Born to Darkness Box Set
Page 1
BORN TO DARKNESS
BOX SET 1
by
Evangeline Anderson
CRIMSON DEBT
Addison is a Non-Glam—one of the rare humans who is immune to vampire glamour and mind tricks. Corbin is a Four Star Master Vampire with piercing blue eyes and intentions to get Addison into his bed. She has no interest in the six foot four hunk of sexy vampire man candy until her best friend, Taylor, is given to the Vampire Inquisitor. Now to save her friend Addison must pay the Crimson Debt.
SCARLET HEAT
A misunderstood vampire marries a reluctant werewolf and the results are explosive. Will Taylor succumb to the madness growing within her or can Victor save her from the Scarlet Heat?
DESSERT
This is a little something hot and sweet set after the events of Scarlet Heat, the second book in my Born to Darkness series.
RUBY SHADOWS
Nothing is for free when it comes to demons... An innocent witch who must journey through the seven circles of Hell. And the dark and dangerous demon who will guide her. Will Laish be able to keep Gwendolyn safe in the Infernal Realm. Or will the lose themselves among the Ruby Shadows?
CLAIMED
A race of Genetic Traders from beyond the stars. Three very different types of Alpha males all focused on one thing…claiming their brides. In all their years of travel the Kindred have come across only three worlds with species close enough to their own to initiate a trade. Earth is the fourth. Olivia Waterhouse is about to be Claimed.
BORN TO DARKNESS
BOX SET 1
by
Evangeline Anderson
* * * * *
Published by Evangeline Anderson at Smashwords
BOX SET COMPILED BY:
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Copyright © 2015 by Evangeline Anderson
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold 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. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this story are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Author’s Note #1: To be the first to hear about new releases, join my new newsletter. I promise no spam—you will only get email from me when a new book is out for either preorder or for sale.
For more hot romance, check out Evangeline's Brides of the Kindred series.
Also by Evangeline Anderson
Brides of the Kindred books (in order)
Claimed (also available in print and as an audio book)
Hunted (also available in print and as an audio book)
Sought (coming soon in audio)
Found (coming soon in audio)
Revealed
Pursued
Exiled
Shadowed
Chained
Divided
Devoured (also available in print)
Enhanced
Cursed
Enslaved
Targeted
Forgotten
Switched (coming early 2016)
Mastering the Mistress (A Brides of the Kindred novella)
Stand Alone Novels
Purity (coming soon in audio)
The Institute: Daddy Issues (Coming Valentine's Day 2016)
The Academy (YA novel)
Born to Darkness Paranormal series
Crimson Debt (coming soon in audio)
Scarlet Heat (coming soon in audio)
Ruby Shadows (coming soon in audio)
Cardinal Sins (coming soon)
***The above books are just a small sample of Evangeline's work. For a complete list of books from all publishers, please visit her website***
BORN TO DARKNESS
BOX SET 1
Table of Contents
CRIMSON DEBT
SCARLET HEAT
DESSERT
RUBY SHADOWS
CLAIMED
Also By Evangeline Anderson
About The Author
Born to Darkness
Book 1: Crimson Debt
Addison Godwin is a Non-Glam—one of the one in ten thousand humans who is immune to vampire glamour and mind tricks. Her gift enables her to work as an Auditor, enforcing the law that vampires and humans keep their distance from each other except in a purely non-physical way. The law is necessary because when a vampire tries to have sex with a human their blood-lust combines with their sexual appetite and the result looks like road kill.
Alec Corbin is a Four Star Master Vampire with piercing blue eyes and intentions to get Addison into his bed. He promises he can be gentle but Addison has seen way too many vamp/human crime scenes to go for that. She has no interest in the six foot four hunk of sexy vampire man candy, even if he is supernaturally hot.
But just because she Audits (and sometimes executes) vampires for a living, doesn’t mean she hates them all. Her best friend, Taylor, was turned against her will. Now, living as a slave to one of the crueler Master vamps in town, she leads a miserable existence and Addison is helpless to save her within the confines of the law.
Things come to a head when the Vampire Inquisitor comes to town and Taylor is given to him as a sex slave. When Addison sees her best friend tortured, beaten, and burned with silver she knows she has to do something—even if it means teaming up with Corbin and paying the Crimson Debt.
Table of 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
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
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Chapter One
“So you’re working here of your own free will? No one has coerced you either mentally or physically into employment at Under the Fang?”
The college age barmaid gave me a bored look and snapped her gum. “Yeah, I mean no, nobody forced me or anything. I’m here ‘cause the tips are great, Master Corbin won’t let anybody fuck with us, and I get as much glam-sex as I want for free. What’s not to like?”
