Cimmerian Shade: A Limited Edition Paranormal Romance & Urban Fantasy Collection

by Kiki Howell

  “This place is hardly seedy,” Lucinda protested as she interrupted him.

  It was true. Inferno was far from seedy. In fact, it was the premier nightclub in the area, very high caliber and always packed to capacity. It was a virtual playground for the paranormally inclined, and was the only place of its ilk anywhere in the city. It served as a feather in Dominic’s already impressive cap, just one of the several business holdings that netted him a very lucrative living. Of course, the downside, if there was one, was that the club’s success also put it at the very center of the shifter faction war between the Alliance and the Cats.

  “What better way to keep an eye on me than to keep me close by, Dominic? It makes perfect sense. And it’s not like I’ll be hanging out here and partying every night. I’ll be working! One set a night, four nights a week. Thomas hired me strictly on the merits of my voice. I don’t even think he was aware that I knew you.”

  “Lucinda, you are a kid who is barely old enough to drink!”

  He hadn’t meant to raise his voice again, but it sounded pretty fierce and he knew it. True to her fiery nature, though, Lucinda didn’t shrink like most human females would have. Hell, Dominic knew he intimidated a lot of the male shifters who dealt with him on a daily basis, whether he intended to or not. That was one of the perks of being an alpha. But Lucinda had never seemed impressed, not with his position or his hot-headed dragon temper. Not from the moment he’d met her.

  “Who gives a shit?” she shouted back as she glared at him. “I don’t drink anyway. And the last time I checked, twenty-two was considered full-grown adult womanhood in pretty much every nation on the planet, so would you kindly stop referring to me as ‘kid’ or ‘girl’? I am a woman, damn it! And just how old was that last tart I saw on your arm a few weeks ago? Was she older than me? Oh, what am I saying? She must have been, because I know what an issue age is for you!”

  Dominic let go of a tired, heavy sigh, but he didn’t bother responding. The topic of age was always a bone of contention between them, and he wanted to avoid that particular argument right now. For the briefest of moments, his gaze drifted from her lovely face down over her luscious body. Yes. She was indeed a full grown woman – slender with curves in all the right places. In the flashes of memory in his mind he thought about how he had watched her go from a gangly, awkward fourteen-year-old girl to the sultry vixen who had been fueling his wet dreams for the last several years now.

  He first noticed the change when she was about sixteen, and he tried to ignore it. By the time she was seventeen, he realized he couldn’t, and he had felt like a dirty old man ever since. There were only thirteen years difference between them, but the fact that she was his best friend’s daughter made him feel like a total pervert. Lucinda was off limits to him and always had been. Forbidden fruit. Sadly, he had resigned himself to that notion ages ago, and he wan’t about to abandon it now.

  He hung his head as he sat on the edge of his desk staring down at the carpet. “One month,” he said after a long pause. Then he looked up and met her gaze. “We’ll give this a try for one month. But if I decide it’s not working out for whatever reason, you will abide by that and find yourself another, more suitable gig somewhere else. Can you live with that?”

  A huge smile erupted across her face. “Yes!” She bounced up and down a few times before she landed in his arms and hugged him tight.

  Her enthusiasm caught him off guard, and he closed his arms around her, feeling slightly like shit for enjoying the feel of her body against his so much.

  Lucinda giggled. “You won’t be sorry, Dom, I promise. Your crowd is going to love me!” She was all smiles as she bounded out the door, leaving his balmy office scented with her lilac perfume. He sat there for a moment just breathing it in and letting it surround him. He knew her scent would linger on the front of his suit for the rest of the day, and he liked it. Maybe having her around wouldn’t be all that bad.

  Who the fuck was he kidding?

  “What have you just gotten yourself into, Draco?” he asked himself out loud.

  There was a light knock on the door before Thomas stuck his head into the room with a cautious air. “Lucinda said everything is okay now? She’s cleared for the job?”

  Dominic stared at his overzealous entertainment booking manager. “What did you hire her in at?”

