Garden of Dreams and Desires

by Kristen Painter

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  meet the author

  Photo credit: Kevin Roberts, Intimate Images

  KRISTEN PAINTER likes to balance her obsessions with shoes and cats by making the lives of her characters miserable and surprising her readers with interesting twists. She currently writes award-winning urban fantasy for Orbit Books and paranormal romance.

  The former college English teacher can often be found on twitter @Kristen_Painter or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/KristenPainterAuthor where she loves to interact with readers. She’s also the cofounder of RomanceDivas.com, an award-winning writers’ forum. Sign up for her newsletter at KristenPainter.com to find out when her next release is coming out.

  Kristen lives in Florida with her retired Air Force husband and a horde of feline dependents.

  introducing

  If you enjoyed

  GARDEN OF DREAMS AND DESIRES

  look out for

  BLOOD RIGHTS

  House of Comarré: Book 1

  by Kristen Painter

  Born into a life of secrets and service, Chrysabelle’s body bears the

  telltale marks of a comarré—a special race of humans bred to

  feed vampire nobility. When her patron is murdered, she becomes

  the prime suspect, which sends her running into the mortal

  world… and into the arms of Malkolm, an outcast vampire

  cursed to kill every being from whom he drinks.

  Now, Chrysabelle and Malkolm must work together to stop

  a plot to merge the mortal and supernatural worlds.

  If they fail, a chaos unlike anything anyone has

  ever seen will threaten to reign.

  Prologue

  Corvinestri, Romania, 2067

  The servant trembled in front of the grand fireplace that had never been lit and never would be. “The girl… the girl is, well, it seems… that is, we cannot…” He bit at his lip.

  The gilded mantel clock ticked toward sunrise. Tatiana yawned and rolled her hand through the air. “Go on.”

  His hands twisted, fingers knotting. “We cannot find the comarré, my lady.”

  Tatiana’s veins iced and she stilled at the mention of the female blood whore. “What do you mean, you cannot find her?”

  “We’ve searched Lord Algernon’s manor, and she isn’t there.”

  Tatiana and Lord Ivan had discovered Algernon’s body just that evening, a rather unusual occurrence in a vampire death. Ashes yes, bodies no. “How long do you suppose he’s been dead? Not more than a few hours, surely.”

  His hands fisted at his sides. “We believe two days, perhaps three. We think it happened just after the Century Ball, my lady. Perhaps that night or the next morning. We have no way of knowing exactly.”

  A spark of pain lit her palms. She glanced down at the tiny crescents of blood left by her nails, watched them vanish as she forced herself to relax against the velvet upholstered chair. Algernon’s death meant the Elder position could be hers, but proving herself worthy of that title would require this chit to be brought to justice. The girl would be found. Even with a three-day lead, how far could she travel alone and unprotected? She was a simple comarré, bred for her blood and her social skills, nothing more than the vampire’s equivalent of a geisha. The girl knew nothing of the kine world, just as humans knew nothing of this one. The girl would be simple to find among the kine. Like a sparkling gem in a mud puddle.

  “Search again. Search the grounds as well.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Now. Begone.” Tatiana leaned her head into her hand. With Algernon’s death, the council would have little choice but to appoint her Elder. Her reign would be a very different one from that old fool’s. She would start with bringing that thin-witted girl before the council. By making an example of her to the other comarré. A dark joy lifted Tatiana’s thoughts. When she was appointed Elder, Algernon’s manor would be hers. Along with all his property in it. Not that she cared for any of his baubles and treasures but one, the one she and Lord Ivan had come to fetch when they’d found Algernon’s body.

  At last, the pieces were knitting together. All her work, her meticulous attention to detail, her endless studying of the prophecies, her personal sacrifices… finally, she would wear the mantle of power she’d been stitching these many years.

  The taint of her past, the human years spent in poverty and squalor, those wounds could only be salved by the protection of great power. The ghosts of those who had used her, treated her like rubbish, those ghosts still haunted her, as spectral as the lost loves of her human life. Power could exorcise them, once and for all. She had to believe that. Or go madder still. Her fingers drifted to the locket around her neck.

