The Monster Ball: A Paranormal Romance Anthology

by Heather Hildenbrand

  “Wow,” I exclaimed, as hands lowered me to the floor, my feet straining for solid ground again. “That was a rush.”

  “Did you just teleport?” Torstein asked me.

  I shrugged as he began to drag me back to the couch. I hadn’t realised that he was there for a reason, but now it seemed very obvious that he didn’t want to give up that particular seat.

  “Oh, hey!” Werewolf Number Two lifted his head away from the kiss of one of his obliging partners, raising his hand in a wave at me. “That was a cool trick. Can you teach me that?”

  I tried to stop the smile from curving my lips, but I was sure that I failed. Werewolf Number Two was already pretty trashed.

  “Sure,” I said, as Torstein sat me down on the couch beside him. Almost immediately, several of the woman emerged from other parts of the club, re-claiming their hover-positions. “Close your eyes.” I waited until his eyes snapped shut, and then I leaned over and touched his knee. “Now picture where you want to go.”

  “Hawaiiiii,” he sang the word, drawing it out drunkenly.

  I had no idea if what I was about to attempt was even possible, but I called to mind a picture of a beach on a postcard from Hawaii that I had seen once before closing my eyes and willing my borrowed power to send him there. Darkness closed in around me again, and I started to swear beneath my breath as I fell backward, the couch no longer supporting my weight. I crashed into a tiled wall, distracted by the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor beside me. I found Werewolf Number Two picking himself up from the floor, wide-eyed as he glanced around what was clearly a bathroom.

  “Aw man,” he whined. “Of all the places in Hawaii, you had to send us here?”

  “What’s your name?” I sighed out, helping him up off the floor.

  “Reginald,” he replied, putting all of his weight on me as he found his feet again, almost buckling my legs and sending us both to the floor. “But people call me Reggie.”

  “I’m going to be honest here, Reggie.” I smirked, looking him over. “People call you that for a reason.”

  “It was a common name back when I was born,” he defended, glancing around the bathroom.

  “No it wasn’t,” I countered. “At no point has Reginald ever been a common name. Ever.”

  He snorted out a laugh. “Okay, fine. Do you think it’s weird that this bathroom in Hawaii is playing the same music as the ball?”

  “We’re not in Hawaii,” I told him, pushing open the door and walking back out into the main ballroom. He followed, so I kept talking. “I think whatever magic brought us here is also preventing us from leaving.”

  “That’s alright I guess.” He shrugged. “There’s plenty of booze, and the girls are hot. It’ll take me a while to cycle through them all. I guess I could cycle through twice, but then I’ll probably want to go home. There’s this hot little piece of fae that I’m following on Instagram. I figure if I like all her tree pictures she’ll probably message me to hang out, right?”

  I blinked, turning to look at him as we made our way back to the couches. He looked completely serious.

  “Ah … sure?” I ventured.

  He frowned at my doubtful tone. “You got a better idea?”

  “Sure I do. It’s a little more … intense, though.”

  “I’m listening.” He grabbed my elbow, bringing us both to a halt and whipping me around to face him. And he was listening. I could almost see his ears straining.

  I grinned. “Okay. First up, you need to become an expert on trees. If there’s a class, you should take it. Become a botanist. Go back to college if you have to. Do a doctorate specialising in trees. Then, in six-to-ten years from now, bring up her Instagram and sit there, watching and waiting until she posts a picture of a tree—”

  “I think I might just …” he started, his brown eyes widening in horror.

  “As soon as you see that picture, you use your botanist degree to figure out where she is,” I continued, ignoring him as I clutched his arm, trying to convey the importance of what I was saying. “When you’ve narrowed down her location, get in your car and buy a coffee. Just one. Because when you find her, you’re going to run into her and spill coffee all over yourself. She’s going to be sorry, but she doesn’t know you, that’s not enough to force her to buy you a new coffee, so you’re going to have to tell her not to worry about the coffee … it’s the shirt you’re upset about. Why? Because this shirt was hand-sewn by your very own father, who died while sewing it. He was a kind and loving man—make sure she knows that.”

