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

by Laura Kaye

  It was his father’s.

  “Brynn,” he rumbled, a sinister look coming to his face, “I need you—”

  She awoke with a jolt. Sweat glistened all over her body and her heart galloped in her chest, as if it longed to race away from the horror of that dream. She scanned the entire room, making sure there was no one else there. But sure enough, she was alone. Unlike her dream, she wasn’t in her apartment, but rather in her room at Keegan’s borrowed condo.

  “It was just a dream,” she whispered. “Just a dream.”

  Lord knew she’d had pretty vivid ones the past two nights.

  But it didn’t feel like a dream.

  She lay back down, willing her heartbeat to slow a fraction. She closed her eyes in the vain hope she might somehow fall asleep again, but when she did, all she saw was Keegan’s father. And the unholy glaze in his eyes as he’d ogled her, taking in her bared breasts with satisfaction.

  How quickly it had morphed from a hot, wet fantasy into a nightmare. She could practically feel the heat of Mammon’s gaze on her naked flesh. The sinister cruelty of his smile. Just thinking about it made her skin crawl. When he’d said, “I need you,” she’d gotten the sense he wasn’t talking about sexual satisfaction. Ridiculous, she knew. Her mind was only manifesting him due to the stress of the past few days. But still…it was more than a little disturbing.

  Well, she knew one thing. If she never had one of those dreams again, she would die a happy girl.

  Chapter Ten

  It took Taeg well over a day, and visits to more than ten local demon bars, before he managed to track down Cresso’s London address. Other than a few visits Cresso had paid to Infernum, they hadn’t kept in touch since he’d moved to Earth. It wasn’t like there was cell phone service on Infernum or anything.

  After all these years, Taeg still wondered how the hell Cresso had managed to get clearance from the Council to move. Guess some demons just had all the luck.

  He didn’t bother walking the short distance from the bar to the address the bartender had given him. What good was being half fae if you didn’t make use of the fae paths?

  Taeg concentrated on the address and a shimmering path opened up in front of him. Only certain types of fae—or, in his case, half fae—could see or travel the paths. Even then, they couldn’t traverse to other worlds—just to different points in the one they were on.

  The current caught him, pulling him forward as if he were weightless. The best way he could describe it to his brothers was that it was like waterskiing over a rainbow. Totally exhilarating.

  In the span of an instant, Taeg stood in front of Cresso’s apartment. He gave a sharp rap on the door. After several minutes, he knocked again. Finally, the door opened, but instead of Cresso, a beautiful woman with flowing black hair stood on the other side. She wore only lingerie, and she eyed him in a way he couldn’t help but respond to. The energy emanating from her identified her as some type of demon, but even through her glamour, it was obvious she was one of the good-looking ones.

  “Well, hello there,” he said in an appreciative voice. She was hot enough, and he’d gone without for long enough that he couldn’t help himself, even though he knew that if she was with Cresso she was a succubus, and therefore off limits. Unless he wanted to die an awful, soul-sucking death, that was. Sex demons like incubi and succubi could only mate with each other without killing their partners, and that was some fucked-up shit if he’d ever heard it. Kind of like nature’s way of thumbing its nose at the species.

  She smirked and opened the door wider, cocking her head in blatant invitation. “Hey, yourself. Why don’t you come in, handsome?”

  Even while his brain told him he needed to focus on finding Cresso, his cock fought and won the battle to respond. Damn thing had a mind of its own. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  Taeg strode in and turned to face her as she closed the door. Behind him, another door opened. He whirled to see a second demon, this one blond, exiting a room. Unlike her companion, she wore nothing other than a set of lacy panties. She saw him and slid the door shut before stalking toward him.

  “What do we have here?” she asked, her voice a sexy rumble in her throat. The hungry once-over she gave him put him in mind of a predator spotting its prey. Her gaze lingered on the words stamped across his T-shirt: Orgasm Donor. Lips curving into a slow smile, she glanced back up at him. “I’ll take three.”

  “I saw him first,” whined the black-haired demon.

