Dark and Dangerous: Six-in-One Hot Paranormal Romances

by Jennifer Ashley

“Can we try it together? You’ve been in distress each time I’ve experienced it. I’d like to ...take a look around.” He held out a hand. His expression was neutral, almost businesslike, so she didn’t trust it.

  Talia looked at his outstretched palm, then at his face. She didn’t want to touch him. Feel him inside her again.

  “Come on.” He wiggled his fingers. “We’ve done this before. Let’s just take it nice and slow. Go easy.”

  But she’d been afraid for so long. It was past time to try something new. Talia braced for the worst and grasped his hand.

  Sensations inundated her. His relief. Amazing control. Curiosity with, yes, a distinct sexual undercurrent that sent eddies of arousal to burn and buzz through her blood to her belly. Talia swallowed hard and tamped down on her reaction, fighting to think. She couldn’t be turning him on, that was for sure. Could be the anticipation of her trick with shadow that gave him a charge. Or fighting Spencer. Anything but her.

  Only when she shoved that feeling away did she notice something darker, uncomfortable, even toxic within him that she couldn’t name and didn’t want to try.

  “When you’re ready,” Adam said.

  This was insane. She was certain she’d regret it later. Anxiety constricted her breathing, tightened her skin, but she pulled on shadow, softly.

  She heard Adam’s intake of breath as she wrapped the veil around them, the day falling from sunny blue to a dreamy murk. They stood in layered fog, the veils of shadow sensuously lapping at their bodies. The trees, the meadow beyond, the hulk of Segue were all there, yet somehow appeared transient. As if one good gust of wind might carry it all away.

  Adam’s hand warmed in hers. He filled her with his wonder, which was better than all the rest. Made her realize how beautiful shadow was, too.

  “A little more,” he said.

  Talia reached and the day darkened to dusk, the orb of the sun shifting from blazing yellow to deep violet. The world turned to myriad purples and shades of blue and black. Sounds stretched so that the birds’ twitters and crickets’ chirps became high, eerie notes warped by darkness. Shadow settled on her shoulders and slid deliciously against her skin in welcome.

  Adam’s wonder turned to awe and building excitement.

  Talia glanced at him to see how much of what he felt could be read on his face.

  He looked down at her, about to say something, but instead he stopped and stared. That sensation was back, a trickle in the sense of his discovery, then a flood blotting it out. Desire.

  So he did want her.

  She’d have torn herself away, but his gaze held her. His eyes lowered to her mouth, then forcibly lifted again.

  She trembled, tension coiling in her deepest core, and Adam’s grip tightened. Tugged her toward him. She stumbled, but allowed him to enfold her, turning her in the circle of his arms so that her back was trembling against the wall of his chest, yet still holding her hand. He felt so good she let herself stay, and be, quivering in anticipation of what he’d do next.

  “Do you have a name for this place?” His voice was a low caress at her ear, his breath in her hair.

  Swamped sensations muddled her head. “Segue?”

  “This isn’t Segue, not anymore. This is...”

  Oh. “Between. Shadow.”

  His mouth grazed her neck, temptation roaring across their connection. She could’ve easily lost herself to it. Wanted to lose herself. To feel everything his touch promised.

  He shifted slightly behind her, lifting his head, surveying the valley again. She turned her face to catch the warmth coming off his body—so much better than the chill of her darkness.

  But she caught a hint of that bad feeling again, bleeding insidiously into the desire.

  “What would happen if...” his words cut off in a surge of longing.

  “Yes?” her own longing answered.

  “...if someone were to die here? Do you know?”

  Talia tensed. Tried to pull out of his hold. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  He held on tightly. “Jacob. If I killed him here, would he stay dead?”

  The dark emotion grew dominant, pooling inside her. Viscous, lethal, like a poison, transforming his other feelings. She knew what it was now.

  “Let me go.” She yanked harder.

  Adam wouldn’t release her. “We’ve barely begun...”

  The sickness leeched through his being, turning his strength and emotions to suit its own ends.

