Paranormal Nights

by CJ Ellisson

  He’d removed his tie, undone the top couple of buttons on his shirt. Her gaze riveted to the small patch of skin revealed. There were faint markings over the skin, but she couldn’t make them out, not without getting closer. At the thought her body tightened and the thin robe suddenly felt too much, the previously silky soft fabric like sackcloth against her skin.

  “I, uh….” Her ability to speak disappeared under the onslaught of heat that flooded her body at the thought of having him so close. At stripping that suit from him and exploring what lay beneath.

  He frowned, his eyes narrowing for a second. Her cheeks burned, hot enough to cook eggs on, and her pussy clenched, the proof of how much he affected her scalding against her thigh. His nostrils flared, then his eyes darkened, an answering heat within the blue orbs.

  Shit, how had he picked that up? He couldn’t smell her arousal. Could he?

  He took a step forward, caught a wayward strand of hair and looped it behind her ear. Then he leaned forward, his lips descending toward hers.

  Honor’s breathing stuttered and her eyes fluttered closed.

  Shit, she was really in trouble now.

  Chapter Five

  He shouldn’t kiss her, he knew he shouldn’t, but Baron couldn’t do anything else. Not with the darkness of desire in her eyes and the heady scent of her arousal hanging in the air. Leaning forward, he brushed his lips over hers, promising himself he’d take just one taste. Their lips clashed, then clung, and he realized one taste wasn’t going to be enough. Her lips were warm and soft, like sinking into velvet that wrapped around and caressed his. She tasted of mint toothpaste, and something else. Something that was less a taste and more a feeling, one that rolled right through him and touched his very soul. The spark of a connection at first contact. A recognition.

  She gasped, the sound lost under his lips, and he knew she’d felt it too. Crowding closer, she pressed herself against him, her skin tempting under the thin robe she wore. Her hands crept up, one wrapping around the nape of his neck as the fingertips of the other stroked the bare skin at his throat. Deep within the dragon rumbled in pleasure. It liked her touch. More than liked it, needed it more than he needed air to breathe. The scales under his skin rustled, the dry sound making her break away.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing, just the wind outside,” he whispered, wrapping an arm around her waist. “Come here.”

  Pulling her closer, he took her lips again, this time parting them with a sweep of his tongue. The urge to crowd her, dominate her, bend her over his arm and take what he wanted beat at him but he ignored it. He schooled his movements and his kisses to slow and sensual to avoid scaring her away. It had happened before, when he was younger, the needs and lust of the dragon had caused at least one woman to flee in fear. Since then he’d learned control, made discipline a way of life. But being faced with something the dragon wanted threatened to blow years of determination and effort right out of the water.

  The first touch of her tongue against his thrilled him, the second almost had him on his knees. Cock at full mast within a heartbeat, he almost spilled his load then and there. His dragon urged him to push her back into the room, onto the bed, and claim her as theirs. It wanted to throw back its head and roar the news that they’d found their mate. He turned her, sheltering her in the space between his large body and the wall as he kissed her.

  She opened to him, her response instant and perfect. A growl rose in his throat as he plundered her lips, taking everything she had to give and pushing for that little bit more. Her response was fiery, matching him thrust for thrust until his heart hammered in his chest and his cock felt stiff enough to hammer nails through wood. Hell, if he didn’t get some—

  He cut that thought right there and broke away, easing the pain of separation with a few soft, more chaste kisses. “You should get some sleep.”

  She blinked up at him, the dark and unfocused look in her eyes almost breaking his control. Then she smiled, and his heart contracted. He reached out and smoothed her wayward hair back behind her ears. She looked softer like this, as though her work clothes were armor she hid behind. “What, alone?”

  Lord God, give him strength. How could he pass up that offer? But he had to. He couldn’t claim her until the threat to her life was gone.

  “Yes, sweets, for now. But I won’t be far away. If you need me, just call out. Okay?”

