Tall, Dark, and Deadly: Seven Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

by Laura Kaye

  Keegan swiveled his head toward her, his nose bloody and crooked. His face lit with alarm. “Stay in there.”

  Wait a second…his face.

  “Your nose, it’s healing.” She stumbled toward him, surveying him and then his brothers. Taeg’s and Dagan’s wounds weren’t disappearing, but Ronin… “You, too, your wounds are healing. How is—how is that possible?”

  “Brynn, go back into the room,” Keegan ordered.

  Keegan and Ronin could heal themselves? Amazing. No wonder they were so badass.

  The large gash down the center of Keegan’s nose closed itself. Other than a few stray droplets of blood, his nose seemed untouched. She took another step toward him, but her foot collided with a hard object. She’d run into one of the downed men. She lifted her gaze back to Keegan.

  Wait!

  Doing a double take, she stumbled backward to get a closer look at the figure of the man at her feet. No, he wasn’t a man. Not a man!

  His characteristics were definitely male and his body mostly human, save the gray pallor of his skin. But his face—it was all wrong. Five eyes instead of two. Rhinoceros-like horn instead of a nose. Ridged spikes covered his forehead. His nauseating stench burned her nostrils, like a horrid mixture of wet dog and burning asphalt.

  Warm hands gripped her arms, and someone shook her. “Brynn. Brynn.”

  She instinctively fought back before looking up to see Keegan’s face. His lips moved and he was clearly trying to reassure her, but she couldn’t hear him over the loud, shrill sound of an alarm.

  He shook her harder. “Brynn, stop screaming!”

  She realized with a start that he was right. Shutting her mouth abruptly, she moved her gaze back to the thing on the floor. She couldn’t help it.

  “Look at me,” Keegan said, his voice harsh.

  She focused on his eyes, his lips, his nose—his fully healed nose. When she found her voice again, she sputtered, “What the fuck is that thing?”

  Another figure on the floor moaned and stirred. Taeg strode over and kicked him, and he stopped moving. But even from here, it was obvious he wasn’t human.

  “What are they?” she whispered.

  Keegan closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he reopened them, they blazed with the intensity of some unspoken emotion. Almost like he felt sorry for her. But when he spoke, all he said was, “Demons.”

  “Demons?” She laughed. Then laughed some more, wrenching out of his grasp. In some distant part of her brain, she recognized she bordered on hysteria. “Demons?”

  Keegan just stared at her.

  “Are you kidding me? Demons?”

  “You freely accept people with special abilities,” Ronin said as he moved next to Keegan and pinned her with his gaze. “Is it too much of a stretch to believe that demons might also exist?”

  “Yeah, but…” What were they going to tell her next, that aliens were real, too? “But I have special abilities.”

  Dagan coughed. “You also have dem—”

  “Dagan,” Keegan snarled, followed by a string of foreign words. Dagan yelled back in the same language. Keegan shook his head and pointed to the front door, punctuating his movement with a few staccato words. Even though she didn’t understand Dagan’s response, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was some sort of curse. Dagan shot Keegan the finger before whirling around and stomping out the front door.

  She concentrated on reading Keegan’s expression. “You actually expect me to believe those were demons?”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  His flat, no-nonsense response sparked an inkling of a suspicion she didn’t even dare acknowledge. She took several deep, calming breaths. “How? How do you know all this? How can you tell me with such certainty that these are demons?”

  He exchanged a serious, telling glance with Ronin before answering her. “Because, Brynn…I am one.”

  …

  Back at their borrowed apartment, Keegan paced the length of the living room while Taeg stood by the windows. Dagan and Ronin sat on the leather sectional, though relaxation looked like the last thing on their minds. Tension filled the air, thick and oppressive to the point that it overwhelmed.

  “Shit,” Keegan said. “Where is Mammon getting his info?”

  “Good question,” Taeg grumbled as he stared out the expansive windows. “He discovered Brynn’s identity right after we did, and we’ve got the whole damned Council on our side. If I didn’t know any better, I’d wonder whether he has an informer on the inside.”