  “...but we’re still done,” Talia said. She twisted her wrist and broke his grasp. She took the darkness with her as she ran back through the trees, leaving Adam to his demon, Rage.

  Adam escorted a silent Talia toward the conference room. He stole a glance at her. She’d changed back into Patty’s clothes and looked composed, the epitome of professionalism, but the way she clutched her notebook to her chest told him that she was angry. Even with her expression set, she was lovely, enticing, making him seriously reconsider his “do not fraternize with employees” policy. And Talia in her shadows? A goddess. Too bad she seemed determined to stay away from him. What happened?

  He thought the investigation of her gift of shadow was a smashing success. He wanted to learn more at the earliest opportunity. The possibilities for research, for Jacob, had been sparking in his mind since she’d revealed what lay in darkness. What kind of creature was she to be able to do such a thing?

  They stopped at the door to the Fulton Hotel’s second ballroom, which he opened and held wide for her. She went through sideways, wouldn’t even risk a casual touch. Okay, very angry.

  Segue’s full complement of live-in research staff, all seventeen of them including Custo and Spencer, hushed as he and Talia approached the long mahogany conference table. All but Jim and Armand, who didn’t pause in their heated argument for a second.

  “Gentleman...” Adam said to shut them up.

  He pulled a chair out next to his own from the table, but Talia moved down its length and selected one near the center.

  Maybe he’d been a little too blunt in his references to fear, too direct with his questions. But, damn it, she of all people had to understand how immediate the wraith threat was.

  He’d talk to her again. Later.

  Adam raised his hands to address the group. “I’d like everyone to extend a warm welcome to our newest staff member, Dr. Talia O’Brien. I am personally excited and honored to have her with us. Most of you have read her dissertation—if you haven’t, then please do so—and should have a good idea about what near-death experiences constitute.”

  Armand sat immediately forward, eyes slanting first at Jim and then at Talia. “I’d like to state for the record that I’m not into any of this voodoo-hoodoo, life-after-death crap. I am a scientist. Cold spots, indeed. The wraith question is not a metaphysical one, but a biological one. You want to kill Jac— a wraith, you find a way to alter his cells’ regenerative capacity.”

  Jim was shaking his head. “How can Jacob regenerate when he does not feed on matter?”

  Armand pressed his lips together. “That’s what I hope my research will answer.”

  Gillian raised her pen. “Perhaps if we focus on curing the original disease that caused the transformation...”

  “I’ll tell you why he regenerates,” Jim interrupted. “It’s obvious. He feeds on the souls of others.”

  Adam let the dialogue escalate. Talia’s gaze twitched back and forth between the men, her forehead tense with concentration.

  “There’s no such thing as a soul,” Armand shot back. “You’re making things up to support your pseudoresearch.”

  “But if we look at the origin of the disease,” Gillian persisted, “perhaps we can find the virus or compound responsible for...”

  Jim’s large ears turned red. “Just how do you explain Lady Amunsdale then? You can’t deny the existence of ghosts if you’ve seen her.”

  Gillian dropped her pen on the table in defeat. Whenever Jim brought the lady ghost in
to the argument, there was no moving him. Parapsychologists in general garnered little respect. What started as professional vindication from proving the existence of ghosts had turned into deep attachment. Jim was besotted. He’d been chasing that flash of white skirt since his first year here.

  Armand shuttered his eyes. “Lady Amunsdale does not have a corporeal body for me to study. I allow that she exists, but she is out of my field of reference.”

  Jim sneered. “Oh, don’t give me that shit—taking the easy out. What about Dr. O’Brien’s near-death? Six hundred and six reported cases of leaving the corporeal body and returning back to it.”

  Talia sat up straighter, eyes widening.

  Adam winked at her. She looked away without acknowledging him.

  “What about other forms of out-of-body experiences? Ones where the body persisted, alive, while the spirit roamed?” Jim Remy bored his index finger into the table in front of him for emphasis.

  Armand dramatically sighed. “I know what you’re getting at. You’re working your way around to the idea that because Jacob has lost his humanity, he doesn’t have a soul.”