  She nodded, and despite the fleeting pout, pleasure mingled with banked desire in her scent. Perhaps pleased he hadn’t pushed? Baron had no idea, women of any species were a total mystery. He watched as she smiled, her eyes dark and sultry, and slowly closed the door. He didn’t move until he heard her cross the room, the sound of her footsteps almost on the edge of even his sensitive hearing, then the rustle of fabric as she dropped the robe and climbed into bed.

  His dragon howled at being denied when he turned and walked toward his own room, but he ignored it and a smile spread over his face. Nothing could dint his good mood, not now that he’d found his treasure. The corridor was one of the shorter ones in the house, and at first he’d thought being on the same corridor was a good thing. It was closer to Honor so he could protect her. If anything happened in the house, then he could get to her in seconds. But now that his dragon had decided she was theirs, who was going to protect her from him?

  He shook his head and carried on. The plushness of the place still astounded him even though he’d had a couple of hours to get used to it. His dragon huffed, giving the sculpture on the occasional table at the end of the corridor a covetous glance, which was out of character for the creature. Baron was not a hoarder, not like Duke, but perhaps his dragon had more expensive tastes than the magpie hoarder of his brother who liked to collect any cheap old shit.

  When he reached the door to his room, muttering from the room within made him pause, and frown. Opening his senses he could find nothing untoward, just the large mass of dry energy that indicated his brother. Pushing the door open, he stopped dead. There in the window, tangled in the drapes, was Duke. Quickly, Baron stepped inside the room and shut the door.

  “What the hell are you doing, you great idiot?” He strode across the room to untangle his stupid brother. Duke had managed to get one arm free, and started to extend his claws. “Don’t you dare! How the hell will I explain you shredding the fucking drapes, numbskull?”

  It didn’t take him long to extract his twin from the drapes, muttering the whole time. How the hell Duke got himself into crap like this, he had no clue, but he always managed to do something. As Duke stood up, smoothing his clothes down, Baron frowned. There were new scrapes on the side of Duke’s face, and a purpling bruise that looked for all the word like someone had smacked him in the mouth.

  “What happened to you?”

  “I crushed some of the pebbles and something came looking.” Duke walked past him and flopped on the bed, sprawling all over it. He folded his hands behind his head and watched Baron.

  Despite his relaxed attitude, Baron wasn’t fooled. Duke had that excited gleam in his eye that said he knew something his twin didn’t. “And?”

  Duke grinned, the expression broad and totally at odds with the injuries to his face which must have been serious to leave a mark even after a change. “It was a dragon…one like us.”

  The floor yawed beneath Baron’s feet. There were few things that could rock his world. Finding his mate, in the room down the hall, had been one of them. Another was finding out that they weren’t as alone as they’d thought they were. “How like us? A shadow dragon? Where? What did he look like?”

  “Very. Yes. Led me a right dance all over the city, then entered the old sewers west-side and bloody disappeared.” Duke answered the questions quickly and to the point, also very unlike him. “And not he…she.”

  Baron sat down heavily in the chair by the window. “She? A female dragon?”

  Duke nodded, sitting up with an eager light twinkling in his eye. “Yes, I think so. She kept he
rself shrouded in shadow but she felt like you do in that form, dry energy…but feminine. Not as coarse and prickly as you are. She was…glorious.”

  The sly smile started small then spread over Baron’s lips. His brother sounded smitten…which would make things so much easier when he admitted Honor was his mate, and he didn’t plan on sharing. “Glorious, is it?”

  “Uh-huh.” Duke stretched out again and yawned widely. Exhaustion was written into every line of his body, upping Baron’s estimation of the chase the female had led him on. Despite their joking words about workouts earlier, both brothers worked hard at their physical fitness. For someone, especially a female, to get away from him, she had to be good. “What are the chances huh? Both of us meeting our mates in the same day?”

  The words, falling so carelessly from his brother’s lips, took Baron aback. He’d been trying to figure out how to tell Duke about Honor, started to lay up all his arguments against how they’d always thought things would go…and now he didn’t have to.

