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

by Jennifer Ashley

  Her golden eyes dropped back to Snow.

  He purred.

  She shook her head, calmly crossed the room to him, and ignored her mate’s warning to stay away. She came to a crouch in front of Snow.

  “I think that is quite enough, don’t you?” She took the fractured bloody canister from him and set it down on the floor out of his reach.

  Antoine tensed, waiting for his brother to explode and knock her aside, or worse, for taking away his favourite toy.

  Snow lowered his head. Ashamed? That was a new one. Whatever dark power Lilah had over his brother, it was a gift given by the Devil himself. The woman was a witch when it came to Snow. No one could calm him as easily as she could.

  Sera stepped out of the bathroom, a towel now wrapped around her waist to cover her partial nudity.

  Snow looked towards her and tried to reach out to her but Javier’s grip on his cuffed wrist was too firm. He whined and kept reaching for her. When Javier moved behind Snow and pulled on the chain so his elbow bent and his hand hit his shoulder, Snow tried with the one Antoine held, another low whine escaping him. Perhaps it wasn’t just Lilah who had power over Snow. Perhaps all females possessed an ability to soothe the beast of his bloodlust.

  “He won’t hurt you.” Lilah smiled at Sera. “He’s calm now. These two won’t let you believe it, but it’s true. See.”

  “Lilah!” Javier snapped but his mate was already laying her hand on Snow’s bloodied cheek.

  The large male vampire closed his eyes and leaned into the delicate hand on his face. He purred again, the deep rumbling sound filling the tense silence. Lilah stroked his cheek and exhaled a long sigh, her golden eyes glittering with concern and tenderness. It had been foolish of her to touch Snow when he was in such a strange mood. She seemed oblivious to how dangerous his brother was, her faith that he was still Snow inside when the bloodlust seized him blinding her. Antoine could only hope that Snow never proved her unwavering belief in him wrong. He would never forgive himself if Snow ever hurt her or any of the vampires he worked with at the theatre. He would feel responsible for his brother’s actions because it had been his decision to conceal how dangerous Snow could become when the bloodlust took hold of him.

  “Come along.” Lilah rose to her feet and motioned for Snow to follow. He lumbered onto his feet and obeyed her with only a few snarls and growls in Antoine and Javier’s directions.

  Antoine didn’t want to leave Sera alone, not even for the few minutes it would take to cross the corridor to Snow’s room and make sure that he was comfortable and secure, and had everything that he needed.

  Lilah opened Snow’s apartment door and held her hand out to Antoine, as though she had sensed his desire to return to his own room as quickly as possible.

  “I think there’s a young woman in your apartment. I’m not going to ask what she’s doing there, or mention how surprised I am, or how surprised Javier is too. I’m just going to say that I think we can handle things from here if you want to go back to her and make sure that she’s okay. I promise that I will take good care of Snow.” Lilah smiled broadly and as he set the chain into her hand, she added, “I will say that I think it’s nice you have some company.”

  Antoine gritted his teeth and walked away, letting her have the last word. He would never hear the end of it if he tried to argue that Sera wasn’t going to be company in the way Lilah thought she was. There were enough women distracting the owners of the theatre already, without him adding to the list.

  CHAPTER 8

  Antoine stepped back into his apartment and the relief he felt on seeing that Sera was unharmed overwhelmed him. Without thinking, he shut the door, crossed the room to her where she was cleaning the blood off the floorboards and pulled her up into his arms.

  “You should have done as I said.” The reprimand was supposed to come out strong and forceful, a scolding for her foolish actions. It didn’t. It came out hoarse and in a whisper full of feelings that shocked him. He hadn’t felt his fear in the moment but it crashed over him now, only strengthened by the delay in his feeling it. His worst nightmare had almost come true.

  If anything was going to give him the impetus to let Sera go before things became more intense between them, it was that.

  He had tried to deny that any harm would befall her if he kept her, but he had been with her for barely an hour and already she had almost suffered the wrath of Snow’s bloodlust.

  “Antoine, you’re shaking,” she whispered and he realised that he was. “Come and sit down.”

  He was too tired to refuse and allowed her to lead him to the bed. Her hands grasped his shoulders and she forced him to sit on the edge of the king-sized mattress.

  “Is your hand still bleeding?”

  He didn’t know. He looked down at it. Yes, it was. The scratches on the back of his other hand were healing thanks to his saliva but he had left the wounds on his palm from the broken glass unattended. She muttered something and knelt before him. He could only sit and stare as she took his hand in both of hers, palm upwards, and began to lick the cuts. Heat chased away the cold numbness coursing through his veins. Awareness of each careful sweep of her tongue was only made more intense by the feelings that flowed from her into him as his blood in her body opened a deeper connection between them.

  She was worried.

  She wanted to take care of him.

  She cared about him.

  Antoine wasn’t sure of the right reaction for that revelation. Should he be happy that she had some sort of feelings for him? It would have pleased him once, centuries ago. He would have easily fallen into her arms and passed blissful years with her, uncaring of where the future led them, living for the moment.

  He wasn’t that man anymore.

