by Ana Calin
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
Publisher’s Note:
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and events are the work of the author’s imagination.
Any resemblance to real persons or events is coincidental.
Copyright 2017 /2020– Ana Calin
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dark Protector (Dark Lords, #1)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Dark Protector
Ana Calin
Dedication:
Dedicated to my husband – the man who inspired Damian’s character – and my son, Jonas.
Chapter One
“Poor little rich girl.”
“Tell me about it. Did you hear about that gold digging ex-boyfriend of hers?”
I sighed and stepped further inside the Ovidius University café. Would I ever live this down? It had been a year already, and the tongues were still wagging.
Clutching my books to my chest, I hurried to the table where Leona Ignat waited. She looked up, arching one eyebrow. High cheekbones, silky black hair and a great body, Leona was everything I wasn’t – a real beauty queen. And yet she was the closest thing I had to a sister.
“Lose the face, Alice,” she said, closing her psychology textbook.
“Sorry, I don’t have a spare.”
“Better get one. You won’t lure the lads wearing that scared mouse look.”
I dropped my books onto the table with a thump. “All of a sudden I need to lure guys?”
“You’ve been without a man for months now? Time to dust yourself off.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Why are you bringing this up right now?”
She gave me a mischievous grin, and leaned in on her elbows. The plastic table tilted a bit under her weight. “Turns out the medical students have moved to campus for a semester. The Old University is being refurbished. There are quite a few fine specimens among those future doctors, if you know what I mean.”
“Okay, I’ll see what I can do to get my shine on,” I said with a smile, although truthfully I didn’t possess a so-called shine. I didn’t have much to offer aside from my father’s name, as famous as he was in Romania, and a set of freckles that made people go, “Aw, sweet,” rather than, “Wow, hot!” Foundation looked like unevenly distributed flour against my skin, or maybe that was just in contrast to my hair—galvanized wire as I saw it. Leona did her best with me but it didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to fight for attention.
Or was I?
I turned my gaze on him, much like everyone else as he entered the cafeteria. Tall, with waves of dark hair brushing his broad shoulders, and a remarkably well-muscled body under a white knit sweater. He was surrounded by a group of loud, boisterous boys with iron pumped chests, and he had all of the Barbies around him drooling.
“Damian Novac, medical student,” Leona whispered in my ear. She tossed a strand of ebony hair off of her shoulder with a flick of her wrist. “They call him Bane ‘cause of the looks. Women’s bane.” Large grin.
She smiled in his direction. I didn’t dare do the same. Instead I looked around like a fox wary of a hunter, thinking of strategies before dodging from the bushes. The last thing I needed was another bullet in the head or rather the heart.
Damian didn’t notice me that day, or the day after. Being petite had its advantages when it came to matters of stealth, so instead I observed him from afar...for weeks. He was aloof, and yet his eyes were always intent, as if his thoughts were fixed on something far beyond those walls, and his cares far more serious than the infatuations of wannabe divas.
His group of friends, nevertheless, always surrounded him, as if they were searching for his approval in everything they did. Even throaty laughs and slaps to the shoulder were accompanied by furtive was-that-all-right glances. So an alpha, I concluded.
“No wonder we’re all leaving wet traces like snails when he’s around,” I whispered to Leona. She laughed her bold laugh.
“I love it when you talk dirty, Alice.”
We left the university giggling and headed home to get ready for a party at the dorms where there was a good chance Damian would show up.
Leona took her role as an image consultant seriously, and right now she was working out her best scheme yet. Tonight, she said I would meet my destiny.
I DROPPED ONTO THE closed toilet seat and put my hands on the sides of my face. There was no hope. The rip in my pantyhose now crept up over my knee. I stood up and thrust my leg out.
“Just look at this,” I said, and shook my head.
Leona took one look into my teary eyes and smiled. “Just take them off!” She laughed. “Do you honestly think a man is going to care about that?”
The door to the bathroom swung open and one of our friends walked in. “You said red wine, right?”
Leona spun around. “Perfect timing,” she said. There was excitement behind her voice. “Showtime.”
“I can’t. This is stupid. I’m not you, Leona. These pantyhose are a sign.” I hated the sound of the whine in my voice, but it was true.
Leona shifted her gaze from my leg to my eyes. “In my experience, less is more. Now take them off. Honestly, all you need is this glass. This plan is fool proof.” With that, she kicked me into the party room.
Cradling the glass in one hand and coughing from all the cigarette smoke in the other, I glanced around for Damian. My ears thumping with anxiety, I prayed he just wouldn’t show up. I took another nervous sip of the wine. Damn it! I’d meant to keep myself to a limit, but I'd let things slide in an attempt to get through the evening. Now I had no idea how much booze I’d consumed over the course of this hare-brained scheme.
There he was with his crew by the entrance. I swallowed hard. Get your act together.
Loud-laughing, beer guzzling guys and painted up girls with long red fingernails dotted the room. I managed to keep him in sight, handsome and hulking as he was in his fitted white shirt, even though the smoke stung my eyes.
