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

by Jennifer Ashley

  Patty’s face flushed. “I was at Jacob’s christening. I saw him graduate from Harvard. Your mother borrowed my handkerchief. I will not purposely cause pain until the moment we can euthanize him. Even then, my aim is to see that he goes as peacefully as possible.”

  The argument went back six years to the family “intervention” in Jacob’s disturbing new lifestyle. Dr. Patricia Riggs, Mom’s childhood friend and the Thorne family doctor, was on hand for discrete support. No one doubted she’d keep her evaluation of Jacob’s condition within the Thorne family. Mental illness? Drug addiction? They should be so lucky.

  Patty was in the room when Jacob “kissed” Mom, witnessing the extent of Jacob’s transformation. She saw what came after, as well. Adam wasn’t proud of that. Now she still honored the friendship regardless of the risk to herself.

  Ah, hell. She deserved a little honor back, not him snapping at her.

  Adam exhaled his frustration and dampened his tone. “You’re a softy, Aunt Pat. Always have been.”

  The Aunt Pat had Patty’s nose reddening, eyes rapidly blinking against tears. Pat with no family of her own, no family but the fucked-up Thorne brothers.

  “I need to get back. Get Dr. O’Brien back in bed,” she said, voice high and broken.

  “Okay. I’ll be around, say two o’clock?”

  “That’ll be fine. Try to keep the tour short. She’s bound to get tired quickly.”

  Adam nodded and rounded the corner from Patty’s lab to his own office. He coded himself inside. A glance at the monitor told him that over the past hour Jacob had migrated to the far corner of his cell to recline, head lolling with boredom. Which was just fine.

  Then he got a good look at his desk. The files dedicated to leads on Talia O’Brien’s whereabouts could safely be shredded. Security reports had to be seen to. Budget. Correspondence to a half dozen field researchers. And the updated global wraith watch needed reviewing so that he was current on areas of wraith growth, movement, the establishment of supply chains and wealth.

  The wraiths were organizing. They even had a friendly and innocuous-sounding name. The Collective.

  Budget could wait. The Collective could not. Adam tapped the console on his desk. A three-dimensional image of the world sprang up on a cutting-edge monitor hung from the ceiling beyond his desk. Like blood trails, wraith movements spotted across the United States in red drips of varying concentrations, coagulating in big cities where feeding could be masked by the concentration of crime.

  Adam ran a program to track the rate of growth. The computer produced alarming streaks of rapid development that had Adam’s chest constricting. Within—what?—a year The Collective would have a sizable force in every major U.S. city. Nothing short of war would eradicate them.

  Adam sat back in his chair. Willing or not, there was no way he could allow Dr. O’Brien to leave.

  “Haunted with a view or peaceful without?” Adam asked as he pushed Talia’s wheelchair out of Patty’s office.

  Talia had been sullen and silent upon his arrival, dressed in khakis, pink blouse with a wavy-looking collar, and slippers. Considering the clothes’ conservative and matronly cut, Adam deduced that they were both Patty’s selections and taste, ordered and overnighted while Talia recovered. The shoes must not have fit, but Adam wasn’t about to ask and stir up trouble between the women. Only Patty could have talked Talia into the wheelchair, ready to go at two o’clock on the spot with mutiny written all over her.

  “You can’t be serious,” Talia returned.

  “In your line of study, surely you’ve considered the existence of ghosts.” He stopped at an elevator at the end of the hallway. The silver doors parted to reveal the vestiges of an antique iron cage, a throwback to the building’s origins. If Talia thought the ironwork odd, she didn’t voice it.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “You can’t imagine that I would actually select my own prison cell and give you any kind of false support for your keeping me here against my will. This whole ‘tour’ is a farce.”

  “You’re not a prisoner; you’re a staff member.”

  “I resign,” she said.

  “I’ll consider your resignation when you can walk on your own two feet without turning green.” The lie sounded smooth and reasonable, even friendly, but then Adam was well practiced.

