Gathering Darkness: A Paranormal Romance Collection

by Anna Zaires

  Unzipping her bag, Mia took out her old Mac. The thing was heavy and slow, but it worked—and as a starving college student, Mia could not afford anything better. Logging on, she opened a blank Word document and prepared to start the torturous process of writing her Sociology paper.

  Ten minutes and exactly zero words later, she stopped. Who was she kidding? If she really wanted to write the damn thing, she would’ve never come to the park. As tempting as it was to pretend that she could enjoy the fresh air and be productive at the same time, those two had never been compatible in her experience. A musty old library was a much better setting for anything requiring that kind of brainpower exertion.

  Mentally kicking herself for her own laziness, Mia let out a sigh and started looking around instead. People-watching in New York never failed to amuse her.

  The tableau was a familiar one, with the requisite homeless person occupying a nearby bench—thank God it wasn’t the closest one to her, since he looked like he might smell very ripe—and two nannies chatting with each other in Spanish as they pushed their Bugaboos at a leisurely pace. A girl jogged on a path a little further ahead, her bright pink Reeboks contrasting nicely with her blue leggings. Mia’s gaze followed the jogger as she rounded the corner, envying her athleticism. Her own hectic schedule allowed her little time to exercise, and she doubted she could keep up with the girl for even a mile at this point.

  To the right, she could see the Bow Bridge over the lake. A man was leaning on the railing, looking out over the water. His face was turned away from Mia, so she could only see part of his profile. Nevertheless, something about him caught her attention.

  She wasn’t sure what it was. He was definitely tall and seemed well-built under the expensive-looking trench coat he was wearing, but that was only part of the story. Tall, good-looking men were common in model-infested New York City. No, it was something else. Perhaps it was the way he stood—very still, with no extra movements. His hair was dark and glossy under the bright afternoon sun, just long enough in the front to move slightly in the warm spring breeze.

  He also stood alone.

  That’s it, Mia realized. The normally popular and picturesque bridge was completely deserted, except for the man who was standing on it. Everyone appeared to be giving it a wide berth for some unknown reason. In fact, with the exception of herself and her potentially aromatic homeless neighbor, the entire row of benches in the highly desirable waterfront location was empty.

  As though sensing her gaze on him, the object of her attention slowly turned his head and looked directly at Mia. Before her conscious brain could even make the connection, she felt her blood turn to ice, leaving her paralyzed in place and helpless to do anything but stare at the predator who now seemed to be examining her with interest.

  ***

  Breathe, Mia, breathe. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a small rational voice kept repeating those words. That same oddly objective part of her noted his symmetrical face structure, with golden skin stretched tightly over high cheekbones and a firm jaw. Pictures and videos of Ks that she’d seen had hardly done them justice. Standing no more than thirty feet away, the creature was simply stunning.

  As she continued staring at him, still frozen in place, he straightened and began walking toward her. Or rather stalking toward her, she thought stupidly, as his every movement reminded her of a jungle cat sinuously approaching a gazelle. All the while, his eyes never left hers. As he approached, she could make out individual yellow flecks in his light golden eyes and the thick long lashes surrounding them.

  She watched in horrified disbelief as he sat down on her bench, less than two feet away from her, and smiled, showing white even teeth. No fangs, she noted with some functioning part of her brain. Not even a hint of them. That used to be another myth about them, like their supposed abhorrence of the sun.

  “What’s your name?” The creature practically purred the question at her. His voice was low and smooth, completely unaccented. His nostrils flared slightly, as though inhaling her scent.

  “Um . . .” Mia swallowed nervously. “M-Mia.”

  “Mia,” he repeated slowly, seemingly savoring her name. “Mia what?”

  “Mia Stalis.” Oh crap, why did he want to know her name? Why was he here, talking to her? In general, what was he doing in Central Park, so far away from any of the K Centers? Breathe, Mia, breathe.

  “Relax, Mia Stalis.” His smile got wider, exposing a dimple in his left cheek. A dimple? Ks had dimples? “Have you never encountered one of us before?”

