by Jana Leigh
Dante’s Dreams
By Jana Leigh
Edited By: Everyone in the Company but approved By Rose Colton
Artwork by: JK Publishing
Published by JK Publishing LLC
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 recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then, please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales are entirely coincidental.
© Copyright 2012 JK Publishing
All cover art and logo © Copyright 2012 by JK Publishing.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Dedication:
To my fans, I have said this so many times to people I never realize I never actually Thank YOU! You are all amazing, and trust me when I say if it were not for your encouragement I would have stopped writing a long time ago. Marie H. (who talks to every day of facebook), Julie J. (my lovely fan from England), Kiki (who I have convinced she has an amazing imagination and you can write). Trust me when I say I know I am missing people but you all are awesome and wonderful I just don’t have enough room.
Personally: Michelle and Caroline, I was blessed the day you two came into my life, you are the best editors anyone could ask for, fuck the rest. Kerri, you put up with so much of my bullshit, I am surprised you are still with me. And Kendra, who Kerri will have to tell about this because she is a blonde and has only made it through Book Five of the Denver Pack and I am not sure if she will make it this far, because she is a slow reader. Making you frustrated by calling Kerri every two seconds is what I live for, and I will always be here for you!
FINALLY: I know you are all shocked that I am this long winded, but since it went to the next page I would like to thank each and every one of the Authors who publish with me. You are all talented and wonderful women and men who have such bright futures I have no words to describe how you amaze me daily with your story’s, and your goofy questions and yes, even when you are a pain in the ass, and you get the ALL CAPS EMAILS, and you know I am pissed. You are the best!
Jessica Lupo
Marquaylla Lorette
Cheyenne Winters
Lucy Kelly
Shelby Lynn
Darcy Morin
Selena Cross
Zach Collins
Leigh Brock
TB Smith
Dakota Lindsey
New Authors Coming Soon
Cyndi Harris
Contact me:
Janaleighauthor.com
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Email: [email protected]
Table of Contents
Email: [email protected]
Prologue5
Chapter 110
Chapter 216
Chapter 318
Chapter 424
Chapter 530
Chapter 632
Chapter 743
Chapter 852
Chapter 962
Chapter 1072
Chapter 1176
Chapter 1286
Chapter 1394
Chapter 14103
Prologue
Being a lawyer for the undead made for very interesting office hours. However, Brin Hedrick was more than happy to make sure his clients were catered to. They were the largest clients he had, and paid amazingly well. He was currently waiting on the head of the Italian Vampire Ambrosetti Clan to finish off the contract he had signed with the New Council, and send it back to him.
Orfeo and his mates were going to be setting up a Senate in Europe of the magical community of Shifters, Witches, Fae, Sidhe, and many others. Since many of the Clans and Packs lived originally in Europe, there was a culture built there the New Council had not tapped into yet. With the help of the Ambrosetti Clan, they were hoping that they would have a sitting member from each of the communities on the Senate.
The Rogues were now trying to stop the revealing of their kind by kidnapping head families of communities in order to scare them into giving them support and people. They were going to fight the New Council all the way until the end. And Quin was just gearing up for the fight. Brin knew he would never go down without playing the last card in his hand. Fortunately, Brin was close enough to Quin and Jaden to know what that last card was. The secret was under lock and key until after the reveal.
Brin was located in Blackpool, England, and was a human. But he had grown up in the Gevaudan Pack with Quin and his brothers. They had given him recommendations, and he had obtained some wealthy clients over the last few weeks. So far, he had traveled to Italy five times to iron out the contract for this whole thing the New Council planned. He wanted to go to see his childhood friend back in the United States before too long, to thank him and catch up. But his plans to travel seemed to be waylaid at every turn by an emergency.
He liked Cat and Tripp, Orfeo’s mates. They were settling in nicely at their new compound, and plans were underway for the New Council to build a Senate house on the grounds they just purchased. Apparently, the Senate would be set up much like the New Council compound, where the members would all have homes on the property, so they could meet. Brin was going to be the attorney for the Senate, a go-between with the New Council and the Senate. He could retire on the amount of money that contract would give him alone, but he would miss the day-to-day excitement. Where some attorneys specialized in some areas, he was in the magical world. Getting shifters out of trouble was fascinating and sometimes a bitch. Especially when dealing with cats, they tended to be a little harder to control than some of the other shifters he worked with.
It was a large undertaking, and Brin was excited to be a part of it. The Senate would have twelve members like the New Council, and from there they would be able to help the American Council with the Pack, Prides, etc. here in Europe. They had a large contingency over here with the Old Council compound still erect in Northern Italy. Most of the members were planning to move to the South. The Senate compound was already getting requests daily for admission. Soon they would be ready to build the houses that would hold the members of the Senate they were putting together.