  They stopped one floor up, exiting into a marble-tiled atrium over which an enormous crystal chandelier sparkled like a suspended falling star against a background of rich mahogany.

  He halted there while he coded them out a set of French doors and onto a sweep of white terrace that stretched around the east side of the building.

  Unkempt, overgrown lawns rambled away from the building into the tree line. The natural, rolling green collided with a dense forest of spruce and, farther east, white pine spiking along Knob Ridge. The air outside, thick with moisture and sticky heat, clung to Adam’s skin and clothes.

  Talia twisted her head to look over her shoulder. Adam followed her line of sight. Segue walls climbed brick and stone, multistoried, with extended wings and terraces jutting symmetrically off at each side. Pretentious front steps led to the white-columned main entrance below them, and to the left.

  “Okay, so, one more time: where are we?” Talia asked at last.

  Adam grinned. “Segue operates out of what used to be the Fulton Holiday Hotel, a kind of turn-of-the-century West Virginian mountain resort for the upper crust.”

  Her gaze dropped from the building to him. “The kind of place they profile on the Travel Channel? Ladies in white dresses, croquet on the lawn?”

  “Something like that. Or at least until the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. The hotel was on the brink financially. Apparently, the nearby system of caves was not as much a lure as Theodore Fulton thought they’d be. When the flu hit the hotel, Fulton fell ill himself and died soon after. His sons ran out on the place. It changed hands a couple of times until it came to my family.”

  Talia pushed herself out of her chair and walked slowly to the edge of the terrace. Adam followed, watchful.

  He continued, “I tried to restore what little bits of the hotel I could without impinging on Segue’s needs. Found the chandelier from the foyer in a storage cellar, overlooked by the looters and vandals who stripped the place in the years after it was abandoned. Took a little doing, but this is pretty close to how it would have been.”

  “It’s very—” she began.

  He stepped to the edge and glanced at Talia’s profile. Her white skin glowed against the backdrop of green, the afternoon sun warming her complexion from ash to soft pink and gold marble. Stray twists of blonde tugged away from her shoulder to stream across her cheek, to lift and quiver on the light breeze.

  “—remote,” Talia finished.

  Lovely in profile.

  She turned her black-cat eyes on him, meeting his gaze.

  Disconcerting head-on.

  Time to get down to it. Adam took a deep breath. “I’ve done my near-death research based on the substantial bibliography at the end of your paper.”

  She turned away again and leaned up on the banister, all curiosity and interest suddenly shuttered behind a hard expression.

  “From what I’ve read, near-death experiences often include a meeting with already-departed family, sometimes friends, but always someone in close connection with the person undergoing the experience.”

  Talia didn’t answer. Kept her gaze off in the distance.

  He tensed, watching her every movement for reaction. “What I can’t figure is how Shadowman fits into the near-death scenario, unless that’s a code name for someone who knows how the wraith threat began.” He kept his voice light, tone neutral, as he suggested his theory. “A ghost, maybe, like those that populate Segue?”

  Her expression remained impassive.

  Adam pushed harder. “It wouldn’t be so hard to believe. Jim Remy, our resident parapsychologist, is half in love with Segue’s Lady Amunsdale. Been track
ing her obsessively since he caught sight of the beauty. Is Shadowman a ghost? Someone who has already passed but might have our answers?”

  If that were the case, protocols would have to shift dramatically to the occult. What he needed was a confirmation, a clue, something to point him in the right direction.

  The muscles in Talia’s face tensed, but she remained composed. “I’m not going to answer your questions. Thank you for saving me in the alley and for the medical attention you’ve provided. When possible, I’d like a ride into the nearest town, and I’ll go from there.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Adam said. He only had to close his eyes to see the computer-generated wraith projections again. The reality was, Talia didn’t have the luxury of debating the issue. Time was short. He needed information on Shadowman now.

  Her head whipped toward him. “Let’s just get this straight—I am a prisoner here.”

  No, prisoners he kept in the basement. Maybe it was time she learned the difference. Her new lodgings could wait, he had an altogether-different destination in mind now.

  She’s not ready, an internal voice warned.

