Dark and Dangerous: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances

by Jennifer Ashley

  Keep moving, Adam commanded himself. He dropped to all fours, pipe grasped in both hands, his body tabled over Talia.

  The wraith lanced out blindly and hit the building where Adam had been standing, raining stucco plaster down on his back.

  Adam tightened his grip on the pipe, throwing his weight and twisting to spear the wraith in the gut. The metal pierced with a sickening slide and stuck in the wraith’s ribs.

  The monster screeched again. He caught Adam at the belt and shirt collar and heaved him off Talia. The shirt ripped with Adam’s weight, the cloth searing against his throat as it gave. The belt held fast and the wraith sent him spinning cockeyed back into the wall, headfirst.

  Blinding pain bolted down Adam’s neck and through his jaw. His ears roared and salty blood coated his mouth. But the pile he landed on was soft. Talia, again.

  Adam braced against the building and kicked back with his leg. Knocked the wraith off balance.

  Two loud shots echoed out into the night.

  Custo. Finally.

  Physically subduing a wraith was absurd. They were too strong, regenerated too quickly to kill. Adam had learned that the hard way with Jacob a long time ago. At least the bullets would stun him momentarily, though.

  The wraith crashed back into two tall plastic garbage bins. He flailed, ripped a lid off, and sent the cover flying against the building in a warped ricochet.

  “I’ll take her to the car,” Adam called. His head pounded. Thick, warm moisture dripped into his right eye.

  Custo responded by plugging the wraith with two more shots. The monster still twitched.

  Adam cradled Talia to his chest and rounded the bend of the building. A motley group of people stared into the mouth of the alley. More than one held a phone open. To call for help or catch the fight on video?

  Adam couldn’t think about the implications of the widespread panic that would follow wraith exposure now. The only thing that mattered was Talia.

  The car waited down the street, beyond the gawkers. Adam shouldered his way through and limped toward the vehicle. He shifted her weight to open the back door, then gently laid her inside.

  “Stay out of the alley,” Custo shouted to the gathering crowd. He burst through the group as Adam crawled in the back over Talia—careful, now—and yanked the door shut.

  Custo got in the driver’s seat, jammed the key in the ignition, and sped away from the intersection.

  “How bad is she?” Custo asked.

  Adam wiped the blood from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. Stung, but he didn’t care. “I don’t know. Wraith didn’t touch her, but she’s burning up. She’s got heat stroke at the very least.”

  “Hospital?”

  Adam found the flutter of Talia’s pulse at her neck. He regarded her blonde hair, matted to stringy dun, and her overly thin face, smudged with grime. She’d obviously been through hell and hadn’t trusted her troubles to law enforcement. She’d have had a reason. The woman was nothing if not ruled by reason.

  Two months missing. Two months hunted, more likely.

  In the rearview mirror, red and blue police lights skated across Custo’s face.

  Much better—safer—to get her back to Segue. A gamble, of course, but she’d survived this long already; she’d just have to hold out a little longer.

  “Airport,” Adam decided. “We’ll see what we can do for her there before takeoff. But we can’t take too long. That wraith won’t be alone.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Talia woke to a blinding brightness. Unforgiving hands pushed her down into a cruel bathtub of water filled with invisible icy knives. She fought, but the hands would not release her, and the blades speared ever deeper into her muscles.

  Shivers wracked her body in mean waves, and her heart galloped like a runaway horse, tripping on her chest and beating her deeper into the water.

  A face leaned over, the overhead light shining like a solar halo around his head.

  “Dr. O’Brien,” a low, male voice said. “You have heat stroke. We’re trying to bring your body temperature down.”

  Heat stroke? That was a lie. She was freezing.

  She cowered back and squeezed her eyes shut, intensifying the throb in her skull. They can’t find you in the dark. She gritted her teeth, but they still rattled in her head. Please don’t let them find me.