  “We can share,” the blonde retorted, shooting him a wicked little smile. “We always do.”

  Oh, shit. These two were definitely putting off succubi vibes, which made them dangerous as hell. If he didn’t focus on the objective, he could be in serious trouble here. “Wait, I’m actually looking for—”

  “Ladies, ladies, what have I told you about playing with my visitors?”

  Taeg turned toward the sound of Cresso’s voice. He stood outside the door the blonde had come out of, with another barely clad woman on his arm. His hair was messed up and he wore only a pair of slacks, the fly still undone. It was more than obvious what he’d just been doing.

  The blonde gave Cresso an exaggerated pout. “Sorry, baby. He just looked so delectable. We couldn’t resist.”

  “Cresso, man, it’s good to see your ugly mug again,” Taeg said to his old friend.

  “You, too.” Cresso beamed at him. “It’s been too many years. How the hell did you find me?”

  “Asked around. You don’t keep a low profile, you know.” Taeg strolled forward to clasp Cresso’s hand.

  “Never have.” Cresso chuckled, then addressed the women. “Give us a moment if you will, loves.”

  “Okay,” they replied in unison, then turned to shuffle back into Cresso’s bedroom. The blonde grabbed Taeg’s ass as she walked by him. Saucy wench.

  Taeg shuddered and watched them go. He waited until they’d shut the door to turn back to Cresso with a sharp whistle. “Three of them, man? You always were a fucking pervert, but still. Come on.”

  Cresso laughed. “My appetite only seems to increase with age. Want a beer?” He headed toward the kitchen without waiting for a reply, buttoning his slacks as he walked.

  Taeg followed him in. “Yeah, well, if you don’t mind my asking”—he pointed his thumb toward the direction of the women—“they’re—”

  “Succubi,” Cresso said. He tossed him a beer. “Of course they are. I just saved your ass back there.”

  Taeg fought an embarrassed flush as he pulled out a chair, taking a seat at the small kitchen table. “I would have stopped them.”

  Eventually.

  “Yeah. Right.” Cresso sat at the table and took a swig of his beer. “You know, I’m working on a little theory, trying to find a way for succubi and incubi to mate outside the species without killing their partners. But I’m not quite there and I’m guessing you didn’t come all the way to Earth because you wanted to fuck a succubus. So, why are you here?”

  “Mammon,” Taeg said simply.

  “Hmm, my old mentor?” Cresso’s nose wrinkled in evident disgust, but then, the incubus knew just how monumentally fucked up Mammon was, since he’d had the misfortune of working for him before Cresso got transferred to Earth. “What’s that bastard done now?”

  “Oh, he only plans to take over all of Earth. For starters. And he’s actually found a way to do it.”

  Cresso let out a disbelieving laugh. “How?”

  Taeg filled Cresso in on the Book of the Dead and the events of the past several days, including Brynn and her role in the whole thing.

  “Shit. This is not good, man,” Cresso said. “And he already knows that this Brynn is the heir?”

  “Yes.” Taeg stared grimly at his beer. “If we don’t find the book before Mammon does, the Council will order us to kill her to stop Mammon from succeeding in his plan. And I really don’t want to do that.”

  Cresso nodded in understanding. “I agree it’s no fun to have to take an
innocent life.”

  “Not just that.” Taeg chugged the rest of his beer, then turned to Cresso. “Keegan has feelings for her.”

  Cresso winced. “Ooh. Tough break. Well, you know I’m always in for a good fight.”

  Yeah, Taeg knew it. Not only was Cresso a loyal guy, but he hated Mammon almost as much as Taeg did.

  “So, what do you need me to do?”

  “Head to Egypt. From what we hear, Mammon has gotten quite a few demons on his side. He’s promised them a demon hierarchy once he’s taken over the world, and they’re foolish enough to believe it. See if you can talk to a few of them to find out where they’re searching for the book. I can’t do it, for obvious reasons.”

  “Nor your brothers. Mammon is bound to have told his minions to be on the lookout for the four of you.” Cresso nodded his agreement. “I’ll make flight reservations to leave within the day. Unlike some of us, I can’t just disappear in one place and reappear in another.”

