Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  When Luca, who was sprawled comfortably on the other side of Seren, straightened, Lily kissed the baby on the top of her pretty blond head and handed her back to Seren before she scrambled to her feet and wrapped her hand around Dallas’s.

  “What is wrong with you,” she hissed as he led her out onto the crowded dance floor. “Do you want them to take a piece out of you?”

  He ignored that. Hooking his arm around her waist, he hauled her against him. Instantly, the attraction already on sizzle amped up. Her pulse quickened as his pupils lengthened, his eye twitching in reaction. It should not be possible for a female this tiny and soft to fit so perfectly against him.

  Ryuu.

  Raw, unadulterated hunger tore through him with a force that left him staggering. He growled quietly and shifted his gaze to over her head. “Where is he?” he asked.

  He caught the brief instance of fear in her eyes before she lowered her gaze to his chest.

  “You know as well as I do that he’s d—” She stopped, as if she couldn’t finish the thought. “Gone.”

  He raised a brow, his voice harsh. “Gone is not dead.”

  She turned her head away and smiled at the couple dancing next to them. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “Too bad,” he snapped. “You were the one calling him home, and I want answers.”

  She raised her furious eyes to his, and he had the distinct feeling she was considering kicking him in the balls. “Weren’t you there when it happened?” she asked angrily. “Why are you so convinced he’s still alive?”

  “Why are you?” he shot back, not realizing they had stopped dancing and stood in the middle of the dance floor, yelling at each other. “As far as I know, normal people don’t usually call a presumed dead man asking for help.”

  Lily closed her eyes, muttering something under her breath. When she finally looked at him, she didn’t seem to notice his temper. “Because Seren is still alive. Because I can’t imagine anything taking him away from Seren and Ava.” She took a step toward him, all but vibrating with fury. “It doesn’t mean he answers, but he’s my brother, and I need him. So I call him because it makes me feel better to hear his voice on his voicemail.”

  Feeling like a bastard was normal for Dallas. He tended to not give a shit what anyone thought of him because someone had to do the right thing when everyone else was too afraid. But feeling like an asshole was something completely different and foreign. The pressure landed on his chest, squeezing the little piece of his heart he’d never been able to kill off.

  He scrubbed a hand down his face when he realized he’d hurt and embarrassed her, and knowing she’d have every right to slap him if he tried to apologize, he turned and walked away, leaving her standing in the middle of the dance floor alone.

  Chapter 4

  MORTIFIED, LILY RUSHED out of the open air tent and made her way through the torch-lit gardens. She meant to find Daniel and Shelby to say goodbye before hunting down Bain and asking him to take her home. But when she found the newly married couple hidden in the shadows on a stone bench, Shelby sitting sideways over his lap as they talked and cuddled, she couldn’t bring herself to interrupt them. This was their day, and she didn’t want to cast a shadow over it.

  Instead, she headed toward the back doors of the castle, desperate to find Bain and go home.

  She didn’t know how to convince them that she wasn’t breakable or that she hadn’t gone off the deep end. She hadn’t told anyone she was still calling Adrian because Seren was still holding herself together, and the last thing her sister-in-law needed was to worry about Lily’s sanity on top of it. Just because Lily knew somewhere deep inside that her brother was still alive somewhere, didn’t mean she was going to put those thoughts in Seren’s head.

  She sniffled to hold back the unwanted tears. Someone out there was checking his messages. It didn’t matter who it was. She had to believe it was her brother.

  Seren loved him and needed him, and Lily couldn’t imagine anything powerful enough to keep him from his little girl. Everything, all logic in her head, pointed to the fact that he had to be dead. She knew that.

  She just didn’t believe it.

