Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Anna Zaires

  Oath, what oath?

  She found him at last, from the window in the main sitting room. Her dragon-enhanced vision easily picked him out, striding up the street carrying two coffee mugs.

  Oath to the Queen. Her mental voice rang with pride. I am Chase Nightborne, the Queen’s Bodyguard.

  The Queen? This time his mental voice was tinged with confusion. What like the Queen of England? Sorry, sweetness, not buying it. That’s not exactly an English accent you’re rocking there.

  She took a deep breath, counting to ten.

  It’s a good job you look as good as you do, sweetness. She threw his own endearment back at him, tracking his progress along the street. She hoped those cups were insulated. The only thing she hated more than cold coffee was off-their-rocker warlocks who wanted to be all powerful. Because let’s be honest, intelligence isn’t your strong point.

  It was. In fact, he was far too sharp, but she couldn’t let him know that. She shook her head, clearing the sleep from it and concentrated on her mate. He stood out from the crowd…from the cattle, as the Kyn would describe them, like a barracuda through a shoal of fish. Even had he been human, he would have stood out. Tall and broad-shouldered, he moved with an easy grace she found fascinating. He didn’t walk, he stalked. Loose limbed and with a dangerous grace that appealed to the predator within her.

  Oh-oh-oh! Insults now, is it? He chuckled, looking up. Their gazes met, and even at this distance she was forced to suck a breath in. Gods, he was gorgeous. Checking me out, sweetness? I look…and feel even better close up.

  She should ignore him, lock down their link and walk away until her mission was complete. If he’d gone all out Rawr-alpha-male shit, she’d have found it easy to walk away. Likewise if he’d tried to pull a seduction routine on her. The greatest lovers of the Queen’s court had tried to romance her, to no avail, but she’d never been able to resist a man who fought side-by-side with her, or made her laugh. Do you now?

  Her smile faded. Still, she had to leave. Sellers usually left her alone for a day or two after one of his hissy-fits, but his patience wasn’t endless. He’d start yanking on her chain, albeit a magical one, before too long.

  She could stay for coffee though. There was always time for coffee. Settling herself in the deep window seat, she watched him weaving through the crowds. The early morning sun lighting the sky told her that she’d slept through the night, so these must be early morning commuters. All rushing and pushing to get to jobs that defined their lives in indelible ways, whether they liked it or not.

  Yeah, I do. His mental voice was full of confidence, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he fed her images through their mental link. Raunchy images so hot and erotic that heat took her by surprise. Overwhelmed her. Consumed her. Images of the two of them. Together. Limbs entwined. Her under him. Him holding her hands captive above her head. His hand in her hair, pulling her head back as he drove into her from behind. His hands covering her breasts as she straddled him, sliding down slowly over his cock.

  She broke away, gasping. That was not fair.

  His voice was warm with amusement. Haven’t you heard, sweetness? All’s fair in love and war.

  She smiled a bit sardonically. As if this male had ever seen war. The males she remembered were hard-bitten and jaded. Warriors who had lost all joy in life—the ability to laugh scoured out of them in favor of protecting their people. The sort of men who had put their lives on the line. And what do you know about war, handsome?

  Try as she might, she couldn’t muster the derisive snort she wanted. Instead her voice was far too mournful for comfort. Her comfort.

  Nothing, but I have a feeling that you do, sweetness. Sellers had chained her magic and locked her into her human body to beat her. To hurt her. And she’d stood strong. She hadn’t broken, wasn’t anywhere near breaking. But it was the gentle, understanding note in her mate’s voice that almost undermined that strength.

  Too much. The words escaped before she could stop them. Far, far too much.

  Whatever you did, was in the past. We can get through this, I promise.

  What she’d done in the past? All she’d done was to serve her queen and her duty, nothing that would get her saddled with the criminal past he seemed to think she had. But then, they had no clue what the collar did, that it forced her to do Sellers’ bidding. So, as far as he’d seen, she was working with the enemy.

