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

by Jennifer Ashley

  “Very powerful,” he said, ignoring the way the sculpture thinned the air in his lungs. It was exactly the way Jacob made him feel. Trapped.

  “Did you look at the name of the piece?”

  Adam glanced down again. The image wasn’t labeled in text on the screen as he expected, but if he squinted, he could just make out words on a placard on the floor in the photograph. MAN OF SHADOWS.

  “That’s not...You don’t think...” She couldn’t possibly believe that the sculpture was a rendering of the Shadowman.

  “I do.” Talia smiled. Her eyes finally lit with excitement, her darker emotion buried under the thrill of discovery. The expression set his nerves zapping. Pleasure made her positively beautiful. He had to tear his eyes away to concentrate on the screen.

  “Aside from the name, how do you know?”

  Talia held up a wait-for-it finger while she scrolled through the many files she had open on her screen and clicked with the other hand. Another image popped up, a black-and-white photograph, manipulated with digital illustration to create a desolate landscape, a figure similarly writhing, harried by a subtly transparent whirlwind around his body. The rendering was more surreal than the first, like a Salvador Dalí, but the effect was comparable.

  His eyes flicked to the title, scrawled in pencil in the white margin beneath the image. Shadow’s Man.

  “Coincidence,” Adam argued. “Believe me, I’ve checked out every reference to Shadowman on the Internet...”

  Talia shook her head from side to side, eyebrows lifted.

  “What?” Pressure built up in Adam’s chest in a strange combination of frustration and excitement. He hated the thought that he had missed something all these years, but if there were more answers to be had this day, he’d take them gladly.

  “I can show you six more, all similar. The images don’t come up on an Internet search. Like you said, nothing related to Shadowman does. Somebody out there is controlling that. However, text inside images is not searchable, and in each of these cases, the titles are part of the image. You have to know the names of the artists and what to look for to find anything.”

  Adam grabbed and dragged a chair squealing on its wheels to sit next to Talia. “Explain it to me.”

  His motion had her tensing, but that couldn’t be helped. The way things were going, he’d be around her a lot. She better start getting used to him now.

  She sighed heavily. “It goes back to the accident I had when I was fifteen. My aunt Maggie died and, for a moment, I did, too. One minute I was in the car, the next I was surrounded by a darkness far deeper and denser than my shadows. I knew I was dying. I glimpsed this man”—Talia tapped the screen—“trapped by a dark wind. I can’t describe the sensation. All I can say is that I knew instinctively he was...” She took a deep breath. “...my father. As you know, meeting family upon crossing is common in near-death experiences.I knew his name, Shadowman. He tried to speak, but I was already being pulled back to life. The EMTs had zapped me back.”

  Adam kept his composure. “Your father is Shadowman.”

  Talia’s face whitened. He felt her searching him for a reaction.

  “You are the source referenced in your dissertation,” he concluded.

  She nodded stiffly—attempting to cover some strong emotion—and went on. “Then my first year in college I was struck dumb when I happened into the student gallery. And there he was—Shadowman—in a sketch. The artist had no idea where he got the inspiration. Ditto for the other artists I’ve spoken to. The image just ‘came to them.’ So apparently, I’m not the only one who has seen him. Others have, too. And some have attempted to make a visual representation of him.” Talia clicked through a couple of screens to demonstrate.

  The similarities could not be denied. A bound male identified with shadow.

  “So what are you thinking? Mass hysteria?”

  “Hysteria, no.” She winced. “Have you seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind?”

  “You think Shadowman is an alien?” That was just too much.

  She laughed in surprise, her expression clearing again. “No. Not that part. In the beginning of the movie, all these people with different kinds of lives envision the location where the spaceships eventually land. The mountain. Richard Dreyfuss makes a giant mud mountain in his kitchen...”

  “I get it. You think Shadowman is trying to tell us something.”

  “Yes.” She sat back in her own seat. “Maybe he’s calling for help.”