  Bain must have heard about Lily’s mental instability because when she found him coming down the back castle stairs, he didn’t hesitate. He grabbed her upper arm in a tight grip and led her toward the front hall and out to the long circular drive. He was watching her and, already feeling exposed, she wished he’d back off a little. Since he was the youngest and by far the best-tempered out of all the king’s elite guard, still possessing a softness to his face and personality, he’d been her constant companion since Adrian’s disappearance. With their leader missing, the Hunter world was in turmoil. In an attempt to keep the tenuous hold on their peace treaty, the dragon king had taken her under his proverbial wing and protection.

  But now Bain, apparently believing she was suddenly breakable, lifted her into the seat of his truck, and honest to the gods, she wanted to kick him when she caught him leering at her breasts when she buckled herself in.

  “Bain,” she murmured, aware she was overreacting but wishing he’d get in the vehicle and take her home. “You’re staring.”

  He smiled when he slammed the door shut without making sure it was locked, jogged around the truck, and slid behind the wheel. He dug his keys out of his pocket, started the vehicle, and headed off Daniel’s private island. Lily spent the twenty minute drive back to her apartment wondering what was up with Bain. Dragons were notoriously over-protective, and Bain always made sure she was locked in and safe before he closed her door.

  So lost in her own thoughts, it took her until he’d opened her door again to realize that they were parked in front of her building. His pretty, boyish face was closed off as he helped her out, but it was the way his jaw was ticking that worried her. Even though she’d been raised by the biggest, scariest man alive—second only to Gabriel Morgan who was the approximate size of a continent—she never got used to the temper the dragons could display when they got angry. For some reason, they never seemed to remember how big they were and how massive their tempers were compared to how little she was.

  Lily knew all too well what a human man half their size was capable of. She’d never survive that kind of violence from one of them.

  After he’d lifted her out of his truck and set her on her feet, he chuckled when she took a hurried step away from him. The sound raised the hair on the back of her neck.

  “What’s the matter, Lily? Afraid I’m going to hurt you?

  “No,” she lied. The smile she sent him felt forced, even to herself. She’d never been afraid of him, but he was huge and not acting like himself. And after being attracted to the Destroyer, her instincts were all over the place and couldn’t be trusted. “Really, Bain, I’m not.”

  The temper cleared out of his face as he smiled and took a step toward her. “Why don’t we go upstairs, and you can get more comfortable? Then you can tell me why you were calling Adrian. Don’t you trust me?”

  She shook her head and stepped around him, heading for the back door to her building. Her hand trembled as she dug through her purse to find her keys. “I don’t want to talk about it, all right?”

  “Too bad.” He caught up with her and grabbed her hand. His voice was quiet, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. “He’s dead. You need to accept that.”

  She yanked her hand free and spun around, too angry and shocked to deal with the pain of his words. “No!” she yelled. “I’m not going to let him go because he’s not dead! He can’t be! And if you cared about me as much as you pretend to, you’d be out there looking for him instead of looking at me like I’m crazy.”

  “Care about you?” He snorted. “No, I don’t care about you. You’re a paycheck. But I am going to enjoy this tight little body before I take you to your daddy.” The words hit her like a physical blow, triggering her worst nightmares and making her violently ill. Then he
moved in, wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and lowered his mouth to hers.

  Terror hit hard at being kissed without her consent, and the panic had her fighting for all she was worth. She wouldn’t be able to stop him. He was too big. A strangled scream tore out of her as she wedged her arms between them, but she never had a chance to struggle.

  One second he was kissing her, and the next he was just… gone. Dallas had come out of nowhere and lifted Bain off his feet. With a flick of his wrist, Dallas flung Bain across the parking lot. A gleaming knife appeared in Dallas’s hand as he followed with an inhuman jump, landing on top of Bain. The two of them hit the ground with enough force to ripple the concrete.

  * * *

  DALLAS WASN’T SURE how he had managed to stop the blade an inch from plunging into Bain’s heart, or even why he had stopped. He’d trusted Bain at his back for more than a thousand years, but this couldn’t be that dragon.

