by Sarah Piper
Shadow Kissed
Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Piper
SarahPiperBooks.com
All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotations used for promotional or review purposes, no part of this book may be recorded, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express permission of the author. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, organizations, brands, media, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.
Contents
About Shadow Kissed
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
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Origins of The Witch’s Rebels
About Sarah Piper
About Shadow Kissed
A witch outrunning her past. Five smoldering-hot guardians. And the dark secret that could destroy them all…
Blackmoon Bay is a city of monsters. Surviving here means never leaving home without a sharp stake. It means keeping secrets, even from friends. And unless I want the Hunters finding me again, it means my witchcraft stays on permanent lockdown.
Good policy—until the night I accidentally resurrect a dead girl, rekindling my magic and drawing the Bay’s most dangerous men to my doorstep.
Asher, the bad-boy incubus. Darius, the cunning, oh-so-sexy vampire. Emilio, the wolf shifter with a big heart and a treacherous past. Ronan, the only demon I trust with my soul. And Death himself, bound to my magic for reasons I don’t understand.
Together they’ve sworn to protect me from the evil out there, but it’s not the evil out there I’m worried about.
A shadow lurks inside me, black and deadly as a bomb.
And I’m pretty sure my magical mishap just lit the fuse.
I’m Gray Desario. Witch. Survivor. Occasional bringer of chaos. And tonight? The darkness is coming…
One
Gray
Survival instinct was a powerful thing.
What horrors could we endure, could we accept, could we embrace in the name of staying alive?
Hunger. Brutality. Desperation.
Being alone.
I’d been alone for so long I’d almost forgotten what it was like to love, to trust, to look into the eyes of another person and feel a spark of something other than fear.
And then they came into my life.
Each one as damaged and flawed as I was, yet somehow finding a way through the cracks in my walls, slowly breaking down the bricks I’d so carefully built around my heart.
Despite their differences, they’d come together as my protectors and friends for reasons I still didn’t fully understand. And after everything we’d been through, I had no doubts about who they were to me. To each other.
Family.
I didn’t know what the future held; I’d given up trying to predict it years ago. But I didn’t need my Tarot cards or my mother’s old crystal ball to know this:
For me, there was no future without them. Without my rebels.
“Gray?” The whisper floated to my ears.
After several heartbeats, I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
I heard nothing, saw nothing, felt nothing but the demon before me, pale and shattered, fading from this realm.
“Whatever you’re thinking,” he said, his head lolling forward, “don’t.”
Looking at him strapped to the chair, bruises covering his face, blood pouring from the gashes in his chest, I steeled my resolve.
His voice was faint, his body broken, his essence dimming. But the fire in his eyes blazed as bright as it had the day we’d met.
“Whatever horrible things you’ve heard about me, they’re all true…”
“Please,” he whispered, almost begging now. “I’m not worth…”
His words trailed off into a cough, blood spraying his lips.
He was wrong. He was more than worth it. Between the two of us, maybe only one would make it out of this room alive. If that were true, it had to be him; I couldn’t live in a world where he didn’t exist. Where any of them didn’t exist.
This was my fate. My purpose. My gift.
There was no going back.
I held up my hands, the indigo flames surging bright in the darkness.
And as I reached for him, I closed my eyes, sealing the memory of his ocean-blue gaze inside, knowing it could very well be the last time I saw it.
Two
Gray
2 Weeks Earlier…
Don’t act like prey, and you won’t become it. Don’t act like prey…
Whispering my usual mantra, I pushed the rusty hand truck down St. Vincent Avenue, scanning the shadows for trouble.
It was my last delivery of the night, and I’d brought along my favorite traveling companions—a sharp stake in my waistband and a big-ass hunting knife in my boot. Still, danger had a way of sneaking up on a girl in the warehouse district, which is why most normal people avoided it.
If I didn’t need the money—and a boss who paid in cash and didn’t ask questions about my past—I’d be avoiding it, too.
Alas…
Snuggling deeper into my leather jacket, I banked left at the next alley and rolled to a stop in front of the unmarked service entrance to Black Ruby. My cart wobbled under the weight of its cargo—five refrigerated cases of O-positive and three AB-negative, fresh from a medical supplier in Vancouver.