  Jim Remy stood. “My tests prove that Jacob is dead inside. No soul.”

  Jim’s claim still stabbed Adam, even though the results were more than two years old. Jim’s tests revealed a signature electromagnetic reading in the presence of ghosts and humans. But not wraiths. Something was definitely missing from them, and if a ghost had it, the obvious conclusion was spirit, or soul. Jacob’s utter lack of humanity, his disregard for family connections or responsibility only proved it all the more.

  Adam cleared his voice, and the room’s attention swung to him. “Dr. O’Brien. You are witnessing an old but fundamental Segue debate. It all boils to a simple, but surprisingly difficult question: what constitutes death?”

  “Dr. Remy postulates that something forced Jacob’s soul to pass on, yet the body remains alive. On the other hand, you have Lady Amunsdale, a confirmed Segue ghost. She has no body and little awareness of the physical world, and yet, maintains a distinct self. Which of them is alive? Which dead?”

  The room fell silent. All looked at her expectantly.

  Talia wet her lips. Her eyes roamed the table, but she addressed Armand. “Uh. Well. A person has a life...and a death. If you stick to the physical...”

  Armand cocked his head impatiently.

  Talia cleared her throat, placing her pen at a perfect right angle to her notebook. “Then wraiths are alive and ghosts are dead. While metaphysically, just the reverse is true.”

  “Haven’t we just said all that?” Armand interrupted.

  “Well, yes, but...” she stammered.

  Adam sat forward in his chair. He knew her mind and loved the way she organized problems like thought puzzles, then took an obvious solution and turned it on its head. This was exactly the reason he wanted her on staff. If Armand would just cool it for a second, Adam knew she could think the debate through to a new conclusion.

  “Then get on with it,” Armand said with exaggerated impatience.

  Talia’s eyes narrowed. “I will if you’ll quit interrupting me.”

  Adam controlled a smile. This was going to be good.

  She took a deep breath. “If a person can lose their life, perhaps they can lose their death, as well.”

  Armand rolled his eyes. “You’re as bad as Jim Remy. That’s just a perversion of a romantic metaphor.”

  “And what is a metaphor but a new way of seeing something?” she answered back. “Isn’t that what we are doing here, looking at things from different perspectives?”

  “Fine. Then why would a person lose their death?”

  “People have been trying to lose death forever,” she argued. “Industries thrive on the desire to remain young and vital. Given the choice, most people would throw their death away and never look back.”

  Talia’s comments were simplistic, but her idea sent a slick, cold sickness up Adam’s spine. Was the answer that easy?

  Adam looked around the room as realization dawned on the faces of his staff. Talia glanced at him, finally shedding her anger and replacing it with pity.

  Immortality. Live forever young. Forever strong. Forever beautiful.

  Dreadlock’s awful song lyric came back to him then. Human race to crush Death first.

  Adam sat back into his chair. People who gave their lives were heroes or martyrs. What if people could give up their deaths? Was such a thing possible? And what would that make them?

  Adam knew the answer was locked in a cell under Segue.

  Jacob suffered from no disease or demonic possession. This was so much worse, something Adam hadn’t allowed himself to consider. Jacob was a monster by choice.

  Talia watched Adam’s demeanor change. His gaze sharpened, face flooding with color. The curve of his jaw became more pronounced. His grip on the table whitened his knuckles. If she were touching him, she knew she’d be feeling his dark passion all over again. One overwhelming goal. To kill.

  “Does it really matter if it’s Jacob’s choice or not?” Armand whined.

  Adam knocked once, hard, on the table and strode from the room. Talia knew exactly where he was going. She’d lost her family as well, and if there were answers to be had, a betrayal to identify, she wouldn’t be diverted. Adam was all about answers; he’d be heading to Jacob’s cell. She was glad she didn’t have to be present for the impending interview.

  Custo also rose. “I think we’re done for the day. Thank you all for participating. This has been”—he glanced at Talia—“very interesting.” Then he rounded the table to follow Adam.

