This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the priority written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Published in the United States of America by

Soul Mate Publishing

P.O. Box 24

Macedon, New York, 14502

ISBN-13: 978-1-61935-323-7

www.SoulMatePublishing.com

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

To Ross

Thank you for your unending support and love.

I wouldn’t be who I am without it.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to my editor Debby Gilbert for all your help and input. Your faith in me and Dahlia’s world is empowering and encourages me to take chances I may not have taken.

Thank you, Ross for all your support, your critiques, and your honest feedback. You make me a better writer and a better person.

Thank you to all my friends at Central Ohio Fiction Writers. Your unending support and creativity is hysterical and uplifting. I appreciate all you do more than you know.

Thank you to all my cousins in Las Vegas, especially, Lisa, Teresa, and Crissy. You have inspired me more than you know and your encouragement means the world to me.

Chapter 1

Light shimmered over the still water of the swimming pool like a disco ball in Damsel.
Why am I thinking about that place? About him?

I had hoped distance would bring peace and forgiveness but every time I thought of home . . . of Patrick and Dean, I still ached with the sharp pain of a dagger in my chest. Sitting in the lounge chair next to the pool, I watched the sun set over the far privacy wall. It had been blissfully quiet all day until my cousin, Cadenza, stomped through the house behind me. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how lost in my thoughts I’d been and how much of me was still back home in Ohio.

The instantaneous tension of having to pretend pressed on me like a weight. My muscles clenched all over, rigid and uncomfortable.

Enza couldn’t help but stomp around and make a lot of noise. She’d spent a lifetime trying to be heard in a large Italian family where everyone was loud. My cousin, Cadenza, who was really my second cousin twice removed or something like that, was hell on wheels. A woman after my own heart. When she burst through the patio door with two wine glasses and a bottle of something red in her hands, I met her deep brown, weary eyes and forced a smile.

She was dark to my ivory tone. A combination of ethnic olive complexion and tanning, her skin was like light brown sugar, kissed by the sun. I envied her as I sat on the patio under a wide-brimmed hat to protect
my
skin, pale from heredity and too much time spent in the dark. Cadenza was tall but still shorter than me with hips that looked like she was made for children and curves that begged to be touched. She was all hard edges and brash audacity with an ooey gooey center. She drank like a man and partied like a rock star but was always considerate and kind.

Her obsidian hair flowed in shimmering waves, covering a few colorful tattoos on her shoulders, and was crowned with stark platinum blond. Her thick eyeliner, running longer than her almond-shaped lids gave her an impressive Cleopatra-esque finish that accentuated her deadly beauty. She was the type to lure a man to his grave with the crook of her finger. The softness in her expression and the smile lighting her eyes, however, eased the tension in my shoulders.

“Rough day?” I asked.

“I’m just glad I’ve the next couple of days off,” she said, taking a long swig of the merlot in her glass.

I had never really liked red wine but had gotten used to it in the month I’d been staying with her. She really liked red wine.

Enza set her glass down on the lounge chair arm, twisting the stem between her thumb and index fingers as she eyed me. “So, what did you do today?” she asked.

The hint of concern to her voice and increased heart rate set me on edge.

“You’re looking at it,” I snapped.

She picked up her glass and took another drink but didn’t respond.

I sank into myself and the chair in a small fit of shame. I hadn’t meant to snap at her and I wasn’t sure where it’d come from. All I knew was that I didn’t want her pity and I didn’t want to make her feel bad either. She was a huge help, letting me crash. Hell, just being around so that I wasn’t alone too much helped more than she knew. Being alone in my own head over the previous four months hadn’t helped like I’d hoped.

“You know I love having you here,” she said with a soft smile that radiated warmth and a whisper of discomfort. “And you can stay here for as long as you like,” she said, “but . . .”

“But?” I repeated.

“Whatever it is you’re hiding from, won’t get solved sitting here by my pool,” she said, a sheepish smile turning up her pouty lips.

She was right, of course. I was hiding. Had been for a while, spending four months zigzagging the country. A night here. A week there. Anywhere until I felt the pressure of everything push down on me, until I felt that prickling feeling along the back of my neck. The feeling of being watched. Once that hit, I packed up my meager belongings and took off like I’d never been there at all.

“I’m not hiding,” I said, petulant.

“Yes, you are,” she huffed then took another slow drink and shivered. “I don’t know how you sit out here,” she said, rubbing her arms, generating a little bit of heat over the goose flesh pimpling her dark desert-kissed skin.

