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

by Jennifer Ashley

  He couldn’t be serious.

  A weird light gleamed in his eyes. “Maybe they’re better.”

  Talia’s jaw dropped.

  Spencer abruptly laughed, brought his hands up to surrender. “Hey. Just playing devil’s advocate here.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Talia closed the door in his face.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Out.” The guards took one look at Adam’s face and left the outer atrium to Jacob’s cell.

  Sudden movement on the monitor drew his attention. Jacob on his feet, running his hands through his hair to bring the lanky mop under control. Then he brought his face up to the camera while his body effected the grave and servile bow of a butler. May I help you? Always mocking him.

  “You chose this.” Adam dropped his hands on the console for support.

  “I beg your pardon, sir?” Jacob inclined his head as if trying to understand what Adam implied.

  Playing them both for fools. Not anymore.

  “You chose to be this monster,” Adam clarified, careful to enunciate each syllable. “Your condition isn’t a new disease, an unanticipated consequence from using an exotic drug, or some strange possession. You chose this. You want this.”

  “And?” Jacob blinked rapidly in an outward show of extreme patience at Adam’s stupidity.

  Stupid is exactly what Adam felt. The idea that Jacob, the scion of the Thorne family, the prudent businessman and philanthropist, his fucking big brother would choose to become a monster had never occurred to him. The man Adam had known was brilliant, fearless, and vain in his responsibility for the legacy of the Thorne family. This devolution was beneath him.

  “Why?” Adam’s throat had tightened and the word came out in a broken croak.

  Jacob straightened. “Don’t be dense.”

  “You killed Mom and Dad. On purpose.” Fresh pain spread across Adam’s chest like blood from a mortal wound.

  “Stop whining. They were going to die anyway, eventually.”

  “You fed on them,” Adam said through clenched teeth.

  “Like a babe to a mother’s teat.” Jacob sighed and grinned.

  A hundred wonderful tortures sprang to Adam’s mind, held at bay these many years only by the burden of family duty.

  But now, desperate fantasies grew in Adam’s mind like a dark garden of twisted flowers denied sustenance too long. Colorful creations that would trap and teach Jacob what a monster really was. Exercises in the limits of pain and loneliness. Acts that rivaled a wraith’s soul feeding.

  First, Adam had to know why. “You had everything handed to you. Born to wealth, the best education, a loving family, opportunities to do anything you ever dreamed, a girlfriend who loved you. Hell, you had plans, years in the making, to build Thorne Industries to dominate global markets. Why this?”

  Jacob shrugged. “I got a better offer.”

  “What could possibly be better than what you had?” You ungrateful son of bitch.

  “I got Forever. This—” Jacob looked around his cell, mouth pursed in distaste. “—this will pass. The world as we know it will pass, and after everything is gone, I will still be here. Then I can do anything I want, whenever I want. That’s global power.”

  “Tell me how you did it.”

  “You know I won’t.”

  “What if I want to join you?”

  Jacob snorted. “You don’t have the kind of long-term vision necessary. You’re stuck in the past with Jena and Michael.”

  “That’s Mom and Dad, to you,” Adam bit out.

  “See what I mean?”

  Rage burned in Adam’s chest, cauterizing the wound that was the loss of his parents. “I will end you. I swear it. I will find the way to undo this mockery of immortality, and I will tear you apart with my bare hands.” Already his hands itched, ached, to enact the madness in his mind.

  “Is that any way to talk to your older brother?”

  Brother? How could that...that creature call himself his brother? Just because they shared the same gene pool? Adam didn’t think so. Not anymore. Siblings could be disowned. All natural feeling of connection and obligation severed. Happened all the time.

  Adam closed his eyes and willed his heart away from the wraith in the cell. Not his brother. He sought cold indifference. A removal of all feeling. Not his brother.

  Jacob laughed. A light, gleeful little chuckle that poured gasoline on the fire of Adam’s rage.

  Adam choked. He had to get out of there.

