Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  I straightened in my seat. “For sure. I’ll be at the station in about ten.”

  “No, we’re at North Harbor. Next to Friday Fish Fry.”

  Best fried fish in the world, especially after a hangover. Ryker and I were regulars. “Is everything all right?”

  “We’ll talk when you arrive.”

  “No prob,” I said. “Give me twenty-five minutes.” The harbor sat across the city, and with the lack of heavy traffic, the cab driver should make a good time.

  “Thanks.” The phone hung up.

  “Sorry,” I said and leaned forward in my seat, closer to the driver. “Can you take me to the Friday Fish Fry restaurant, near the river.”

  “No trouble. I know the place.”

  Exhaustion settled in my chest, and I slouched, still unable to rub Dante from my mind. Seeing him left me jagged inside. When my brother had died, it wasn’t just him I’d lost, but the man I’d loved and my friends in the Hood—because I’d accepted that the community would shun me. Three years later and I swore I’d moved on, except I was living a lie. My throat thickened, all pretense of coping thrown out the window.

  I stared at the phone in my hand. Perhaps catching up with Ryker might just save the shitty night.

  Chapter 2

  Pebbles crunched under my boots as I ambled toward the river’s shore. Half a dozen uniformed cops stood around, blocking whatever lay in front of them. But nothing washed away the pulse pounding in my ears. I’d only attended a handful of actual crime scenes to date. With my psychometry, all I required was an object that had belonged to the dead victim to see fragments of their last moments. So for me to attend a scene, well, the situation was beyond dire and urgent. And I loathed urgency in such situations because it promised disastrous news.

  I scanned the darkened shore for Ryker. Spotlights had been set up by the police on the river’s bank, and the water bled into the night. To my left, the Amber Bridge towered over us, its metal arch resembling a bony spine. On my right, distant city lights gleamed. Trees and an army of lofty apartments stood at my back.

  Ryker wasn’t anywhere near the river. Had he gone to another case? Wouldn’t be the first time. The local precinct remained understaffed. With crime on the rise, work only piled higher, and Ryker often worked double shifts.

  Dan, one of Ryker’s buddies, spotted me and closed the distance, but the tactic was typical. Warn the newbie before they faced the dead body. Sure, last time I’d vomited, but come on, the woman had been sliced from gut to neck. Nothing prepares you for that. I still had nightmares.

  “Hey, Robyn, thanks for coming on such late notice.” Dan smiled, but tiredness pulled at the corners of his bloodshot eyes. The creases at his mouth revealed more than his exhaustion. How much the job had aged him. He might be in his late twenties, but he looked ten years older. When he reached me, we hugged, and the smell of his perspiration hit. I broke away. He was the only cop on the force aware of my relationship with Ryker. Next week, I had a shopping date with his wife, Sherry, and in a strange way, I couldn’t wait, even if buying clothes was down there on my list of things I’d rather not do. But meeting more people, growing my circle of friends, was a must if I intended to make a life for myself in the city.

  “Always happy to help,” I replied to Dan. “What’s going on?”

  “Found a body washed up. Chief wants any insight, pronto.”

  I stared at the authorities near the shore. Then I spotted the swollen, purple ankle. I swallowed the bile rising in my throat.

  “Where’s Ryker?” I asked. My babe had this way of keeping me calm with a single touch. Yeah, I ought to have been able handle such crap, but no matter how many killings I watched in my vision, nothing compared to facing the real deal.

  “He had to scare off some busybodies.” Dan patted my shoulder. “Let’s go, and try not to spew all over the evidence.” He chuckled, and the earlier lines softened across his brow. The guy ought to have laughed more often. I’d read somewhere that laughing every day added years to your life. Probably crap, but I preferred to believe it was true. Who the hell didn’t want happiness 24/7?

  “Why the urgency?” I asked.

  “Can’t say. Sorry.” He arched an eyebrow and drew me into a walk toward the water’s edge.

  Up close, I examined the five cops nearby, two of which were taking notes. One snapped photos, and the chief gave instructions about shutting down the weekend festivities along the river.

