Sleeping with the Beast
Conner Kressley
Rebecca Hamilton
Contents
Copyright
Blurb
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Copyright © 2016 by Conner Kressley & Rebecca Hamilton
All rights reserved.
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The book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without the permission of the publisher. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Blurb
Sleeping with the Beast
The war between Conduits and Supplicants is turned inside out when Charisse and Abram learn who’s in bed with who.
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After narrowly surviving a murderous mob, curvy Conduit/Supplicant Charisse and alpha Beast Abram escape to the remote island of Grimoult, where their relaxing vacation soon turns into a sinister suicide mission.
People have been jumping from the island cliff in record numbers, but Charisse and Abram aren’t convinced these deaths are really suicides. Especially once they learn all the jumpers share the same dream-vision of a beautiful woman three days before their fall. Now it’s up to Charisse and Abram to find out what this “Sleeping Beauty” has to do with the suicides.
Their search for answers leads them to the island king’s castle, where the beauty and her beast find themselves at the mercy of a kinky ruler whose sexist mentality and BDSM fetishes soon begin to rub off on the pair. But time is cut short when Charisse sees Sleeping Beauty for herself, marking her as the next suicide victim and leaving her only three days until her death.
Chapter 1
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When Abram offered to take me to Grimoult—an island off the coast of Greece—it was supposed be a vacation. But after that first body jumped from a cliff and fell dead at our feet, Satina told us our vacation had turned into some sort of mission
We had been through so much already, what with magic monsters and undead Conduits to deal with, and the idea of soaking up the sun with my brand new boyfriend seemed like just the balm I needed to feel like myself again.
Whatever that meant.
After all, I’d only recently learned I was a Supplicant and that my body was the key to unlocking magic throughout the world. Sometimes magic that would be used for nefarious purpose, but still. This was supposed to be our time. Time to connect with each other without the threat of almost dying constantly looming over us.
Too bad the dead bodies falling from the sky had to go and ruin that.
Abram banged against the castle’s old wooden door. Its knocker—a steel dragon with its mouth open menacingly—swung back and forth as Abram’s fist collided with the wood.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked, settling next to him and shaking my head. “We’ve been at this for several minutes now. I think it’s safe to say no one’s home.”
Which wouldn’t have surprised me. This wasn’t some restaurant or gift shop. It wasn’t even a house. It was a giant freaking castle. Old, hulking, and sitting atop a plateau of sorts. We had just watched some poor sap throw himself off the cliff opposite this one, with the words ‘She Sleeps’ carved into his forehead, and now we’d hiked up this twin cliff in hopes of finding…what, exactly?
Not the best start to a vacation by anyone’s definition.
Naturally, I assumed the castle was empty—a forgotten relic of a time long past, like Blockbuster Video or hoop earrings. But when Satina gave us this address and told us to come here to find answers, Abram informed me Grimoult not only still had a royal family, but it was one of the last countries in the world to actually give power to the inbred idiots.
Backward thinking was always so charming.
“Someone is here.” Abram huffed, still pounding. “I’ve been to enough castles to know that you never leave one completely empty. My guess is that they’re watching us, trying to figure out what it is we’re doing here.”
“And what are we doing here, besides wasting prime sunbathing time? I bought a skimpy little two-piece that’s getting awful lonely in my suitcase,” I said, batting my eyelashes.
He stopped pounding on the door, no doubt to ponder the mental image I had just given him…which, you know, was the whole point.
“As tempting as that sounds, you heard Satina. We have work to do.”
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”
Abram turned toward me, his face twisting up. “Your friend’s son, Jack?”
“What?” I asked, then I remembered Abram was older than sand and probably hadn’t seen or read The Shining, as modern as he liked to pretend he was. “Never mind. I just meant all we do is work. We never have any fun.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” he said, his voice dropping seductively. “But I’m afraid you’ll need to learn some patience, Ms. Bellamy.”
A blush ran up my cheeks, remembering all the ‘fun’ we’d had back in New Haven. It had been something to write home about, assuming your home was Penthouse magazine. I had hoped for an encore of that here.
Okay, so maybe I had hoped for ten encores interrupted only long enough to reapply sunscreen and down what Travel Magazine called “the most sinfully delicious piña coladas in the world.”
Though, looking around, it seemed unlikely anything could grow here, let alone the ingredients for fresh tropical concoctions.
“Everything’s dead around here,” I said, looking at the scorched earth and brown grass. “It’s depressing.”