  “Sera.” He took his hand away from her and she looked up at him, her green eyes round and edged with the barest thread of crimson. The thoughts swimming in his mind hurt him. If they hurt him, they would surely wound her. “This cannot happen.”

  “Why?” she said, neither demanding nor yielding. Exactly the cool courage he had expected from her.

  “Because.”

  She scoffed. “That is a lousy answer.”

  It was. He shrugged. What else was he supposed to say?

  “You saw my brother.” The way her face blanched confirmed that she had witnessed and understood the full horror of his brother’s reaction and subsequent breakdown. “That same darkness flows in these veins.”

  He turned his palm back towards her, revealing the blood seeping from the cuts.

  “My brother needs constant care. As constant as the bloodlust that seeks to rule him. My brother needs me.”

  “So, because your brother needs you, you don’t get to be with anyone? You can’t need anyone else, or have anyone else need you?”

  He didn’t really have a response to that one that she wouldn’t be able to just bat aside and refuse to believe.

  “Your brother relies on others. Your brother is not alone, detaching himself from the world. He has his demons, and he fights them, and he overcomes them... on his own. Restraining him didn’t free him from whatever dark need had seized him. He freed himself when that woman came in. He was freeing himself when he was looking at me.” Sera stood and sighed. “I could see it even if you couldn’t. That woman was right. Snow wouldn’t have hurt me.”

  “You cannot know that!” Antoine shot to his feet, his voice harsh in the quiet room. Sera didn’t back away. She stood toe-to-toe with him. Challenging him as always.

  “What is it that you fear, Antoine?” she said coolly, holding his gaze and searching it, looking deep into his soul. There was no use trying to close it off to her. She had the key now and could unlock it at will. She had found her way past his defences. “Are you afraid that you’ll lose control like that?”

  “I am afraid I will kill you.” He paced away from her and picked up the twisted remains of the two canisters. He dumped them into the bin in the bathroom. The scent of bl
ood followed him, strong and intoxicating. Antoine pressed his hands against the edge of the black counter surrounding the sink, ignoring the pain in his left hand, and drew in a deep breath.

  Sera appeared in the doorway reflected in the mirror. She sighed, stepped up behind him, and ran her hands over his shoulders. Devil, just that simple motion of her hands felt too good for him to resist. It told him to give up the fight and give in to her, seduced him into admitting that he liked the feel of her hands on him and the way it relaxed and comforted him. It had been too long since he had felt like this—cared about by someone other than Snow, close to someone and no longer alone in his quest to keep moving forward through his life.

  The past centuries had felt like that, a constant march onwards, his focus solely on his brother so he didn’t have to look too closely at himself. Only Snow had kept him moving forward and it was all he could do to escape his past. He refused to look back but now Sera had him balanced on the edge of doing just that, and surrendering to her demand to share his pain with her and embrace her and the fact that he didn’t have to be alone if he didn’t want to be. He wasn’t sure if he was strong enough to look back now without breaking down under the weight of it all. It felt as though each year that had passed without him acknowledging what had happened had done nothing to lessen the pain he would feel if he allowed those memories to surface in his mind and his heart. It felt as though each year had only increased it, and he was afraid that it would crush him now, would strip him of his strength and leave him broken. He didn’t want to feel weak and vulnerable. Not again.

  But the temptation to confess everything and share it with someone at last was strong, beating in his blood and his soul, coaxing him into putting voice to his past and letting it flow out of him in the hope that his pain would lessen by opening his heart to Sera.

  Sera was strong, unyielding in her pursuit of him, but was she strong enough to handle his horrific past and the terrible future that awaited him?

  “I’m not afraid, Antoine,” she whispered as though she had read his thoughts and rested her cheek against his back, just as she had done on the stage before they had made love.

  Antoine closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of her pressing against him, the intensity of the comfort it gave him, as though they were old lovers rather than practically strangers.

  “You won’t hurt me.”

  He wished he could believe that as fervently as she obviously did.

  Antoine turned to pull her into his arms.

  There was a knock at his door.

  He sidestepped and passed her instead of surrendering to his need to hold her. Javier was at the door. The sandy-haired elite male smiled grimly at him, a smudge of blood on his cheek from where he had been struggling with Snow.

  “Lilah has him settled now. She is singing a lullaby to him and says he will be sleeping by the end of it.”

  Antoine raised a single dark eyebrow.

  Javier gave an easy shrug of his shoulders. “Don’t ask me. Apparently, it works like a charm. He likes it when she reads to him too.”

  “I do not think it’s wise for her to spend so much time around him, especially alone.”

  “You tell her that. I am her mate and her sire, and I cannot convince her to keep away from him. I can guarantee that if you visit him tomorrow night, you will see the difference it makes. He is often much calmer and more in control the night after Lilah has sung him to sleep.”

  Incredible. His brother was not only a beast but a baby too. The Devil, Antoine prayed he never succumbed to bloodlust. He didn’t want Sera singing him to sleep like a babe each morning just to have him sane the next night when he awoke.

  Antoine paused.

  How had she got under his skin so quickly? Hadn’t he decided to end this? Now he was thinking in terms of years down the line and he remembered all too well what had happened the last time he had started doing that.