  “No, I haven’t.” Mia exhaled sharply, realizing that she was holding her breath. She was proud that her voice didn’t sound as shaky as she felt. Should she ask? Did she want to know?

  She gathered her courage. “What, um—” Another swallow. “What do you want from me?”

  “For now, conversation.” He looked like he was about to laugh at her, those gold eyes crinkling slightly at the corners.

  Strangely, that pissed her off enough to take the edge off her fear. If there was anything Mia hated, it was being laughed at. With her short, skinny stature and a general lack of social skills that came from an awkward teenage phase involving every girl’s nightmare of braces, frizzy hair, and glasses, Mia had more than enough experience being the butt of someone’s joke.

  She lifted her chin belligerently. “Okay, then, what is your name?”

  “It’s Korum.”

  “Just Korum?”

  “We don’t really have last names, not the way you do. My full name is much longer, but you wouldn’t be able to pronounce it if I told you.”

  Okay, that was interesting. She now remembered reading something like that in The New York Times. So far, so good. Her legs had nearly stopped shaking, and her breathing was returning to normal. Maybe, just maybe, she would get out of this alive. This conversation business seemed safe enough, although the way he kept staring at her with those unblinking yellowish eyes was unnerving. She decided to keep him talking.

  “What are you doing here, Korum?”

  “I just told you, making conversation with you, Mia.” His voice again held a hint of laughter.

  Frustrated, Mia blew out her breath. “I meant, what are you doing here in Central Park? In New York City in general?”

  He smiled again, cocking his head slightly to the side. “Maybe I’m hoping to meet a pretty curly-haired girl.”

  Okay, enough was enough. He was clearly toying with her. Now that she could think a little again, she realized that they were in the middle of Central Park, in full view of about a gazillion spectators. She surreptitiously glanced around to confirm that. Yep, sure enough, although people were obviously steering clear of her bench and its otherworldly occupant, there were a number of brave souls staring their way from further up the path. A couple were even cautiously filming them with their wristwatch cameras. If the K tried anything with her, it would be on YouTube in the blink of an eye, and he had to know it. Of course, he may or may not care about that.

  Still, going on the assumption that since she’d never come across any videos of K assaults on college students in the middle of Central Park, she was relatively safe, Mia cautiously reached for her laptop and lifted it to stuff it back into her backpack.

  “Let me help you with that, Mia—”

  And before she could blink, she felt him take her heavy laptop from her suddenly boneless fingers, gently brushing against her knuckles in the process. A sensation similar to a mild electric shock shot through Mia at his touch, leaving her nerve endings tingling in its wake.

  Reaching for her backpack, he carefully put away the laptop in a smooth, sinuous motion. “There you go, all better now.”

  Oh God, he had touched her. Maybe her theory about the safety of public locations was bogus. She felt her breathing speeding up again, and her heart rate was probably well into the anaerobic zone at this point.

  “I have to go now . . . Bye!”

  How she managed to squeeze out those wo
rds without hyperventilating, she would never know. Grabbing the strap of the backpack he’d just put down, she jumped to her feet, noting somewhere in the back of her mind that her earlier paralysis seemed to be gone.

  “Bye, Mia. I will see you later.” His softly mocking voice carried in the clear spring air as she took off, nearly running in her haste to get away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Holy shit! Get out of here! Seriously? Tell me what happened, and don’t leave out any details!” Her roommate was nearly jumping up and down in excitement.

  “I just told you . . . I met a K in the park.” Mia rubbed her temples, feeling the band of tension around her head left over from her earlier adrenaline overdose. “He sat down on the bench next to me and talked to me for a couple of minutes. Then I told him that I had to go and left.”

  “Just like that? What did he want?”

  “I don’t know. I asked him that, but he just said he wanted to talk.”

  “Yeah, right, and pigs can fly.” Jessie was as dismissive of that possibility as Mia herself had been. “No, seriously, he didn’t try to drink your blood or anything?”