  “He doesn’t know where she is now,” Dagan pointed out. “At least we have that.”

  Ronin shook his head. “With intel that good, it’s only a matter of time before he figures it out.”

  Double shit.

  Keegan punched the wall nearest him, not caring that it gave way beneath his fist.

  Ronin was right—if they stayed here, Mammon would eventually find Brynn. If that happened, Keegan feared what would occur. Not just to Brynn, but to this entire world.

  “Okay.” He withdrew his hand from the rubble and watched the scrapes heal. “Until we’ve recovered the book, the best thing we can do is move. Ronin, find somewhere else for us to stay in another city. We’ll move every couple of days.”

  “Got it.” Ronin rose and left the room.

  “Taeg, Dagan, you two go to Egypt. Try to find out everything you can about possible locations where the book might be buried. Also, see if you can get Cresso to talk to the local demon population, maybe catch wind of something.”

  “What about you?” Taeg asked.

  “Ronin and I will guard Brynn. Splitting up is the best way to spend our time right now.”

  “Divide and conquer, and all that rot,” Taeg quipped halfheartedly. He turned to Dagan. “I’ll flash over to London, round up Cresso. Once you know when your plane is coming in, give me a call. I can meet you at the airport.”

  “Done,” Dagan said.

  Taeg grunted and turned to Keegan. “Listen, bro. Be careful, okay?”

  Keegan gave him a terse nod. “Yeah.”

  The air shimmered almost imperceptibly in front of Taeg, creating the invisible fae path only he could travel. He stepped into it and disappeared, leaving Keegan alone with Dagan.

  “You think Brynn will be okay?” Dagan asked.

  “Don’t know,” Keegan answered truthfully.

  After he’d confessed his ancestry to her, she’d clammed up. She’d simply stopped communicating, though she had enough presence of mind to allow him to usher her downstairs and into a taxicab. They’d ridden in silence the whole way back to the apartment, and once they arrived she’d gone straight to her room, where she’d stayed for the past half hour.

  Would her mind handle the stress of what she’d just learned? She had to accept the truth, or her thread of sanity might snap. After all, she was mostly human.

  “I’ll go check on her,” he said.

  Dagan nodded and turned to leave, but then he paused. “I’m worried about you, dude.”

  “I’m fine,” Keegan answered automatically.

  “Just…don’t get in over your head, okay?”

  Keegan gritted his teeth and fought the urge to snap at Dagan. He was just being a caring brother, after all. If Dagan didn’t care, he would be little better than a monster.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m in control.”

  Dagan hesitated, opening his mouth as if he wanted to say more. But in the end, he nodded and left.

  Keegan started down the hall toward Brynn’s room. No point in putting off the inevitable. He had to make sure she was okay. But he couldn’t help but wonder if she would welcome him, or if she’d have a million questions about what he was and what he could do. Maybe she’d shrink away in fear, cower in front of him the way others did before his father. She might see him as a monster.

  If she did, would he be able to deal with it?

  …

  Brynn sat on the bed and stared out the win
dow, not really seeing anything. To think that yesterday, her biggest worry had been figuring out why Keegan kidnapped her. That seemed like a cakewalk compared to today’s problems.

  Demons. Keegan actually expected her to believe he and his brothers were demons.

  Even if she did believe in demons—which she wasn’t willing to admit just yet—she’d never believe Keegan was one. Those things lying on the floor of her apartment? They looked like demons, with their grotesque faces and off-colored flesh. But not Keegan. Not his brothers.

  On top of that, he didn’t seem evil. She’d seen some real evil in her life, and yeah, she supposed he might be pretending, but no one was that good an actor. No one.

  She jumped at the knock on her door. Before she had time to answer—or even decide if she wanted to—Keegan walked in, his movements deliberate and his hands visible at his sides. He paused near the door and left it open, clearly doing everything he could not to frighten her further.