“They’ve had a monumental drought,” Abram said, his knocking back in full swing. “I read about it on that thing you showed me.”
“The internet?”
He turned to me. “Yes, that. And I won three MVP players, and a member of the Nigerian royal family would like to send me ten million dollars in exchange for my socialite number, but I couldn’t find one on your device.”
“Just stick to Google, Slick,” I answered, smiling. MVP players. I giggled inwardly, but the amusement was replaced by a strange thought worming its way into my mind. “Wait. Why would you take me somewhere that you knew was going through a drought?”
Before he could answer,
the large wooden door creaked open. We both stepped back instinctively.
“Oh, God,” I murmured, realizing I was about to be met with royalty and we didn’t have even the smallest glimmer of a plan. “What are you gonna tell them?” I whispered. “That people are falling from the sky and we’re here to investigate? You’d need a Mystery Machine and a bright orange ascot if you wanted to make that plausible.”
“I’m going to assume that’s one of your pop culture references. In the future, you should be aware that I sort of pulled out of public life after the 1920s and didn’t reemerge until right before I met your father.” He raked his fingers through his hair before adding, “And of course I’m going to say something much more believable.”
“Such as?” I asked as the door swung the rest of the way open.
Abram straightened his stance. “I have no idea.”
Chapter 2
I wasn’t sure why I expected to see an old-timey knight, complete with a suit of armor and glistening sword, standing on the other side of the door. Maybe all the movies my mother force-fed me in my formative years were finally catching up to me. But, when the door finally did part, the person I saw didn’t fit that bill at all.
He was tall and sleek, dressed in a black suit with a gun on his hip. He looked more like Secret Service than someone you would expect to find roaming the halls of a castle.
“State your business,” he said in an accent that landed on the rough end of German and Russian.
“We’re here to see the king,” Abram answered, standing as straight and broad as a statue.
“Tourists,” the man at the door muttered disgustedly. “The king has matters of great importance to attend to. He hasn’t time to greet every person who visits our island.” He started to close the door. “Though rest assured, he appreciates your patronage.”
Abram’s hand slammed against the wood, stopping the door in its tracks. The guard’s eyes went wide enough that I could imagine he was thinking of going for his gun.
“Would that change if His Majesty knew that royalty was at his gates?”
The guard leaned forward, inspecting us. The door moved back open, though just a little.
“You?” he asked, eyeing our flip flops and beachwear. “You are royalty?”
“I’m Prince Anton Serval of the island nation of Backus,” Abram answered, taking on an accent that sounded almost identical to that of the guard.
When I giggled, Abram shot me a look that said I needed to take this more seriously. But royalty? And an entire island nation? Since he was undoubtedly pulling all of this out of that wonderfully sculpted ass of his, part of me was more than a little impressed with the improv skills.
“I’m afraid we’ll need a little more than an announcement,” the guard said, narrowing his eyes.
“I would be happy to accommodate. However, I think your king will be rather cross with you if he learns this is how you have greeted his royal guests,” Abram said, suddenly looking as regal as man in beachwear could as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m sure he’ll be anxious to give us a proper greeting.”
“Very well,” the guard said, and then the door slammed shut.
I spun toward Abram, my head so hot I thought my ears might be on fire. “How the hell are you going to get us out of this?”
“Careful. That’s no way to speak to your king,” he answered, a devilish grin flickering across his face.
“Now who needs to be more serious?” I asked him, cocking my head to the side. “Honestly, Abram, how are you going to convince some backwater king that you own some island you just made up?”
“I didn’t make it up.” He broke eye contact and pinned his attention straight ahead. “Backus exists, or at least it used to. Historically, Backus feuded with Grimoult for centuries, fighting over lands and trade routes—the kind of thing that hardly seems to matter anymore. It was absorbed into Greece over a hundred years ago. But my guess is that the prospect of its return will be enough to at least get us an audience with…what did he say the king’s name was?”
“Dumbass?” I muttered, turning away from him to stare at the door.
“Not a fan of royalty?” he asked, brushing his hand across my cheekbone to sweep away a loose tendril of hair. I wasn’t going to let him charm his way out of this one, though.
“It all seems very outdated to me. One group of people thinking they have the right to tell everyone else how to live just because they happened to be born with a silver spoon up their butt. This isn’t the dark ages.”
“It is a bit old fashioned,” Abram conceded. “But then again, so am I.”