  Her body knotted, clenching in her calves and at the small of her back. Her clothes, heavy and twisted, seemed glued to her skin. A sound echoed out. A cry building to a scream. She bit her lips—no screams, no dark devil—and grasped at the arms that held her.

  “Patty says she’ll be cramping up pretty bad. She says we need to massage her legs and calves,” another said.

  “Then get in here and hold her, so that I can,” the first answered.

  The shape of a man crept low next to her.

  Her stomach spasmed; she choked, felt herself abruptly lifted, and then she vomited over the side of the tub.

  “Damn,” the second man said under his breath.

  They settled her back in the water. A hard bar of an arm fell across her chest while merciless hands stroked deep into the muscles of her calves. Hurt. Bruised. The hands moved up to her thighs.

  Strange hands on her body. No! She kicked again. A backlash of water swamped her.

  “Settle down, Dr. O’Brien. You’re going to be okay. You need to drink a little. Can you do that for me?” The first voice again.

  Something skimmed her lips. A straw. Her tongue felt too big to work it right. A splash of sour, sweet fluid hit her mouth and mingled with the acid of her vomit. Made her choke and cough.

  “That’s it. Just a little more.”

  She tried, but her shakes were too bad.

  “More,” the voice commanded, losing its kindness.

  She wanted to cry, but she did as she was told. Took in a deep drink.

  “Watch her temperature,” the other man said. “We don’t want it to drop too low too fast. That’s supposed to be bad.”

  A hand pressed on her forehead. Lingered there long enough for her to sense a well of great strength within its bearer. Then it was gone. “Still feels hot to me, but the ice water screwed with my hands. Did Patty say how long to keep her in the tub?”

  “Until her temp comes down.”

  Another hand touched to her head, too light and brief for her to sense anything. “I think she’s better.”

  “Okay. Let’s get her up and her clothes off. Go get me something to wrap around her. Nothing heavy. Pull the sheet off the bed.”

  The first man took hold under her arms and hauled her out of the water to stand dripping on the floor. In her clothes. Strange. He knelt before her, working the button on her cutoff jeans, peeling them downward, and shifting her weight so she could step out. He paused at her panties, but then stripped those down, too.

  Mortifying, but she shook too much to do anything about it. She glanced away from his ministrations and got a brief impression of a small bedroom, spare and utilitarian. Smelled like a garage.

  “Scissors,” the man stripping her called.

  A sudden sob escaped her. Her weight swayed forward and she dropped her hands to the man’s shoulders.

  A warm arm went up around her waist to steady her. His hand, hot on her waist, branded her with a sense of his strength and purpose. Cued a sensory memory of that very same arm turning her in darkness so that her body was sandwiched—shielded—by his and the wall of a building. The monster not three paces away...

  Scissors started up her shirt. They parted her bra, too, which didn’t make any sense because the clasp was in the back. Then he shrugged the sodden fabric off her shoulders like a jacket.

  A deep freeze wafted over her shoulders as a white sheet billowed open and swaddled her. The man lifted her off her feet and gently placed her on a hard chair.

  “Drink,” he said.

  She complied. The sour fluid made her stomach roll.

  “Did you ever find a thermome
ter?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “No. Not part of the first-aid kit.”

  The hand went heavy on her forehead again. “Is the plane ready?”

  “Should be, yes,” the other answered. “The doctor will be a few more minutes.”

  Plane? The straw hit her upper lip.

  “Drink,” the man commanded, again.

  She pulled some fluid into her mouth.

  “What is this?” Her throat felt raw, voice scratchy. Speaking took too much effort.

  The man crouched down near her feet. His eyes were gray-blue, like the ocean, but steady and intent under dark brows drawn together in concentration. An angry abrasion pebbled with scabs crossed his forehead below a short crop of dark hair. He had tan skin, lined slightly at the outer edges of his eyes, but not with laughter. It was a serious face, handsome in its symmetry and lines, but tight with care, disquiet, and trouble.

  “It’s just water and sugar.” His voice was back to kind, its low timbre soothing and warm.

