

  Wren stood at the opposite end of the kitchen area and made no move to come closer. Raphael sighed, realizing just how much space he’d forced between them in the last couple weeks. They saw each other every day, talked about anything and everything except the shadow of Thornton following them around. When the anniversary of Kora’s death had neared, Raphael had dodged the topic like an electrical storm. The accursed day itself, he’d avoided Wren, unable to look into the green eyes Kora had passed to their son, unable to look at his feathers without seeing the blood that had soaked them, one wing so close to having been severed.

  Raphael hadn’t been the only one to lose someone that day. He’d lost his mate, but Wren had lost his mother and thought he’d lost his father, too. Raphael had been imprisoned for eighteen years, unable to be there for his son. Now that he was free, why couldn’t he do any better?

  “I’m sorry.” Raphael crossed the kitchen and brushed his son’s wing with his own.

  “You should go see her. Soon.”

  Raphael glanced toward the closed curtains that obscured the view of the gardens where the Guardians had buried Kora. He hadn’t stepped one foot beyond the garden wall once since he’d been freed. He even avoided flying over the area.

  “I watched her die, son. I couldn’t help her.” And now, I can’t face her.

  “You can’t possibly blame yourself.”

  “I know, but…” Raphael flicked and resettled his wings. “After you escaped that night, Thornton buried a dagger in my side and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, Kora and I were in some godforsaken barn, and I was bound. He tortured her only inches from me. But I couldn’t touch her, couldn’t heal her. I’ve used this psychic healing talent to save hundreds of lives, but I couldn’t help my own mate.”

  Through the bond they’d shared as mates, he’d felt her pain. All of it. He’d have born that and more if it would have saved her. What destroyed him was the cold numbness left behind after she closed her eyes for the last time, the pain gone, his Kora gone.

  “I’m no fighter, but I should have been able to protect her, damn it. And what happened to you, what almost happened—”

  “I got out of there alive and with two wings because of you. And I don’t blame you for Mother’s death. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?” Wren stepped forward and rested a hand on Raphael’s shoulder. “You’ve been avoiding the grave, and you’ve been avoiding me. At times, you can’t even look at me.”

  Raphael’s wings slumped, his flight feathers dragging on the floor. “How can you not blame—”

  “Such a thing has never crossed my mind, not once.”

  Raphael shut his eyes for a moment, steadying himself. “Thank you, son.”

  Casting a pointed glance toward the bedroom, Wren stepped back. “I understand where you’re coming from. If anything ever happened to Ginger or the twins, I’d never forgive myself.” He paused. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about making some changes.”

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I trust Lark. I don’t blame him for Mother’s death, either. But, what happened to her showed that having only one dedicated Guardian isn’t enough.”

  Nearly twenty years ago a notorious but deceased poacher, Thornton Bailey, had stolen Lark’s body, murdered Kora, attacked Wren, and kidnapped Raphael, imprisoning him until eleven months ago. Even though Lark had ended up a bodiless spirit, entirely helpless, he’d refused to cross over and stood guard over Raphael for the duration. He wasn’t just a
dedicated Guardian; he was a friend.

  Despite the lengths Lark had proven he’d go to fulfill his duties after reclaiming his body when Thornton abandoned it for another, Wren was right. No individual Guardian could adequately protect a family of five.

  A thunderous roar, much closer than the one Raphael had heard from the lakeside, echoed off the hills. The twins screamed in unison and Wren ran back to the bedroom.

  Raphael folded a curtain back an inch, looking out toward the colony. Smoke rose through the trees.

  Another explosion. More smoke. The energy of his healing ability crawled over his skin like a chill, alerting him to injuries. Injuries to the attackers, hopefully, but his gut told him civilians had been hurt as well. He itched to help, but going too soon would be suicide. He’d be no use to anyone dead. Sanctuary was in the capable hands of the Guardians.

  Silence lengthened. The smoke thickened and darkened, but nothing else happened. Five minutes. The twins calmed. Ten minutes. Just when the quiet became too much, a voice came over the intercom from the front door.

  “Raphael,” Lark said, his voice rough. “It’s safe.”

  “There’re injuries in the colony.”

  “Yes.”

  Wren stepped out of the bedroom, his feathers ruffled. “Many injuries. You can’t help them all. I’m going, too.”

  Raphael frowned but nodded.

  “Go,” Lark said. “I’ll meet you there. Devin is on his way and there is a team regrouping here at the house. They’ll guard Ginger and the twins, but I assure you, the attackers have been dealt with.”

  “Thank you.” Raphael turned to his son.

  Wren’s lips thinned. “No disrespect to Dev and the others, but this is exactly the kind of situation that worries me.”

  Devin had the skills, but as Ginger’s father, he couldn’t be on the front lines. The position of a dedicated Guardian was volunteer and never solicited—the Guardian in question had to give up nearly everything else in his or her life to be effective.

  “Wren,” Ginger yelled from the bedroom. “The sooner you go, the sooner you get back.”