“Well, there’s good-old and bad-old,” I answered, looking him up and down.
I loved the sight of him, of the way everything he wore seemed custom made to fit around his biceps, the curve of his smile so beautiful that it had to be rare. And his heart, the one I knew beat in tandem with my own.
He was definitely good-old. Even if he had just admitted to not knowing who Scooby Doo was.
The door opened once more. This time, the guard had company—two more similarly dressed men, each with guns at their hips.
“Follow me, Your Highness,” he said to Abram. “The king eagerly awaits to…take you in.”
Abram extended his arm, and I took it as we proceeded into the castle like the beach bum rulers we were pretending to be.
The interior of the castle didn’t do much to sate the seven-year-old Disney princess enthusiast I used to be. The castles in those movies were bright, vibrant, and colorful. This place was dark. The walls were dingy gray stone, and the windows were shrouded with black curtains. The only light, which was few and far between, came from single bulbs that sat in lantern-like holders on either wall.
“God, it’s like a vampire lives here,” I whispered to Abram, noticing the lack of sun.
“Let’s hope not,” he answered.
“Shut up.” I jabbed him in the stomach. “I know there’s no such thing as vampires.”
“Right, of course, because magic does not exist.”
“Be serious.”
He raised his eyebrows at me.
“Abram, tell me there’s no such thing as vampires right this instant!”
“Whatever you say,” he answered quietly, grinning.
I rolled my eyes. “You’re such a dick.”
There was definitely no such thing as vampires. How completely ridiculous. Now was not the time for his goading. I refused to think about it for even a second longer.
We moved out of a long hallway into a huge foyer that housed a lit fireplace, a blood-red couch with matching chair, and an old painting of a bald man with a beard and a wine glass and not much else.
The guards gathered at the far end as we settled into the room.
“Make yourselves at home,” the first guard said. “The king will be in to see you shortly.”
Shooting us a less-than-stellar look, the three exited the room, closing a mammoth black door behind them.
“And this is where we die,” I said as the door slammed closed.
“Hardly,” Abram answered absentmindedly, already pacing the room. “We should use this time to look around. Whatever clue Satina alluded to might be here. For all we know, it could be in plain sight.”
Although in some ways Satina had helped us, the truth was, she really pissed me off, even when she wasn’t around. Knowing her, she was probably ecstatic for the chance to barge in on our ‘us’ time.
But as much as I hated to admit it, her intrusion hadn’t been without good cause. I could still see it every time I closed my eyes—the way that poor man crashed into the ground and the strange words that were etched in his forehead.
She Sleeps.
Yes, she’d interrupted our vacation, and yes, she had a good reason to do so. But was it really my responsibility to solve this mystery? Selfish as it might sound, I didn’t want this. I didn’t ask to be followed halfway around the world by whatever magical bad luck se
emed intent on drilling its way into me. All I wanted was a vacation with my boyfriend. And dammit, why shouldn’t I have that?
“I don’t like this,” I said flatly.
“Neither do I. It feels a little rushed,” Abram said, picking up the end of the couch with one hand to look underneath. “But if we can manage to gain the king’s trust, then we’ll have more time to investigate.”
I sighed. “Not that. This was supposed to be our time, Abram,” I said, hating how whiny I sounded but determined for my feelings to be heard. “We’ve already been through hell. Or have you forgotten that? All I wanted was a few days to unwind before we decided what our life together was going to look like.” I raised my hands as if to surrender. “Is this it? Is this what our life is going to be? People falling out of the sky? A Conduit telling us what to do? This isn’t what I want my life to look like, Abram. This isn’t what I want us to look like.”
He set down the couch carefully and moved toward me. His dark eyes bore into me the way they always did, drawing out the deepest of my emotions and laying them plain on my face.
Once at me, he swept the hair out of my face with his thumb and forefinger. My skin lit at his touch, and sparks flittered across my face. If life could just be this—he and I and this touch always and forever—that would be glorious. That was what it should be. That was what we had earned.
“I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry all of it happened. I know what we went through was difficult, and I don’t blame you if you need time to heal.”
I pulled away from him. “This isn’t about what happened in the past. This is about our future. And I don’t want our future to revolve around some makeshift magical detective agency. We deserve more than that.”
The look on his face darkened. “One of us does.”
“Don’t do that. You’re not the person you used to be,” I said, taking his hand.
Sleeping with the Beast: an Adult Paranormal Shifter Romance (The Conduit Series Book 2) Page 1
