Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

by Ashley Jennifer

  Okay. Good deal. Because that meant his body belonged to her, too.

  Rook had rolled up on to his side, head propped on his hand. “How about I run out, get food, and bring it back here? Won’t be gone more than a half hour.”

  “I could take a quick shower.” She needed the hot water on her, steaming out her pores.

  “You’re just going to get sweaty later.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “We could shower together.”

  The man was insatiable. If they kept at it, she wasn’t going to be able to walk. Not that she minded. She could stay nestled right here in his bed for the foreseeable future. It was a revelation that her body could crave this way, respond this way, feel so deliciously used and new at the same time.

  “You get food,” she said. “I’ll get clean. I can take two showers in a day.” She was sure the second one would be more like a water sport anyway.

  She really did need to get in better shape. Cardio first.

  He rolled out of bed, and she was treated to a view of the best male ass ever. She was hoping for a little full frontal, but only got a side view as he pulled on his boxers and jeans. Still, those chiseled abs and defined chest were pure pleasure to look at.

  Maybe he shouldn’t go, after all. Maybe that joint shower was a better idea.

  She knelt up in the bed to proposition him when she noticed his brother Joshua was back. The child stood in the loft in roughed-up jeans and T-shirt, darkness hazing around him.

  Really bad timing.

  This time she wasn’t afraid, not really. It was her darksight that let her see Malcolm’s personal nightmare. He was haunted by his past. He just couldn’t let go of what had happened. It was his penance to carry his brother everywhere—part of why she was falling for him, that he cared so much. One day, Malcolm needed to find a way to put this behind him and look toward the future, but it was way too early in their relationship for her to suggest anything.

  “Malcolm,” she murmured, leading him with her gaze to where Joshua watched and waited.

  He turned. Cursed. Looked back at her. “Jordan, I’m sorry. I don’t know why he keeps coming back like this.”

  “It’s okay. I get it. You loved him.”

  “But he can’t keep showing up.”

  “I’m sure you’re not the only one who carries around a nightmare. I just happen to be able to see it.” Her version of It’s not you, it’s me. “Maybe Darkside he’d be more frightening, but not here. He’ll disappear in a sec.” Like he had before, at the office.

  She climbed out of bed, dragging the top sheet with her. She walked barefoot over to her man, went on tiptoe, kissed him. “Go get our food.” The boy would go with him. She was purposely ignoring him, and showing Malcolm that she could. “Do you have towels in the bathroom?”

  “Just did laundry.” Worry haunted his eyes.

  “Well, then.” She went on tiptoe again for another kiss. “Any idea when we’re going to hear from Coll or Maze?” She wanted an update on Vince Blackman, too. “Where’s Coll going to take her tonight, do you know?”

  See, we can talk normally with the kid around.

  She turned a little to gather up more sheet—and started.

  Joshua now stood right beside them, preternaturally silent, uncomfortably close.

  “Shit.” Malcolm cursed again, an arm going around her, stepping her back.

  Okay, so maybe they couldn’t just ignore him.

  “I’m going to have to go back home, aren’t I?” Malcolm’s voice was a rasp. “See my mom again. Face it.”

  His mom was still alive, then. And yes, going back would be a start.

  Malcolm looked at her. Looked long. Looked lost. “I don’t want him to ruin this.”

  This meaning them.

  “He won’t,” she said. “Do what you need to do. I’m good. I’ll just be decorating my new place. Unless you want me with you.”

  The darkness in his eyes lightened. “Your place?”

  She was smiling when Joshua’s arm shot out, punching her in the stomach.

  She doubled over, shocked both because it hurt and because he did in fact have the power to hurt her. His little fist was still embedded at her core.

  Roughly, Malcolm pushed Joshua away from her, but the kid held on. As he stumbled back, he drew something of her with him. She crashed to her knees, the color in the room going negative, which on any other day she might think was cool.

  Her mind darkened, waves crashing over her.

  She knew she had the ability to push someone into sleep. She’d done it twice now.

  Seemed pulling worked just as well.