  The scent of kine had not dissipated. She looked up at the servant, dropping her hand from the locket. “Why are you still here?”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. His head stayed bowed. “There is one other thing, my lady.”

  Tatiana sighed out the end of her patience. “What?”

  “She appears to have taken a few of Lord Algernon’s possessions.”

  Her nails drummed the chair’s carved arm, wounding the old wood. “Such as?”

  “As best we can tell, some jewels, gold coins—”

  “Insignificant. Now go, search again.” Finally, she could join Mikkel in bed, where he undoubtedly already chilled the sheets for her. Of all the paramours she’d had since her turning, he’d lasted the longest. Perhaps it was his youthful exuberance.

  The minion stayed put. Fear wafted off him in delicious waves. Her stomach growled, causing him to jump.

  “What else?” Bothersome mortal. Kine really were good for one thing and one thing only.

  The servant shivered. “The ring you asked me to look for? It was not on Algernon’s person or anywhere else in the house. I believe that the girl has taken it.”

  Bloody hell. The ring of sorrows, gone. Wood splintered beneath Tatiana’s grip. That old dolt must have shown the girl the ring. Probably bragged about it. Algernon deserved to have his head removed from his neck. Unfortunately, the girl had beaten Tatiana to it. She forced the tip of her tongue against the razor point of one fang until blood coated her mouth. With pain came clarity. “How many searched with you?”

  “Twelve.”

  She tested him. “And they also know the ring is missing?”

  “No, my lady.” Concern lined his forehead. “I told no one else, just as you instructed me.”

  She smiled. “You did well.”

  He relaxed and tentatively returned her smile. “Thank you, my lady.”

  In one lightning-quick move, she was beside him, her fingers threaded through his black curls. She snapped his head back, exposing his throat. His pulse fluttered like a wounded sparrow, his heart pounded wildly. Deliciously.

  “My lady?” He paled beneath skin that showed an arrogant hint of tan. Did he think his ability to face daylight something to flaunt before her?

  The tremor in his voice stroked pleasure over her skin. The clock chimed 6 a.m. Nearly sunrise, but she had work to do. Loose ends to tie up. A lifetime of planning to protect. The Nothos must be sent after the girl immediately. The unnatural creatures enjoyed a good hunt now and then, especially when put to the task by their vampire half-brethren. “You’re positive no one else knows the ring is missing?”

  “Yes, my lady, I swear it on my life.” Indeed, he reeked of truth.

  “You would mention that.” She trailed a finger down the minion’s neck. “Seeing as it’s about to be required of you.”

  With a rabid growl, her human features disappeared as her facial bones shifted and her fangs descended fully. She sank them into her servant’s throat, his cries filling her ears like chamber music, his blood disappearing down her gullet along with the secret of the missing ring.

  She dropped his limp body to the hand-knotted Turkish carpet, licked a bead of blood from the corner of her mouth, and headed to her office. She
’d make a note for Octavian, the head of her household staff, to remunerate the dead kine’s family, but the cost was worth it. Killing soothed the painful memories of her past and what had been taken from her. It gave her the strength to face the enormous amount of work ahead.

  She stopped at the door and glanced at the lifeless form fouling the perfection of her sitting room. She’d worked so hard to get where she was and sacrificed so much, she hated to see anything mar her home. She shook her head at the dead kine. Had she been that vulnerable as a human? No. The streets had beaten the soft edges and innocence out of her before she’d lost her baby teeth. Humans were like that, turning on each other, picking the weakest among them apart, using one another for their own means. They deserved what they got at vampire hands.

  Would the comarré be that vulnerable? Probably. The pampered creature had little chance of realizing what she possessed in that ring. Not even Algernon had fully understood it until Lord Ivan’s explanation. How would a comarré know she held the key to a prophecy that might change the world? She was nothing but a blood whore. A piece of property, no different from the ring she’d stolen.