  He was staring at me as I paused to take a breath, and I could see that I had lost him somewhere around the time I mentioned going back to college.

  “Eh,” I waved him off. “If you miss out on a lifetime of happiness and bliss with your Instagram crush, that’s on you, buddy.”

  Chapter Seven

  When we got back to the couches, Torstein was on his feet again, his hands passing over the shaved sides of his head. I wondered what he looked like to the other women. Was he running his hands through curly, midnight-black locks? The thought was a strange one.

  “How was Hawaii?” he asked me as I brushed straight past him and sat back down on the couch.

  Werewolf Number Two fell back into his own seat, one of the women immediately setting about consoling him, since he looked a little shell-shocked.

  “It was very sterile,” I told him as he sat back down beside me. “Smelled lemon-fresh.”

  “You can copy my power again if you want.” His arm stretched along the backs of my shoulders, but his eyes were trained carefully on the people passing by, possibly searching for someone. “Your new one doesn’t seem to be working out so well for you.”

  “I think I like this one.” I peeked at him out of the corner of my eye before turning to watch the people with him. “There is some kind of enchantment over this place. It isn’t letting anyone leave.”

  “What were you doing when you were brought here?” he asked, his eyes seeking me briefly.

  “I was sitting on my porch in my pajamas with a bottle of whiskey,” I replied blandly. “My ex lives next door and he was having a party, so I went out there to watch him dirty-dance with his new girlfriend.”

  “Why did he break up with you?” I had Torstein’s full attention now. He seemed surprised—though I doubted it was over the fact that I had been transported to the ball tipsy and underdressed.

  “I accidently caught a Siren’s ability, and I like to sing in the shower. Men kept breaking into our house. He caught one masturbating at the bathroom door one night, and that was the end of that.”

  He burst out laughing and then dragged me back onto his lap, his hands suddenly cupping the sides of my face.

  “Time for your next task,” he whispered against my mouth, drawing a shudder from my body.

  I settled my arms against his huge shoulders, inching my knees forward slightly. I had been around him for several hours now, and the ache in my center had descended into an actual, physical need. I needed to feel the hardness of him pressing between my legs. I needed to feel his mouth on mine. One of his hands dropped from my face, passing down over the arch of my spine to settle at my hip, drawing me in against him. I felt his reaction stir along the inside of my thigh, and I dropped my mouth to his instinctively. Maybe he was enchanting me, or maybe I was realising that there was a chance this handsome, sadistic villain wouldn’t actually uphold his promise and let me drag him home. Torstein hadn’t survived this long by following his dick and putting himself into defenceless situations. Maybe this would be my last chance to taste him.

  Both of us made a sound, and I pulled back from the heady kiss, trying to focus on his face through my blurry vision.

  “What is it?” I asked. “What’s the task?”

  “Do you remember the fanger whose phone you stole?”

  “Blue Suit?”

  He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket, passing the cell in question over to me. “I need you
to plant it on someone.”

  “Which someone?”

  “His date.” Torstein flicked his eyes over my shoulder and I twisted on his lap, glancing at the nearby throng of dancers that held his attention.

  Blue Suit wasn’t hard to spot—from our strategic viewpoint, we had a direct line of sight to where he was standing, a blond vampire in massive silver heels rubbing her body all over him.

  “Well, shit.” I muttered. “I don’t think there’s any room left in her dress for a cell phone.” I was trying to keep my voice casual, but there were alarm bells going off in my head.

  The woman dancing all over Blue Suit looked exactly like one of the several women that Torstein had been accused of kidnapping. She was a vampire, clearly wealthy, young, and beautiful. She also appeared to be a little wild, if her cheeky smile and the way her hands wandered were any indication. My ‘friend’ Sarah, had been the same, along with the other victims. He had also met each of them in a supernatural club—an atmosphere not so different to our current atmosphere.