  One second she was falling, then the next, she was Darkside.

  ***

  A nightmare could not hurt someone in the waking world. Rook had logged years upon years in Rêve—enough to know this was true.

  Chimera agents could hurt or kill dreamers inside Rêve. Some Revelers could as well. But the fragments of dreams, even ones that looked human like his brother, could not physically harm anyone. Nightmares might drive a person insane, but they couldn’t do anything. It was Rêve 101—the reason it had been deemed safe.

  Except, Joshua just had.

  Jordan lay collapsed in Rook’s arms, body slack and unconscious. He tried to wake her, even shook her, but she would not stir.

  The only thing to do was to go in after her. Tracking was what he was best at, anyway.

  On his mobile he typed out a quick message to Coll.

  I’ve been pursued by the nightmare of my brother Joshua. Hoped to make him go away by switching jobs. But the nightmare is real. REAL. He just drowned Jordan. I’m going after them.

  He finished with the address of the warehouse, and then dropped himself out of the waking world and into the dreamwaters.

  Of course, his dreams would manifest the worst day of his life—curbside, where he’d pushed his brother. The moment his mom came running out of the house, her outstretched arms, the sound of her scream. The driver of the car, Mrs. Kennedy, shaking her head and pointing at Malcolm. He pushed him! He pushed him! And his mom glancing over, her expression stricken, as she fell to her knees on the pavement.

  He was still so sorry, but that word meant nothing compared to what he’d done.

  Funny how the mind could recall details long forgotten. His shoelaces on one sneaker had been undone. Un-Break My Heart had been playing on Mrs. Kennedy’s car stereo. He hated that song so much.

  Joshua himself wasn’t here. The spot where he usually lay was empty.

  Malcolm didn’t have time for this. He’d lived it over and over again already.

  He’d marked Jordan not two days past so that he might find her again in her dreams. He ignored the music tumbling from Mrs. Kennedy’s car, seeking a wisp—that’s all he needed—of Jordan’s brightness.

  His darksight compounded his vision with a spectrum of light, multidimensional, yet with heat and texture. He sought through the dreamwaters until, yes, there she was.

  Jordan was a soft burn on his skin, an indigo shift of light.

  That way.

  He crossed a Rêve boundary to discover the white Corinthian columns braced against darkness above and below, creating a space for dreamers to play.

  The Agora.

  It meant that when Joshua had submerged Jordan, he’d taken her here, a place that was supposed to be safe and monitored, Chimera marshals at the ready.

  Coll had warned against rogues getting in.

  But a rogue nightmare? It made no sense.

  Jordan’s wake guided him through the Agora, but wide of any of the columns where she could’ve called for aid. She hadn’t entered any of the ongoing Rêves either, wherein she might have been able to find refuge, other Revelers acting as witnesses. Safety in numbers.

  No, the waves of her passage led right up to the howling boundary of the Scrape.

  Rook had had occasion in the past to set out into the shifting sands of that desert, so he kn
ew intimately how easy it was to get lost. Now he crossed without hesitation. The essence of Jordan was so much better than others he’d tracked out here. Of course, all of them he’d left in pools of their own blood, never to rouse again.

  He trudged against the wind, the grains of sand nicking and eroding his skin as he pushed forward. The Scrape was a trial of endurance, him against whatever psychotic he was tracking, and Rook, Chimera tracker, always won.

  But how could he match his strength against a nightmare of his own creation? There was no way to overtake…himself.

  And yet, the shape of a bent human figure, arms across the face, was just ahead.

  Rook’s heart double-beat, then stalled as he realized that the figure was a male, not a female, not his girl. Even closer, Rook could identify the man.

  Vincent Blackman.

  Seemed Jordan had pushed him very, very deep. If he wasn’t led back to dreamwaters, he’d never wake up again, either.

  Blackman fell back on the ever-shifting desert floor. “Don’t hurt me! Don’t hurt me!”

  “I’m not here for you, man,” Rook called to him. “Have you seen Jordan?”

  “What?” Blackman yelled against the wail of the wind.

