Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Anna Zaires

  But control was still control, and that was the point of this little visit. To find a way to be free. Free of Sellers, free of control.

  “Yeah...but sex?”

  She tried hard to hide the distaste in her voice. Not that she didn’t like sex, she did. A lot. Not that she’d had any for...she quickly stopped that calculation, not wanting to be reminded of how many years had passed. She was a warrior though, and the mission came first. Then she could get laid.

  She’d been hoping the Warden would know of some arcane and obscure spell she could perform that would free her of the Dragos’ hold. Something dark and dangerous, powerful but that could only be performed at great personal risk. Something heroic. Hell, she’d even take on a quest through the Night Plains in Faery, if they still existed. They had to. She couldn’t imagine a world where the Wild Host and their home no longer existed.

  This…wasn’t heroic. Having sex to break a spell seemed like cheating.

  The Warden tsked in disapproval, clicking her tongue at the back of her teeth. “Come now, I’d have thought a mage of your standing would be more than aware how powerful sex magic can be.”

  She snorted. Of course she was, it just wasn’t—

  “Honorable?”

  Chase narrowed her eyes as the Warden plucked the word out of her mind. The old woman chuckled in amusement. “Child, your mind was wide open, but I didn’t need to read it. Your feelings are written all over your face.”

  Great. Just great. She blanked her expression, but the Warden turned her attention to pouring the tea. The fragrant steam rose from the cup, teasing at her senses. Citrus and hints of Jasmine. Maybe something deeper lurking in the background but it disappeared before she could identify it.

  Obviously not bothered by her silence, the Warden carried on talking. “This isn’t about honor, child. What has been done to you is a dishonorable act. Binding a creature against its will, especially something as rare and beautiful as one of your kind, is a crime against nature. Against the witching itself.”

  She looked up and Chase felt caught, an ancient power looking out of those dark eyes to pin her in her seat. She slammed back in shock. Fuck, Wardens had gotten way more powerful since her day.

  “Can’t fight dishonor with honor, and neither should you. But you have the answer to your freedom within your grasp, the question remains whether you’re strong enough to take it.”

  “I’m strong enough to face anything,” Chase snapped back, anger rising hot in her throat. Who the hell did this woman think she was to call her courage into question? “I am Nightborne, daughter of Stormcaller, nothing is beyond me. What is it? What do I have to do? I’ll do it. Anything to be free of that bastard.”

  “Anything?” The Warden’s lips quirked. “Would you be prepared to fall in love?”

  ***

  Fall in love? How ridiculous.

  Chase snorted as she stepped through the door out into the alley. Wardens in this day and age were obviously prone to all sorts of foolish fantasies instead of the sensible creatures she remembered. She should have tried one of those crazy-ass Seers instead. She might have gotten more sense.

  Her thoughts on the Warden’s words, she didn’t spot the puddle in the darkness of the alley and splashed through it. The sound, and cold wetness seeping through her light boots, snapped her back to reality.

  “Arrgh, Hegra’s tits!” she cursed, and sidestepped to glare at her feet. Irritation swirling through her, she widened the door between herself and her dragon to pull a tiny tendril of power. Only enough to dry her feet out and transform the light boots she’d wrought to match the fashions of this time into the heavier, sturdy boots she preferred.

  A smile curved her lips as she looked down at her handiwork. Yeah, magic could come in real handy at times. The smile dropped as she started walking. Not sex magic though. There was just something about the idea of using it to break the collar’s curse that didn’t sit right with her.

  The warrior in her wanted to meet Sellers head on, with a sword in her hand and battle magic at her command to force him to give up control. Not break it through getting down and dirty with some guy. If it was just sex, then fine. She’d head on out into the alley and to the nearest bar, pick some pretty human to fuck and free herself. No need to involve another dragon.

  But at the thought, her stomach rolled, as though every cell in her body rejected the idea of letting another man touch her now that she’d touched minds with her mate. Had felt the mating pull for real. She put her hand over her mouth until the nausea receded.

  Sex with someone else wasn’t on the cards, no matter how handsome the candidate.