Brin stood and stretched, ready to go and get a cup of coffee to stay awake again for this late night. Usually, he just forwarded the phone to his apartment and dealt with situations case by case. He had plenty of normal humans in the day hours that needed him also. It didn’t hurt that he was part of a wealthy family; Brin could take any case he wanted to.
As he reached the door to his office, it slammed open and a pile of clothes fell on the floor. Stunned by the sudden activity, Brin jumped back and looked around to see if someone was entering the room with the clothes. Why the hell would anyone throw clothes in his office? Weird. But when the clothes began to move he realized it was not just a pile, it was a person.
Brin knelt down next to the person and tried to find the head of whoever had tumbled in his doorway. What he found took his breath away. It was a female, her hair rich and dark red in color; her pale skin showed the bruises that marred her beauty. She had been beaten and what looked like possibly tortured. The dried blood from the cuts on her face told him that she had been running for a while.
Shoot, stop staring and
do something, he thought to himself and looked around the room for something to put under her head. Brin had no clue if she was a shifter, he wouldn't be able to call the normal doctor if she was.
He grabbed the phone and called Quin, his friend thankfully answered on the first ring.
“Hello?” Quin said a little sleepily. Brin looked at the clock and grimaced.
“Shit, sorry man, this is Brin, how can you tell if someone is a shifter?” he asked quickly.
His friend chuckled into the receiver and said, “Brin, shit you scared the crap out of me; no one calls this number unless it's the folks calling me to tell me my little brother is in trouble again.”
“Nope, not the parents. I had a person literally fall into my office unconscious a few minutes ago, but I don’t want to call the real docs, unless I know she is a shifter or something. I can't tell, and since that's really the only clients I have had for about three years, thanks to you, I would guess she is, but I have never seen one pass out before,” Brin said hastily and then brushed the hair of the beauty’s face. Fuck, she was perfect.
Quin had obviously taken the matter to heart and said briskly, “You can't, you should know that.”
Brin groaned and said, “Yeah, yeah. I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I'm pretty sure she's a shifter, how do I tell what kind?”
“Well, all of us have telltale signs of our origins. What does she look like?” Quin asked.
“Gorgeous, red hair, small, I don’t know,” he said sarcastically. “Her clothes are in tatters, and it looks like she's had the crap beat out of her. Let me see if I can find some ID on her.”
Quin sighed and waited while Brin put down the phone and began looking for something, anything to let him know who she was. He felt a little foolish now that he called the Alpha of the New Council to ask him such a stupid question. But Quin and he were friends before anything.
When they were younger, Brin's family was killed in an accident while on vacation from Florida. He was the sole survivor of the crash, and thankfully, they had been in Quin’s father’s territory at the time. The Alpha had opened his Pack and his home to him when he needed it the most. Sadly enough, it was probably because he had seen one of the Enforcers shift when he came to try to save his family at the crash site, but still. Brin liked to think that maybe Quin’s father had sense that he could trust him.
He had never betrayed that trust, and worked hard for the shifters and magical communities since he finished college. First, he had worked for the Pack, but as time went on Brin decided to go out on his own. He found this quaint little town and opened up shop three years ago, and had been busy ever since. Blackpool was one of the neutral territories set up by the magical community. He moved here for that purpose. Many of the people in the magical community knew who he was, and who he used to work for. It had gone a long way for his business, now he had the Pack contract and also Prides, Covens, Pecks, and many more.
He felt a bump in the underlining of the torn jacket the girl was wearing. Pulling out a wad of cash, his card and a passport, Brin frowned and picked up the phone. “I found a passport. I think it's her, can't tell because half of her face is covered in blood, and her hair is a mess. But I think her name is Jaxine Pureven.”
“Fuck, Brin, lock your fucking doors and make sure that there is no one outside. I am calling the nearest Enforcers to you and sending them. Jax is the daughter of the Alpha from the Credence Pack in Ireland; they were attacked and presumed all dead a week ago. We have crews in the area that will be there in an hour.” Quin yelled into the phone, and Brin stood up, pulled the small woman fully into the room and held the phone with his shoulder and cheek, and listened to Quin yelling for his mate, Jaden, to get someone over there.
He shut the doors and locked them before putting the bar in place that Quin’s father insisted on installing in case a shifter got out of control in the office. The bar would not allow anything through it unless it was an elephant, and as of yet, he had not heard there was a shifting elephant. Although it would be cool.
Moving around the room quickly, he pulled the shades and looked outside. There really didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. But he, of course, could only see a little, it was dark and his office’s street was not a hot spot.