  None of us are, a harder self returned.

  “I want you to meet someone. I think he’ll be very influential.” Adam gestured to the wheelchair.

  She took her seat coldly, folding her arms for emphasis, and he pushed her back inside to the elevator. He coded it open, backed her within, and selected Sublevel J. For Jacob.

  The elevator hissed downward, doors opening into the outer atrium to Jacob’s cell. Two guards stood sentry at the cell entrance, Ben and Thomas. Both had powerful, broad shoulders, thick necks, and muscular legs in command of quick reflexes. Except for their facial features and their coloring, one black and the other olive, they could have come from the same gene pool.

  Takes two smart, strong, and trained men working in concert to bring down a wraith.

  “I don’t want to be here. I want you to know that this is against my will.” Talia’s voice shook and she gripped the arms of the wheelchair.

  While second nature to Adam, the security had to be overwhelming from Talia’s perspective. Adam had personally selected the guards, pored over the blueprint to Jacob’s cell, and debugged the security program that ran the system. These guards and the coded, locked doors weren’t just security, they were the wraith reality. The sooner she got used to it, the better.

  “I don’t want to be here either.” Jacob made Adam’s skin crawl and his chest ache, but the time for reservations was over. If he asked it of her, he could give her no less himself.

  Adam nodded to the guards and coded the outer door to Jacob’s cell open. He angled Talia’s wheelchair inside and up to the main console, a white arc of work space fitted with security monitors, control panel, computer oversight, and speakers.

  Adam tapped on a screen, set front and center. “That’s Jacob.” He swallowed hard. “My brother.”

  Jacob lifted bonelessly to his feet, his movement a subtle and graceful contradiction of nature. White and clean, his junk waggling between his legs, he stepped up to his favorite camera.

  “D’you bring me a treat, Adam?”

  Talia recoiled from the console. She pushed out of her chair and backed to the wall.

  Adam didn’t blame her. He didn’t even try to keep up a pretense of Jacob’s humanity anymore.

  “He’s a wraith,” she said.

  The room darkened perceptibly. Talia dissolved into a mottled haze of shadow. Jacob’s smiling face was in the monitor, seemingly unperturbed or unaware of the darkness falling on this side of the cell wall.

  The guard’s hand went to his weapon, but Adam waved him down. “Just stay put and do nothing until I say otherwise.”

  Adam knew this drill. The flight from Arizona had made him a quick study.

  “Smells like a woman, Adam. You finally get yourself a girl?”

  “Talia. Dr. O’Brien. Jacob can’t get out. You’re safe.” Adam kept his voice calm and sure. “You saw my security measures. Each has a minimum of three redundant systems. I haven’t overlooked anything. I swear it to you.”

  “You can live and work here? With that in your basement?” Her voice was breathy and uneven.

  “You will, too.” He moved slowly forward.

  The trick was to approach without confrontation. To reach her skin to skin. Then bring her out.

  “Adam,” Jacob sang, making things worse. “Give her to me. I know just how to handle her. I have something very particular in mind.”

  Adam took her by the shoulders and turned her body toward him. He slid his hands over her collar to her neck, then higher to cup her face, his hands on her bare skin.

  His vision grew sharper, his senses more acute. Her skin was taut silk, the contrast of her bright hair and pale skin against half shadow, otherworldly.

  He peered into her dark eyes and made damn sure that his were in her own line of sight, capturing her full attention. He didn’t expect the pull of physical connection that made him want to draw her closer. To cover her soft form with his body. To protect her.

  She was so weak already. If he could have spared her all of this, he would have. But he had no choice.

  She was already shaking her head. “Please let me go. I don’t want to feel...”

  “Afraid? It’s natural to be afraid. Just don’t let yourself be overtaken by it.”

  Talia’s gaze hardened. “My fear has kept me alive.”

  “No. Your fear just prolonged the inevitable.” A hard truth. “You would’ve died in that alley.” A couple more hours in the heat would’ve done it, even if she’d managed to stay hidden from the wraith.