  She had no idea what her mate looked like in human form, but looks weren’t important. He was her mate. Apart from the fact she didn’t have time for any of that. She had a mission. He’d have to wait until after she completed it.

  As though thinking of her mate summoned him, she felt him tugging at the mental path between them. Clumsy attempts to try to locate her. Shaking her head, she carried on walking toward where the alleyway widened out and she could get enough space to shift and take off properly. She so didn’t need this right now. A dominant male dragon with no magical training and little to no control would only screw things up big time.

  She’d crossed less than half the distance along the alley when a high-pitched giggle brought her up short. It sounded again, from behind a dumpster just ahead. Another giggle, and a shift in the shadows ahead. She snapped her head around, gaze piercing the darkness to catch the tiniest glitter along the edge of a pike.

  Great. Red Caps. Just what she needed.

  At her sides, her nails lengthened into claws. She frowned, opening all her senses. The alleyway was dark, but that didn’t make any difference to her. A creature of shadows, this was her natural habitat. The scents from the alley—oil from a car that had been parked yesterday, an abandoned takeaway half spilled from its container to her left, the contents already beginning to spoil, and the myriad nasty stinks from the dumpster—assaulted her, and from further back came the steady drip-drip-drip of broken guttering.

  “I can see you,” she said, injecting a bored note into her voice. “So you might as well quit hiding.”

  The boredom was faked. Her senses were all on high alert. No one could afford to drop the ball around Red Caps. What they lacked in size, they made up for in homicidal urges and trickery. She watched three, then four, slide from the shadows. One had hidden behind the dumpster, another above him on a metal fire escape, while the remaining two slunk out from recessed doorways. One chewed noisily. She didn’t want to know on what.

  “Whatcha been doin’, dragon-bitch?” The Red Cap in front of the one still gnawing away spoke. His eyes bright with interest, he swept a lustful gaze down her body. She suppressed a shiver. She knew better than to show weakness to these animals.

  “Oh, you know. Bit of a walk in the moonlight. These alleys can be quite beautiful in the darkness,” she shrugged flippantly, far more interested in what they were doing here. And what they’d seen.

  “Just popped out for some takeout,” the Red Cap jerked a crooked, misshapen thumb over his shoulder to the one behind him. He paused, mid-chew, to wave. “John was hungry.”

  “John?” The question escaped before she could stop it. “That’s a bit of a normal name for….”

  “One of us?” The Red Cap arched an eyebrow. “Well, we decided to move with the times and took new names. John back there was born Skullcrusher. I was Kneebuster, but I go by Karl these days.”

  “Cool.” What the hell did she say to that? New names or not, they were still murderous little bastards. As if to emphasize that point, a red droplet detached itself from the front of Karl’s cap to splash wetly against his cheek. It ran down his skin, a bright streak of color easily discerned with her excellent night vision. “Always good to move with the times.”

  “Yeah. Of course we do miss the good old days. Dragging humans off the road and dismembering them.
” He sighed wistfully, ignoring the streak of red down his face but Chase couldn’t look away. Red Caps got their names because of their hats. Bright red. Kept that way with the fresh blood of their victims. If it dried out, the Red Cap died.

  “Of course,” he brightened up, the vicious grin returning to his face as he gripped his pike. “Dismembering dragons is just as much fun, especially ones we find leaving a Warden’s shop.”

  She froze. They knew. They’d seen her. Which meant she couldn’t let them get back to Sellers. He couldn’t know what she was up to. Tension and the potential for violence built in the alley as she looked at the Red Caps and they looked at her in a standoff that wasn’t going to last long.

  The Red Cap by the dumpster moved first, and Chase launched herself into motion. Dissolving into shadows, she used the last of the corporeal energy from her shift to hit the puddle in front of her, spraying the dirty water up into the eyes of the two Red Caps rushing her.