  “You know, don’t you? She’s the one…she’s—”

  “Yours. But not mine.” Duke nodded, the expression in his eyes wiser than Baron had ever seen it. Duke was the grumpy one, but also the impulsive, more child-like almost, of the two of them. But right now he seemed to have all the answers as he sat up and speared Baron with a direct look. “Yes. Knew it as soon as I saw her. Your dragon recognizes her, mine doesn’t. Well, it does, but not in that way. She’s your treasure, you almost called her that earlier.”

  He frowned, thinking back. Shit, he had as well.

  “Iliona’ll have your balls.” Duke added with glee.

  “Yeah.” He fell silent for a moment, then shrugged. “Don’t care. She’s worth it.”

  “Amen to that.” Duke yawned again. “We’re taking watches tonight?”

  “Yeah,” Baron nodded toward the bed. “You get some sleep, I’ll take the first one.”

  ***

  Baron jerked awake, sitting up and dragging himself out of a nightmare all in the same motion. The harsh rasp of his breath filled the room as surely as the thunder of his own heart filled his ears. Crap. He didn’t get nightmares, not ever, his sleep as peaceful and undisturbed as a baby’s. Not tonight though. Whether it was the strange bed or meeting Honor, his rest hadn’t been an easy one. From the moment he’d closed his eyes the nightmare had ensnared him.

  It had started out innocent enough. He’d been flying in the early morning sun, waiting for that moment when the sun burst over the horizon and bathed him in its warming light. It was his favorite time of day to fly, and the only time he could. Although shadow dragons craved the heat of the sun, they were creatures of darkness. Too much light blinded them, left them reliant on their other senses, and in worse cases, drugged them into an insensible sleep. But the early morning light was too weak to cause a dragon of his size many issues, so he could enjoy his flight without worry. Reveled in the sensation of the air under his wings as he rode the thermals up, then glided down to catch the next one. Up and down he went, doing lazy back flips and just enjoying being alive.

  Then a scream tore the air and a body hurtled past him, the small shape almost tearing a hole in his wing. He banked o the side, an awful feeling in the pit of his stomach as he turned to see what it was. Who it was. His heart froze as he recognized Honor’s voice and her slim figure as she plummeted toward the ground below.

  Nonononono. He back flipped and dove, massive wings pumping faster than he ever had before to try and catch up with her. But she was falling fast, too fast for him to catch up with. The distance between them stretched out, pulling them further and further apart until—

  He shuddered, lurching out of the memory before she could hit the ground. He ran a hand through his hair. It shook. Badly. Flopping back on the bed, he took a few deep breaths to regulate his heat-rate. A nightmare, that’s all it was. Now that he’d found his treasure, of course his sub-conscious would be scared about losing her. And a fatal fall was about as final a loss as one could get.

  He shuddered again, heart beat at about the right level, and turned his head. His brother was slumped in the chair by the window. A frown crept over his brow. Duke was supposed to be on watch. Perhaps he’d just shut his eyes for a moment.

  “Hey, Bro. You ’wake?”

  There was no reply. Wariness rustled his scales under his skin as he sat back up. He couldn’t see Duke’s face, even with his sharp draconian vision, not with Duke’s hair loose and falling forward like it was. Wrongness permeated the air, extending its tendrils into the room from outside. Baron stilled and extended his senses. The house was too quiet. He should have been able to pick something up. The faint murmurs of conversation from the two guards on duty, perhaps the hum of a television left on…but nothing. Reaching out, he tried to turn on the lamp by the bed. No power.

  “Shit. Duke, wake up!” He ordered, grabbing his pants and yanking them on as he crossed to his brother. Duke didn’t move, not even when Baron shook him hard. Instead he murmured and settled back down again, snoring. Swearing again, Baron shoved his claws free and drove them into Duke’s shoulder, scraping along the collarbone. His brother yelped in his sleep but Baron didn’t care. It would hurt like fuck but a shift would heal it up quick smart, and he’d done what he needed to…gotten the attention of Duke’s dragon. He could feel the thing rousing, yammering at Duke to wake up from whatever spell had been cast over them.