I stalked closer. A girl in a black low cut jumpsuit openly tried to flirt with him, blowing smoke rings into the air.
The group Damian stood with seemed to be a little tanked. Several of the guys in particular couldn’t seem to take their eyes off the ginger haired floozy as she giggled and jiggled. She leaned in a little too close to Damian at one point and whispered in his ear, her clingy top cut so low that Damian was practically forced to peer down into her cleavage.
I reminded myself that this girl flirted with everyone. She couldn’t seem to help herself.
But the longer I watched, the more I wondered if there was actually something going on between them. Or perhaps the alcohol playing tricks on me—making me lose my nerve.
Eventually he walked away from his group in direction of the makeshift bar where Leona’s skinny boyfriend juggled bottles. My fingers went rigid around the stem of my glass. I closed my eyes and one, two, three.
I dashed from my hideout a
nd pretended to stumble on bottles in my way, faking a fall against Damian’s chest. It was hard, and the hands steadying me seemed large like shovels. My pulse drummed in my ears or was that the base that oozed from the loudspeakers?
“S ... sorry,” I mumbled.
He looked down at his ruined shirt.
“It’s all right.” His voice was deep, soft, giving me goose bumps.
I dared to bat my lashes as I looked up at his face. Up close he looked even more handsome with his pale green eyes, chiseled features and strong jaw. Too handsome. Despite the three inch gold stilettos that Leona said showcased my calves, my nose still just reached the level of his chest. He smelled of freshly cut wood, and that worked on my senses like a drug.
With a slightly pissed frown but gentle hands he made sure I could stand on my own feet and turned to walk away. No, no, no!
“Let me take out the stain,” I shrieked over the pounding music and clasped his arm. It felt literally stone hard. “There’s some stain remover in the bathroom.”
He turned to me, the frown lingering on his brow, his deep voice polite but detached.
“I’ll do that myself, thank you.”
I panicked, thinking that he saw through our plot, so I searched for a way to keep contact, and gave him an awkward smile. Reciting the words Leona had forced me to memorize seemed like my only option.
“You need to wash out the wine within a few minutes if you want to save your shirt. I have some dexterity with that, that’s all.”
He glanced around as if assessing who paid us attention. Dancing and drinking people – Leona and George included – stared at us. Then a possibility hit me – maybe he scouted the area for his girlfriend or something.
“A few minutes,” I reminded him of the time ticking until the stain would be forever imprinted in his white shirt. “Let me save your shirt, it’s the least I can do.”
He gave a reserved smile and motioned me to lead the way. We waited in front of the bathroom until a drunken blonde reeled out. Luckily, it didn’t take longer than a few minutes, or I would’ve risked him changing his mind. Girls around us fidgeted and swayed, eyeing Damian. Boys already mistook the hallway and some corners for toilets as they staggered and cursed.
Damian and I didn’t speak to each other, but I was sharply aware of his presence behind me, of his breath above my head. He stood by me, my backside crushed against his thigh as people squeezed us together. I’d never felt anything as hard as his body. My imagination raced with sexual fantasies as we closed the door behind us. Jeez, I’m alone with him! Alone with him in a messy bathroom . . .
Damian began unbuttoning his white fitted shirt. I swallowed hard. Still, to make my indifference to him credible, I refused the sight.
“It’s okay, I can work with it on you, that is unless you have a change of clothes within reach.”
“I don’t.” Again that deep voice that I couldn’t believe I was finally hearing, spoken only for my ears.
I snatched the stain remover from a pile of tubes and boxes on the washer, and rinsed the stain – half his shirt, that is. After spraying some water on it from the tips of my fingers, I began rubbing the wine into instead of out of the fabric with one hand, keeping it stretched and away from his body with the other. The large spot soon turned transparent, I could see a blur of his abdomen and his happy tail through it.
“I’m Damian, by the way,” he said.
“Alice.” I could barely keep my voice from shaking.
“I must say, you’re quite observant, Alice.”
Clumsy grin. “Am I?”
“I’m impressed you noticed the stain remover and remembered it when you spilled on me.”
Shoot, he knows what I’m doing . . .
“I brought it, actually. Today. George is a little messy and, well, you know how parties can get.” George would support my allegation, he was “my people” and deep enough in this with me as not to complain I’d accused him of sloppiness to save face. He’d organized the party, and we were in his dorm.
“I see.” Damian’s eyes glittered with some kind of cunning. “Have I seen you before, Alice?”
I shrugged, sinking into my cool new aloof persona.
“Maybe. In the cafeteria, or at the Marquette. That’s where I seek refuge from my persecutors.”
“Persecutors?”
“The Inquisition, isn’t it obvious?” I pointed at the haycock on my head, which earned me a weird, animalistic grin that probably wanted to be a smile. It was the strangest expression I’d ever seen, and it took me aback. I dropped my eyes to the stain again to avoid the awkwardness, which seemed to help Damian grow even more comfortable.