  “Brynn, we need to talk.”

  “About what?” She chuckled humorlessly. “About the demons littering my apartment floor? About your claim that you’re one, too? Or that maybe I’ve gone insane?”

  Keegan leaned against the wall. “You’re not crazy.”

  “Right.”

  “Listen, I know how hard this must be for you.”

  “No,” she interrupted, her tone flat, “you don’t.”

  “Okay. No, I don’t. But as crazy as it might seem, this is your reality. You have to deal with it. Your life depends on it.”

  She shook her head in the vain hope that it would clear her thoughts. “What do you want me to say? Before today, I never knew if I believed in Heaven, and now you’re expecting me to believe in Hell? In demons?”

  “No.”

  Keegan strode toward her and dropped to one knee in front of her, and she fought the instinct to scoot back. She forced herself to study his face, so very human in appearance. Two eyes, a normal-looking nose. He wasn’t a demon. He couldn’t be.

  “No, Brynn. Everything you believe about demons is wrong. A perversion of tidbits of information humans have gleaned throughout the years. Demons aren’t evil creatures from Hell.”

  Brynn blinked at him. “They aren’t?”

  “There is no Hell. At least not as far as I know.”

  She furrowed her brows. “Well then, what are they?”

  “Demons are…well, they’re a different race. To be specific, they’re a race of beings from a world that exists in another point of space.”

  Huh? “Um…what?”

  “Another dimension, Brynn,” he said gently.

  “You actually expect me to believe you’re from another dimension?”

  Keegan’s gaze bored into hers, his bluish-green eyes burning with an intensity that spoke to the depth of his emotions. “It’s called Infernum. I was born there, and it’s where I live. I was sent to Earth to stop Mammon.”

  Brynn laughed. She had to. If she didn’t, she would cry. Or scream. “You were sent to Earth? So, how are you supposed to have gotten here? Through a tornado?”

  “What?”

  “You know, like Dorothy? Wizard of Oz?”

  Straight-faced, he said, “I’ve never met this wizard.”

  “Never mind,” she muttered.

  Keegan raised a brow and tilted his head to the side. “There’s a portal to the Otherworlds. It’s guarded by the Elden Council, composed of elders from each of the worlds. The Council allows interdimensional travel under given circumstances. It’s how Mammon arrived here on Earth. Me and my brothers, too.”

  How could she respond to what he said? It was so insane.

  “Okay, let’s say that I buy this. It goes against every belief I’ve ever had, but I can’t deny what I saw back in my apartment, and those things were definitely not human. But”—she inhaled deeply—“you expect me to believe you are one, too?”

  “Yes,” he responded, his gaze even. “I do.”

  “No. No, you don’t look like they did. You look like a normal person.”

  Keegan chuckled. “There are all types of demons, just as there are all types of humans. Some, like me, appear human. Others less so.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “Brynn,” he said, placing his hands on her knees, “I can prove it.”

  Her heart stopped for a fraction of a second before resuming its staccato beat in her chest. “How?”

  Keegan breathed in and closed his eyes. When he reopened them, their usual bluish-green had been replaced by a deep, fiery red, the color swirling in his eyes like a whirlwind of flames.

  “Holy shit,” she cried. She scrambled backward on the bed, away from Keegan, and covered her mouth with her hands.

  He shut his eyes, and when they flickered open, they were back to normal. He rose and walked around the side of the bed toward her. “Brynn.”

  “No.” She brought her hands up in front of her. “No, wait.”

  Keegan froze, expressionless. His tone was gruff when he said, “Don’t fear me.”

  “Oh, God.” She rubbed her hands over her face. How quickly her life had morphed into a Stephen King novel. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “Brynn—”

  “Just let me think for a moment.” A firestorm of thoughts blazed through her mind before she settled on one thing. “If most of what we know about demons is false, does that mean you aren’t evil?”