  The alley was dark and dank, two factors she used to her advantage. Spinning the shadows around herself, she materialized a lethally-edged claw long enough to rip out the throat of the first Red Cap to reach her. It stopped dead at the kiss of her claw. Blood splashed hot and wet against her scales for the second they were corporeal. She was already gone by the time the body fell, a gurgle rattling from the ruined throat.

  She skittered up the wall, hiding her shadowed form in the darkness. A less salubrious part of town, the buildings obviously hadn’t been cared for. Each time she manifested claws to propel her faster, the old brickwork crumbled, forcing her to fight for her footing. She could understand why the Warden had picked this area though. More affluent, upmarket areas had video surveillance and while most magical creatures could fool the human eye, cameras were a different matter. They saw what was really there and recorded it for prosperity, or even worse, the internet.

  Scrambling higher, she used the top of a rusty metal fire escape to coil around, her serpentine body rolling around like some kind of magical rollercoaster without rails. Even though she was barely visible in the darkness, her scales rustled softly with the movement, a sure fire way to track her if her opponent knew what they were doing. She could silence them, but would sacrifice speed to do so. Not worth it, not with Red Caps.

  Letting go of the fire escape, she dropped out of the sky onto another of her opponents and wrapped herself around him, anaconda-like. He gasped and beat at her coils when they tightened. His bones cracked within his skin, the pop-pop-pop sound reminiscent of corn popping. Grinning with triumph, even though the wounds on her own ribs ached, she squeezed harder. Not a natural technique for a shadow-dragon, but, longer and more serpentine than the dragons depicted in human stories these days, their bodies lent themselves well to it.

  His scream of pain bounced off the mold-covered walls around them. Karl and John danced around her, jabbing their pikes into the shadows that made up her form, trying to find the spot where her body shifted from shadow to reality. A spot which would hurt. Bleed. It wasn’t going to work. Concealing herself and the shift from shadow to corporeal had been one of the first things she’d learned as a warrior.

  The rattling sound of her laugh covered the wheezing of the Red Cap in her clutches as he gasped for breath, and she turned her head to consider Karl. His war-cry was unintelligible, the sound loud to her enhanced hearing until she shut it out, and he thrust wildly into the darkness that surrounded her. She shook her head. Obviously he was going with blind luck to hit her.

  The little bastard.

  She pushed her jaw free of the darkness, opening her mouth as her throat reformed behind it and let loose a long pillar of flame. The sudden brightness lit up the alley, throwing nightmarish shadows over the walls. John stumbled back, covering his face against the heat.

  The flames caught Karl’s cap, burning it to a crisp in seconds. His pike hit the ground with a clatter. All the blood drained from his face as he lifted his hands. They fluttered around his head and the charred cap. Not touching it. Scared to touch it. Fear and pain twisted his expression as he looked up at her. Then he disappeared in a puff of green smoke and a jangle of music.

  “Nonononono,” John whined, backing away from her. He fell, but carried on, scrambling on his hands and butt, unable to get his feet under him properly. After a few feet he managed to get traction, flipped over and made a break for it down the alley. Only to run into a tall, broad-shouldered figure who stepped into the gap.

  She started to yell a warning, but the stranger’s hand shot out and grabbed the Red Cap at the scruff of the neck. He lifted the creature in one smooth movement, disarming him in as neat a move as Chase had ever seen. She frowned. He seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place him.

  He wasn’t one of the warriors who’d been placed under the sleeping spell to protect the princess. Since she’d never managed to get an answer out of Sellers about their fate, perhaps some had woken early and this guy was a descendant.

  Music rang out again, and the Red Cap in her coils disappeared, the puff of smoke unpleasant against her scales. She wrinkled her nose and unwound herself, manifesting once more in human form to walk toward the man holding John at the end of the alley. She winced as she walked, pressing a hand to her ribs. Wet warmth met her touch. Great, she’d re-opened the wounds.

  “I’d be careful.” She stopped a few steps away and nodded toward John, who flailed his arms and legs madly, trying to land a blow on his captor while spouting vile curses and promises of retribution in a reedy, high-pitched voice. “They’re vicious little bastards at the best of times.”

