Darker: The Inquirer

by M. S. Parker

  Darker II

  The Inquirer

  M. S. Parker

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Published by Belmonte Publishing LLC

  Contents

  Free Book

  The Darker Trilogy

  1. Bradyn

  2. Nyx

  3. Bradyn

  4. Nyx

  5. Bradyn

  6. Nyx

  7. Nyx

  8. Bradyn

  9. Nyx

  10. Bradyn

  11. Nyx

  12. Bradyn

  13. Bradyn

  14. Nyx

  15. Bradyn

  16. Nyx

  17. Bradyn

  18. Nyx

  19. Bradyn

  20. Nyx

  21. Bradyn

  22. Nyx

  23. Bradyn

  24. Nyx

  25. Bradyn

  26. Nyx

  27. Nyx

  28. Bradyn

  29. Nyx

  30. Bradyn

  31. Nyx

  32. Bradyn

  33. Nyx

  34. Bradyn

  35. Nyx

  Excerpt: Pleasures Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  The Club Prive Series

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Free Book

  Get my new book for FREE! Click Here to subscriber to my newsletter and start reading the exclusive 200 pages stand-alone steamy romance, His Inspiration.

  The Darker Trilogy

  Thank you for reading Darker: The Novice, the first full book in my new Darker Trilogy. I highly recommend reading the books in this order:

  Prequel – Darker

  Darker I: The Novice

  Darker II: The Inquirer (This book)

  Darker III: The Fugitive (Oct 9th)

  One

  Bradyn

  “Phone call for you, sugar,” Shadae Huxley called out the back door. “Says she’s a friend of Nyx’s.”

  I frowned as I set down the rotted fence post I’d just pulled out of the ground. “Can you take a message? I want to get this next post in and the hole filled before it gets dark.”

  “Do I look like a damn secretary or your mother?” Shadae shook a spoon at me. “Now, you best get in here before I start thinkin’ you’re messin’ around on that sweet girl.”

  I knew better than to argue with the woman who served as my boss, my landlord, and my friend, even though I had a few things I could’ve said about the less-than-sweet Nyx Phoenix. As I walked toward the house, I pulled my shirt from my back pocket and wiped my face.

  September was almost over, but it was still hotter than Satan’s balls. For a moment, I let myself wonder what it was like in New York, but then I pushed the thought away. Nyx had just left, and I hadn’t found out about it until I’d gone to her cabin to walk with her to breakfast and found the note she’d put on her door. It’d been addressed to Shadae and Brew, and there hadn’t been a single damn word for me.

  I didn’t know what Nyx and I had, but I didn’t think that total exclusion boded well for us.

  “Did she give you her name?” I took my shoes off, leaving them on the porch before stepping inside the kitchen.

  Shadae held out the phone. “Kaimi Edlund.”

  I recognized the name, and an unreasonable fear went through me. Kaimi was Nyx’s best friend and the person whose wedding Nyx was attending this weekend. Was she calling because Nyx hadn’t arrived yet? Or had Nyx wanted to end things with me but been too afraid to do it herself?

  The questions raced through my mind in the few seconds it took me to put the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

  “Is this Bradyn?”

  “It is.”

  “My name’s Kaimi Edlund. I’m a friend of Nyx Phoenix.”

  “I’ve heard of you.”

  “Then you know that Nyx is here in New York for my wedding.” She made it a statement and then got right to the point of her call. “She doesn’t have a plus-one, and pretty much everyone else we’ve invited is coming as a pair. I was hoping you’d come be her date, starting tomorrow night at the rehearsal.”

  Of all the possibilities I’d considered in the last two minutes, an invitation to a wedding hundreds of miles away hadn’t been one of them.

  “The fact that you’re calling instead of Nyx makes me think she doesn’t know about us talking.” It was the politest way I could think of to address the proverbial elephant in the room.

  “She doesn’t,” Kaimi cleared her throat, “but she doesn’t always know what’s best for her either.”

  Considering the little I knew about Nyx, that made sense, especially since Kaimi was family. Like Nyx, I knew that real, true family had very little to do with DNA.

  “I’d like to surprise her,” Kaimi continued. “She told me about how well the two of you hit it off, and I think she’ll be thrilled to see you.”

  My ears burned, and it had nothing to do with the sun I’d been working under most of the day. How much had Nyx shared? I wasn’t a prude or ashamed or anything like that, but I wasn’t an exhibitionist either.

  Sex, for me, was a private thing. Sure, I didn’t mind risky stuff like when Nyx and I had been in the hayloft or getting a little hot and heavy at a club like Hades, but details weren’t something I usually shared. The fact that I didn’t know if I could say the same about Nyx bothered me.