  Tatiana smiled grimly. Well now, that wasn’t true at all.

  The ring had a future.

  Chapter One

  Paradise City, New Florida, 2067

  The cheap lace and single-sewn seams pressed into Chrysabelle’s flesh, weighed down by the uncomfortable tapestry jacket that finished her disguise. Her training kept her from fidgeting with the shirt’s tag even as it bit into her skin. She studied those around her. How curious that the kine perceived her world this way. No, this was her world, not the one she’d left behind. And she had to stop thinking of humans as kine. She was one of them now. Free. Independent. Owned by no one.

  She forced a weak smile as the club’s heavy electronic beat ricocheted through her bones. Lights flickered and strobed, casting shadows and angles that paid no compliments to the faces around her. She cringed as a few bodies collided with her in the surrounding crush. Nothing in her years of training had prepared her for immersion in a crowd of mortals. She recognized the warm, earthy smell of them from the human servants her patron and the other nobles had kept, but acclimating to their noise and their boisterous behavior was going to take time. Perhaps humans lived so hard because they had so little of that very thing.

  Something she was coming to understand.

  The names on the slip of paper in her pocket were memorized, but she pulled it out and read them again. Jonas Sweets, and beneath it, Nyssa, both written in her aunt’s flowery script. Just the sight of the handwriting calmed her a little. She folded the note and tucked it away. If Aunt Maris said Jonas could connect her with help, Chrysabelle would trust that he could, even though the idea of trusting a kine—no, a human—seemed untenable.

  She pushed through to the bar, failing in her attempt to avoid more contact but happy at how little attention she attracted. The foundation Maris had applied to her hands, face and neck, the only skin left visible by her clothing, covered her signum perfectly. No longer did the multitude of gold markings she bore identify her as an object to be possessed. She was her own person now, passing easily as human.

  The feat split her in two. While part of her thrilled to be free of the stifling propriety that governed her every move and rejoiced that she was no longer property, another part of her felt wholly unprepared for this existence. There was no denying life in Algernon’s manor had been one of shelter and privilege.

  Enough wallowing. She hadn’t the time and there was no going back, even if she could. Which she wouldn’t. And it wasn’t as if Aunt Maris hadn’t provided for her and wouldn’t continue to do so, if Chrysabelle could just take care of this one small problem. Finding a space between two bodies, she squeezed in and waited for the bartender’s attention.

  He nodded at her. “What can I get you?”

  She slid the first plastic fifty across the bar as Maris had instructed. “I need to find Jonas Sweets.”

  He took the bill, smiling enough to display canines capped into points. Ridiculous. “Haven’t seen him in a few days, but he’ll show up eventually.”

  Eventually was too late. She added a second bill. “What time does he usually come in?”

  The bartender removed the empty glasses in front of her, snatched up the money, and leaned in. “Midnight. Sometimes sooner. Sometimes later.”

  It was nearly 1 a.m. now. “How about his assistant, Nyssa? The mute girl?”

  “She won’t show without him.” He tapped the bar with damp fingers. “I can give Jonas a message for you, if he turns up. What’s your name?”

  She shook her head. No names. No clues. No trail. The bartender shrugged and hustled away. She slumped against the bar and rested her hand over her eyes. At least she could get out of here now. Or maybe she should stay. The Nothos wouldn’t attempt anything in so public a place, would they?

  A bitter laugh stalled in her throat. She knew better. The hellhounds could kill her in a single pass, without a noise or a struggle or her even knowing what had happened until the pain lit every nerve in her body or her heart shuddered to a stop. She’d never seen one of the horrible creatures, but she didn’t need to in order to understand what one was capable of.

  They could walk among this crowd without detection, hidden by the covenant that protected humans from the othernaturals, the vampires, varcolai, fae, and such that coexisted with them. She would be the only one to see them coming.