  “Standard. Two hundred and fifty dollars a night,” Thomas answered as he stepped further into the room.

  “Double it.”

  Chapter Two

  THEY HAD GOTTEN down and dirty a thousand times in her mind. Sweaty bodies writhing against each other, deep thrusts as sexy moans of pleasure filled the air around them. Rumpled sheets. That’s what she saw in her mind’s eye every time she looked at Dominic Draco. Picturing the handsome dragon shifter naked had been a favorite pastime almost from the moment her father introduced her to him back when she was fourteen. And picture him naked she did. All the time. Even when she tried not to, she just couldn’t seem to stop. It made for some truly embarrassing moments back when she was a teenager. She had never wanted a man so badly in her life, but he refused to even entertain the idea.

  No, that wasn’t quite true. Dominic wanted her too, she was sure of it. She saw the way he always looked at her. The way he watched her with barely concealed lust from those gorgeous hazel eyes of his. He had watched her that way since she was a teenager, and Lucinda used to revel in it. Under his continual lacivious gaze her confidence level had blossomed and soared. The object of her obsession couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. The problem was that he steadfastly refused to act on those base impulses, no matter what she did.

  She knew this to be fact because when she turned seventeen she had done the unthinkable and propositioned him. More than once. But his response was always the same — a moment of weakness where his carnal thoughts betrayed him, only to be swiftly shut down and pushed away, usually amid mumbles of inappropriate age and some nonsense about disrespecting her father. To make matters worse, over the years Lucinda had watched as he paraded a string of women around in front of her. It was the cruelest form of torture. But she had a plan to finally change all that. Getting this job at Dominic’s club was only the first step. The second step would begin tonight.

  She tied the silk robe around herself as she moved about the small dressing room. Her first set as Inferno’s newest songbird was going to be epic, and Dominic Draco was not going to know what hit him. She reached out a hand and ran her fingers over the delicate red sequins of the barely there dress she planned to wear tonight. It would be impossible for him to see her as anything other than all-woman once he got a gander of her in this dress. She planned to bombard his senses with a different jaw-dropping sexy dress each night until he simply couldn’t resist her anymore.

  A knock on the door drew her attention, and she turned to see an attractive woman walk in with her requested cup of lemon tea.

  “Oh, thank you.”

  “No problem,” the woman said as she set the cup and saucer down on the table and flicked her short brown hair out of her eyes. She was tall and lean, with a clearly confident swagger, and she looked to be about Lucinda's age. Maybe a little older. She looked Lucinda over with a scrutinizing gaze as she stood for a moment, saying nothing more.

  Lucinda stared back at her, forming an attitude. “Is something wrong?”

  The woman lifted an eyebrow. “Sorry. I suppose that was rude of me. I’m just ... curious about you.”

  Lucinda scowled as her attitude took a turn toward combative. “Yeah, I get it, okay? Daughter of the infamous Jonathan Lindley, ponzi scheme king who preferred suicide to prison. Well, get over it already, and stop gawking at me. I’m here to make an honest living, just like you!”

  A bright red blush stole over the woman’s face. “Shit. Of course, you would think that. No, I ... I’m sorry, I didn’t mean because of your father. I just meant ... you know ... because you’re human.”r />
  Lucinda frowned at her, and the woman looked completely embarrassed.

  “It’s just that, we do get a good number of humans who come out to enjoy the live music and dance, but I can’t ever remember Mr. Draco hiring a human to work here before.”

  “Not even as entertainment? No human bands or anything?” Lucinda was puzzled by the realization. Maybe there were other reasons Dominic hadn’t wanted her here besides their mutual attraction that he was reluctant to act upon. He had called the place seedy. She had never heard anything like that about Inferno though. Maybe the shifters knew differently?

  “Nope.” The woman tossed her hair from her eyes once more. “But then, I don’t think any humans have ever applied before. I mean, honestly when you came in to audition, we all thought you were crazy. You know how it is. Most skins would rather dig ditches than work around shifters.”