  He stumbled to the door, tapped numbers into the panel, and tripped out into the corridor beyond.

  The guards brushed silently by, eyes askance, and resumed their watch within.

  Custo leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed, waiting.

  “Why are you still here?” Adam yelled. “Why aren’t you off living your own life, away from this constant nightmare? Find a woman, settle down, and have a bunch of brats.”

  “That bad, huh?” Custo lowered his gaze.

  “Talia was right. He chose to become a wraith. Admitted it freely, as if I should have known all along. And I should have.” Adam fisted and released his hands. They shook uncontrollably. He didn’t know what to do with them short of wrapping them around Jacob’s neck.

  “Not you. It’s not in your nature to think that someone close to you can be that destructive by design. You save people. It’s what you do. It’s what you have always done.”

  I was blind.

  “Did you know?” Adam asked. Had Custo known all along as well?

  Custo pushed off the wall and gestured toward the elevator. “No, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not here for him. I’m here for you. You’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever known. And family sticks. You taught me that every time you pulled my sorry ass of trouble.” Custo’s mouth curved. “Remember that business with the boat?”

  Family sticks. What the fuck was family? Adam sure as hell didn’t have a clue anymore.

  “I wanted to impress a girl,” Custo continued. “You took the blame.”

  “You’d have been thrown out of school.” If Custo were trying to distract him, he was doing a piss-poor job. Memory lane was not exactly where Adam wanted to be.

  “That’s part of why I did it, too. If I had been thrown out, maybe my family would’ve taken notice of me.” Custo had been dumped in a boarding school at nine. No visits. No communication.

  “They never realized your value.”

  Custo shook his head. “What I’m trying to say is that my family did take notice. My family was with me. I knew it the moment you told the cops that you stole the boat.”

  Adam looked over at Custo. His right arm. His friend. In every way that mattered, his brother.

  The anger inside Adam cooled somewhat, abated to a few degrees above that six-year-old steady burn. It allowed him to gulp at air and smooth his expression. He could live with this trade. Hell, he had been living with it, working toward answers because of Custo’s dogged support.

  “Are we done being sappy yet?” Custo punched the elevator button.

  “Yeah, I think so.” Adam fought to bring his shakes under control. Flexed the last of the tremors from his hands.

  The door slid open. Custo glanced back as he entered. “By the way, if ever there was somebody who needed to settle down with a bunch of brats, it’s you.”

  Bring children into this world? Never.

  Through the peephole in the door, Talia watched Spencer swagger back to the elevator. She had to do something. Give Adam something. He might appear calm and controlled on the surface, but she’d felt the grief and pain that roiled beneath, and how close he was to becoming overwhelmed by the bright white fury that laced his being. He couldn’t go on like this for much longer.

  And with Spencer spouting nonsense about how wraiths might be an evolutionary step up? No wonder Adam was sick over his brother.

  The elevator pinged, Spencer stepped in, and the doors...finally...closed.

  Talia eased out of her ap
artment, took a sharp right, and opted for the stairs. She coded herself into the stairwell and hurried down to the main level of the hotel portion. She exited by the kitchen, where the stairs terminated, and chanced the elevator—yes, empty!—to the office and laboratory subfloors.

  If Adam already knew so much about her anyway, he might as well know what she’d discovered about Shadowman, her father. The research that had almost cost her life in the heat of Arizona.

  None of it suggested how Shadowman could help kill Jacob and set Adam free. She didn’t even know what Shadowman was. A ghost, like Adam suggested? That didn’t feel right, and it didn’t account for her abilities either. And why would Jacob fear a ghost?

  Talia coded into her office and headed directly for her laptop.

  A thought niggled in her mind: What Adam needed—though she’d never tell him, no way never—was that other devil, Death, the dark thing with the red eyes inside the black wind of her scream. The monster. The one who slaughtered the wraiths with a sweep of his scythe, and took Melanie down, too. Then had the perversion to—Talia shivered with the memory—to caress her cheek.