  “I’ll help out with a plane ticket and hotel if the cost is an issue.”

  I appreciated the offer, but it still made me want to laugh. Not too long ago, I would’ve been able to use a private jet and rent a hotel room at one of the best hotels in New York. Now, thanks to my principles, the most I could do was say that I didn’t need financial help.

  “No, thank you.” I glanced at the clock. “Money’s not really the problem. It’s flight availability. I don’t know if I can get one in time.”

  “Another reason it’d be better as a surprise.” I heard footsteps across the line and thought she must be pacing. “If you’re not able to make it, then she doesn’t have to know that I asked you to come. No disappointment.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” I asked, keeping a tight rein on my emotions.

  I didn’t want to let myself get too attached to the idea of seeing Nyx again. Not just seeing her in her own element but doing something as normal as going to a wedding together.

  She’d said more than once that she didn’t date, but we’d gone on a sort-of-date before she left. It’d been a private one, but this would be an opportunity for a public one…and a chance for me to meet the most important people in her life.

  “I’ve known Nyx since she was thirteen years old.” Kaimi’s voice softened. “I can read her better than anyone, and when she talks about you…she didn’t say anything different than what I’ve heard her say about other guys, but I heard what she didn’t say. If anyone can make something with her, I think it’d be you.”

  I closed my eyes. I wanted that. I’d wanted it from the first moment I saw her at the airport, a split second before she’d crashed into me. I’d taken one look into those bright green eyes of hers, and I’d been lost. A couple inches over average height, she was still a foot shorter than me, but she carried herself as if she was six feet tall.

  “Rose would really like to meet you too. She was worried about Nyx being alone at the wedding. Here, let her tell you herse
lf.”

  Shit. How was I supposed to say no to a kid?

  A little over twenty-four hours later, I was standing less than a foot from Nyx and trying to figure out if she was glad to see me or not. I’d been honest about why I was there, but I felt like I was blaming Kaimi and not taking responsibility for my own part in the surprise.

  “Do you want me to stay?” I forced myself to exhale the breath I’d been holding. “I came for you, not for me. Just say the word, and I’ll go back to my hotel and spend the rest of the weekend sightseeing.”

  My stomach clenched at the thought of leaving her so soon, but I’d do it if it was what she wanted. The short time I’d known her had been enough for me to understand that there was a fine line to walk when it came to her. If I left, I needed her to understand that it wouldn’t be because I was mad that she didn’t want me here, but because I respected her wishes.

  As I waited for a response, the look in her eyes shifted, like she was lost in thought. Too many thoughts.

  “Hey.” I touched her cheek and restrained myself from turning it into something lingering. “I mean it, Nyx. Say the word, and I’ll leave. No hard feelings. And if you want me to stay, there’s no expectations. I’ll follow your lead.”

  When she took my hand, relief went through me. It didn’t matter how little or how much time we spent together, or how intimate that time was. I was just glad to be here.

  I felt the same way later that night when I went back to my hotel room alone. I wanted her, but I planned to let her be the one to decide what that would look like and when that would happen. The next day at the reception, my patience paid off because she asked me to take her back to my room.

  Everything went better than I could have dreamed. I gave her a massage and took down those gorgeous dark red waves of hers. Then we made love.

  She wouldn’t call it that if I asked what we did, and maybe it was too soon for me to feel it, but I never really liked lying to myself, and that’s what it would’ve been, plain and simple. I couldn’t flat-out say that I loved her, but it was damn close.

  I didn’t do one-night stands. Nothing wrong with it if that’s what someone else needed, but I just wasn’t wired that way. I was more of a serial-monogamy person. I dated with the intention of the relationship growing. I never started something that I didn’t anticipate continuing.

  Then again, I hadn’t thought I’d be the type of guy who’d make out with a woman the same day I met her. If she hadn’t stopped us that first night, we might’ve had sex right there. Then I’d completely stepped back at Hades, voluntarily submitting to her even though I’d never thought of myself as anything but Dominant. The fact that I’d had sex with her there at all had surprised me.

  Hell, everything about this thing with her was new, not the least of which was me and how I was with her. I wanted to protect her – even more after I learned what’d happened to her as a kid – but I couldn’t treat her like I had my past girlfriends.

  My last two girlfriends had been submissive in all aspects of their lives. They’d wanted total domination from me, and I’d given it to them. I hadn’t been into BDSM when I started dating my first girlfriend in high school, but she had the same quiet, timid personality. The only one of my ex’s who hadn’t really fit into that mold had spent most of our relationship pretending. She’d been a brilliant actress, hiding pretty much everything about herself until things had exploded.

  Nyx wasn’t any of that.

  She was bold and strong and tough. While she wasn’t an open person, she didn’t lie about who she was either.