“Done, now what?” Brin said into the phone and looked down at the woman who had survived the attack he had read about in the New Council Beta’s report yesterday. It had been Roarke and the rest of the Rogues; they were targeting key Packs that would make the rest fear to come out in the open and support the New Council. This is why the Senate was needed here. The old ways were just too easy for them to fall back into if no one was here to help them defend themselves. Orfeo was sending a troop of Vampires to help with the clean up and cover up from the humans as well.
Devon, the Beta of the New Council, thought there had to be survivors in hiding. Sadly enough, they identified the Alpha and his mate. There had been no mention of a child; however, there had also been no mention of the fact the Rogues had done terrible things to the Pack before they killed them. Sick fuckers, Brin wanted to kill them. Looking down at this woman who looked like she had seen some of the abuse, he felt sick to his stomach. She was tall, and seemed so fragile right now lying on the floor with her face bruised and swollen and blood on her skin.
Shifters healed pretty fast, so to have this amount of injuries still; Jax had to have been held prisoner for a few days. From the looks of her, she had been tortured.
Brin opened his mouth to talk to Quin when the woman moved and moaned on the floor. Turning her head a little and trying to open her eyes. When she did, Brin almost fell on the floor to worship her. Bright, beautiful green eyes stared up at him, and as he watched, they changed slightly, narrowing and the rims turning yellow as she let out a throaty growl.
“Uh,” Brin said into the phone, and he could hear Quin stop what he was doing. “She's awake, and her eyes are changing.”
“Shit, put the phone on speaker, set it down and back away from her,” Quin ordered.
Yes, Brin was a lawyer, but he was no slouch. Quin’s father used to say that if he had been born wolf, he would have made a fine Alpha. Standing six feet four in height and weighing about 240 on a bad day, he played what Americans called football on his spare weekends. His hair was shaggy blonde, and he had a round face that Quin’s mother said had character. A scar from the accident ran down the side of his face–making him seem mean–and his steely grey eyes usually made shifters even pause when they came into his office. It was why they all loved him; he looked like he could kick ass and take names—on the field and in the courtroom, he could. Known for his tenacity, Brin was like a dog with a bone when it came to protecting his clients.
“Jax?” He heard Quin say, but Brin refused to back up when he set the phone down. The woman looked at him with a glint in her eye. If she was a shifter, she had heard what Quin had told him to do, and he refused.
Moving slowly to her feet, looking like she was in pain but refused to show weakness, she growled in a wonderful accent, “Who the fuck are you?”
She lifted her head and sniffed; she was a wolf, only wolves did that when they met people. Cats were more subtle.
“Jax?” Quin tried again from the phone as Brin stood frozen, looking into the most mesmerizing eyes he had ever seen. She cocked her head and frowned.
He wanted to smell himself to make sure he was not sweaty from his earlier workout, how embarrassing. But he held on and waited. She never took her eyes off him, and she reached for the phone.
“Quin?” she asked into the phone and pushed a button and held it to her ear and listened.
Brin could only stand there and wait as he assumed the New Council Alpha explained who he was. Jax nodded a few times and then said, “I really don’t give a flying fuck who you think he is, this man is my mate.” She announced, and Brin frowned.
Chapter 1
Dante stood before his master and waited. He was called yet a
gain in the middle of the night to come and get new orders. Being the head of the Vampire Guard sometimes was a pain in the ass. Although he would not change his life or title for anything, Dante sometimes thought that his master called him first just to piss him off. There were three others he could have called before him. Dante liked working at night still, even though they had completed the ceremony so his Clan could walk in the sun. Dante had not gotten used to it yet, and wasn’t sure he actually liked it. The day brought back bad memories.
Changed when he was working the grape fields for his parent’s winery, Dante had been shocked to discover there were truly magical creatures among them. The day was like any other; however, Dante had not known that getting up before dawn to check his father’s special grapes would have been his downfall. The Vampire had been hiding in the field, waiting for him. She laughed when he had tried to fight her. Even as strong as he was, fighting a Vampire was no use really for a human, especially at the turn of the century before they even knew their weaknesses.
After nearly draining him of blood, the bitch had left him to die not knowing that his sheer will to live brought the change with what little blood she had given him as a joke. But the change was horrible. Now he understood why it was outlawed to change a human, unless there was permission.
He had been a Vampire for a century, and during that time, Orfeo’s father had found him wandering the streets looking for rats to drink from because he refused to turn into a bloodsucker like the bitch that changed him. Orfeo’s father took him off the streets, gave him a place to stay and a purpose to live. Being educated in the United States, he was well used to their culture and their ways. When he returned to Italy after bumming around the United States, he returned to be a Guard of the Ambrosetti family estate. Decades later, he began to raise through the ranks, starting out as the head of his team and then a squad, a battalion and finally made the Head of the Guard, a title he shared with three others.