  “Yeah, I’m just special that way,” Taeg replied, his voice deadpan.

  Cresso was silent for a long moment before shaking his head. “I’ll never get over how perfectly normal you and your brothers are, given the circumstances.”

  “Yeah well”—Taeg shrugged—“we don’t get to choose who we’re born to.”

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time their plane landed in New Orleans, Brynn was tired and on edge. Her nightmares last night, on top of everything else she’d learned in the past few days, weighed on her shoulders until she wondered how much more she could possibly take. Add to that her growing attraction to Keegan, and there was no way she could have rested on the plane. Not with him sitting right next to her, so close she could’ve reached out and licked him, had she dared.

  Her body didn’t seem to care that Keegan was a demon, or that they were on the run. It didn’t care about anything other than how good he smelled and how deliciously small and safe she felt next to him. She couldn’t help but wonder if he had felt the same way. Once they’d landed, he practically dove off the plane in his haste to get out.

  Then again, maybe he’d never been on a plane before.

  “I can’t believe this,” Keegan muttered to Ronin, who was navigating the rented car through the crushing traffic toward their French Quarter hotel. “I tell you to find us another place to go, and you bring us here.”

  “No better place to hide than among a crowd of drunken revelers. Besides, the Council keeps a hotel suite on permanent reservation in this city.”

  Though Ronin’s reply was breezy, he acted as anxious and tense as she felt right then. Even though he drove confidently, his erratic weaving made Brynn suspect he’d never driven before. But more likely it was due to the tenuousness of their position. They couldn’t run from Mammon forever. Damn her ancestor and his weakness for that succubus. It was because of them that Brynn was here right now.

  On the way to the hotel, Keegan explained more to Brynn about her ancestry. She’d been too overwhelmed last night to ask about it in detail, but the Council he worked for seemed to know quite a bit about the Egyptian priest who was the cause of all this mayhem.

  “His name was Iyri,” Keegan said. “What you should know is that demons have been crossing over to Earth for many millennia. Humans have crossed over to Infernum, too, though few have lived to tell the tale.

  “Iyri was one of the very few humans who have a natural resistance to succubi, something he discovered when he was seduced by one. As you can imagine, Sitha was pretty surprised when, instead of dying, he seemed to have a limitless supply of energy she could feed from. And he was shocked to learn the beautiful young woman who’d just seduced him was, in fact, a demon.”

  “Yeah, that would put a damper on any relationship,” Brynn murmured. He threw her a dry look. Too late, she realized she’d unintentionally insulted him.

  Red-faced and feeling like total shit, she opened her mouth to apologize, but before she could say a word, Keegan continued. “Being a man of magic as well as faith, Iyri used a spell to trap Sitha, to bind her to him. He spent the next several months studying her while she fed off him. However, it seems, somewhere along the line they fell in love.”

  “What did they do then?” Brynn asked.

  “The problem was that Sitha was on the run from the Council—a fugitive—for some past crime. The Council learned of her whereabouts and ordered that Iyri return her to them for punishment.”

  “But he didn’t?”

  “He loved her too much to let her go. And by that time, she was already pregnant with his child. A true rarity, the child of a demon and human.”

  She fought back a blush. “So humans and demons can actually, you know, mate?”

  “Yes. It happens more often than you might think. Though as I said, children from those matches are rare.”

  “What about…” This time she did blush. She couldn’t help it. “I know it probably wasn’t a concern back then, but what about diseases?”

  Keegan turned his intense gaze on her. There was a hint of a question in his eyes. Lord, he didn’t think she was talking about the two of them, did he? That wasn’t what she was getting at, even if her awareness of him was so acute that her heart sped up with every move of his body.

  “Demons don’t carry diseases,” he finally said. “Nor can they transmit them.”

  “Oh,” she replied.

  “At any rate,” Keegan continued, “Iyri created the book. It contained a spell that allowed for the resurrection of the dead, in a form that was stronger than human or demon. They would be strong enough to protect Sitha from the Council. But there’s always a price to pay for strength. The dead had to feed off living flesh in order to subsist.”