“It’s 75 degrees, 85 in the sun for Christ’s sakes,” I said, laughing.

“That’s cold in the desert, Duh!”

Once the sun went down, 75 in the Las Vegas desert was much cooler than 75 in Ohio. Humidity made a world of difference. But as I sat on the patio staring over the stone privacy wall and the vast barrenness of the desert beyond for miles and miles, I felt like there was room enough to hide, room enough to figure everything out.

She got up and tugged on the studded leather belt fastened tight around her low-rise jeans then slid open the glass patio door. She stopped halfway inside the house with a look back at me over her shoulder.

“Dinner at my parents’ in an hour?” she asked with a plea in her warm chestnut brown eyes. She asked every time and as usual I turned her down.

“Thanks, Enza, but no thanks,” I said, peering back over my shoulder to meet her gaze. A twinge of shame raced through me as her face fell in disappointment one more time.

“They’d love to see you, you know,” she pleaded, her concern being more than just leaving me alone again. Her strict Catholic upbringing was prickling her conscience, making it more and more uncomfortable for her to hide me. She didn’t like lying to her family. They were tight, all of them. It was a family dynamic that was completely foreign to me, considering my family history.

“I know, Enza, but you know what happens. Your mom finds out I’m here then she tells my mom and then . . .” I couldn’t finish that line of thought. I knew that it would get to Brennan and then maybe to Dean or Patrick. It had been a full month since that nagging feeling had run up the back of my neck.

Maybe they weren’t looking for me anymore? Maybe Patrick had finally let me go.
Did I even want to be let go?

Something inside me always thought I’d go back but the longer I was away, the more lost I felt, and the more I couldn’t see a future for me anywhere.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, but thanks anyway,” I said.

“All right, then I’ll see you later and maybe we can go out.” She had a hopeful gleam in her eyes and for a second, I had a flash of Am and my heart sank.

Guilt-filled tears burned behind my eyes as I spoke, pushing those memories away.

“Sure,” I said as I turned back to face the dusk colored water of the pool, taking another sip of wine to wash the guilt away. I blinked the tears back and tried to think about other things, to shove the images of Amblan’s broken and burned body from my mind. Her soot-covered bare back and the glimmer from the silver outline of the angel wing tattoo haunted me. Those images were as clear to me as the day I saw her charred and destroyed.

“Voodoo Lounge?”

“I’ll be ready when you get back,” I said in a surprisingly steady voice as the patio door closed behind me.

The bar was stifling, crammed with people as a purple strobe light flickered through the club. My pulse thundered in my ears and a pain burned behind my eyes as the smoke machine’s output stung my retinas. Pressed up against the bar, the railing dug into my ribs, the throng of people a constant pressure at my back. I was trapped and still didn’t have a drink to show for it.

It was almost comforting. No one knew who I was. No one was looking to kill me and no one was evaluating my every move trying to figure out what it meant. I felt almost normal. Almost.

The bass thumped and the guy behind me got a bit
too
happy about being pushed up against me. I tried to shift but there was nowhere for me to go as he continued to dig his embarrassingly large erection into my ass. The crowd at the bar was five deep and I wasn’t wasting all this effort and discomfort without that drink. Suffering silently, as long as that erection stayed where it was and didn’t start to wander, I would get my drink.

“What’ll ya have?” the thin brunette behind the bar asked with a smile that was a definite tip earner. She was short with too much breast for her petite frame. Her eyes were deep russet in the purple light and she had a smile that lit up her face as she gave me a once-over.

“Vodka, straight up,” I said with an answering grin. That was all she was getting as the asshole behind me shoved his hard-on into the flesh of my ass, my skirt the only barrier.

Would anyone notice if I elbowed him in the face? He’d probably scream like a little girl,
I thought to myself, smiling and transforming my face from forced pleasantry into a smirk of delight. The bartender appreciated that grin more than I’d meant her to.

“It’s on the house,” she said with a coy smile, sliding the drink across the bar to me. Her fingers grazed mine and hesitated a moment longer than was appropriate for a casual touch.

“Thank you,” I said, turning to get out of the crowd surrounding the bar. As I passed the dickweed with the erection, I jammed my finger in-between his third and fourth rib. He jerked and grabbed his side with a pained expression in his eyes that pleased me more than it should have. “So sorry,” I mocked my apology with eyes that were too large to be sincere.