What indeed. I studied her eyes, looking for the telltale red pinprick in her pupils that denoted a thrall but there was nothing. There never was at Under the Fang, Tampa’s premiere glam-sex club, which always pissed me off. I would have loved to nail the owner’s hide to the wall. Self-satisfied bastard.
Sitting on a raised dais in the center of the club was the bastard in question—Alec Corbin, a four-star master vamp who looked like a wet-dream come true. He was six four and probably around two twenty or two twenty-five, all of it muscle and he wasn’t shy about showing it off either. Right now he was wearing a tight black t-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders an
d muscular chest and made his dark blond hair glow positively gold in the dim lights of the club. He’d died needing a shave but the dark blond stubble on his square jaw only added to his sex appeal and I was willing to bet that he knew it.
However it wasn’t his size or his looks that drew the admiration of every fang freak in the sunshine state—it was Corbin’s eyes. Fringed thickly with dark lashes, they were a deceptively light silvery-blue that reminded me of the reflection on the surface of a lake. A mysterious body of water that had unexplored depths with monsters swimming somewhere down deep, just waiting to grab you and drag you under. Pretty on the surface and fucking scary underneath.
Yeah, that was Corbin, all right.
As though feeling my gaze on him, he looked up and smiled at me, showing just enough fang to be insulting. I met his monster’s eyes without fear and gave him a blank look back. I can do that because I’m an Auditor, but I don’t recommend it to your average garden variety human. Being one of the one in ten thousand who is immune to a vamp’s glamour and mind tricks comes in handy for me in my line of work, but if someone without my gifts was to try what I do, they’d be screwed six ways to Sunday.
“Seriously, I mean this gig rocks. Where else do you get multiple orgasms as a bonus?”
The chirpy voice of the barmaid drew me away from my staring contest with Corbin and I turned to look at her again. She had curly hair that was done up in a lot of tendrils around her round face and there was a fresh set of fang marks on her neck. Looking around the club, which was decorated in red, black, and silver, I saw more than one patron with a matching set. The sex for blood trade must be hustling tonight.
“So you do the glam-sex thing a lot, do you?” I asked, wondering about the state of her gray matter. There haven’t been any studies to prove that glam-sex—that is mind-sex with a vampire—has long term side effects, but how often could you let another being alter your brain before it turned to mush?
“Yeah, it’s great. Especially with Master Corbin. I mean, I only got it from him once, back when I first started, but wow.” She waved shyly at Corbin who didn’t bother to acknowledge her. His lack of attention didn’t seem to bother his employee, however. “It’s like amazing,” she gushed, grinning at me. “I mean, have you ever tried it?”
“Can’t.” I pointed to the small black star tattooed at the outer corner of my right eye—the mark of an Auditor. I use makeup to cover it up when I’m out but the law mandates I keep it visible while I’m at work. It’s the same law that forces vamps to have their own tattoos—one star for every century they’ve been alive. Or undead, if you want to get technical. They use a special kind of ink—I’ve heard it’s blood based—in order to make a permanent mark on a vamp and even so it fades over time and they have to get it redone. Alec Corbin had four little blood red stars under his left eye. As far as I knew, he was the only four-star vamp in all of Florida, which was fine with me. The longer a vampire survives, the stronger he gets. Four stars are rare and scary enough, any more and you’re getting into truly frightening territory.
“Oh, right.” The barmaid shook her head. “Vamps can’t glam you, huh? Bummer.”
“I manage just fine,” I said dryly. “How does your boyfriend feel about you having glam-sex with the fangers every night?”
“Oh, I haven’t dated anyone since just after I started here two years ago. I was going with this one guy—we were even thinking of getting married. But he got mad when I quit school to work at the Fang full time. He was all ‘Glam-sex is still cheating’ and I was like, ‘As if, asshole. They don’t even touch me.’ But he totally wouldn’t see it my way and he was being a jerk about the whole thing. So we broke up.”
“So you quit school and you haven’t had a meaningful relationship outside the confines of your own head in two years? All just so you could work at a bar and get mind-fucked every night?” I asked bluntly. “Think about it—you could be married with kids and a career by now and instead you’re slinging beers for minimum wage. Is it really worth it?”
The barmaid’s cheeks flushed an angry red. “You sound like my mom. Come to think of it, you kind of look like her too.”
Okay, that hurt. Thirty was coming up pretty fast but I didn’t think I really looked my age. If anything, my bright red hair, big brown eyes, and freckles made me look younger than I was—a trait I hated but used to my advantage when I needed to. Probably what the girl was referring to was my choice of clothing. I was wearing a gray tailored pantsuit with black heels to add a little height to my five foot four inch frame. The cut of the suit was pretty severe and it didn’t show a bit of skin besides my hands and throat—a far cry from the barmaid’s daisy dukes and cut-up-to-here midriff t-shirt.
