Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

by Ashley Jennifer

“I have a bald patch on my head.”

  Her hair had fallen out where not-Joshua had grabbed it. Rook didn’t think it was noticeable, but Jordan was touchy about it. Though he was beyond exhaustion, his injuries hadn’t transferred to the waking world.

  “Everyone has been warned to be more vigilant.” Coll cut a quick, sharp glance to Rook. “We will report anything unusual, like personal nightmares in pursuit.”

  Rook took the jab. They’d already been through the Joshua thing at length: when the nightmare had begun; when the boy had first crossed what boundaries; what made Rook choose to keep it secret. It had been a mistake.

  Coll groaned as he stood. “You both still planning to go back in after Vince Blackman?”

  This was yet another fight between them. He was adamant that a new Chimera should not go out into the Scrape. And Jordan refused to let a man suffer because of her actions. Rook swore that this would be his fastest tracking ever. In and out.

  Coll was working with Maisie on Vince Blackman’s father.

  “I have something to do first this morning,” Rook said, “But yeah, we’ll track him down once it’s done.”

  “Good enough. Maisie, with me.” Coll’s tone was hard.

  She made a face at him. “Yeah, I got to talk to Jordan first.”

  “I’ll be in the car.” He walked to the door, then paused and looked back. “Jordan, the stuff from your apartment will be moved to storage. We’ll work out the details of your life among us later.”

  “Take your time,” Jordan said. “It’s up to Malcolm whether he wants to move or not.”

  Rook felt himself smiling, the bolts of tension in his shoulders releasing, even when he was keyed up and angry. How did she do that?

  He finally noticed Coll staring at his face, and sent him a questioning glance. But Coll just smiled back and said, “I’ll be in touch,” and left.

  ***

  “You’ve got to get me away from him,” Maze murmured low. “He thinks he’s taking me to Vegas to find Blandman’s dad.”

  They were huddled in a corner of what could only generously be called a kitchen.

  “Blackman,” Jordan corrected. “And Vince is in serious danger at the moment.” She had put him there personally. The urgency to go back and find him bordered on panic. She would not be responsible for the death of another human being. No matter what Vince had planned for her, he didn’t deserve to be left out in the Scrape. No one did.

  What if not-Joshua found him?

  “I just need a little money,” Maze said with a sly smile, “and I’ll slip out the back. Steve can sit in his fucking car all day long waiting, for all I care.”

  More games. “No, Maisie. You go to Vegas. You take care of this. Steve is your chance to get everything straight. To take your life back. Don’t screw this up for yourself. I can’t be there to clean up after you.”

  “I never asked you to.”

  Ha. “You just did.” Jordan grabbed her sister and hugged her close. “Don’t blow this. Go to Vegas and see it through. Try something different.”

  It was time to let her go. Fall or fly, it was up to her. This had been coming for a while, and they both knew it.

  When Jordan pulled back, Maze had a miserable look on her face. “I don’t wanna.”

  “You will. Do it for me.”

  Maze made her pouty face, and Jordan knew that her sister couldn’t do what was expected of her for long. She was driven to break out of every box she’d ever been put in.

  So Jordan tried a little subterfuge. The idea had been kicking around in her brain since yesterday.

  “Go to Vegas to solve the problem, but whatever you do…” She paused for drama. “…don’t get involved with Steve.”

  Maze looked alarmed.

  “He’s too old for you. It will only lead to disaster. So don’t even try.”

  “I would never.”

  “Good. Don’t.”

  “I can’t believe you’d think I would.”

  “Then there’s no problem. I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  Jordan swatted her on her butt to get her moving out the door and down the stairs. At the last minute she yelled, “Call when you get there.”

  She was going to worry. She couldn’t help herself.

  ***

  Maze sat herself down in the front passenger seat of Steve Coll’s very boring silver sedan and slammed the door. “My sister just tried to reverse-psychology me into having sex with you.”

  He started the car. Checked his goddamn mirrors. Slowly pulled out onto a street with no traffic. She was sure he was doing it on purpose. He couldn’t be this anal.

  She expected a reaction. Got nothing.

  He was making her crazy. She had to do something to piss him off, or this trip was going to be awful. She was tempted to jab him in the arm or ribs. Or be truly disgusting and grab his junk.

  The thought made her laugh. She might have done it if Jory hadn’t made a little sense upstairs just now. Steve—what an irritating name—was her last chance to straighten out. The people she’d been working for had stopped being fun a long time ago. She needed out, which meant cooperating.

  She settled for a mild rebellion. Music. Loud music would at least give him a headache. She reached forward, but before her fingertips could hit the On button, his hand tightened around her wrist. She tried to jerk free, but he was stronger.

  “It doesn’t work,” he said in that mild tone of his. Yet his hand on her arm was not mild at all. It almost burned.

  She didn’t believe him, but was startled enough to draw back. To frown.

  To give him a second look.

  ***

  The drive took more than three hours, but it felt like five minutes. The dread in Jordan’s belly was cold and oily by the time he finally pulled into a neighborhood.

  This could make or ruin everything.