  “Talia, if Shadowman is trying to contact someone, why not me? I’ve dedicated myself, my life, to discovering...What? Why are you making that face?”

  She relaxed her look of skepticism. “I doubt you’d readily welcome or respond to subliminal messages. You’re just not the type.”

  “You know my type?” This ought to be interesting.

  She stuck a strand of white gold behind her ear. The lock slipped out and curled again at her temple.

  “Most of the images I’ve been able to find are by artists. You know, people particularly attuned to inspiration. You’re more of a manager. A leader. You’re not”—she waved her hand in the air as if looking for just the right word—“open enough.”

  “Not open,” he repeated, processing this. Right now he was open to a lot of interesting ideas.

  “Not impulsive,” she corrected, peering at her screen.

  “I can be impulsive,” he said. He glanced at her mouth. He’d been pushed just about as far as any reasonable man could.

  Ah, shit. Here he was going to warn Spencer off pursuing her, and he was ready—to what? Drive her away completely?

  “What else have you got?” he asked to distract himself. He had to do something with his hands or he was going to touch her. He reached out, grabbed the laptop, and flicked to another image.

  “No!”

  But Talia was too late. A vibrant illustration filled the screen.

  The graphic artist depicted a nude bombshell beauty reclining on a sumptuous divan, white-blonde curls cascading, mingling with a dark, multilayered cloak that spilled from her shoulders to the floor. Her heavy-lidded, tilted eyes regarded the viewer. She was somnambulant, sexual, and powerful. The woman’s facial features were unmistakably Talia’s. The provocative slope of her bare hips, the dip of her waist, the sudden swell of her breasts, branded his mind and scalded his blood.

  The title was painted on the lower left in script, Sleeping Beauty.

  Talia slammed the lid of the laptop closed.

  “Umm.” Her voice sounded thicker, clogged. “There...uh...may be some imagery of me out there as well. Of course, grossly exaggerating certain aspects, but still...”

  Adam took a steadying breath to redirect the flow of his blood. “There’s no reason to be embarrassed. You’re a beautiful woman. But you are also part of this riddle of Shadowman, so I’m going to need to see everything you’ve found.” He kept his gaze direct, his voice professional. It was hard, what with the fantasy woman standing right in front of him and his blood roaring south. Patty’s frumpy clothes on that body were a crime.

  Jaw tight with forced composure, she gave a perfunctory nod. “I’ll email them to you.”

  “I want everything you have,” he repeated. She’d obviously wanted to hold some things back, and he didn’t blame her. The woman had spent her life hiding what she was, and the image he’d just seen stripped every last layer away. Literally. Unfortunately, privacy was a luxury none of them could afford now.

  “Of course. I’ll send along my notes as well.”

  With a deft adjustment, Adam stood to go. To give her a little space. To give him some room to clear his head. A hard run ought to take the edge off the impact of the image, burning in his mind again.

  One question, though. “The title. Why Sleeping Beauty?”

  Talia yanked the jack out of the back of the laptop and twisted to pull the plug out of the wall. She wouldn’t meet his gaze, and he didn’t force her.

  “A reference
to my name,” she said briskly. “The fairy tale was my mom’s favorite. My mom had been confined to bed a lot in her life, and she said that my father ‘woke her.’ Talia comes from an older French version of the fairy tale, predating Disney.”

  Something clicked in Adam’s mind. “Aurora.”

  She piled the cord on top of the laptop and gathered the mass to her chest. She moved around the table toward the door. Running away again.

  “Talia,” he called to her.

  She stopped, but she didn’t look back.

  “The name suits,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  Redrum. Murder. The heart-stopping horror of room 217.

  The phone rang, scaring Talia out of The Shining and into the real world. The awful, humiliating world in which Adam had by now viewed the nine renderings of herself she had found on the Internet, all of which depicted her as a seductive beauty. None remotely based in reality. Laughable. Pitiable, even. Particularly the graphic novel that had illustrated her as some kind of demon-busting dominatrix all done up in strappy, studded leather.