  “Yeah, even more so after you’ve just killed three of its brothers.” The stranger chuckled, and the sound of his voice froze her to the spot. She’d heard that voice before. Less than an hour ago. In her mind.

  “You…!”

  Her mate had found her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “I’ll rip yer fucking heads off!” The Redcap Duke dangled by the back of his neck spat, struggling wildly get away. “Rip yer heads off an’ shit down yer fucking necks! I’ll carve yer livers out and eat ’em fer me dinner!”

  One booted foot came perilously close to Duke’s groin so he twisted away, flicking a quick glance at the woman who’d been battling its friends.

  “Do you need this one for any reason?” he asked, tightening his grip on the creature’s neck. Not as strong in human form as in dragon, he was still a hell of a lot stronger than most. The Red Cap shrieked as bone cracked.

  “I’ll have yer kneecaps for earrings! Your eyeballs for a fucking snack! You’ll both end up a red stain on me cap!”

  The woman shook her head, the only answer he needed. Reeling the foul-smelling creature into a deadly embrace, one swift jerk of his hands was all it took to break the thing’s neck. The sound of breaking bone filled the alleyway, followed swiftly by the chimes that announced the death of a magical creature. Duke grimaced at the feel of the green smoke that replaced the weight of the body in his arms.

  “Crap, should’ve let go quicker,” he grumbled, before looking up at taking his first proper look at the woman all his senses said belonged to him.

  She was beautiful. More beautiful than he could have imagined, and Duke had a very good imagination. Even in the dimly lit alley, her beauty shone like the brightest star in the night sky, rendering him speechless.

  Her lips quirked, giving him a half smile that blew his socks off, as understanding and empathy crossed her features. “Yeah, it’s sticky and rather unpleasant, isn’t it?”

  He nodded dumbly, unable to do anything other than look at her. She was small, far smaller than he’d imagined given her gloriously powerful dragon-form. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, and she was delicately boned, with slender curves that made his hands itch and his mouth water.

  His gaze sought her face, needing to see her, to look into her eyes and ensure she knew who he was and who that made her. His mate, just as he was hers. If his ability to speak had deserted
him at the sight of her form outlined against a stuttering street lamp, then his first good look at her face shattered his thought processes.

  Blonde curls surrounded a face dominated by large, blue-gray eyes, their color so deep he felt like he looked into a velvet ocean. A shiver ran along his spine, the scales of his draconic form rustling at the thought. Velvets, satins, silks. He loved them all. The different textures…the way they felt against his skin. Sensual, erotic and comforting all at the same time. Something his human mind couldn’t explain but his dragon got immediately. They had been his treasures. Now the honor of that title belonged to the woman in front of him.

  His gaze roved over her face, greedy for any and every detail as he committed her features to memory. Below the beautiful eyes that had stolen his soul as surely as she’d stolen his heart lay a button nose so cute he wanted to plant a kiss on it, and below that a pair of bee-stung lips he ached to taste. He couldn’t stop looking at her, ignoring everything around them—the stink of the dumpster and the copper tang of fresh blood the only reminder of the Red Caps—as his body and heart ached to make her his.

  He was too experienced a security operator for him to be dazzled for long. Within seconds reality filtered back and he started to notice details. Like the clothing that she’d manifested to cover her human form looked old-fashioned, not just past hundred years but more middle-ages, feudal almost, and with a thick scarf wrapped around her throat, her blonde curls spilling over it and her shoulders.

  Instinctively he knew she wasn’t like other women he’d met, not even those who worked for the Paranormal Protection Agency. She had a sharpness of gaze and a way of walking that reminded him of a soldier. He narrowed his eyes. No, not a soldier, a knight. Amusement hit him out of the blue. She was a dragon, so she’d probably have eaten the horse anyway. Scrub the horse. This woman arrived at her battles on the wing.

  “Hi.”

  As soon as the word left his lips, he kicked himself. Hi? Hi? What a dumb-fuck thing to say. He sighed, already hearing his brother’s snide voice in the back of his head. She’d think he was a fucking idiot if he kept this level of scintillating conversation up.