  She opened her mouth to answer, to tell him not to judge a book by its cover, when a sound outside the front door of the apartment caught her attention. A frown creased her brow and she glanced down. Duke was still visible down there, waiting for a crossing light to change. It wasn’t him.

  She slid off the window seat, her bare feet soundless on the thick carpet and her gaze fixed on the door opposite. The build-up of magic beyond it confirmed that it wasn’t Duke. No, the foul feeling crawling over her skin was familiar. Disgustingly familiar. Her lip curled at the corner. Sellers. The collar around her throat throbbed as if in welcome of its master.

  She padded lightly across the room to the small kitchenette. Her senses extended to full stretch, all of them. Both magical and mortal. Hearing and smell were both boosted by her non-human nature. There were Red Caps in the corridor. Their stench was unmistakable. She took another deep breath, rolling it over her tongue to taste the scents. Red Caps and a pixie. Just one. A snarl rumbled softly in the back of her throat. Rat. Sellers had sent his pet to collect her.

  Well, they might have locked her magic down but that didn’t mean she was defenseless. Back in her day, warrior-mages had to be just that. Warriors as adept with normal weaponry as they were with magical ones. She wrapped her hand around the heavy skillet on the stove, hefting it in her hand. A good weight, and it was iron. The snarl at the corner of her lips turned into a smile. Perfect.

  You’ve gone quiet on me, sweetness.

  Her mate’s voice sliding into her mind made Chase pause between one step and the next. Shit, her mate was on his way up here. Panic surged through her as magic rose in the corridor. If it had been just the Red Caps out there, she wouldn’t have worried. But Rat was a completely different matter, especially if he was armed with some of Sellers’ toys—the Dragos charm wasn’t the only magical artifact the mad warlock had at his disposal—as she suspected.

  Yeah, well... She injected a breathy, flustered note into her mental voice to hide her true purpose from him, and crept toward the door. A lady has to use the facilities once in a while. It’s not the sort of thing she wants her beau to hear, now is it?

  She reached the wall by the side of the door, the plaster cool at her back. Scant inches of wall separated her from the occupants of the corridor but she could feel their malevolence pulsing through it. No doubt they’d realized the fate of John, Karl and their companions.

  Oh, I’m your beau now, am I? Are you finally ready to concede we’re mates?

  Shit. She had to get him out of here. The magic built further, an uneasy, sickly pressure in the air that didn’t bode well. Not at all. Instinctively she reached for her magic, only to have the collar throb again, almost throwing her to her knees.

  Maaaaaybe…. If you get me a pastry. She closed her eyes and pulled strength from her beast to bolster her knees. All the time she whispered a little prayer to Hegra that he’d take the bait. Go back and get her a pastry, giving her time to sort out their visitors.

  A pastry? You’re kidding me, right? His mental voice was incredulous. You want me to go back—

  Please. Shit, she shouldn’t beg. It wasn’t her and would tip him off something was wrong. I really like them. And I’m hungry. Really hungry. Being injured and all….

  Okay, okay. He huffed, but she could hear the smile in his voice. Pastry it is. Any particular kind?

  The magic built to fever pitch, vibrations raising all the fine hairs on her skin as it raced over her to locate the collar. To her left, the door burst inwards, Red Caps flowing through the entry like beads poured from a container. Hig
h-pitched cursing shattered the peace and solitude of the apartment.

  Not really. Her lips compressed into a thin line she laid about with the skillet, clobbering Red Caps with abandon. Just something sweet and sticky.

  Sweet and sticky, got it.

  Within seconds, the room rang with death-chimes and became shrouded in green smoke. It didn’t matter how hard she hit them, not with iron. All she had to do was touch them and poof there was one less to battle. The little bastards folded in on themselves, their own magic attacking them at the touch of the iron.

  Less than a minute later, she stood in the middle of a clear room, the last of the haze clearing. She snapped her head up at the sound of someone clapping to see Rat leaning in the doorway. Tall and lean, he’d have been handsome without the sneer across his lips. She lifted the skillet threateningly.

  “Oh no, sweetheart.” He shook his head and pushed off from the door to saunter forward. “That won’t do anything against me.”