  I lowered my gaze to the victim; it took several moments to make sense of the scene. A young man, tanned and thin. He only wore jeans, and even his shoes were missing. Bruises littered his torso. Someone had beaten him up. Internal bleeding a definite.

  He lay on the shore, twisted at the waist. One leg was bent the wrong way and an arm across was his chest, suggesting broken bones. But then I found his face—puffy cheeks with lesions on his mouth and cheek along with a fresh cut on his neck.

  Why did he look familiar? I didn’t remember moving, but I knelt alongside his head, staring at his open, dead eyes. As if my mind cleared in that moment, his familiarity crashed into me, and numbness slithered up my legs.

  Dash.

  My insides shredded. I pictured his devastated parents when they found out their baby son was gone. I’d spent time with Dash in the Hood, taught him how to use a bow and arrow for hunting.

  When someone touched my shoulder, I flinched and turned to find Lukas Balen, the police chief.

  “Do you know the victim?” he asked.

  I shook my head. Admitting I knew Dash would cause complications. The Hood was an outlaw gang, and to the authorities, they were a nuisance, vigilantes, murderers. Many unsolved murders ended up pinned on them. All bullshit. The Hood didn’t kill.

  “Sorry you had to see this,” Lukas said. “But I couldn’t wait. I want the fucker who did this caught now.”

  I climbed to my feet, shoving my hands into my pockets to stop them from shaking. My fingers grazed the three marbles in my pocket. The faint static they released curled up my arm and eased my muscles.

  A cry strangled in my throat and tears prickled my eyes. Shit, Dash! I hadn’t seen him for the past three years, but everyone from the Traveler community knew each other’s business and would mourn his loss. We were an extended family to each other. Okay, not me. Ever since I’d left the Hood and moved into the city, most had refused to acknowledge I existed. They insisted I broke their fucked up rules.

  The chief held a Ziploc bag with a brass key inside. “We found this on the victim and already taken prints from it.”

  I stared at Dash, then back, well aware it belonged to his parents’ home back in our community. He used to wear it on a golden chain; a gift from his mom to never forget his way home. It was strange saying our when it was no longer my place, but in my soul the place would remain home.

  “Tell me what you see.” Lukas interrupted my thoughts.

  Someone sniggered behind me.

  Whatever. Many cops pigeonholed me into the performing monkey category, but people feared what they didn’t understand. As long as the chief believed in me and paid, I overlooked others’ ignorance. Hell, I grew up in a community shunned by the rest of society because they kept to themselves. Dealing with shit was my specialty. Plus, Lukas had worked with psychics in his previous job in the neighboring metropolis, Jade City. Ryker had once told me Lukas’s wife was a medium.

  I accepted the bag and walked away from the group to a spot near the river with minimal light. The soft slap of water against rocks eased my thoughts. Opening the evidence bag, I lifted the key—cold to the touch—and curled my fingers around the item. Unlike earlier, when I’d concentrated on drawing the energy of the object into me, this time, I spoke to the key.

  Show me your secrets. Share what you’ve seen, energies you’ve absorbed.

  At once, a wave of dizziness fell through my mind, and fog drifted across my thoughts. I shut my eyes.

  Water everywhere. In my ears, my nose,
inside my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. My chest tightened. Panic flooded me. The river vanished, replaced by smothering heat and darkness. The world around me jumped about as if on a bumpy roller coaster. The crunch of tires filled my ears. Dread clung to me. Like switching the TV channel, the vision disappeared. A dark road near a shadowy building appeared. Footsteps followed. I ran for my life. I had to reach the Hood.

  I snapped to reality with a gasp and stumbled backward. My brain still swam, disorientated. Readings drained me, blurred my thoughts, left me feeling as if I weren’t quite fitting back inside my body. It took a few minutes to shake the sensation.

  “Robyn.” Lukas was a mosquito, loud and annoying. His hand rested on my elbow, forcing me to face him. “What did you see?”

  For those few seconds, he had two faces. I returned to the key to the Ziploc bag and pushed the evidence into his hand, then rubbed my eyes. Visions always showed themselves backward.