  He’d followed them because he’d been a bastard, and for the first time in close to a millennia, he had the need to apologize to someone. It hadn’t helped that he’d used his phone to pull up the massive file Broderick had on her and had skimmed through it after she’d left the reception. He’d wanted more insight into her head, a move he was regretting now.

  When he’d pulled into the parking lot and seen Bain kiss her, the rage that had bloodied his vision had been bad enough, but then her terror had pulsed out, taking up space inside his chest, and he’d come unglued.

  He sensed her before he heard her come up behind him, and he was dimly aware that his hand was around Bain’s throat when she slipped her small fingers around his wrist and looked up at him. “Don’t kill him.”

  Fuck this. He couldn’t handle the raw fear in her eyes, but if she didn’t want Bain dead, the bastard would live.

  For now.

  But Dallas slammed his fist into his face anyway. When he was sure the younger dragon was out cold, he got to his feet and rounded on her. Her beautiful face was too pale, her vivid eyes too bright in her head, but instead of crumpling, she wrapped her arms around herself and started toward her building.

  “Lily.” A low, savage growl tore out of his chest, and even pissed off, he cursed himself for scaring her more. She stopped walking and her small frame stilled. Without a word, she turned and walked into his chest. And then, she did the damndest thing and snuggled into him.

  He scowled into the darkness. What the hell was he supposed to do with her now?

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice hoarse. She buried her face in his throat and inhaled deeply. Which just confused the shit out of him. Her instincts were legendary, so why the fuck wasn’t she running from him?

  “No. That’s not Bain. It can’t be.” She exhaled a shaky breath and moved back a step, her gaze defiant on his, as if she was waiting for him to laugh at her. “He didn’t feel right.”

  He agreed. “He scared you.”

  She nodded. “He was acting weird,” she repeated, frowning. She tilted her face up to his. “I’ve always trusted him.”

  His brain was going to explode. “Did you want him to kiss you?” The haunted emotions he’d seen in her eyes earlier flashed over her face, but she met his gaze without falling apart.

  “Did you want me to kiss you earlier? Because that would be the same—”

  “Fuck yeah, I did.” He scowled the second the words were out of his mouth. Why the hell had he said that out loud? “It’s not the same thing.”

  She didn’t look like she believed him as she swiped a hand under her eyes. “It’s all your fault,” she muttered. “I shouldn’t be attracted to you. You’re the Destroyer.”

  The ice that had started to melt around his heart hardened. He took another step away from her. He’d never given a shit that people called him the Destroyer. It was true. After the massacre of his family, he’d made it his single-minded focus in life to take out as many Hunters as he could.

  It had never bothered him in the least that he was the dragon nightmare Hunter parents warned their children about when they tucked them into bed at night. He was exactly what they had made him.

  A strangled sound escaped her. “I’m sorry, Dallas. See? I told you everything was all—” Her words cut off as she focused on something over his shoulder. His arm snaked out to grab her when she stumbled back a step, ice cold terror in her gaze. He shoved her behind him and spun around in time to see the body he’d laid out stagger to his feet and take off into the shadows. It wasn’t Bain, unless he’d suddenly turned into a Hunter.

  Moving slowly, he automatically reached around to the knife holster at his lower back, using his dragon senses to scan the darkness. “Who is that, Lil?”

  “I don’t know his name.” She moved a little closer to him when he let out a violent growl. “But he worked for my stepfather.”

  Dallas scowled as he stretched out his instincts, scanning the surrounding distance for any threat. Besides them, there was just the dark stain of pure evil on the air. “Let’s get you inside, and I’ll go look.” He growled again as he turned his head to look at her. That was the fourth time she’d reacted strangely to his growl, and she was all but on top of him at this point.

  “Would I be the most pathetic female if I asked you not to leave?” She tried to smile and failed. He didn’t blame her. Her stepfather had been a sick-fuck monster, torturing and nearly breaking her when she’d been a child. He was surprised she wasn’t a crumpled heap in the parking lot.