  “No, he didn’t do anything.” Except briefly touch her hand. “He just asked me my name and told me his.”

  Jessie’s eyes now resembled big brown saucers. “He told you his name? What is it?”

  “Korum.”

  “Of course, Korum the K, makes perfect sense.” Jessie’s sense of humor often kicked in at the strangest times. They both snickered at the ridiculousness of that statement.

  “Did you know immediately that he was a K? How did he look?” Recovering, Jessie continued with her questions.

  “I did.” Mia thought back to that first moment she saw him. How did she know? Was it his eyes? Or something instinctual in her that knew a predator when she saw one? “I think it maybe had to do with the way he moved. It’s difficult to describe. It’s definitely inhuman. He looked a lot like the Ks you’d see on TV—he was tall, good-looking in that particular way that they have, and had strange-looking eyes—they looked almost yellow.”

  “Wow, I can’t believe it.” Jessie was pacing the room in circles. “How did he talk to you? What did he sound like?”

  Mia let out a sigh. “Next time I get ambushed in the park by an extraterrestrial, I will be sure to have a recording device handy.”

  “Oh come on, like you wouldn’t be curious if you were in my shoes.”

  True, Jessie did have a point. Sighing again, Mia relayed the whole encounter to her roommate in full detail, leaving out only that brief moment when his hand brushed against hers. For some odd reason, that touch—and her reaction to it—seemed private.

  “So you told him ‘bye,’ and he said he will see you later? Oh my God, do you know what that means?” Far from satisfying Jessie, the detailed story seemed to send her into excitement overdrive. She was now almost bouncing off the walls.

  “No, what?” Mia felt weary and drained. It reminded her of the feeling after an interview or an exam, when all she wanted was to give her poor overworked brain a chance to unwind. Maybe she shouldn’t have told Jessie about the encounter until tomorrow, when she’d had a chance to relax a bit.

  “He wants to see you again!”

  “What? Why?” Mia’s tiredness suddenly vanished as adrenaline surged through her again. “It’s just a figure of speech! I’m sure he meant nothing by that—English is not even his first language! Why would he want to see me again?”

  “Well, you did say he thought you were pretty—”

  “No, I said that he said he was there to meet ‘a pretty curly-haired girl.’ He was just mocking me. I’m sure that was just his way of toying with me . . . He was probably just bored standing there, so he decided to come by and talk to me. Why would a K be interested in me?” Mia cast a disparaging glance in the mirror at her two-year-old Uggs, worn jeans, and a too-big sweater she got on sale at Century 21.

  “Mia, I told you, you’re constantly underestimating your appeal.” Jessie sounded earnest, the way she always did when trying to boost Mia’s self-confidence. “You look very cute, with that big mass of curly hair. Plus, you have really pretty eyes—very unusual, to have blue eyes with hair as dark as yours—”

  “Oh, please, Jessie.” Mia rolled said eyes. “I’m sure cute doesn’t cut it if you’re a gorgeous K. Besides, you’re my friend—you have to say nice stuff to me.”

  As far as Mia was concerned, Jessie was the pretty one in the room. With her curvy athletic build, long black hair, and smooth golden skin, Jessie was every guy’s fantasy—particularly if they happened to like Asian girls. A former high school cheerleader, her roommate of the last three years also had the outgoing personality to match her looks. How the two of them had become such good friends will always remain a mystery to Mia, as her own social skills at the age of eighteen had been all but nonexistent.

  Thinking back to that time, Mia remembered how lost and overwhelmed she’d felt arriving in the big city after spending all her life in a small town in Florida. New York University was the best school she’d been accepted to, and her financial aid package ended up being generous, making her parents very happy. However, Mia herself had been far from excited about going to a big-city school with no real campus. Getting caught up in the competitive college application process, she’d applied to most of the top fifteen schools, only to face numerous rejections and inadequate financial aid offers. NYU had seemed like the best alternative all around. Local Florida schools had not even been considered by Mia’s parents at the time, as the rumor had been that the Ks might set up a Center in Florida and her parents wanted her far away from there if that happened. It hadn’t happened—Arizona and New Mexico ended up being the preferred K locales in the United States. However, by then it was too late. Mia had started her second semester at NYU, met Jessie, and slowly began to fall in love with New York City and everything it had to offer.