  That monster could kill Jacob. Easy. Jacob should fear him.

  She selected the file of images she’d been amassing, her research on Shadowman. CTRL A. Opened them all. She could give Adam this much at least.

  They blinked one by one, layering onto the screen. As she waited, her mind turned inward, shifting the puzzle pieces of her origin around:

  Jacob feared Shadowman, whom she’d met upon her momentary death, who likely had her ability to alter perception. But it was the monster who could kill him, called by her scream.

  Two entities, and she was connected to both. One desired effect.

  The heuristic of Occam’s razor said the simplest theory was the best.

  Why two entities? It made no good sense. Not unless...

  Her stomach turned. The room suddenly warped around her, and she clutched the table before her. It couldn’t be, could it? Was her heritage so horrible? Her birthright so despicable?

  Yes. Somehow she’d always known. It’s why she was alone.

  If she tried, she knew she could probably fit the puzzle together now. If she could summon the courage to face the truth, she could probably name Death. He was her father, Shadowman.

  Adam left Custo in the elevator and headed to his office, grim anticipation redoubling in his blood. If Jacob had chosen to become a wraith, then someone must have offered him the choice. Jacob was never going to give away the identity of this individual, but perhaps the algorithms of The Collective tracking program could be modified to isolate the general location of the source.

  Adam turned a corner to find Talia rapping on his door. His pulse quickened. His gaze darted up and down her body, but it was hard to get a sense of her curves when she was still wearing the shapeless clothes Patty had selected. He hoped new ones would come in soon. She was too young and pretty to be dressed like that.

  “Can I help you with something?” If she was here, then maybe she wasn’t angry anymore. Maybe he could have a real discussion with her. Work through her idea, see if her unique talents offered any solutions.

  Talia jumped and whirled. Her hair slipped, strand by strand, from a knot at the nape of her neck. He didn’t know why she bothered—the curls obviously rejected constraint.

  “Sorry for startling you.” Adam slowed his approach. First day on the job and she’d shaken Segue. Of course, that’s what he’d hoped. He’d wanted answers, and she’d given him one big enough to turn his world upside down.

  “Do you have a minute?” She tucked a strand behind her ear. Her eyes were strained. Sad, maybe. Or worried. Something had bothered her deeply.

  “Of course. Come on in,” Adam said, coding the lock. He reached around her to the lever that opened the door, his body surrounding hers for a moment. Her scent hit him, dark and sweet, an exotic fragrance more suited to her shadows than sterile Segue. The combination made him want to drop his head into her hair. Breathe deeper. His weight on the handle opened the door and she moved out of his circle and into his work space.

  It took a moment for his head to clear before he followed her into his own office. Employee, he reminded himself. He couldn’t ward off Gillian with that excuse and then pursue Talia. Besides, Talia was messed up enough as it was. She didn’t need him complicating her stay here. Damn her fairy eyes.

  “What can I do for you?” The door closed behind him. His gaze automatically flicked to the monitor—Jacob reposed in a corner, a small smile of satisfaction on his face, still gloating from their argument—and then back to Talia.

  “First of all, I need to change the code on my apartment door,” Talia said. She glanced at Jacob as well, her expression carefully circumspect, but she didn’t comment. “Spencer saw me punch it in.”

  “You invited Spencer to your apartment?” Adam had already warned her about the implications of SPCI being aware of her abilities. She was too trusting. Next time he sparred with Spencer, he was going to make sure he kicked his ass extra hard.

  In her room. Damn.

  “He followed me up. Wanted to discuss my ideas about immortality and choice. He spoke as if becoming a wraith weren’t such a bad thing after all. As if what they did wasn’t...abhorrent.” She frowned, a worry line forming between her brows. She, who’d seen what the wraiths were capable of and had been hunted herself, would not be able to tolerate any mind games on the subject.

  “You want me to talk to him? Tell him to lay off?”