  The room erupted into discussion.

  Jim’s strident voice cut through the din. “What may seem like superstition to you, Armand, may indeed have a scientific basis. Take the Indian Fakirs, who can control their heart rate...”

  “Been here a week and already stirring things up.”

  Talia turned to the voice at her ear. Spencer.

  “It was just an idea.” Talia gathered her notebook and pen and sidled around her chair to leave. She wanted to think through the idea herself. Outline how she arrived at the conclusion. Diagram the implications. Find a way to help Adam.

  “Touched a nerve,” he said, following her. “Mind if I walk you to your office?”

  She stepped back, out of reach. She’d had enough touching for one day. “Uh...I was actually going back to my room. I’m exhausted. My recovery is frustratingly slow going. A little later?”

  His brows gathered in concern. “Then I’ll walk you there.”

  “Oh, no. Not necessary.” Didn’t the man know an excuse when he heard one?

  “Please. We can talk on the way.” Apparently, he did.

  Talia gestured him toward the door. At least Spencer effectively parted the crowd.

  “Dr. O’Brien!” Jim waved his hand over the group of people.

  “She’ll talk to you later,” Spencer called back on her behalf.

  Talia kept one step behind Spencer to the elevator, but once inside, had no choice but to hear him out.

  “Adam told me that you can think outside the box when he was putting your hiring before the SPCI panel. I see now what he meant.” He flashed a charming grin. He’d have been more charming if he’d left her alone, though.

  “I thought Segue was all Adam’s.”

  Spencer waggled his head back and forth as if conceding a minor point. “The arrangement is more complicated than that. Adam began the institute, funds it himself, and decides on the research protocols, but he does so at the...sufferance of SPCI. When we discovered that Adam had captured, confined, and was studying a wraith, we almost shut him down. To make a long story short, we finally agreed on oversight, in the form of yours truly, and an active exchange of information.”

  Talia kept her mouth closed, waiting as the elevator number blinked from one to two to three to four. The arrangement must chafe Adam. He seemed to prefer to be in charge of things.

 
“It’s actually in the best interests of everyone. Between you and me, SPCI is rather rigid in its approach to the wraith phenomenon. They never would have considered near-death as a line of inquiry. I have to admit that I’m occasionally swayed by the unconventional ideas that get batted around here. Just now, for example.”

  “Like I said, it was just an idea.” Talia stepped out of the elevator and started down the hall.

  “So here’s my question: what would a person stand to lose if they made the choice to become a wraith?”

  “Literally, their humanity.” Surely he could see that. “One look at Jacob and, in spite of his appearance, there’s no way to classify him as Homo sapiens. Only mythology and magic have labels appropriate for his kind. Hence, wraith.”

  Talia stopped outside her door. She punched in her code and made a mental note to change it immediately. She didn’t like the way Spencer looked over her shoulder. The lock disengaged and Talia opened the door.

  Spencer raised a hand to stop it from shutting again. “And what is humanity, really?”

  Talia frowned. She had no idea where he was going with this.

  “Just playing the devil’s advocate here. What is humanity? And doesn’t everyone lose it eventually? Is Jim’s Lady Amunsdale human?”

  “I really couldn’t say.” Talia slipped inside. “That’s his area of expertise.”

  “What I’m suggesting, Dr. O’Brien, is that human nature, in its very essence, is about change. No other species on this planet is aware of change. Aware of passing into and out of life to somewhere or something else. From body to spirit. Your work actually supports my conclusions—the tunnel, the bright light, moving from one state to another.” His hand flipped left to right to demonstrate.

  “Yes. So?”

  “Perhaps becoming a wraith is no different. A passage from one state to another, with the single difference of remaining on this plane of existence.”

  Single difference! “You forget—they feed on their brothers and sisters.”

  “That’s just the cycle of life. We are all predators, in our own way. We all do what it takes to sustain ourselves. Lie, cheat, steal, murder. They are no different.” He flashed his lopsided grin again.