  “Jordan Lane. Have you seen her? Which way did she go?”

  Blackman shook his head. “I don’t know where she is. I don’t know where I am. Where is this? What is this place?”

  “You’re in the Scrape, beyond all the Rêves,” Rook yelled back. “You’re lost Darkside.”

  “Help me get back, get out of here! I’ll give you anything. I have money.”

  Rook waved his arms to cut him off. No. “I have to find Jordan.”

  If he brought Vince Blackman back, Jordan would be lost, he knew it. If she was this far into the Scrape, she might be lost already.

  “Please,” Blackman begged. “There are…things…out here. Monsters.”

  Nightmares, Rook thought. Or more than nightmares, like Joshua?

  This was very bad. Further confirmation of bad things lurking in the dreamwaters.

  “I’ll come back for you,” Rook said.

  “You won’t.”

  “It’s my job.” He was Chimera. “I will. Hold out as long as you can.”

  Vince looked as if he knew the hopelessness of his situation—that he was going to die. “Can you get a message to my father? Jordan’s sister works for the men who are holding him for ransom. She’ll know who to contact.”

  And so Rook’s suspicions were confirmed about the Envoi Rêve. The way Jordan had originally been targeted made perfect sense now. Maisie was indeed the connection, though he still thought it wasn’t intentional. She was just living too fast for caution. This was her wake-up call.

  “If Jordan Lane is lost in this, then my father is as good as dead.” Millions peered out into the unending void. “Tell my father I’m sorry.”

  “You were supposed to bring Jordan to the people who have your father?”

  Vince nodded “Not going to happen now.”

  Rook would never have let that happen. Blackman had been destined to fail. Nice try, though.

  “Hold out as long as you can,” Rook repeated.

  “There are things out here,” Blackman said, looking around at the empty space.

  He was going insane, and yet Rook didn’t doubt him. Not after Joshua, a nightmare with a mind of its own. There were indeed monsters Darkside. Joshua had infiltrated the Agora twice now. And infinitely worse, the nightmare had infiltrated the waking world.

  And right now it had Jordan in its grasp.

  ***

  Jordan was naked in a dream, exactly the reason she hadn’t wanted to try Rêve in the first place. She’d known this would happen, and if she ever got back to the waking world, she’d have the satisfaction of telling Maze, I told you so.

  She would not, however, waste energy attempting to cover herself. Malcolm Rook had taught her that. She had darksight, a rare talent. And could drown people, scary. And she was tough as nails—she’d had to be to finish raising Maze. So she was not going to whimper and scream. And she was not going down without a fight.

  Joshua was not what he seemed.

  Where was he taking her? Damned if she knew.

  The farther he dragged her, the less he appeared to be a little boy. She’d glimpsed it before, the first time she’d seen him. Her darksight had shown her true. This was not Malcolm’s brother. It was a thing in the shape of a boy. It had climbed into Malcolm’s nightmare, taken it over, and used the kid’s appearance to skulk around, wearing Joshua’s memory as a disguise.

  In retribution for the torture this Joshua had put Malcolm through, Jordan struck at it again. But the boy, unfazed, jerked her forward.

  She didn’t care when she fell. Didn’t care that he kicked her in the guts or that her knees were bloody and scabby with grains of sand. She was so pissed off, she didn’t feel pain.

  The little fucker was going to die.

  Just as soon as she figured out how to kill him.

  ***

  A dark skid in the sand, wet with blood.

  Rook could guess whose.

  He sniffed, and smelled her. In spite of the wind, he felt a hint of her warmth again, brushing against his skin. The wan light was tinted blue-violet, bright with anger.

  How did a man catch up with his own nightmare?

  He had the answer now: when his woman was fighting it every step of the way.

  ***

  Joshua attempted to drag her forward by her hair.

  The sand had become less deep, the ground harder, like bedrock. The wind howled louder and louder, overriding all other senses. She resisted forward movement with all her strength. She grabbed at her hair, tried to yank it out of the child’s hands.