“Forget I said anything,” I told her, snapping my citation pad shut. “What you do with your life is your business.”
I was trying to make peace but she couldn’t let it drop. “Like you’ve done so much with yours,” she sneered. “You’re just some kind of bureaucrat who goes around and tries to ruin other people’s fun. Is this what you do all day? Ask people stupid boring questions?”
“Actually, I also kill vampires sometimes,” I said pleasantly. “So my job isn’t all boring.”
The girl’s mouth was suddenly hanging open and I had a moment of satisfaction when I thought I’d finally gotten through to her. Then a deep, cool voice behind me said, “I think you’ve annoyed Ms. Godwin quite enough for now, Bambie. Maybe you should go see if table five needs a refill on their drinks.”
“Yes, Master Corbin.” The awe in her voice made me roll my eyes and she bowed and actually backed away, as though Corbin was some kind of royalty. Well, to fang freaks like her, he probably was.
“Sorry about that. Bambie isn’t the brightest barmaid we have here at the Fang but she’s competent and reliable.” Corbin stepped around to face me and turned the force of his considerable charm on me like a spot light. I could feel the envious stares of the other women, and quite a few of the men in the club as well, as they watched us.
“No problem. Just part of the job.” I met his eyes because I could. But just because he couldn’t glamour me didn’t mean it was easy to hold his unwavering silver-blue gaze.
“The job which includes killing vampires,” he said blandly.
I frowned. “That’s right.” I wore a Glock 22 loaded with hollow point bullets filled with silver nitrate and I knew how to use it. I’d only pulled the trigger twice—both times my life had been threatened—but I was also the state mandated button man—or button woman in my case. That is, when a vamp was sentenced to death, I was the one who pushed the button that opened the skylight in the sun room where our fanged friends were executed. Hey, somebody had to do it and it was part of my job. Not a part I particularly cared for but I wasn’t going to apologize for it either.
Corbin seemed to sense my defensive mood because he changed the subject. “I trust you got the information you needed and that our little establishment passed your test with flying colors?” he asked smoothly.
“You’re in compliance.” I couldn’t keep the annoyance out of my voice. Other vamp run establishments had regular complaints but Under the Fang never had a single problem. Every employee was perfectly happy, every customer completely satisfied. The local PD never even got any drunk and disorderly calls which was unheard of since the club had a full bar and last call wasn’t until five AM.
“You sound disappointed.” Corbin grinned, showing more than a little fang, which really pissed me off. Not a lot of humans know it but displaying their fangs is more than just an expression of hunger for a vamp—it’s an outright sexual come-on. Corbin might as well have rubbed his hard-on against my thigh—that’s how subtle it was.
“Why don’t you close your mouth, Corbin. I don’t appreciate your little display.”
“You should be flattered,” he said mildly. “Not many breathers affect me this way.”
“You get a hard-on for danger. Is that it?” I shifted m
y stance so my jacket fell open, revealing the Glock strapped under my arm. Unfortunately, Corbin’s silvery-blue eyes went to my breasts instead of my gun.
“Let’s just say I like aggressive women.” He smiled at me, not retracting his fangs a bit. “It’s a great pity, though, that you have to use a weapon to back up your threat. It would be so much better if you had the physical strength to meet me as an equal.”
“Why is that? You want to arm wrestle?”
He laughed, a deep, rich sound that seemed to go right through me. “I think I’d prefer a different kind of wrestling and I don’t mean of the glam variety.”
I could feel myself blushing and it pissed me off. Corbin was talking about sex— not mind-fucking but actual physical sex—which was highly illegal between humans and vampires. That’s because you can’t go to bed with a being strong enough to bend an iron bar in half and not wake up looking like road kill the next morning—if you wake up at all, that is. A vamp’s blood-lust combines with their fuck-lust when they try to have sex with a human and the result usually looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.
“I see I’ve given you some food for thought,” Corbin noted when I didn’t answer his innuendo.
“Yes. You have me thinking you’re offering more than glam-sex here, which, as you know, is against the law.”
He crossed his arms over his broad chest and grinned. “I would never offer such a thing to a human—not unless she could handle it, Addison.”
The use of my first name pissed me off even more, as he no doubt intended. I reached for my cuffs—the ones made of a tough silver alloy vamps can’t break. They’re also covered in velvet to keep their skin from burning on contact, which sort of ruins the effect in my opinion but whatever—they work.