  The racial slur smacked Lucinda the wrong way, and she glared at her. “That’s not true. At least it’s never been true in my world okay, so don’t go generalizing.”

  She knew exactly what the woman was getting at. Human shifter relations weren’t exactly what they should be, and there was still a lot of prejudice out there. But that had never been Lucinda’s personal experience in life.

  The woman cocked an eyebrow at her again, looking dubious. “Yeah, right. Billionaire Jonathan Lindley, shifter lover?”

  Lucinda was instantly pissed, and she put a hand on her hip as she gestured to the woman. “Yeah, you obviously know nothing about my father, all right? For your information, my dad was Dominic Draco’s best friend. He did business in the shifter community all the time. I have been around shifters most of my life, and I have no qualms about being here now. I am not some entitled, pampered human princess who thinks she’s better than everyone else. And if you imply that again, I will flat kick your shifter ass!”

  The female shifter looked her over for a moment, assessing her, and Lucinda knew the deal. She knew there was no way in hell she would ever stand a chance in a fair fight against a shifter, but it simply wasn’t in her nature to back down. Not for a second.

  “Well, I apologize for jumping to conclusions then. I hear you’ve got quite a voice. I’m looking forward to your set.” The woman turned for the dressing room door without another word.

  “Hey, wait.”

  The woman stopped in the doorway and looked over her shoulder.

  “I’m Lucinda. Thanks again for bringing the tea.”

  The woman smiled. “Sure. I’m Cara.”

  “Wolf shifter?” Lucinda asked with an amused smirk.

  Cara narrowed her eyes and took a step closer. “Humans have horrible noses. There’s no way you could have sniffed that out. How’d you know?”

  Lucinda gave a cocky smile and shrugged a shoulder. “Just something I picked up from hanging around while my dad was closing some big business deal or another. All shifter species have their little quirks, just like humans. Wolves always have a certain overbearing attitude.”

  Cara laughed out loud. “Okay. I guess I can’t really argue with that.” She stared at her for a moment, and Lucinda could tell she was sizing her up. “It’s nice to meet you, Lucinda.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  When Cara was gone, Lucinda sat down to enjoy her tea for a moment. A pre-performance ritual she had read about somewhere that was supposed to help open up the vocal chords or something. She had no idea if that were really true, but it sounded good. Professional even, and she wanted to give it a try.

  She could hear the faint rumble of the crowd forming out in the nightclub, and the house band trio was already onstage warming them up. It wasn’t like this was her first live performance ever, but it would be her first performance at Inferno, and she felt herself growing a tiny bit anxious. She wished her father were here. It would be great to see him sitting in the crowd, a friendly face, cheering her on, wishing her well. He’d come to every performance she had ever given, from grade school to high school musicals, to talent shows and auditions. It had been just the two of them for so long, and he was always so supportive and encouraging.

  Of course, when her dad was alive she had never needed the income her voice might provide, she simply loved to sing. Now, there was so much riding on her voice, so much to lose if she couldn’t cut it. An heiress who stood to inherit nothing thanks to her father’s criminal misdeeds. She was a vagabond of sorts now, with no real home or purpose. A regular person just trying to survive. A woman forced to carve out some kind of future for herself, make a fresh start and rebuild her life. She’d spent more time partying in college than she had on her studies, so her voice was the only real marketable skill she possessed, although she had virtually no clue how to properly capitalize on it. But she could do this. She would figure it out.

  She took a deep breath as she stood up to finally get into her dress. The light rapping on the dressing room door stopped her though, and when Dominic stuck his head in, her stomach did an uncomfortable flip-flop.

  “Lucinda, are you decent?” he called out before he spotted her standing off to the right side of the room.

  Lucinda couldn’t help but smirk at that question. “Actually, no. I’m quite thoroughly corrupted, but you seem to only want to picture me in pigtails and saddle shoes.”

  Dominic sighed as he stepped inside the room and closed the door. “I don’t want to argue, Lucinda. I just came to wish you luck tonight. I brought you these.” He held out a large bouquet of dark pink and white flowers.