  It was funny how everything turned out. Only five years ago, most people thought they were the only intelligent beings in the universe. Sure, there had always been crackpots claiming UFO sightings, and there had even been things like SETI—serious, government-funded efforts to explore the possibility of extraterrestrial life. But people had no way of knowing whether any kind of life—even single-celled organisms—actually existed on other planets. As a result, most had believed that humans were special and unique, that homo sapiens were the pinnacle of evolutionary development. Now it all seemed so silly, like when people in the Middle Ages thought that the Earth was flat and that the moon and the stars revolved around it. When the Krinar arrived early in the second decade of the twenty-first century, they upended everything that scientists thought they knew about life and its origins.

  “I’m telling you, Mia, I think he must’ve liked you!” Jessie’s insistent voice interrupted her musings.

  Sighing, Mia turned her attention back to her roommate. “I highly doubt it. Besides, what would he want from me even if he did? We’re two different species. The thought of him liking me is just plain scary . . . What would he want from me, my blood?”

  “Well, we don’t know that for a fact. That’s just a rumor. Officially, it’s never been announced that the Ks drink blood.” Jessie sounded hopeful for some weird reason. Maybe Mia’s social life was so bad in her roommate’s eyes that she was eager to have Mia date someone, anyone—same species optional.

  “It’s a rumor that many people believe. I’m sure there’s a reason for that. They’re vampires, Jessie. Perhaps not the Draculas of legend, but everyone knows they’re predators. That’s why they’ve set up their Centers in isolated areas . . . so they can do whatever they want there with none the wiser.”

  “All right, all right.” Her excitement waning, Jessie sat down on her bed. “You’re right, it would be very scary if he actually did intend to see you again. It’s just fun to pretend sometimes that they’re simply gorgeous humans from outer space, and not a completely different mystery species.” />
  “I know. He was unbelievably good-looking.” The two girls exchanged understanding glances. “If only he were human . . .”

  “You’re too picky, Mia. I’ve always told you that.” Shaking her head in mock reproach, Jessie used her most serious tone of voice. Mia looked at her in disbelief, and they both burst out laughing.

  ***

  That night, Mia slept restlessly, her mind replaying the encounter over and over. As soon as she would drift off to sleep, she would see those mocking amber eyes and feel that electrifying touch on her skin. To her embarrassment, her unconscious mind took things even further, and Mia dreamed of him touching her hand. In her dream, his touch would send shivers through her entire body, warming her from within—then he would slide his hand up her arm, cupping her shoulder, and bring her toward him, mesmerizing her with his gaze as he leaned in for the kiss. Her heart racing, Mia would close her eyes and lean toward him, feeling his soft lips touch hers, sending waves of warm sensations throughout her body.

  Waking up, Mia felt her heart pounding in her chest and heat pooling slowly between her legs. It was 5 a.m. and she’d barely slept for the last five hours. Dammit, why was a brief encounter with an alien having such an effect on her? Maybe Jessie was right, and she needed to get out more, meet some more guys. Over the past three years, under Jessie’s tutelage, Mia had shed a lot of her former shyness and awkwardness. For her high school graduation, her parents got her laser eye surgery, and her post-braces smile was nice and even. She now felt comfortable going to a party where she knew at least a few people, and she could even go out dancing after having a sufficient number of shots. But for some reason, the dating world still eluded her. The few dates she’d been on in recent months had been disappointing, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had actually kissed a guy. Maybe it was that nice kid from biology last year? For some reason, Mia had never clicked with any of the men she’d met, and it was becoming embarrassing to admit that she was still a virgin at twenty-one years of age.