  At least, I hadn’t thought so until just now when I heard her side of a conversation with someone I assumed was her boss.

  “…I can use my contact to get some face-to-face time.”

  She hadn’t said my name, but considering she’d preceded that statement by telling her boss that she’d found someone connected to the Traylor family, I felt pretty confident that she meant me.

  “I’ll send you more information as I get it.”

  I clenched my teeth, barely hearing Nyx end the call. What the fuck had that been about? When I’d introduced myself to her at the police station, I could’ve sworn she hadn’t recognized my last name. But she had to have known who I was, wouldn’t she? Nothing else explained what I’d just heard.

  She’d been using me this entire time.

  Here I’d been worried about her, angry about what had been done to her, concerned that I could accidentally trigger her, and she’d been playing me.

  Betrayal cut deep, magnified by a too-familiar humiliation.

  “You’ve been spying on me this whole time?” I was proud of myself for not yelling the question, but I doubted this conversation was going to get quieter or calmer.

  I was right.

  Accusations flew, and my temper built…until she hit below the belt.

  “Planning to make me a villain in your little movie? The bitch who dared to ask questions about the great Traylor family? Maybe even throw in how my stepfather fucked me. Everyone likes a bit of sex in their entertainment.”

  She opened the door and said one final thing.

  “Or maybe you think I was lying about that too. Don’t worry, no one else ever believed me either.”

  All the anger drained out of me, taking my strength with it, and I dropped into the nearby chair.

  What the hell had just happened?

  A week.

  It’d been almost a full week since Nyx had walked out of my hotel room, and I hadn’t seen or talked to her since. I honestly doubted I’d ever hear from her again, and I should have already been moving on, forgetting about her.

  It wasn’t like we’d actually been in a relationship, and just because I’d been hoping that was the way it would go didn’t mean that’s what she’d thought too. And even if she had thought it, it didn’t matter now.

  She’d lied.

  How could I believe anything she’d said?

  I’d turned things over in my head more than once, trying to decide how much of what she’d done and said had been true.

  Meeting me at the airport?

  I didn’t see how she could’ve purposefully run into me since I hadn’t known I’d be dropping off a guest at the airport until Nyx’s flight had already been on its way here. But maybe she’d intended to have some sort of ‘chance’ meeting with me already and just took the opportunity that me being at the airport brought.

  Then there was the fact that she’d made the first physical move. At the time, I thought it’d been because she was attracted to me, but in the past, I’d learned the hard way that I wasn’t as good a judge of that as I’d once thought.

  I sighed as I turned off my shower. No good was going to come out of me going over it all again. I needed to get my head out of the clouds and focus on my work. Not my riding lessons, since I’d gotten through those more or less fine, but my real work. I really had needed a job when I’d come to the ranch, but choosing to apply here had come with secondary motives.

  One positive thing I could say about the blow-up with Nyx was that I wanted to stay busy. Throwing myself into work would be a good way to do just that.

  After drying off, I draped the towel over my shoulders and used the end to dry inside my ears. I was still doing that when I stepped into my bedroom and discovered a naked woman in my bed.

  And not just any naked woman either.

  It was her.

  “What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  Two

  Nyx

  Alcohol.

  “You know a decent bar?” I asked as I shut the cab door. “I don’t need anything fancy, but I don’t want a dive either.”

  “I know a place.”

  As the driver took us back down to the road, I was tempted to close my eyes, like that would block out the image of that naked brunette standing in the doorway and telling me that Bradyn was in the shower. It wouldn’t. I knew from experience that eyes open or eyes closed didn’t matter
. Some shit just stuck in your head, and it was usually the stuff you most wanted to forget.

  I’d been lucky, in a way, being put into juvie before I’d gotten hooked on negative ways to cope with my past. The juvie part hadn’t been the lucky thing. It’d been the fact that I’d been put in a room with Kaimi, who’d already done the whole rebellious thing and learned from it. She’d made sure I knew that I needed to learn how to deal with shit without drugs or booze. Not that drinking was a bad thing, just that I shouldn’t rely on it. And I never had.

  Right now, though, I was too fucking tired to try to work through it in my head. Maybe after sleeping it off and dealing with the hangover, I’d realize how much better off I was now. I’d come back here because of the Huxleys and their connection to the Douglasses. All of their connections to the Traylor family. I hadn’t been sure how well I’d be able to handle dealing with Bradyn’s family if things with him had still been…confusing.

  There was nothing confusing about a naked woman.

  A flash of hot anger washed through me, and I let it burn away the hurt. Not away. Not really. But it made it more bearable, and that was all I really needed right now.

  It was the shock of it that made it so bad. That had to be the reason.