  Rook had been mostly silent on the drive. Once or twice he’d attempted to start a conversation, mostly about Chimera and what her next steps were. She’d responded when he asked her something, and she had let the dialogue dissolve when his thoughts distracted him again.

  She understood why he wanted to do this. Joshua had nearly killed them both. Malcolm had to take away whatever power the kid still had over him. And then they could go after Vince Blackman.

  He pulled to a stop on the side of a suburban street with brick ranch houses widely spaced on both sides. His attention was on one particular house. She could guess where he’d grown up.

  “You’ll come with me?” His voice was husky.

  Jordan wasn’t going to cry. She was too terrified. But she jerked a nod. Let out a shuddering breath as she opened her car door and got out.

  Had it been this street, or another?

  She wasn’t going to ask.

  He held her hand as they crossed and started up a long sidewalk, but he let her go a pace from the steps that led to the front door. She wrapped her arms tightly around her chest to stop her galloping heart.

  His footsteps were heavy as he climbed.

  Jordan hung back, hoping, hoping… If there’s a God in heaven. Please.

  Maybe they should’ve called first. Gauged the response before the reunion, but Malcolm wasn’t one to do things halfway. He’d left home suddenly. Seemed he was coming back in the same brash style.

  He knocked on the door with his knuckles. Didn’t use the bell.

  Seconds ticked by like eons. Jordan almost hoped no one was home, but then heard the unmistakable sound of a deadbolt turning. A squeak as the door opened.

  A woman past middle age, a little heavy, stood in the doorway. “Yes?”

  Malcolm said, “Um…” so low and gravelly and full of feeling that Jordan could no longer breathe.

  Turned out he didn’t need to say more.

  The sound that broke from his mother’s throat as she flung her arms around his shoulders answered everything.

  They trembled there while tears burned down Jordan’s cheeks
. When finally they broke apart, Malcolm opened an arm toward Jordan.

  She gave the shocked and clearly overcome woman in the doorway a watery smile.

  “I want you to meet my girl,” Malcolm said. “Mom, this is Jordan.”

  The End

  Thank you!

  Thank you for reading Darkness Falls and I hope you enjoyed it.

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  Keep reading for a preview of Lay Me Down.

  Lay Me Down - Chapter 1

  Steve Coll hit his left turn signal and checked for traffic, but most of his attention was focused on the woman half sitting, half kneeling on the forward passenger seat beside him. She hadn’t yet decided if she was going to cooperate (the least likely), stage a get-away (her usual way of coping), or try to kill him (on direct orders from her boss).

  Her predicament was the most fun he’d had in a long time, especially because it was the woman herself who was gnawing her thumbnail in suspense. Even she didn’t know what she was going to do.

  What a way to live.

  Maisie Louise Lane wasn’t just another Reveler who Chimera wanted to recruit. She was the ultimate recruit, the critical talent. And it was Steve's job to secure her cooperation and loyalty.

  Which meant she was probably going to try to kill him.

  At least he’d get a kick out of watching her work up to it. She might just pull it off, too. Maisie could do anything; it was potentially deadly to think otherwise.

  “If we’re going to Vegas,” she said, “I need to pick up some things from my place.”

  Steve checked his rearview mirror. Still clear. “Not an option. It was ransacked after you left. Nothing much remains but the scum waiting to grab you.”

  “Well, I’ve got some clothes at my sister’s and my laptop is there, too.”

  “Your associates have that place covered as well, and since your sister had to drown one of them so that she could get to safety, it’s not an option either.”

  Maisie was standing on the only bridge she hadn’t burned, an empty gallon of gas in one hand, lit match in the other.

  He flicked a gaze her way for a quick assessment. Her magenta-dyed hair was showing blonde roots. The black make-up around her big gray eyes was smudged. And yeah, she was wearing the same outfit—tight dark green jeans with a slouchy black tank on top—that she’d been wearing when she’d escaped his companionship on the UCSD campus yesterday. The several narrow leather bands around her wrist hid scars from wounds she’d inflicted herself.

  She had her sister to thank for keeping her alive this long, but the company Maisie kept was now more dangerous. Big sis had done as much as she could. Time for someone who didn’t love Maisie to take over.

  “Well, I have to shower and change. I stink,” she said.

  Strangely, he really didn’t mind the sharp edge to her usual feminine scent. And at the moment, he wouldn’t put it past her to crawl out a bathroom window dripping and naked to escape him. So she could just wait.

  “When we get settled, you can have first dibs on the shower.”

  Another glance in the rearview. A black car edged into their lane, some five car-lengths behind them.

  “You mean in Vegas? That’s like an eight hour drive.”

  “Five,” he corrected. “And new clothes will be waiting there as well.”

  “I choose my own clothes, thanks.”

  “Your call.”

  “This is torture,” she said.

  “Agreed.”

  The black car kept its distance, which Steve didn’t like. It should’ve pulled up a bit by now. Its front window reflected a bright glaring spot of the sun, whiting out the rest, so no driver was visible, even if Steve could make him out from this far away.