  “Cymbidium orchids?” She stared at them in shock for a moment before she accepted his offering. They were beautiful. They also happened to be her favorites, and the fact that he had remembered that, and taken the time to get them, almost brought her to tears.

  “I know Jonathan would have brought you a bouquet like this tonight, to celebrate your new job, and I just thought ... um.” He faltered, wondering if he’d made a mistake. Had he upset her? Shit. Why had he gotten her the flowers? “Should I have left it alone?”

  “No!” Lucinda met his uncertain gaze and shook her head. “They’re lovely. And so timely. I was just sitting here missing him. This means so much to me. Thank you, Dom.”

  It was an incredibly thoughtful thing for him to do, and it only made her ache for him all the more. She stared at him, taking in the contours of his face. God, he was so handsome. Dark ginger-red hair and hazel eyes whose harsh gaze could turn a person to stone. He had a chiseled jaw that sported a perpetual five o’clock shadow. His mouth was set in an ever-present hard line. Genuine smiles were a treat he didn’t give others freely, but Lucinda knew that when he did, the brightness of them could be blinding. She had been lucky enough to witness a few, and she longed to see one again.

  He slid his hands into the pockets of his charcoal gray suit pants and watched her. “You’re welcome. I know I wasn’t exactly supportive at first, but I do want this situation to work out for you.”

  She furrowed her brow at that statement. “Really? Why the change of heart?”

  “I thought about what you said the other day, and you were right. Your father asked me to look out for you, and there is no better way for me to do that than to give you a job.” He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at her. “I own a nightclub that’s always in search of great musical acts. You’re an amazing singer. It’s win-win.”

  She looked down at the bouquet of flowers in her hands and smiled. Then she looked up into his eyes and took a couple of steps closer to him as a coy little smile played on her lips. “So ... you’re finally admitting we’re a match made in heaven?” She reached out and ran her fingers down the lapel of his suit jacket. He was always so sharply put together, like he’d stepped right out of a GQ magazine spread.

  Dominic removed her hand from his chest as he took a step back away from her. “It’s just a job and a bouquet of flowers, Lucinda. This ... you and me, it’s not going to happen.”

  “So you’ve been telling me since I was seventeen, followed by
all the reasons why it shouldn’t.” A sad smile crossed her lips as she watched him. “But you know as well as I do that none of those reasons make sense anymore, Dom. I am not a child, and Daddy isn’t here for you to disrespect.”

  Dominic frowned at her. “The man may not be here anymore, but I can still honor his memory by not defiling his daughter.”

  “Defile?” Lucinda laughed, but it wasn’t the happy sort. “You have such a high opinion of me. I suppose I should be flattered, but I just can’t be. I am not that virginal fourteen-year-old girl you met all those years ago, Dominic. I was deflowered a long time ago. And you have no idea how badly I've always wished it had been by you.”

  Dominic’s gaze dropped to the floor as he let go of a winded sigh, stunned by her confession. How many times had he fantasized about that very thing, only to feel like a perverted ass three seconds later?

  “You have always been the star of every fantasy I’ve ever had.” The heavy trace of longing in her voice was evident, but it was something she couldn’t hide if she had tried. “The things I feel for you, I know I’m not feeling them alone. I see the way you look at me, and I’ve tried a thousand times since I was seventeen to tell you that it’s okay to act on those desires, but you still won’t budge.”

  “Lucinda, stop.”

  “You know, before ... I understood your reluctance even though I didn’t like it. But I don’t anymore, Dominic. I don’t understand why you hide from me. You know how I feel, how I’ve always felt. And you want me too, I can see it! Why won’t you just take me?”

  Before the words had even passed her lips, he grabbed her, pulling her close as his lips crashed down onto hers and his tongue invaded her mouth. She felt his hand fisting in her hair as he held her head in place. His other hand groped at her ass, pressing her tightly against him. The rock hard protrusion of his erection took her by surprise, and she moaned as the bouquet of flowers hit the floor and her hands went to his hair.