  “Why her?” I asked, casually shifting from his lap to sit beside him on the couch again.

  My blood was running cold, my mind spinning a million miles a minute. I was disgusted with myself. How could I have fallen for his ... allure so easily? What was wrong with me? I had been hunting Torstein for years, but now suddenly all I wanted to do was dry hump him?

  “Because she’s the perfect target,” Torstein replied casually. My stomach rolled.

  I had to save her. I had to get him out of here ... but I had a feeling that was going to be impossible. We weren’t going to be allowed anywhere until the mysterious host of the party allowed us to go somewhere.

  “What will planting the phone on her do?” I asked, trying to buy myself some time to formulate a plan.

  “It will tell her what she needs to know.”

  “And what is that?” I applauded my even tone.

  “That she is being hunted.”

  Bile rose up to the back of my throat, and I reacted without thinking, grabbing a hold of his arm and glancing up toward one of those impossibly high beds floating around the ceiling. I called on the power that raced through my limbs as darkness closed in around me, the sounds of the ballroom falling silent, before returning again. They were further away this time, and I fell back into the now-familiar caress of silk, a heavy body falling down beside me.

  “What the fu—” he started, but I found his chest as a dim light flickered on from an elegant chandelier above us and shoved him, hard, cutting off the last word.

  “Consider yourself apprehended,” I snapped at him. “No more hunting for you.”

  “Sparky, you might have teleported us to the ceiling, but we’re still in the castle.”

  “Until the enchantment holding us here is released,” I replied quickly, edging away from the heat of his body. “And then I’m teleporting you straight to Ryan James, who offered fifty-thousand dollars if I hunted you down.”

  “That was a year ago, and you weren’t quick enough to catch me,” he drawled softly. “James has moved onto bigger and better things.”

  “He forgets about you for a few months, that’s true,” I allowed. “But then another girl goes missing and he raises the price another five grand. I could just lock you in my basement until the price goes up—” I trailed off, the realisation of what he had said finally hitting me.

  In the dim lighting, his face suddenly came into focus, only a few inches from mine. He had been looming closer, and I felt the dip of the mattress as his hands landed on either side of my thighs.

  “You’ve known about me this whole time,” I breathed out, surprised.

  He glanced between my eyes, his braid falling over his shoulder to brush against my leg. “I’m not a complete idiot, Isa Elric. I’ve known about you for years.”

  I closed my eyes, about to teleport away, but his fingers suddenly wrapped my wrists, forcing me to pause. I wasn’t going to chance bringing him with me and putting that poor woman in danger.

  “You’re not going to disappear again,” he said, dragging me away from the edge of the bed and indicating that he had practically just read my mind. “I was content with our bi-annual dance around each other … until you showed up tonight, looking like you’d just rolled out of bed, dipped yourself in gold and delivered yourself straight into my hands.”

  “Let me go,” I warned … though I didn’t voice any actual threats because I didn’t have anything to threaten him with. “I’m not going to line up to be your next victim so that you can seduce me and make me disappear.”

  “Let’s just get one thing straight, sweetheart. I don’t have sex with any of the girls I take. I put them up in expensive hotel rooms where they can order all the room service they want and watch all the movies they want, until their daddies or boyfriends give me what I want.”

  I stilled, confused enough that I didn’t fight him when his touch shifted to my legs, brushing aside the chain-link covering to grip my thighs and pull me closer. “Wait,” I held my hand up, confused. “You’re gay?”

  “What?” he also stilled, and then his laugh wrapped around me, husky and full. “No. It’s called blackmail. Your job is to hunt down people; my job is to hunt down information. I get paid ridiculous amounts of money to deliver the secrets of other people. Some of them can be a little hard to crack open, though, so I have to apply a bit of pressure.”

  “By … using your incubus power to lure away whatever woman is most important to them, and then holding her for ransom?”

  “Eight times out of ten, those women beg me to keep them,” he replied nonchalantly, the glint of humor in his eye almost enough to coax an unwilling smile from me.