Yeah, Waldrich’s Imports dealt in some weird shit, but human cops didn’t bother with the warehouse district, and the Fae Council that governed supernaturals didn’t get involved with the Bay’s black market. The only time they cared was when a supernatural killed a human, and sometimes—depending on the human—not even then.
Thumbing through my packing slips, I hoped the vampires weren’t too thirsty tonight. Half their order had gotten snagged by customs across the bay in Seattle.
I also hoped that someone other than Darius Beaumont would sign for this.
I could hold my own with most vamps, but Black Ruby’s owner struck me as the shoot-the-messenger type.
No matter how sexy he is…
Wrapping one hand discretely around my stake, I reached up to hit the buzzer, but a faint cry from the far end of the alley stopped me.
“Don’t! Please!”
“Settle down, sweetheart,” a man said, the menace in his voice a sick contrast to the terrified tremble in hers.
My heart rate spiked.
Abandoning my delivery, I scooted along the building’s brick exterior, edging closer to the struggle. I spotted the girl first—couldn’t have been more than fifteen, sixteen at most, with lanky brown hair and the pale, haunted features of a blood slave.
But it wasn’t a vampire that’d lured her out for a snack.
The greasy dude who’d cornered her was a hundred percent human.
Just another pervert in dirty jeans and a sweat-stained Henley who thought runaway kids were an easy mark.
“It’ll all be over soon,” he told her.
Yeah, sooner than you think…
Anger coiled in my belly, fizzing the edges of my vision. I couldn’t decide who deserved more of my ire—the asshole threatening her now, or the parents who’d abandoned her in the first place.
Far as I was concerned, they were the same breed of evil.
“Well now. Must be my lucky night.” The man barked out a laugh, and too late, I realized I’d been spotted. “Two for the price of one. Come on over here, Blondie. Don’t be shy.”
Shit. I’d hesitated too long, let my emotions get the best of me when I should’ve been working that knife out of my boot.
Fear pooled in my belly, and for a brief instant, I felt my brain and body duking it out. Fight or flight, fight or flight…
No. I couldn’t leave her. Not like that.
“Leave her alone,” I said, brandishing my stake.
He yanked the kid against his chest, one meaty hand fisting her blue unicorn hoodie, the other curling around her throat. Fresh urine soaked her jeans.
“Drop your little stick and come over here,” the man said, “or I’ll crush her neck.”
My mind raced for an alternative, but there was no time. I couldn’t risk going for the knife. Couldn’t sneak up on him. And around here, screaming for help could attract a worse kind of attention.
Plan B it is.
“Alright, big guy. You win.” I dropped the stake and smiled, sidling toward him with all the confidence I could muster, which wasn’t much, considering how hard I was shaking. “What are you doing with a scrawny little kid, anyway?”
He looked at the kid, then back at me, his lecherous gaze burning through my skin. The stench of cigarettes and cheap booze lingered on his breath, like old fish and sour milk.
“I’ve got everything you need right here,” I purred, choking back bile as I unzipped my jacket. “Unless you’re not man enough to handle it?”
His gaze roamed my curves, eyes dark with lust. “You’re about to find out, ain’t ya?”
He was a hell of a lot faster than I’d given him credit for.
He shoved the kid away, and in one swift move, he grabbed me and spun me around, pinning me face-first against the bricks.
“So you’re an all talk, no action kind of bitch?” He wrenched my arms behind me, the intense pain making my eyes water. “That ends now.”
His sour breath was hot on the back of my neck, his hold impossibly strong, my knife impossibly out of reach.
“Mmm. You got some ass on you, girl.” He shoved a hand into the back pocket of my jeans and grabbed a handful of ass. “I like that in a woman.”
Of course you do.
All these years making illegal, late-night deliveries in the seediest places in town, this wasn’t my first rodeo. The one-liners, the threats, the grabby hands…
Human or monster, guys like this never managed to deviate from the dickhole playbook.
But this was the first guy who’d actually pinned me like this.
At least he’d ditched the kid. I tried to get her attention now, get her to take off, but she was rooted to the cement beside us, paralyzed with fear.