  Nothing but endless pain and misery.

  A century of happiness gone in a heartbeat.

  “Thank her for me,” Antoine said and Javier looked as though he had just kneed him in the groin. His brown eyes were wide and his eyebrows were pinned high up his forehead.

  Antoine huffed and closed the door in his face. Even he said thank you when someone had done something worthy of it.

  “Antoine?” Sera’s voice coming from his left rather than his right caused him to frown.

  He turned and found her sitting on the edge of his bed, one bare leg bent at the knee and resting on the red silk covers, the ankle of it tucked under her other leg where it draped over the edge.

  Temptation.

  Which Sera was sitting before him now? She must have snuck across the room whilst he had been talking to Javier and seated herself on his bed, so when he finished and turned away from the door he would find her there, beautifully arranged and waiting for him.

  Challenging him.

  The vixen.

  The flash of wickedness in her green eyes gave her away.

  It seemed his vixen wasn’t going to heed any of his warnings. Stubborn minx. Had Elizabeth warned her about him too? He knew her sire well, and her sire knew him. There was no doubt in his mind that Elizabeth had recounted various reasons for her to snuff out her desire for him before it really got burning, but he found himself wanting to hear her admit it.

  “You do not take warnings to heart, do you?” he said and she just shrugged and then leaned back on his bed, propping herself up on her hands. She drew her foot out from under her thigh, dangling both of her legs over the edge of the bed and swinging them back at forth at opposite times.

  Antoine stalked around her, keeping his distance, observing her and battling the temptation to surrender to her once again.

  “No doubt Elizabeth told you not to involve yourself with me?”

  She nodded. “Not so much involve. She told me not to even try. Said you were... as frigid as a nun and as cold as ice.”

  That one actually stung. Elizabeth had said that about him after everything he had done for her?

  “Don’t be angry with her. She doesn’t seem to know you... the real you.” Sera swung her legs forwards and propelled herself onto her feet. She stalked across the room towards him, hips swaying and her eyes on his, like a true predator. When she reached him, she trailed her fingers down his chest, her touch heating him to boiling point even with his silver-grey shirt dampening the feel of it. Sera tiptoed and brought her mouth to his ear. She whispered into it, “I know you now... I won’t break, Antoine, and I won’t hurt you... not unless you ask nicely.”

  Antoine growled. It rumbled up his throat, a possessive hungry snarl. He wanted to deny what she had said, wanted to tell her that she was wrong and she didn’t know him, and that he could so easily break her. He had seen the danger of the strength that flowed in his veins. Had witnessed it unleashed on those he loved.

  And on himself.

  The scars on his body burned, throbbing deeply, and he stepped backwards on instinct. Sera faltered, the confidence draining from her eyes. She thought he was distancing himself from her, that he was going to deny what she had said. He knew that he should.

  He rubbed the scars on his chest through his shirt.

  He couldn’t bring himself to do it though.

  Sera had offered him comfort and he was too weak to deny his need for it, and for her.

  “What dark secrets do you have in your heart?” Sera slipped her hand over his and curled her fingers around so they pressed into his palm, stopping him from rubbing his chest. She drew their joined hands away and frowned. He did too. He had been smearing his own blood across his shirt and he had been so lost in his pain and the dark secrets she spoke of that he hadn’t noticed. Sera sighed and pressed a kiss to the cuts on his palm. “You don’t have to tell me. Not if you don’t want to.”

  “I loved her for a century.”

  Sera went rigid, her lips frozen against his palm. It probably wasn’t something a woman wanted t
o hear about but she had to suspect that another had hurt him, so it couldn’t be unexpected. She should have been prepared to hear it. Maybe she had been, but she hadn’t anticipated the length of the relationship he’d had with the woman who had broken his heart.

  “She was an aristocrat,” he said and Sera released his hand and turned her back on him.

  “Oh.” It was a small sound, one laced with defeat.

  Antoine couldn’t quite believe what he was going to say.

  “I do not care that you are an elite, Sera.”

  Her shoulders tensed beneath her blue t-shirt. If she didn’t believe him, she didn’t say it. She turned towards him and blinked very slowly, her gaze assessing him. Searching for the truth.

  “I mean it. Javier and Callum, even my brother, would probably pass out if they heard me say it... but I mean it. I thought it mattered. My family had always lectured me about the elite and our bloodline, and how we had to maintain the purity of it. I believed them once. But what good did it do us?”

  His voice cracked on that last handful of words. What good had it done them indeed?

  If they had bred with humans and muddied their blood, they probably wouldn’t have awoken the dark hunger that lay dormant in all members of their species. Years of selective breeding, of mating with only other aristocrat families, had kept their blood pure but the price for such purity had been a weakness none of them could have predicted.

  His and Snow’s generation were the first to experience bloodlust.

  His family had paid dearly for their pride.

  Very dearly.

  Antoine slumped onto the bed and collapsed backwards onto the mattress, splaying his arms out across the cool crimson covers. He stared at the black canopy.

  The bed depressed to his left and Sera’s hand slipped under his. She was gentle as she inspected it and it touched him that she was still concerned about cuts that were nothing more than grazes compared with the open wounds on his heart.