  Baron yawned until his jaw cracked and headed for the door, fighting off the pull of sleep that tried to drag him down again. He’d never heard of a sleep spell powerful enough to take out a whole house. One or two people in the same room, yeah, but the Croft property was immense. Which meant whoever was behind this had some serious magical mojo. Fuck, just what he needed.

  All thoughts but one faded from his mind as he wrenched the door open. He had to find Honor, make sure she was safe, because if she wasn’t…then life as he knew it was about to end.

  *

  Honor woke with a start, her eyelids snapping open to study the ceiling above the bed. That in itself was unusual. Normally she needed a good run up to the day and at least a bucket of coffee, so for her to be wide awake straight away…. She blinked and sat up, looking around. Her room was dark, like normal when she slept, but this was a wrong darkness, not comforting like normal. The reassuring glow of her alarm clock was gone, the purple LEDs now dark. Shit, there must have been a power cut. She closed her eyes on a sigh of relief, and stifled a chuckle.

  Just a power cut, Honor, get it together.

  She opened her eyes again and sat up, reaching for her robe on the chair at the side of her bed. It was the cold that clued her in. Even if the power had gone out, it shouldn’t have affected the temperature in the house. On a normal night the place was baking and the only time they could get it down to a reasonable level was to run the air-conditioning twenty-four-seven. She paused, hand halfway to the robe. If the power was out though…it should have been like an oven in here, not a fridge.

  Lightning flashed, lighting up the windows. She squeaked as, in best horror movie tradition, branches from the tree outside tapped against the window pane. For a second she wanted to dive under the duvet and take shelter like she had when she was a child. Back then the duvet had been both shield and invisibility cloak rolled into one, and nothing, no monster from under the bed or the closet could get to her. But much as she’d like it to, the real world didn’t work that way. The wrongness in the air caught in her lungs as she dragged in a shaky breath, and the shadows around her whispered dire warnings. If she stayed here in bed, she would die. She knew she would, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  Danger crawled over her skin, making her feel sick. Surging to her feet, she grabbed the robe and hauled it on, tying the belt in a shaky hand. She’d had this feeling before, a couple of times. The first she’d been out with a few friends but when it came time to walk home, she’d felt sick and said she’d catch up after visiting the restroom. Her two friend
s had been mugged, one beaten so bad that she’d ended up in intensive care. She’d felt so guilty she’d camped at the hospital all that week.

  The second time it had happened, they’d been about to get on a subway train. The sickness and wrong feeling had hit her out of the blue, so strong it had driven her to her knees. Her friends had thought she’d gone mad, but she persuaded them not to get on the train. And she’d been right. Less than five minutes into the journey, a bomb had taken out the center carriages, right where they would have been. Since then she swore, if she ever got that feeling again, she wouldn’t ignore it. And she wasn’t going to. Emptying her purse onto the bed, she grabbed her car keys and cell phone. The rest she could leave, all she needed to do was get to Lucy’s. She could deal with anything else from there.

  Her steps were silent on the carpet as she raced for the door. Her breath billowed in icy puffs in front of her. What the hell…? How was it this cold? She yanked open the door, intending to race down the corridor and hit the service stairs at the end of it. But before she could, a dark shadow rose in front of her. Hard hands grabbed her arms, spinning her around. She slammed into the wall, the air driven out of her lungs in a hard whoosh as a solid male body pinned her against the hard surface.

  She had no clue what was going on, but right now she didn’t care. Whatever other threats were in the house didn’t matter, she had one right up close and personal and she needed to get loose. Fast. Dragging a breath in, she opened her mouth to scream but a hard hand dropped down and covered her mouth, cutting off her air.

  Shit, this was it. She was going to die.

  Chapter Six

  “Shh, honey. It’s just me.” A familiar voice rumbled by her ear.

  Smith. Relief hit her like a tidal wave, weakening her knees and almost dumping her on the floor. She clutched at his arms for support and managed to stay on her feet. Only just though.