  She curled her lip, lifting the pan higher. “Should work just as well against Pixies as it does Red Caps. You’re both Fae, aren’t you?”

  “Well, you see. That might work….” He stopped to run a hand through his shoulder-length black hair. “If I wasn’t just half-pixie. The other half?”

  He looked up, grinned and the sudden flash of something darker in his blue eyes took her by surprise. Locked her into place so completely that she could barely breathe, and had no chance of reaching for her other form.

  “Well, let’s just say it’ll be a cold day in hell before what else I am succumbs to the mere touch of iron.”

  ***

  A pastry. She wanted a pastry.

  Duke sighed and turned around, almost running down an old woman carrying a pet Chihuahua under one arm.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, moving quickly to avoid spilling hot coffee all over her. She looked as human as her dog was canine, but she gave him the gimlet eye anyway. He scanned her with his non-human senses, no sense in getting sloppy. There was always the possibility she was a skin-changer under the layers of a human disguise.

  They were harder to spot than most paranormals since they were human. At least until someone looked deeper and saw the evil that lay hidden at the core. Skin-changers were invariably on the dark side. Something about the magic that had wrought the original enchantment. Bad mojo like that could infect a bloodline for generations.

  “Grrrrrrr….”

  The woman might have been all human and unable to sense what he was, but no such luck with the dog. Not only could most canines and felines sense something beyond his human form, but small dogs, like this one, had that small man syndrome thing going on. It curled its lips back from its teeth in warning, madness in its beady little eyes.

  “Oh, shush up, Caesar.” Its owner ordered, running a heavily be-ringed hand over the tiny furry head. “The nice man didn’t mean any harm, so you leave him be.”

  Caesar. She’d called it after an emperor. No wonder the furry little runt had delusions of grandeur.

  “Grrrrrr…yap yap yap!”

  The thing started to bark, standing up in its owner’s arms to yap at him. It had murder in its eyes. Duke had no doubt that, if it got free, it would try to sharpen its teeth on whatever part of him it could get to. Probably his ankle, before he kicked it into next week.

  “Caesar! Bad dog!” The woman chided, trying to pull the tiny little muzzle around so she could look the dog in the eyes. Try as she might, its gaze remained fixed to Duke. He smiled, baring his own teeth, and for a split second, let the fangs of his dragon form punch through his gums. At the same time he slid into the creature’s mind, which turned out to be a roiling mass of doggy insanity, and fed it images of what he really looked like.

  Faced with the very real possibility that this was a larger predator that could actually eat it whole, rather than a product of its own tiny, mad little brain, the Chihuahua yelped in surprise and backed up under its owners armpit. If it could have disappeared up its own asshole, it would have.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman babbled, trying to hold onto the struggling dog and smile up at Duke at the same time. “He’s not normally like this. He’s a real people person.”

  “No problem at all.” He gave her a reassuring smile and put a hand out to stroke Caesar, and got a whimper from under her arm. “Usually they take to me right away.”

  “I wonder if he’s getting sick….” She rooted him out from under her arm, and the dog curled around her hand as if trying to make itself as small as possible.

  “Possibly. He looks tired. Perhaps get him checked out?” Feeling sorry for it, Duke reached out, and eased the creature into sleep with a quick mental touch.

  “Oh, yes. He does. And I’ll do that, thank you.” With a smile, the woman tucked the dog into her arms like a baby and turned away.

  Duke breathed a sigh of relief and carried on himself. His sweetness wanted a pastry, and good mate that he was, he would fetch one. Glancing at the disposable mugs on the tray he held in one hand, he grimaced. They’d be cold before he got back. With a sigh, he dropped them into the trash and carried on walking.

  He hadn’t gotten more than a couple of steps when he slowed, a frown creasing his brow. Something was wrong. At first he’d thought his mate had simply gotten shy after their flirting, but the more he thought about it, the more that didn’t fit. Not at all.

  His footsteps stopped, and he turned to look back the way he’d come. People passed him by with nothing more than an irritated glance if he happened to be standing in their path. He ignored them.