  “And then those same men hire me to hunt you down …” I surmised. “Not because they want their women back, but because they want their secrets back. Which means you’ve already acquired proof of some kind to prove whatever secrets you need to prove … so why are their women still missing?”

  “One of them refused to leave,” he grunted out. “She’s still living in one of the hotel rooms. I’ve been picking up the bill for almost six months now, but I can’t exactly make her go, since I’m the reason she had to hide out there in the first place. She might have Stockholm Syndrome. Another one ran off with her father’s intern and asked me to fake her death so that he wouldn’t try to find her and drag her back. I highly doubt the others are still missing—you just didn’t fact-check the people paying you, I’m guessing.”

  I fell back onto the bed, laughter spilling out of me. There were tears in my eyes when Torstein’s face appeared over mine, the weight of his body settling into me.

  “I don’t believe you,” I lied, the laughter dying out of me.

  “Yes, you do.” His lips found mine, and my breath caught. He pulled back, drawing in a ragged breath. “I’ve watched you for years, Isa. I’ve wanted to touch you for years. I’ve needed to taste you for years. I never should have let you see me tonight.”

  “I … I won’t bring you in,” I lied.

  “Yes, you will.” He flashed me his sharp smile again, before ducking his head, his teeth latching onto the sensitive skin of my neck. “But it might just be worth it,” he muttered against my skin.

  I was quivering, my body flushing with unbearable heat when I turned my head, finding his lips again. The kiss turned ravenous very quickly, and before I knew it, I was shoving him off me, my leg swinging over his hip as I straddled him. Torstein was dominating in his own right, but I needed to be in control in that moment. I had the oddest premonition that he was about to slip through my fingers, and that had me feeling all kinds of torn. One of us had shoved off his jacket, so I pushed his shirt up now, my hands running over the dips and ridges of his muscled torso. There was so much of him that by the time my hands were at his shoulders, I was almost entirely stretched out over him. He lifted a little, allowing me to draw his shirt off. There were tattoos marking his skin, previously hidden by his clothe
s. I couldn’t see them clearly in the weak lighting, but I ran my fingers along the patterns as best as I could follow them.

  “Take this fucking dress off,” he growled, his hands full of the delicate chain-link material—indicating that he wasn’t going to be completely dominated.

  I lifted my arms, allowing him to pull it up and off, the warmed metal brushing my legs as he tossed it to the bed. His fingers traced the neckline of my gold bodysuit as I fell back to his chest, but I was kissing him before he could order me to take that off, too. I had been kneeling over his stomach, but when our kiss grew desperate, he suddenly sat up, drawing my hips to his. Pressing his hardened length against me with a heavy groan. I wasn’t sure how his pants came off, or at what point my bodysuit disappeared, but I realised our nakedness as soon he rolled me beneath him, nudging my legs apart. His fingers pushed inside me, his other hand cupping my jaw as his mouth slanted over mine, swallowing my sounds of pleasure. I came apart in a matter of minutes, and I was surprised when he rolled back over, lifting me over him and positioning me to take control. I reached between us, wrapping my hand around him, enjoying the hiss of breath that escaped him and the way his chest swelled.

  I continued to tease him until his hands found my hips, his fingers pressing in roughly as he drew me forward—it was the only warning I got before he was plunging me down onto his shaft, forcing my hand to fall away. He allowed me a moment to adjust to his size, but as soon as I began to shift my hips, he gave up all pretense of allowing me control, his hands guiding my hips, his eyes almost glittering as he drank me in. It wasn’t slow, but it wasn’t fast either. We drowned in each other silently, our hands grasping, our breathing ragged. There was a slow fire inside me, igniting my whole world. There was only a small corner of my mind—the rational piece that had been shoved far, far away—and it began to despair at the thought of losing this heavenly feeling when I inevitably handed Torstein over … because not even mind-blowing sex was worth fifty-thousand dollars.