  Much farther, and she’d be dead. He wasn’t taking her home for a tea party. He’d been lying in wait.

  Well. He’d picked the wrong Chimera. She was going to drown his ass. Drown him for real, as in, until he stopped twitching. Malcolm had shown her how to reach out with a part of herself—the darksight—and push.

  Joshua’s stance twisted, and she knew he was about to strike her again. Her scalp burned at the roots where he yanked her along.

  With all the willpower in her body, she walloped him with her mind.

  Joshua flew back, taking a fistful of dark strands with him. His body thumped, skidding on his back over the wavering grains of sand.

  Jordan crab-crawled away, then scrambled to her feet to run, though she had no idea which way to go. She put muscle into her speed, dived into the howling monsoon, praying it would cover her tracks. The wind pushed against her, but she fought it. And crashed headlong into a wall.

  The wall was Malcolm Rook’s chest. He’d found her; she’d never doubted he would. Now they had to go the fuck the other way.

  “It’s not your brother,” she warned breathlessly.

  “No, not Joshua.” Malcolm’s arm came around her bare waist.

  With a shriek, Joshua dropped out of the sky on top of them. He gouged long, bloody lines across Malcolm’s face.

  In panic and fury, Jordan pushed again. Harder. With a distorted moan, not-Joshua jackknifed into darkness and wind.

  “This way,” Malcolm stretched his arm forward.

  She didn’t understand how he knew where to go, but she trusted it and they jogged, arms around each other, into the storm.

  Another inhuman shriek, and Jordan was jerked by her ankle. Fell right out of Malcolm’s grasp and was dragged, belly down, away into the dark, her fingers making tracks in the sand.

  Malcolm was suddenly there, standing over her, while Joshua the creature ripped at and tore him.

  She pushed, tears blinding her.

  Joshua was flung back again.

  Malcolm helped her back up, but staggered as they tried to move forward. She put herself under his shoulder to take some of his weight. “Where do I go?”

  Blood flowed down his chest, sticky-slick on skin
, darkening his jeans. He was clumsy and weak, but he lifted his head, gaze seeking left-right, then finding and fixed: That way.

  Again they drove forward together until she felt the shimmer of a boundary. Thank God.

  And they stumbled into some fantasy Rêve, a surreal medieval dungeon. Revelers were decked in costume—sexy warrior girl with a huge hammer, cloaked man with hood and staff, some Orc-faced dude with a fat sword.

  The players all stopped and stared at her, too stunned to help.

  Malcolm said the columns of the Agora were always there. She lost no momentum as she reached forward, seeking. Malcolm dropped onto the stone floor. And sure enough, the great column appeared before her. Her palm made contact just as Joshua shrieked again behind her.

  Marshal Harlen Fawkes stepped into view, though smaller than she remembered him.

  He took in their ravaged, blood-soaked appearance: she, naked; Malcolm, a heap.

  “What the—?” Fawkes said.

  “Help!” Jordan pointed toward the boundary, a castle wall, where Joshua had followed them into the Rêve.

  “It’s not a boy. It’s not a boy!” She knew she wasn’t making sense.

  All the Revelers fixed their gazes upon him. Witnesses.

  Then Joshua looked at them all, turned, and walked out once more into the Scrape.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Chimera is behind you, and that’s what matters.” Coll sat in Rook’s desk chair, elbows to knees, gaze up and steady. Maisie munched a thumbnail behind him by the windows. “If Malcolm Rook says there’s something in the Scrape, then there is.”

  Rook understood the subtext beneath the compliment. The Rêves weren’t going to close. They weren’t even going to slow attendance. It had too powerful a hold on people’s imaginations. It was a panacea for all the ills of the waking world. No pain, just release. Unless they were dragged out into the Scrape, that is.

  Jordan scoffed, which meant she got Coll’s meaning, too.

  “The testimony of the Rêvelers was inconsistent,” Coll continued. “Marshal Fawkes, however, not only corroborates everything you said, Jordan, but he shares your outrage as well.”

  “It’s going to take time,” Rook said to her.