  Brynn shuddered. “That’s horrible. But he did it anyway?”

  “Love makes people do strange things,” Keegan said. “Because he recognized the danger of this book, he crafted the spell so that only one of his bloodline could activate it. With it, he would be able to control the army of the dead.”

  “God, that’s crazy. He loved her so much he went to any length to save her.”

  Keegan nodded. “Even at the expense of his own world.”

  “So what happened then?” she pressed.

  “The Council found out about his plan and stopped him before the spell was fully completed. The dead were in the process of reanimating, but they crumbled to the ground when Iyri was killed. The Council tried to destroy the book, but Iyri had made it indestructible, so they buried it with him in a hidden, unmarked tomb. Many believe the tomb is somewhere in the Valley of the Kings, but no one knows where. Not even the current Council. The old Council members purposely didn’t keep any record of it. In fact, no one was supposed to know about it at all, but one of the men responsible for digging the grave spread the tale, and it survived to modern day.”

  Brynn sighed. To be sure, her ancestor had committed an evil act, but he’d done it with only the best of intentions—for love. “What happened to Sitha?”

  “They allowed her to live long enough to give birth to the child. Female offspring of succubi are born full succubi themselves, but male offspring take on most of the characteristics of their fathers. Since the child was a boy, he was given to a human family with no knowledge of his demon heritage.”

  “My great-great-grandfather, many times over.”

  Keegan nodded, a strand of hair dropping to cover his eyes. Right then, they blazed blue-green, but she couldn’t help but recall what they had looked like unglamoured—red, intense, and expressive. Beautiful, in an alien sort of way.

  “Sitha’s gift, as well as Iyri’s magic, was passed on in various, progressively weaker incarnations,” he said. “Until you. You can drain humans of their energy and read inanimate objects, all because of Sitha and Iyri and their love for each other.”

  Brynn closed her eyes for a long moment, the details of her distant past penetrating her mind. “It’s such a sad story.”

  “That’s life,” h
e said. “Shit happens.”

  As they pulled up to their hotel in the middle of the French Quarter, she couldn’t help but think about Keegan’s blunt response to the story. The events of the past few days had made it perfectly clear that he was right: shit did happen.

  …

  Ronin stood on the expansive balcony of their two-bedroom suite. Thankfully, it faced the street, so Brynn could see the crowds of people roaming below, even if she couldn’t partake of their revelry. She’d done nothing but pace their suite since they arrived yesterday, and he couldn’t blame her. Her life, even all of her perceptions about life, had done a one-eighty in the past few days.

  Keegan was on the phone in one of the two bedrooms, debriefing with a Council liaison. Devil only knew what was going on in there.

  Hurting a woman went against everything Ronin stood for. Growing up with the knowledge of what happened to his mother, he’d vowed to never abuse a woman. So far, he’d managed to hold true to that vow, even when his father’s fists had tried to sway him otherwise. But now, if the Council ordered it, he would have to stand idly by while Brynn’s life was snuffed out. Or worse, if Keegan couldn’t go forward with it, he’d have to do it himself. It was enough to drive a man to drink.

  Where were Taeg and Dagan when you needed them?

  As if on cue, his cell phone rang, the caller identification showing Taeg’s number. “Yeah?”

  “Well, hello there, Miss Sunshine,” Taeg’s voice rang out. “You manage to keep from beating in Keegan’s face yet?”

  “That’s only a concern with the two of you,” Ronin said.

  “Oh, yeah.” Taeg let out a dry chuckle. “I tried Keeg’s cell, but he didn’t answer. What’s our big bro up to?”

  “Council debriefing.”

  “Aw, fuck a duck. That shit is so annoying. Anyway, let him know I met Dagan’s skinny ass at the airport. Cresso’s flight is due to arrive in a couple of hours. I’ll touch base again once we know more.”

  “Got it.”

  There was a short beat of silence before Taeg spoke again. “Hey, man, I got a hunch.”