  Keegan fidgeted, his fingers rubbing absently over the fabric of his dark jeans. How sick was it that even now, she noticed his long, artistic fingers, their flawless masculinity?

  “Our culture doesn’t view morality on the same terms as yours,” he said. “My world is much darker, more morally ambiguous. But I will say that there are those who are evil and those who aren’t. Same as your world.”

  He had a point. She’d found that out firsthand at the age of eleven, the day she learned about her other power. Humans could be pretty sick, too. Actually, now that she thought about it, maybe those sickos weren’t human. Maybe they were demons. That was something she’d never before had to consider. How many of them were there on Earth?

  She gulped. “My power—how I can drain energy? It doesn’t work on you.”

  Keegan nodded. “Because of what I am. I don’t believe your ability works on demons.”

  Well, that answered her question. Talk about a cosmic Fuck you. “So wait. Now that I know there are really scary things like demons out there, you’re telling me that the one thing that’s kept me safe all these years doesn’t even work on them?”

  He sighed and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “I’m sorry that your sense of security was destroyed. Really, I am. But it was false to begin with. You aren’t invincible. There are things out there that can hurt you, that aren’t affected by your abilities.”

  The truth of his words seeped into her very core. “I can’t believe this.”

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true.”

  She gave him a shaky nod. Carefully, she studied him. He appeared so very human, with his lean, muscular physique, the heavy pectorals outlined under his T-shirt, his sculpted face and jaw. Even his eyes seemed normal.

  Maybe she didn’t want to know, but she had to ask: “Is this what you really look like?”

  “Except for the eyes. Those are glamoured.”

  “Glamoured? You mean…magic?”

  Keegan chuckled and sat on the bed next to her. “There’s magic in all worlds. Even yours.” He slowly reached forward and took her hands in his, giving them a pointed look. “Is that so difficult to believe, given what you can do?”

  She gently pulled her hands out of his. Everything Keegan had told her made sense, in some crazy way. But there were still some things that didn’t add up. “So this guy who’s supposedly after me, this Mammon—”

  “Is a demon,” Keegan finished. “What I said about him coming after you is true. He discovered that the Book of the Dead exists, that it r
eally can resurrect the dead.”

  Her mouth fell open. “It really can do that?”

  “Not only that, but you are the key to the resurrection.”

  The key?

  “But, how? How could I possibly do that?”

  “When your ancestor made the book, he created it so that only one of his bloodline could work the spell.”

  Only one of his bloodline. Ah. “That’s me.”

  “That’s you,” Keegan confirmed with a short nod. “In fact, from what the Council can tell, you’re the only one left.”

  “I don’t understand. Why does Mammon want to create an army of zombies? That’s just insane.”

  Keegan laughed, although the sound was humorless. “If he has control of the book, he can command them. They’d be stronger than humans, stronger than even demons. And they’d follow his bidding.”

  Brynn shook her head. “I still don’t understand.”

  “Mammon is an avaritia. A greed demon. He desires wealth and power above all, though he might try to convince himself and others that he’s doing all this for a good reason. He’s starting with this world, but he won’t rest until every human being is subjugated…or eaten. Then he’ll move on to other worlds until, ultimately, they’ve all been destroyed.”

  “This is totally crazy,” she murmured.

  “But true, nonetheless.”

  “How did you get stuck with the duty of going after him?”

  “Me and my brothers work for the Elden Council as Detainors. Interdimensional bounty hunters of sorts. It is our job to hunt down and bring violators from Infernum to the Council for punishment. And for now, to protect you.”

  God, this was all so fantastical. If only…if only she could trust him.

  Wait. There was something she could do.

  “Do you have anything old with you, anything from your home world?”

  After a long moment, Keegan nodded. He reached under the collar of his shirt and withdrew a thin leather cord that hung around his neck. On it was a talisman made of some sort of metal. “I’ve had this ever since I can remember. I think it was a gift from my mother.” He drew it over his head and handed it to her. “She died when I was a baby.”

  She traced the shape with her finger. “A dragon?”