  “I can fight my own battles, thanks. I just want my pass code changed.”

  Adam sighed. “Spencer has master codes, regardless. As do Custo and I, for security reasons. We have to be able to get inside any room in the event of an emergency.”

  “I don’t want him or anyone else going in my room.”

  “Talia...” he argued, but his heart wasn’t in it. The thought of Spencer touching her, of him making himself at home in her apartment, took all the strength out of Adam’s argument. He didn’t want Spencer in there either.

  And Segue Security? Perhaps in this one case, a modification was called for. Something along the lines of Talia Security. “All right,” he conceded. “I can disable his access to your office and apartment, but I am going to retain mine and Custo’s. Nonnegotiable.”

  She nodded. “I can live with that. Thanks.”

  Adam swiveled to face his computer. Called up the security system. Indexed Talia’s account. Entered his administrative override. “What do you want your new code to be?”

  “Uhm. Aurora,” she answered.

  The word suited her. Aurora borealis. The magical northern lights. She’d look just about perfect with the colors framing her features. Brink of the world, a fairy on its doorstep.

  “Thanks,” she said. Request granted, he expected her to beat a hasty retreat. Instead, she chewed on her lower lip.

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Um...are you okay? You seemed pretty upset at the staff meeting.”

  Something had happened during that meeting with Talia, too. She felt sorry for him. Nothing like a little pity to get her talking to him again. At least Jacob was good for something.

  “I’m good,” Adam answered. “I needed to hear what you had to say.” He left it at that.

  “Well—” She flashed a rueful smile. “I have something that might make up for it.”

  “Oh?” The woman was going to be the death of him.

  “I was wondering if you have anyone covering the arts.”

  “Martial arts?”

  Her lids dropped halfway, lips pursed. “Fine arts,” she corrected.

  Adam rapidly sorted his thoughts. “I know that the existence of wraiths has bled into popular consciousness. I wouldn’t be surprised if people tried to make sense of what is going on through music and art. But I haven’t pursued it as a research focus at Segue. Why do you ask?”

  She inclined her head. “I think you may have misse
d something.”

  Adam sat forward. “How so?”

  “It’s what I was working on in Phoenix, before the wraith caught up with me. I was tracking down an artist. If you have a minute, I’d like to show you what I’ve found. I think you’ll find it interesting, at the very least. I don’t know if it will help with Jacob.” Her gaze flicked to the screen. Like Custo and Patty, he knew she’d have understood what Jacob’s choice meant to him.

  “Could you come over to my office? Take a look?” She was chewing on her lip again, plumping it to ruby red. The worry was still in her eyes, so it couldn’t have been Spencer that bothered her. Had to be something else. Maybe something she’d found.

  Adam stood and gestured toward the exit. “Absolutely.”

  She used her new code to open the door, glancing out over her shoulder at him with a look of thanks, and then they stepped inside.

  The room echoed with emptiness. Bare shelves lined the far wall, a couple of someone else’s thick books stacked and forgotten on one shelf. The walls were plain white, scuffed here and there from equipment and storage. A dark wood conference table stood in the middle, her laptop open at one end. As far as he could see, her near-death research remained in cardboard boxes, but instead of on the table, where he had put them himself, now they were beneath, acting as a footrest.

  “You know you can requisition anything you need or want for this space,” Adam said, looking around for signs of her personality, her work, of someone moving in with the intent to stay. He really wanted her stay. He’d be thrilled if she’d drain Segue’s account to make herself comfortable. If he could make her comfortable.

  She beckoned him over to her laptop and hit the space bar to void the field of stars moving across the screen as she took a seat.

  An image appeared, a photograph of a sculpture in a gallery setting. Adam bent low to make out a mixed-media, abstract creation, a representation of a human form writhing in agony and trapped by encircling mesh layers. Adam’s gut responded to the piece, aching in sudden sympathy for the futility with which the figure fought his trap. The figure could be anyone, but Adam saw himself.