“You claim yourself a witch?”
“I claim nothing without my lawyer.”
“Fair enough. And our host, George? Is he one of your allies?”
“You could say that. He’s dating my best friend, Leona.” As for me, I’m available and all for you, mister.
“Now I remember,” he said as if he truly just realized, “I saw you at the Marquette with him and some others. You never miss the chance to have fun.”
He saw me? “I’m forever in search of it. As are you, I noticed.” That’s right, I saw you, too. My heart pounded faster as I risked the hint at my interest in him.
“Hardly. I supply the beverages.”
“What do you mean?” My head snapped up.
“It’s just an activity that pays bills. And what brings me to the Marquette and to parties.”
“So you’re no real friend of Bacchus’?” I realized I’d never seen him with a beer in his hand, or any kind of alcohol for that matter.
He laughed a rusty laugh. His features transformed into that animalistic grimace once more, as if he weren’t used to expressing amusement at all.
That moment I think I knew – this man would be dangerous to love.
“There are easier ways to kill yourself,” Damian hissed.
George picked his brochure of Carpathia’s Northern Adventures back up off the cafeteria table. “What? You don’t like the idea?” he asked meekly. “B-but this is the ultimate challenge . . .”
Damian frowned, his arms folding across his chest. He didn’t say anything. George hunched under the pressure of the alpha’s obvious disapproval.
Leona nudged George in support. That seemed to reignite his passion.
“What’s not to love about hiking in the Northern Mountains. No safety nets, no cell phones, no excuses.”
“Well, I doubt the girls see the fun in that.” Damian said as he looked at me. Blood rushed to my cheeks.
Time to make an impression.
“I’d love to go,” I heard myself say.
Leona’s jaw dropped, George’s head practically spun around on an axis, while Damian simply raised his eyebrows.
All eyes were on me now. My heart raced as if I were part rabbit.
“What? I’m all for adventure,” I lied blatantly. My eyes settled on Leona. “You tell’em.”
We left on a cold day. The snow fell outside the train’s window in sheets, like powdered icing. I hugged my knees to my chest, mindlessly rubbing the fur that lined the top of my black Sorel boots, glancing every now and then over at Damian.
He sat flanked by a bearded dude with a guitar, and Svetlana Slavic, a platinum blonde beauty queen to whom I could never compare. Her grin was white and large, taunting me with it. I tried to take comfort in the fact that she was not his girlfriend either. Everyone knew she danced in a private booth at the Marquette for a bald, rich, fat guy – a mobster, or so some people speculated. Unfortunately, he wasn’t here now, so the farther we moved from Constanța, the closer she got to Damian. I ducked into my quilted grey parka and pulled my wool scarf up to my nose, watching in frustration as she leeched onto him.
“Come on, Novac,” she said, her pitch too high, “I won’t bite, I’m just cold.”
He rested one arm loosely around her shoulder and turned his eyes to the window. Sh
e attempted to curl closer but he maintained his distance, which made me feel that not all was lost. I wanted to slap myself for the way I ogled him, but I couldn’t help it. Damian was almost too good-looking with his tousled dark hair, luminescent eyes, and stubble that gave his chiseled face the look of a young barbarian. It was easy to see why he attracted such attention.
They would have made a striking couple, Svetlana and Damian. I told myself to stop it as Svetlana caught me staring. Even at my best, I would never compete with the likes of Svetlana with her long shapely legs, nipped-in waist, porcelain skin and tumbling white-blond hair. And she always dressed to kill, even now. She wore a bomber jacket, heeled boots and yoga pants – even in the freezing cold.
As if on cue, Svetlana pulled her knees up and cuddled to his chest. I doubted she did it because she saw any kind of competition in me – that was out of the question – but because she felt powerful and probably enjoyed my suffering, knowing I would’ve done anything to be in her place. She closed her eyes and pretended to fall asleep with a triumphant smile on her face.
Cottages slid by as the train—barely more than an old cart from communist times—moved lazily down the track. Its low whistles lost in the night as it took us to the middle of nowhere. Not even an hour later the train got stuck in what appeared to be Siberian snow, a floral pattern of ice spreading like a rapid disease over the pane. Everyone shook violently and breathed out steam as if we were frozen dragons, and that’s when I realized I could no longer feel my feet. Damian must have sensed my pain, for he gazed at me with a frown.
“George,” he said, lifting his arm and waking Svetlana, “where’s the Vodka I gave you?”
George’s sleepy eyelids fluttered open. He brushed sandy brown tendrils of hair off his forehead and removed his own arm from around Leona, who shivered at his chest. Her eyes were hooded, and her lips shrunken. He reached to the overhead rack and dropped a bag on her lap by mistake.
“Sorry, Leo,” he mumbled, and took down a ragged backpack. Something clanked inside. He staggered, and I almost laughed in delirium. He’d always been a thin guy, but his legs in this moment suddenly reminded me of a spider’s legs, especially in comparison to Damian, who stood to support him.