  He debated letting the car continue to follow to find out for certain if it was deliberately tailing them. He’d been eluding her business associates for the past few days while attempting to win Maisie’s cooperation. That her sister Jordan had become a Chimera was helpful. That those same associates had gone after Jordan had forced the choice on Maisie. Family or wealth and power?

  Family had won, which was how Maisie came to be sitting next to him, regardless of her mood.

  Steve cruised through a late yellow light; the black car ran the red that followed.

  Damn. Better to lose them now than to chance an incident on the road before he and Maisie reached their destination.

  He hated to do it while driving, but fine.

  Steve let his vision blur slightly so that his darksight could sharpen, and he imposed a simple waking dream on the real world. He showed the occupants of the black car that his car was turning to the right, down an intersecting street, while in reality he continued straight ahead.

  The black car turned down the street, following the dream.

  Which meant that yes, the car had probably been following them, and the driver didn’t have the darksight to recognize a waking dream for the illusion it was.

  Steve glanced at Maisie again, the other immediate threat to his life.

  She was staring at him, unblinking and wary. “What was that?”

  Maisie, however, did have darksight, though still undeveloped.

  Chimera agents each had talents, most of which were awakened during lucid dreaming, the revolution taking over the world. Maisie, should she prove loyal enough to join them, could also cross between one dream and another effortlessly.

  Steve gave her a friendly smile. It was the only answer she was going to get. He didn’t even share what he could do, what he really was, with people he trusted. They’d be afraid.

  “Fine. Whatever.” She folded her arms and hunkered down in her seat. “Wake me when we get there.”

  Steve had to stop himself from laughing out loud. The humor felt good, though, lodged in his throat and warm across his chest.

  As if he would to let her escape him that way—into the dreamwaters where she could easily meet with her partners and warn them that he was taking her to Vegas.

  No. Not happening. She had no idea who she was dealing with.

  Maisie Lane was about to be afflicted with an extreme case of insomnia.

  He was keeping her high and dry until it suited him for her to sleep, yet another one of his abilities. She’d sleep when he did.

  Beside him she sighed and modulated her breathing so that it was deep and slow. Eyes closed, the tension dropped out of her. She went quiet, studiously so, as she sought refuge.

  It was cute really.

  Steve banked onto the I-15 exit and climbed onto the freeway, heading north. Traffic mid-morning moved fast along the ten-lane stretch. If they made good time, maybe they could get there before rush hour.

  A colorful billboard advertising a new Rêve—the term used for commercial shared dreams—rose above the graying buildings below. The billboard depicted a black door, with a fanlight above and a knob in the middle. The number 221B gleamed in brass above a subtly ornate knocker. Doors lead the way into Rêves, and this door led the dreamer to 221B Baker Street, Sherlock’s home. Stories and adventures were the rage, far exceeding the thrills a theme park could offer. Rêve was a fully immersive experience, for which people would pay anything.

  Of course, just as Rêves offered unlimited worlds to explore, so did they also offer innumerable ways to exploit and/or threaten dreamers. It was Chimera’s job to police Rêves and to venture (or track) beyond Rêve into the waters where natural dreaming occurred. A certain kind of talent was
required, and it was Steve’s job to recruit the personnel who had it.

  Like Maisie here, who’d been playing in illegal Rêves for at least a year now and had gotten in a little too deep with the criminal element.

  The minutes ticked by. He changed to the far left lane and accelerated.

  Any second now she’d realize she was trapped in the waking world.

  She huffed a little. Squirmed.

  He restrained a grin, but glanced her way to see if she’d figured it out yet.

  He found her looking back at him, a bad mood wrinkling her forehead. Then her forehead smoothed as understanding dawned. A glimmer of horror darkened her eyes. She’s got it now. The realization finished with a steady glare of hate.

  “You bastard.”

  Steve looked back at the road ahead. “Just as long as we understand each other.”

  ***

  See, now she wanted to kill him.

  Before she’d just wanted to escape and disappear for a while. She’d been thinking Phoenix sounded good. Crash on her friend Lola’s couch, but hide in her own dreamspace for a while, where she could be in control and keep unfriendlies out until they lost interest in her. An excellent plan.

  It was Steve’s fault she was happily contemplating ways she could make him suffer, and five hours’ worth of traveling time—no sleep, no music, no decent conversation—had been bound to make her think up the worst possible.

  Death by rat bucket was the top contender. She’d need a feral rat, a bucket, and a blowtorch.

  At least her murderous thoughts kept her from contemplating how royally screwed she was. To head directly to Mr. Graeme, her ex-boss, was insanity. They should be heading any other place but Vegas.

  Desert turned into dirty metropolis turned into high-rise splash and glitter off the freeway.

  Apparently, they were staying at a hotel on the strip because they were creeping along Flamingo trying to merge into the turn lane. They finally pulled into the traffic-jammed, sweeping roundabout that was valet parking at The Wake.

  Frustration zapped along her nerves. This was so stupid. Steve-o had a death wish, and she was going to have to stay by his side or one of her former business associates would do the deed and get bragging rights for his murder. And she really wanted to do the honors herself.