  She wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

  The phone rang again. What if it’s him?

  The sleek gray portable mocked her by ringing a third time.

  She grasped the receiver. Pressed TALK. “Hello?”

  “Talia. It’s Adam.”

  Damn.

  “Would you mind coming down to the kitchen? I have someone I’d like you to meet.” His tone was even. Too even.

  What must he think of me? She could still run away. Never look back. He had all her notes. He could carry on without her.

  “Sure,” she answered. “Just give me a minute.” A minute to jump to my death off my balcony.

  “Thanks.”

  Talia hit END. Her face was on fire. It was one thing for him to think of her as a freak. After all, considering Segue’s purpose and staff, he was surrounded by them already. But it was a totally, wretchedly, different thing altogether if he thought she were a joke.

  Talia went to the bathroom and splashed water on her face. She dabbed it dry with a towel and resecured her hair in a knot at the back of her head.

  She dragged herself to her apartment door, forced her chin up—way up—and exited into the hall.

  The elevator whirred down to the hotel’s main level. The drawing rooms were evening-deep, darkness webbing the corners as night encroached on day. The layers of shadow brushed softly against her skin, coaxing her into their depths. Oh, so tempting.

  She ignored them and grimly pressed forward toward the comparably blazing light at the other end of the expanse. Her heart thudded as she crossed the threshold. Patty’s upper body was hidden by the door of an industrial-size refrigerator. An older man whom she’d never met dipped a tea bag in a mug at the counter. As she entered, Adam pushed off the edge where he’d been leaning, skinny-necked beer bottle in hand.

  Her gaze darted to his face, met his eyes briefly, directly, and then dropped as heat burned her cheeks. She needed something to do, and quick, or she was going to embarrass herself. Again.

  “Talia. Thanks for coming down. I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Philip James, our sometimes-resident philosopher. He asks the big questions. I bet the two of you will have a lot to talk about. Philip, this is Dr. Talia O’Brien.”

  The old man put his mug down and held out his hand. “Please call me Philip,” he said.

  “Talia,” she answered and braced as she put her palm in his. Exhaustion predominated the connection—the old man was bone tired—and raging intellect. He squeezed rather than shook, a warm, friendly pressure that helped to calm her, though she was acutely, painfully, aware of Adam to her immediate right.

  “Would you like some tea?” the older man asked, raising the steaming teapot. A mixed box of tea bags was open on the countertop.

  “That would be great, thanks.” She could hide behind the mug if she had to. Grip it for dear life. She took a fresh mug from the cupboard and selected a mint baggie. The smell was fragrantly clean. She inhaled to fill her head with it.

  She glanced at Adam. Sure enough, his gaze was on her. She held her breath. His eyes were tired, but still had the power to see through her. Her nerves quivered as heat spread throughout her body. She wondered what emotion would dominate if she were to touch him now. Her throat went dry just thinking about it.

  Slowly, he shifted his attention to his beer.

  She, too, took a sip of tea, but her drink only burned her up more.

  “You hungry?” Patty called from the fridge. She held up paper-wrapped packages of deli meat. “We have turkey, salami, and ham.”

  Talia had been hiding out in her room for the last couple of hours. She was starved. “Turkey,” Talia said. “But I can make my—”

  “Adam? Philip?” Patty interrupted.

  “Ham,” they answered in unison.

  The old man settled next to Talia at the island. Adam sat across from her. At the counter, Patty created towering sandwiches in need of long deli toothpicks to hold the layers together.

  “I read your dissertation,” Philip said as they waited. “I was very impressed with your work. I wondered if you have pursued a cross-cultural examination of near-death experiences.”

  “Um. No. It wasn’t in the scope of the paper, I’m afraid.” Talia took another sip of her tea.

  “Of course. When you have the time, I’d like to discuss your findings. See if any of the ritualistic practices I’ve studied conform to the norms you established in your thesis.”