  “Lime Gatorade,” the other one amended.

  “Talia, I’m Adam Thorne. This is my friend, Custo Santovari. We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

  A million questions seeped through her confusion. They hurt almost as much as her body. But one superseded them all and was worth the energy it cost to form the words.

  “Am I crazy?”

  He smiled. “No. The world’s gone crazy, but you’re just fine. It took an amazing amount of courage to elude the wraiths for so long. You’re safe now. I won’t let anything touch you.”

  Adam stooped and lifted her. Her body pressed against his chest, an arm pinned uncomfortably tight between them. He smelled good—a hint of citrus coming off his jaw, darkened by the labor of the day.

  At her hip, wetness spread as the dry sheet absorbed water from his clothes.

  Down a narrow hallway. Concrete floors. Long, fluorescent tubes running overhead. Then out into the night across a tarmac to a small plane, white stairs folded down as if awaiting the president or vacationers from an island getaway.

  Adam didn’t pause at the stairs, but powered up them, his heart drumming against her side with the extra work of her weight. He maneuvered her inside, passed the bulk of a wall and through a door to tuck her into a buttery leather seat.

  She was hot, sweat prickling at her scalp, and she couldn’t quite seem to catch her breath. He reclined the seat to engage a footrest. A drink appeared at her side from an attendant she had not noticed on boarding. The cabin both spun and tilted at the same time.

  Adam brought the glass to her lips. “Easy now.”

  Cool fluid filled her mouth, splashed her throat, and dripped down her chin. The cabin lost its color and dimmed. Her darkness rolled over her. Claimed her again.

  “Where’s the goddamned doctor?” Adam shouted.

  She reached out blindly for something to hold on to, desperate to keep from drowning. She found Adam, his strength an anchor in the storm of shadows shuddering around her. And beyond their deep, layered depths: Glowing red eyes. Black wind. The devil lurking in the darkness.

  Adam watched as Talia descended into a series of tremors, black irises swallowed by dilating pupils.

  He dropped the glass he held to her lips and found it again when his knee crushed the broken shards as he knelt to restrain her hands, striking out in clumsy defense at imagined attackers. The cabin went black, lights dimming as the sound of the engine distorted to a hiss, then roared back to life.

  Shit. One emergency at a time, please.

  Adam fought through the dark to grip Talia’s wrists so that she didn’t harm herself. The lights flickered back on. Good.

  He peered down into her eyes, willing her condition to stabilize. “Help’s coming. You’re going to be all right. Stay with me, Talia. Just hold on.”

  Her trembling abated, breath ragged, pulse wild under his fingers. Skin burning again.

  Behind him, the plane’s door thumped closed as the handlebar engaged to lock for flight. Adam glanced over his shoulder. Custo accompanied a short Asian man bearing two large satchels marked with a red cross and a middle-aged woman holding another.

  “She just had some sort of a seizure,” Adam informed them.

  Talia shuddered again under his arms, but he held fast. He caught the moment her lids closed over the whites of her eyes. And—damn it—the lights of the airplane flickered into darkness as the engine whined again.

  “Doctor!” Adam barked, then said more quietly, “It’s okay, Talia. Hold on. Help is here.”

  But help didn’t arrive. The cabin of the plane remained blackened while Talia trembled uncontrollably on the seat. Adam’s heart thudded as he tried in vain to control and comfort her simultaneously.

  “Custo!” No answer. Adam couldn’t see a damn thing in the darkness. Where the hell was the doctor? Where the hell was Custo?

  Securing a new plane, Adam hoped. This one was obviously not fit for flight.

  Talia’s tremors subsided until only her chest hitched in shallow hiccups. Adam found her hot cheek and brushed away the twisted strands of hair that covered her face. Her chin quivered under his fingertips as she wept without tears.

  Adam understood. Between the constant terror of the wraith’s pursuit and her current physical condition, Talia would need considerable time and care to return to health.

  “You’re safe with me, Talia. Just rest. Everything is going to be fine.” I hope.