  Admittedly, he didn’t know much about his mate. But he did know she wasn’t the shy sort of female. She worked for Sellers, was a capable female in a fight and claimed to be some Queen’s bodyguard. A warrior-knight from somewhere…in the past, maybe? She’d asked him if he was born in this time. Which indicated perhaps that she hadn’t been?

  And if she had been born in the past, a noble-woman who’d become a knight, then she was not the sort of woman to get flustered over a little light flirtation….

  Sweetness, they’re all out of pastries…will a donut do instead?

  There was no answer to his mental enquiry. Worse, there wasn’t even the ‘static’ he’d come to realize meant that she could hear him but had declined to reply. Shit. He picked up speed, half-jogging as he wove through the now thinning crowds, his pace increasing until he was at a flat out run.

  He hit the main doors of his building’s lobby at full speed, crashing through them and almost flattening Ris, coming the other way, at the same time. The Seer’s face was pale, and grew even paler when he spotted Duke.

  “Holy shit, please tell me you didn’t leave Chase on her own?”

  Duke didn’t even manage to get a word out in reply before Ris grabbed his upper arms and shook him, his expression one of panic. “It’s not a focus. It’s a control collar. Which means she’s not working for Sellers. She’s his slave.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Whatever Rat had hit her with, there was nothing Chase could do to combat it. Even calling on the strength of her dragon to throw everything the beast had to offer did nothing. As soon as he clicked his fingers and beckoned, her body obeyed. Screaming inside, she followed him like a puppy as he turned and walked out of Duke’s apartment.

  He led her down the corridor toward the elevator. All she could see was his broad back, the fabric of the wife-beater vest he wore straining over the heavy muscles of his shoulders.

  No one they passed gave either of them a second glance. Not even with Rat dressed as he was, jeans tucked into battered combat boots and his hair loose around his shoulders. She studied the color. It was flat, obviously dyed. No doubt to hide the Day-Glo hair his race was known for. Although why would he bother to hide it with the tattoos that were scrawled all over his arms, pixie tattoos for those who knew what they were looking at, on display for everyone to see?

  Her eyes were the only thing she could move of her
own volition, so she tried to catch the attention of everyone they passed, but no one looked at her. Their gazes skittered sideways, as though she and Rat weren’t there at all. As though there was some kind of invisibility spell around them.

  Confusion flooded her. Pixies, although nasty sons of bitches, just weren’t that powerful. Certainly not powerful enough to hold a dragon in thrall, let alone hold one in thrall while maintaining an invisibility cloak. Not many creatures were. So what the hell else was he? The magic had to be inherent, because he looked the same as he always had. No extra jewelry, nor was he carrying anything that could be focusing the power. Unless Sellers had spelled him? She dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred. Sellers might believe he was the most powerful warlock in existence, but he wasn’t anywhere near powerful enough to maintain two spells like that over this distance.

  They reached the elevators at the end of the corridor and she stopped between one step and the next, left swaying like a puppet on a string. Rat reached out for the button. A slight glow on the inside of his arm caught her attention. She frowned, narrowing her eyes to bring whatever it was into focus, but she still couldn’t make it out.

  Frustration rolled through her and she flicked her sight to the dragons’. Her vision lit up, like someone had shoved a billion-watt search-light right in her face. She slammed her eyelids shut, squeezing them tight but the symbols lit up on his arm felt like they were burnt into the back of her retinas.

  She recognized the etchings, even though the last time she’d seen them was in a dusty tome in the Queen’s library. Demon runes. Usually found on demons. As a race, they weren’t big on pen and paper, preferring to carve their runes right into skin. Theirs, their victims, or into the very skin of the magical world itself, they didn’t much care.

  Concentrating hard, she tried to recall anything that would help from her brief glance at those old books and scrolls but came up blank. She’d never been well-versed in the ways of the demon-kind, had never needed to be. Queen Megaris, Baby’s mother, had always dealt with the monarchs of the various hells, right up to their head honcho, the King of the Seven Hells.