  “Certainly...” Talia said. She’d have to dig into the boxes and review her notes. Something told her that the professor wasn’t going to accept answers not backed by good data.

  “It’s good to have you back, Philip,” Adam said, as Patty placed a plate in front of each of them. “It’s not the same here without you questioning everyone’s work.”

  “I’m off to my lab,” Patty said, lifting her own plate and breezing to the door. “Good night, all.”

  “’Night,” Talia said. Philip raised a hand in farewell.

  Talia pretended not to see Philip as he flicked a glance in her direction and back to Adam. A question.

  “She’s okay,” Adam answered, raising those gray eyes to hers. “In fact, she’s single-handedly turned our work upside down in the space of eight hours.”

  “Oh?” Philip raised a bushy eyebrow at her.

  “I’ll brief you on it tomorrow, once I’ve thought through everything. I’m having trouble keeping up at the moment.” Adam smiled woefully.

  Philip set his mug on the island. “Well, you’ll have to try, because I found something as well.”

  “Of course you did.” Adam had lifted his own sandwich, but now he lowered it to his plate. “Let’s have it. I’m going to have a sleepless night anyway, might as well have it all at once.”

  Talia hoped whatever Philip found had nothing to do with her. “It’s getting late,” she said. Better to make her escape now. She slid off the stool.

  “Please stay,” Adam said. “I have a feeling I’ll want your perspective.”

  Talia felt his gaze on her, but she didn’t meet it. She looked at Philip, her uneaten sandwich, the steam lifting from her cup of tea, anything but Adam.

  “Perhaps she should go. My information is personal,” Philip said.

  “I trust her,” Adam answered. His tone was light, but still managed a weight that brooked no further argument.

  Talia’s heart clenched. He had to be making things even—a personal revelation for a personal revelation. Tit for tat. A way to keep working together when he knew too much about her. She appreciated the gesture, but she really wanted to be in her room.

  “So it’s like that. Good for you,” Philip said. “All right then.”

  Talia’s head snapped up. Like what? She glanced over at Adam, waiting for him to correct Philip’s mistaken assumption, but he didn’t.

  Philip ignored her distress, too, moving on. “I was in Engla
nd, speaking to a modern druid elder about death rituals. He was a scholar as well, and our discussion turned theoretical. We touched on the ancient Anglo-Saxon custom of wergild, in which a person is required to pay a sum for the wrongful death of family or clan member to prevent a blood feud.”

  “You think I would take money for my mom and dad? For Jacob?” Adam pushed his plate away from him without taking a bite.

  “No, Adam,” Philip said, crumpling a napkin in his palm. “Listen. And think. We spoke of wergild as compensation for a loss. An attempt at reestablishing a balance between two parties. And then we compared it to vengeance, a life for a life.”

  “That’s something I understand.”

  Talia glanced at Adam and recalled the bloodlust that tainted him. The dark desire to put an end to Jacob that went beyond justice to murder.

  Philip ignored the change. “The idea behind both concepts is that there must be an accounting, a ledger in the hearts and histories of family. As if accepting a sum or taking a life will fill the void of the loss of the loved one.”

  “It can’t fill the void, but it can make things even,” Adam said.

  “No. It does not. What you get is a deficit of two.”

  “Then both are at an equal loss.” Adam took a deep drag on his beer.

  “And how does this loss serve the memory of the loved one?”

  “It doesn’t,” Adam said, shifting on his stool.

  Talia kept her gaze carefully oblique, trying to respect his obvious discomfort with distance.

  “Vengeance is selfish,” Adam continued. “I’ve never tried to hide that.”

  “Ah,” Philip said. “Now we get to the heart of it. Adam, here is my question for you. Would you trade your claim to vengeance to set your brother free?”

  Talia watched the muscle twitch in Adam’s jaw. It was a hard question, an impossible, painful question, especially after learning that Jacob had chosen his current state. Jacob had chosen to take the lives of his parents. He had reduced Adam’s to a haunted hotel with a group of mad scientists. Maybe she should say something. Change the subject.