  Adam’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dark until he could just make out the shape of her face condensing into solid form. Her skin gleamed against the backdrop of shadows. Downright ghostly. Disturbingly so. Her gaze sought his, the set of her eyes unusually slanted, and she seemed to relax. The cabin lightened further.

  Her features and coloring were a study in contrasts. He found the combination interesting. Strangely so. She reminded him of Jacob, perfect in some otherworldly way and yet, not. But it was the simultaneous lightening and darkening of the surroundings with her seizures that jarred him. Coincidence?

  The nurse and doctor rushed forward and dropped their bags on the floor. Adam drew back, knees smarting from glass, to allow room for them to work.

  No. The concurrent return of Talia’s lucidity and the shift in their environment from mute darkness to light could not be denied. The same damn thing had happened with her in the alley when darkness had blotted out the stars, the light from the street, even the glow from the apartment windows above. The wraith approached, and what had she said? Use the dark.

  The wraith had not attacked until Talia had passed out, when the darkness receded.

  Talia’s gaze sought Adam, her oddly tipped eyes looking to him for assurance. He forced himself to smile and nod: You’re going to be okay, now.

  As Adam glanced out the window, he was surprised to find the plane had taken off during the blackout without incident. Adam lowered into a seat across the aisle from Talia and her doctor, his mind blazing through the implications.

  Talia hadn’t altered the environment, only his perception of the environment. Altered the wraith’s perceptions in the alley, too.

  Handy, that. No wonder the wraiths were so determined to find her.

  Whatever had happened, the event was localized to her immediate area. The plane and its captain were unaffected, taking off, business as usual.

  “Did that scare the shit out of you, too?” Custo put a hand to the back of his neck.

  “I think we’ll be okay,” Adam said. “Talia’s doing it.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Custo dropped into the seat opposite Adam.

  Adam continued his thoughts aloud. “The dark. The strange sounds. She’s doing it somehow. I figured the wraiths were after her because of the Shadowman mention in her paper, but maybe it’s something more. She’s not normal.”

  “Wraith?” Custo’s gaze shifted to Talia’s supine body.

  Adam took in her white face, the deep circles under her eyes.

  “
No. She’s seems to be having a typical response to the extreme heat. Frankly, I don’t know what she is. We may have stumbled onto something here that will finally give us some leverage against the wraiths.”

  The idea made him both cautious and excited, as if he just found a rare butterfly in an urban jungle. He dropped his gaze to the floor. He needed time to think events through. To disregard all his conclusions and open himself up to new ones.

  He took a deep, steeling breath. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I want all the information there is on her. I want friends, professors, neighbors questioned. I want birth records, medical records, report cards. Anything and everything.”

  “We have a good start already from our missing-persons search. I’ll go back further, dig deeper,” Custo answered. “And for chrissake, when the doctor is done with Talia, make sure to have him take a look at you. You look like hell.”

  Gray. The perfect color. A little darkness, a little light. Talia was comfortable here.

  The wind whispered a nonsense of soft, punctuated s’s. “...she’s stable. Sleeping soundly...”

  Talia opened her eyes. She lay in an unfamiliar twin bed, covers folded across her chest and tucked under her arms. The walls beyond were painted a soft yellow, unadorned. A bare table stood at the foot of the bed. No windows.

  She glanced down at the shape of her body. It seemed foreign to her, a long and shallow mound under a light blanket. A clear tube tethered her to a bag of fluid in her peripheral vision.

  Beep. Her eyes flicked over. Beep. A monitor of sorts displayed a line dancing with sharp peaks and valleys. Beep.

  Heartbeat. That was something, at least.

  She tried her legs, twitching her feet and pulling a knee up. Her joints ached, and a prickling told her she had to pee.

  She shifted her hips.

  Something was already between her legs. Burned, that.

  Her stomach tightening, she slid a hand under the covers to investigate.

  No panties. Narrow tube. Oh, God.

  “Hello?” she called. “Somebody?”