  It wasn’t in him to promise anyone anything. He never made a promise he didn’t know he could keep, and getting emotionally invested in a Hunter was a suicide mission. He’d get her to her apartment, call Broderick or Luca to take over watch, then go see what had used Bain’s form to scare the shit out of her.

  Ryuu. If he had to call Daniel over this, it wasn’t going to end up pretty.

  * * *

  TO HER SURPRISE, Dallas lifted her up and carried her inside. His body was rigid against hers while he carried her into the apartment and made sure the door was locked, dead-bolted, and spelled against any outside force. There seemed to be a never-ending limit to a dragon’s magic, and it would have fascinated her under other circumstances. It didn’t help that he didn’t seem to be in a hurry to let her go, and yet kept watching her like she was some kind of fucked-up puzzle he couldn’t quite figure out.

  When his gaze locked on her mouth, then went lower, Lily followed his eyes. She blushed. She was nearly coming out of the halter neckline of her dress. Clearing her throat, she tried to wiggle her arms between them to cover herself, only to get sidetracked by the amusement in his soft green eyes.

  She frowned, confused at how stable she felt being locked inside her apartment with him, and the fear that had threatened to eat her alive out in the parking lot had faded to a dull gnaw. “You’re enjoying this,” she accused.

  There was heat in his eyes when he finally set her on her feet and leaned back against the door, his stance casual. He crossed his arms over his ginormous chest. “Very much,” he drawled.

  She could still feel his tension as if it were her own, but he wasn’t treating her like she was breakable. She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much when she wasn’t even sure she trusted him. But she liked that there was at least one male out there who didn’t handle her like she was made out of spun glass.

  He blinked, then shook his head. His eyes narrowed on her, the moment of humor and softness gone. A low laugh rumbled in his chest suddenly, and one light brown brow jacked up. “Get comfortable, sweetheart. I’m here for a while.”

  As if to prove it, he pushed off against the door and walked across the living room, then flopped his massive frame onto her oversize L-shaped couch. He sprawled out and stretched his long, muscled frame, then dug his phone out of his back pocket. He tapped out something on the screen, then tossed it next to him, crossed his feet at the ankle, and tucked his arms behind his head.

  “I should be kicking you out,” she murmured
on her way toward the back of her spacious, totally female, white and pink flowered apartment. She opened her bedroom door and smiled, like always. She loved the look of all the antique lace and delicate roses. It was old-fashioned, and Adrian called it grandmotherly, as if either of them knew what that even meant, but Lily loved it, every inch. She raised her voice so he could hear her. “You know that, right? Luca will have a fit if he finds out I let you in my apartment.” As her kind-of sort-of brother-in-law, and a genuine good guy in bastard clothing, Luca took her safety personally. He never would have left her with Bain if he didn’t trust him.

  A male snort came from the living room. “Who said you’re letting me?”

  She laughed, she couldn’t help it, and for the first time since Adrian’s disappearance, it came out as a real sound. “For the record, when you explain tonight to him, and I promise he will make you, I wouldn’t tell him you didn’t give me a choice. Not if you want to keep breathing.”

  She closed her bedroom door on his response and let herself sink down on her soft bed. Oh gods, what was she doing? She didn’t make impulse decisions, and the last person who should be making himself at home in her apartment was the Destroyer.

  But despite how much of an ass he’d been at the reception, he’d come after her, and his growl, well…

  She didn’t understand. His growl calmed her. It should have terrified her instead of making her feel safe.

  She shook it off. Needing to figure him out, she hurried to change out of her dress. She tugged on a pair of pale pink pajama shorts and a matching tank top before dashing into the bathroom to wash her face and comb her hair.

  When she was done, she considered changing. When Bain or any of the other dragons spent the night, she dressed in the frumpiest nightgown she could find, but these pajamas showed off every curve she had.

  What the hell was she doing baiting a dragon? She stared at herself in the mirror.