  “So what? Now I owe you my life?” Her pulse raced under his fingertips. Patty was going to kill him.

  He kept his voice steady, full of calm reason. He knew of all things she responded to reason. “I want you to hear me out. Come out of your fear and get a good look at what you’re afraid of.”

  “Oh, come on, Adam.” Jacob leered into the camera. “You forgot my birthday. Just one little cupcake?”

  “Take a good look, Talia. He is trapped in there. Starved for years and mad with it. And with your help, we are going to find a way to undo him.”

  “She’d have to do me first, eh?” Jacob jeered.

  “Talia, there’s no other place to go. Wraiths cover the country from coast to coast. I don’t know where you think you could hide. Here at least you could study them...”

  “...like you want to study me?”

  The accusation hit home, smart woman, but he knew that to confirm her suspicions was to lose her.

  Talia shuddered under Adam’s hands. “I don’t know what you think I can do.”

  “Near-death, Talia. And Shadowman.” He stroked her check again with his thumb. Had to. Would have drawn her into his arms if she’d let him.

  Jacob screeched, high and shrill. He thamp-thumped on the cell wall.

  Adam’s heart lurched at the sound, but he controlled himself. The cell would hold. It’d been designed to hold against anything. “You see, Talia? My brother fears one thing, and one thing only. All I have to do is say the name to terrorize him. The first time I tried to kill him—” the horrible memory slipped from the strongbox in Adam’s mind “—he said, no, taunted, that Shadowman couldn’t get him.” There’d been a lot of blood that day. And the smell—Adam packed the memory away and concentrated on how it felt to hold Talia. Concentrated on hope to replace the misery. “Who is the source who met Shadowman?”

  Jacob keened, high-pitched and pitiful.

  Talia sobbed. “I don’t want to be part of this.”

  “I’ll keep you safe. I swear it,” Adam pleaded. “Just tell me what you know so we can find out how to kill the wraiths.”

  “I saw what that one did to Melanie.”

  “And I saw what Jacob did to my parents.” The memory came anyway. The pain of their loss and the burgeoning horror of what Jacob had become.

  �
�Please, I don’t want to feel this,” Talia said. She groaned and twisted to disengage him, but he would not let go. He had to make her understand.

  “Jacob got to my...” Adam broke off. Pain sucked the air from his lungs. He took a deep breath. In and out, forcing himself to do what should be automatic. Just like the old days.

  Adam tried again. “He got to my mom first. Killed her before we even knew what was happening. When Jacob went after my dad, I grabbed the fireplace poker. I was too late.”

  Talia whimpered.

  “But when he came after me, I hit him across the eyes. I was lucky. Wraiths still need their eyes to see. Once I blinded him, I trapped him in a concrete cellar on our property. Then I shot him.”

  The gut-twisting, almost hysterical, fear of the time washed over Adam. The first time he’d turned the gun on his brother, the abrupt report, the smoking hole just left of center in Jacob’s forehead. If Adam’d had darkness to hide in, he would’ve very likely stayed there, too.

  “I can still hear Jacob, Shadowman can’t get me. He killed our parents and made a game of it.”

  “Must have been horrible. You loved them,” she said, her face lined with grief. She’d stopped fighting and instead bowed her head, her forehead just grazing his chin. “The pain of their loss never goes away, does it? It’s always there, behind what you do. You keep going for them.”

  So she did understand. “I have to. I can’t let go until this is over. Until Jacob is dead.”

  “But it’s not my fight.”

  She wanted the truth. He was going to let her have it. “It’s everyone’s fight, now. The world’s. Most just don’t know it yet. Besides, a researcher looks for answers, and if this isn’t the most practical application of your field of study, I don’t know what is.”

  He dropped his arms in frustration. She leaned back onto the wall and faded into shadow.

  “Why aren’t you afraid of me?” she asked. “I could be just as horrible as Jacob in there.”

  Ah, a latent fear. She was just as afraid of herself as she was of Jacob. That alone took her out of the threat category. In contrast, Jacob embraced his inner monster and relished it.