  “Water,” I said. “He’d been alive before he was thrown into the river. Before that, he was in the trunk of a car.” It explained the tires, the claustrophobic sensation. The fear of being found. The road. “Someone tracked him.” Dash must have known someone had followed him. He’d been terrified and needed help. “From the Hood.”

  “The Hood?” The chief stood in my face, his breath all over me. “Fucking monsters.” He walked away.

  Wait! “No.” I tailed him. “D-Don’t think it was the Hood. I meant something else.”

  He spun to face me, his brow pinched. “You said the Hood. They kidnapped the victim, shoved him into a car, and tossed him into the river.”

  I was shaking, trying to clear the fogginess clinging to my mind. “But I didn’t see who took him or threw him into the water.”

  The chief already turned away. “Thank you, Robyn. You’ve been great. The mayor will be happy.”

  The mayor was now involved? This was why I usually viewed visions alone and let myself clear my brain before I spoke. But he’d bombarded me. I combed a shaky hand through my hair.

  The chief gave orders for double security on the streets. “Knew the bastards were involved,” he said. “I felt it in my bones.”

  Guilt sat on my mind like a scab. I couldn’t undo my mistake or make amends, and a confession was out of the question. The Hood were already on the wanted list, so what was another cross against them? This only made me feel worse. It gave the chief more ammunition to add more resources to hunting down the Hood.

  Dante would find out about Dash through his contacts. Part of me considered that the news might be kinder coming from me. Though I wasn’t sure I had it in me to visit the Hood camp in the forest or face Dante again.

  Still, the vision remained on repeat. Had someone followed Dash? But why take him?

  Footsteps had me lifting my head.

  Ryker approached, concern marring his handsome face. The healed scar on his cheek from a knife attack added to his sexiness. Dark stubble covered his strong jawline, and his short, dark hair drew attention to his green eyes. Broad shoulders, layers of muscles—the guy was a god. Even his jeans, sitting low on narrow hips, hugged his package so well, I couldn’t pull my gaze away.

  “Robyn, how you holding up?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.” No, I wasn’t. At least I wasn’t stupid enough to have mentioned Dash’s name or how I knew him. The moment authorities discovered I used to be part of the Hood, I would be arrested.

  Softness filled Ryker’s expression as he studied me. “Come. I’ll give you a lift back home. The guys will finish up the scene. They were just waiting for you.”

  I nodded, unsure I could speak if I tried. Thoughts knotted in my head, and it felt as if I’d swallowed barbed wire. Somehow, the night sucked a billion times worse. Not only had I bumped into Dante, but Dash was dead. And I had accidentally implicated the Hood as possible suspects. Fucking wonderful.

  Chapter 3

  Dread had a funny way of pressing beneath my breastbone, making breathing a bitch. The longer I went over the night’s events, the tighter my chest became. Dash was dead! We’d trained together, hunted, pulled pranks on Dante. And there lay the problem… Dante. Just remembering my reaction to him revealed how gullible he’d made me. If I behaved like a schoolgirl in heat after a quick encounter, I’d be a puddle when I turned up at his hideout in the woods. How long before I begged him to take me? Hell! What’s wrong with me?

  “You going to stand in the doorway all night and mumble to yourself?” Ryker ambled across his studio, pulling off his long coat. He hung it on the back of a chair and then kicked off his boots.

  I stepped inside the darkened room lit by moonlight pouring in from the windows and shut the door behind me. A sofa sat in the center, and my gaze sailed to the king-sized bed to my right. In the opposite corner lay his weights. Ryker led a simple life. He didn’t even own a television as he used his phone to catch up on entertainment. And he rarely watched shows. Movies were for the cinema. He gained critical news directly from the police force.

  Ryker peeled off his shirt, his shoulders sculptured, leading down to biceps that could bench press four of me. His perfection left me in awe as he strutted about in his jeans, which curved across his butt. “Thirsty?” he asked.

  Come to think of it, my mouth had morphed into a desert. “Sure.” And curling up in Ryker’s arms was a must. To forget my crappy night, forget I’d lost a friend, forget I had zero evidence on the dead kid case. They were troubles for another day.