  The certainty of her death echoed in her marrow. She shoved the thought away and lifted her head, scanning the crowd, inhaling the earthy human aroma in search of the signature reek of brimstone. Were they already here? Had they tracked her this far, this fast? She wouldn’t go back to her aunt’s if they had. Couldn’t risk bringing that danger to her only family. Maris was not the strong young woman she’d once been.

  Her gaze skipped from face to face. So many powdered cheeks and blood red lips. Mouths full of false fangs. Cultivated widow’s peaks. All in an attempt to what? Replicate the very beings who would drain the lifeblood from their mortal bodies before they could utter a single word of sycophantic praise? Poor, misguided fools. She felt sorry for them, really. They worshipped their own deaths, lulled into thinking beauty and perfection were just a bite away. She would never think that. Never fall under the spell of those manufactured lies. No matter how long or how short her new life was.

  She knew too much.

  Malkolm hated Puncture with every undead fiber of his being. If it weren’t for the bloodlust crazing his brain—which kicked the ever-present voices into a frenzy—he’d be home, sipping the single malt he could no longer afford, maybe listening to Fauré or Tchaikovsky while searching his books for a way to empty his head of all thoughts but his own.

  Damn Jonas for disappearing without setting up another reliable source. Mal cracked his knuckles, thinking about the beating that idiot was in for when he showed up again. It wasn’t like the local Quik-E-Mart carried pints of fresh, clean, human blood. Unfortunately.

  The warm, delicious scent of the very thing he craved hit full force as he pushed through the heavy velvet drapes curtaining the VIP section. In here, his real face, the face of the monster he’d been turned into, made him the very best of their pretenders and got him access to any area of the nightclub he wanted. Ironic, considering how showing his real face anywhere else would probably get him locked up as a mental patient. He shuddered and inhaled without thinking. His body tensed with the seductive aroma of thriving, vibrating life. The voices went mad, pounding against his skull. A multitude of heartbeats filled his ears, pulses around him calling out like siren songs. Bite me, drink me, swallow me whole.

  Damn Sweets.

  A petite redhead with a jeweled cross dangling between her breasts stopped dead in front of him. Like an actual vampire could ever tolerate the touch of that sacred symbol. Dumb git. But then how was she to know the origins of creatures she only hoped were real? She apprai
sed him from head to toe, running her tongue over a set of resin fangs. “You’re new here, huh? I love your look. Are those contacts? I haven’t seen any metallic ones like that. Kinda different, but totally hot.”

  She reached out to touch the hard ridge of his cheekbone and he snapped back, baring his teeth and growling softly. Eat her. She scowled. “Chill, dude.” Pouting, she skulked away, muttering “freak” under her breath.

  Fine. Let her think what she wanted. A human’s touch might push him over the edge. No, he reassured himself, it wouldn’t. Yes. He wouldn’t let it. Do. He wouldn’t get that far gone. Go. But in truth, he balanced on the edge. Fall. He needed to feed. To kill. To shut the voices up.

  With that thought he shoved his way to the bar, disgusted things had gotten this dire. He got the bartender’s attention, then pushed some persuasion into his voice. “Hey.” It was one of the few powers that hadn’t blinked out on him yet. Good old family genes.

  His head turned in Mal’s direction, eyes slightly glazed. Mal eased off. Humans were so suggestible. “What’ll it be?”

  “Give me a Vlad.” Inwardly, he died a little. Metaphorically speaking. The whole idea of doing this here, in full view of a human audience, made him sick. But not as sick as going without. How fortunate that humans wanted to mimic his kind to the full extent.

  “A shot?”

  “A pint.”

  The bartender’s brows lifted. “Looking to get laid, huh? A pint should keep you busy all night. These chicks get seriously damp over that action. Not that anyone’s managed to drink the pint and keep it down.” He hesitated. “You gotta puke, you head for the john, you got me?”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Yeah, right.” The bartender opened a small black fridge and took out a plastic bag fat with red liquid.

  Mal swallowed the saliva coating his tongue, unable to focus his gaze elsewhere, despite the fact he preferred his sustenance body temperature and not chilled. A few of the voices wept softly. “That’s human, right? And fresh?”