The man pressed his greasy lips to my ear. “No more bullshit, witch.”
You don’t know the half of it, asshole.
He didn’t—that much was obvious. Just another dude with a tiny dick who tossed around the word “witch” like an insult.
My vision flickered again, rage boiling up inside, clawing at my insides like a caged animal searching for weak points.
It wanted out.
I took a deep breath, dialed it back down to a simmer.
God, I would’ve loved to light him up—spell his ass straight to oblivion. But I hadn’t kept my mojo on lockdown for damn near a decade just to risk exposure for this prick.
So magic was out. I couldn’t reach my knife. And my top-notch negotiating skills had obviously failed.
Fuck diplomacy.
I let my head slump forward in apparent defeat.
Then slammed it backward, right into his chin.
He grunted and staggered backward, but before I could spin around or reach for my knife, he was on me again, fisting my hair and shoving my face against the wall.
“Nice try, little cunt. Now you eat brick.”
“Don’t!” the girl squeaked. “Just… just let us go.”
“Aw, that’s cute. You’ll get your turn, baby.” He let out a moan, soft and low, like he’d just discovered the last piece of cake in the fridge.
Okay, she’d saved me from a serious case of brick-rash—not to mention a possible skull fracture—but now she was back on his radar. And I still couldn’t get to the knife.
Time for plan B. Or was this C?
Fuck it.
“Hey. I’ve got money,” I said. “Let us go, and it’s yours.”
“Yeah? How much?”
“Some.”
Lie. At the moment, I was loaded. Most of the $3,000 I’d already collected tonight was in the van, wrapped in a McDonald’s bag and shoved under the seat. I also had $200 in a baggie inside my boot and another $800 in my bra, because I believed in diversifying my assets.
My commission depended on me getting the cash and van back to the docks without incident. I couldn’t afford incidents. Rent was due tomorrow, and Sophie had already covered me last month.
But I couldn’t—wouldn’t—risk him hurting the kid.
“It’s in my boot,” I said. “Left one.”
“We’ll see about that.” He yanked me away from the wall and shoved me to the ground, the impact shredding the skin on my palms.
I was flat on my stomach, wrists pinned behind me by one of his meaty hands. With the other, he bent my leg back and yanked off my boot.
Bastard.
“I hope you feel good about your life choices,” I grumbled.
Another wheezing laugh rattled his chest. “Choice ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.”
Whatever. I waited until he saw the baggie with the cash, let him get distracted and stupid over his small victory.
The instant he released my wrists and went for the money, I pushed up on all fours and slammed my other boot heel straight into his teeth.
The crunch of bone was pure music, just like the dropped-pebble sound of his front teeth hitting cement as he spit them from his mouth.
His howl of agony could’ve called the wolves.
I had just enough time to flip over and scamper to my feet before he rose up and charged, pile-driving me backward into the wall. The wind rushed out of my lungs, but I had to keep fighting. Had to get him to back off and leave us.
I clawed at his face and shoved a knee into his groin, but damn it—not enough leverage. His hands clamped around my throat, rage and fire in his eyes, blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
He cocked back an arm, but just before his fist connected, I went limp, dropping to the ground like a pile of rags.
The momentum of his s
wing threw him off balance, and I quickly ducked beneath his arms and darted behind him, crouching down and reaching for the sweet, solid handle of my knife.
“You can’t win,” he taunted as he turned to face me. “I’m bigger, stronger, and I ain’t got no qualms about hurting little cunts like you.”
I stood up straight, blade flashing in the moonlight.
“Whoa. Whoa!” He raised his hands in surrender, slowly backing off. “Hand over the knife, sweetheart.”
“Not happening.”
“You’re gonna hurt yourself, waving around a big weapon like that.”
“Also not happening.”
“Look. You need to calm the fuck down before—” A coughing fit cut him short, and he leaned against the wall, one hand on his chest as he gasped for air.
I held the knife out in front of me, rock steady, finally getting my footing. Chancing a quick glance at the girl, I jerked my head toward the other end of the ally, willing her to bolt.
But she shook her head.
From the corner of my eye, I caught a blur of movement, but before it’d even registered, the dude was tackling me to the ground. The knife clattered away from me.