  I joined Ryker at the kitchen counter. He set down a tumbler with bourbon and cola. He was a whiskey-on-the-rocks kind of guy. No messing about; Ryker was a straight shooter—no lies. Unlike me. Well, technically I’d never lied to Ryker. I just chose not to tell him everything about my upbringing. How I used to live in the Lower Corner, or ‘the slums’ as most in the city called it. That I’d trained as a fighter most of my life, or that the Traveler community had always been protectors of the unfortunate. Had been that way for generations. I could go on, but sometimes the past was better left as that.

  Ryker sipped on his whiskey while his hooded eyes studied me. “You sure you okay after that murder scene?”

  I swallowed the bourbon in two gulps and placed the tumbler down on the marble counter. “Don’t want to talk. Come over here.”

  With another drink, he closed the distance in three long strides. His fingers threaded through my hair, drawing me against him. His mouth was on mine, starving. Every molecule in my body shivered from his intensity. That was Ryker, always taking charge in the sex department, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. He walked me backward, my hands caressing the firmness of his pecs, sailing south over his ribbed stomach, pulling at his pants. Our kiss remained locked in place until my legs hit the sofa.

  Our foreheads touched, our noses grazing, and he said, “I can’t get enough of you.” He set his glass of whiskey by the foot of the couch. Before I reacted, his tongue licked my neck, down my shoulders, the delicate caress undoing me.

  “I need you,” I purred.

  Ryker pried my T-shirt up and over my head. “I’m all yours, babe. Anything you want.” His arms wrapped around my back, unlatching my bra. His musky scent was intoxicating. He peeled the straps down my arms, freeing my breasts. All thoughts stopped, only one desire left: Ryker.

  He lowered himself and took a nipple into his mouth. I clenched his hair in my fists, my heart racing. With a hand at my lower back, he guided me onto the sofa, his mouth on mine. He growled in the kiss; I whimpered with longing. Ryker pulled down my leather pants, and I shook in anticipation of what would come next. In two shakes, he had them and my undies off.

  “Much better.” Kneeling alongside me, he reached over to his glass and returned with an ice cube, along with the filthiest grin.

  I laughed because he loved experimenting, and I adored being his test subject.

  “Close your eyes,” he commanded, and I complied. The clinking sound of ice hitting glass sounded. Coldness touched my li
ps, tracing the outline of them. Next, he swirled the coldness around each nipple; they tightened to buds.

  I arched from the sudden frost. When he glided the ice down my abs and lower, I gasped. He had an erect nipple between his teeth, gently gnawing, while his hand nudged my thighs apart.

  With my fiery inferno, I was sure the ice would melt in a second flat. Ryker ran the cube between my legs, the sudden chill sending a ripple of excitement through me. He rubbed me with haste. I let out a moan, unable to articulate any words. When he pushed the ice into me, I shivered.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered in my ear.

  The floorboards creaked as he stood. Next thing, he lifted me into his arms, and I snapped open my eyes, inches from his face, my body pressed against his hot skin.

  “You plan on leaving that inside me?” My words came out breathy, and hell, I just needed him to take me already. But he loved the teasing game.

  He chuckled, his voice stroking my insides. “First, I plan to eat you. I love the way you taste.”

  Once he placed me on the bed, Ryker grabbed my ankles and heaved me closer so my butt sat on the edge. He spread me and smirked, my mind unable to process with the pleasure hitting me so fast. He unzipped his pants and dropped them. His hardness popped out, and I chewed on my inner cheek, ready. Instead, he kneeled in front of me, his tongue flicking, the nip from the ice heightening the sensation. I lost all rational thought, consumed by his touch, his attentiveness.

  I writhed, the euphoric pleasure owning me. The moment an orgasm slammed forward, I clenched my thighs around Ryker’s head. Damn, he wasn’t giving up; he kept devouring me.

  When he broke away, he chewed on something, the sound of crunch coming from his mouth… the ice cube.

  “You’ll make a girl get used to this kind of attention.”

  “Sure hope so. Now flip over and show me that ass.”

  Goosebumps lined my arms as he rolled me onto my stomach. I lifted my butt into the air.