“Bitch,” he grumbled low enough that someone with normal hearing wouldn’t have heard. I, however, could hear a heartbeat at 100 yards due to my involvement with the preternatural community back home in Columbus. I heard him just fine.

As the all-too-familiar euphemism graced my ears, it brought a smile to my face, a real malicious smile that warmed me to my toes. Yep, I was a bitch all right.
Couldn’t men think of anything else besides Bitch?
I strutted back to where I’d left Enza in the corner, surrounded by local guys she knew. She was like a dude magnet and since she was a few years under thirty, she was still in that flirty
I’m-not-looking-for-anything-serious
kind of mindset. I was in the
stay-the-fuck-away-from-me
mode which most of the guys she introduced me to picked up on right away. She waved at me over the crowd of heads surrounding her with a smile that could light up the night.

“What took you so long?” she asked, hopping from the stool she’d been perched on. She sashayed toward me to the dismay of the five fairly attractive guys she left behind.

“Long line,” I answered.

We bumped and ground our way to a more secluded corner, away from the huddle of men. They seemed to follow her around like an entourage. It was annoying as hell.

We found some seats beneath one of the bird’s nests where scantily clad girls danced in knee-high go-go boots and low-rise hip-hugger boy shorts. Silver and gold satin left nothing to the imagination.

Soraida, Cadenza’s best friend, sauntered over to us with a sultry sway of her hips that drew the attention of every man she passed. Her soft Hispanic features, bright green eyes under
café au lait
skin and dark ebony hair that trailed down her back, lightly swinging several inches above her tight round ass, made me envious. She was art in motion.

“Hey,
Chicas
,” Soraida said with a warm smile directed to both of us.

I liked her. She was a good friend to Cadenza and they were more like sisters than any two people I’d seen since Am and I. A small tug at my gut at the thought of Am made the hole in me ache. I thought about Am often. I thought about her afraid and in pain, about how she’d still be alive if not for me.

Was she angry with me?
Was she happy where she was? Did she forgive me for all the lies? Would she ever forgive me for letting her down?

Shaking off the questions I couldn’t answer, I glanced at Enza and Soraida. This wasn’t the place, and I didn’t want to have to explain tears to either of them. I sipped my drink and focused on their conversation.

“No, girl, he was just an ass. Not to mention the tiny asset,” Soraida said with a flare of her hand and a mocking smile.

Cadenza erupted in laughter.

Even I smiled as the rest of the world and all my emotional bullshit was stripped away by two women and their conversation about men and sex.

“Shut up,” Enza laughed, trying to catch her breath. “He walks around like God’s gift.”

“Well, if that was God’s gift, it was definitely a re-gift and cheap, too,” Soraida said with a knowing grin.

We all laughed at that.

After an hour and a drink or two, or three, I was laughing and talking like the world outside wasn’t full of things that could kill me. I was laughing like before I
knew
there were monsters and that
I
was one of them. It was wonderful to forget. I felt lighter in my own skin, easy in a way that I’d never been.

“I swear on everything I hold dear, she walked out of that restroom with the entire back of her skirt tucked into her panties. It was like a thong parade through the restaurant,” Soraida said, giggling and spilling her drink down the front of her jeans, more than a little drunk.

I leaned forward to catch her before she fell off her chair. Steadying herself on her own, she set her glass down on the table in front of her. I sat back and relaxed against the hard cushioned surface, easing off.

Sweating in the body heat filled air, I wiped the moisture from my neck and underneath my hair every five or six minutes. My hair had grown down to my shoulders since I’d been away, longer than I’d had it in years. I lifted the heavy weight of it off my skin, exposing the back of my neck to fresh air.

A frost crept up my spine like a lick of winter in the middle of the humid club. The crisp edge of power rippled against me like stale ice on a cold winter’s day in January. Patrick’s was frigid water from the summit of a fresh mountain river, constant and overwhelming. This was sharp like an icicle into my neck, and frightening.

I shivered as the power scraped along my spine.

Sitting up straight in the chair, I tried to force the slight alcohol-induced haze from my awareness. My metabolism ran faster after consuming a bit of Danny’s heart by accident and I just had to wait for my body to take the edge off the alcohol. Three or four minutes tops. Fear, causing my heart to race would surely help, cutting the time to two minutes but no more . . . I hoped.

Other books

Burn by Bill Ransom

Victory by Susan Cooper

Nights Like This by Divya Sood

Ruby Tuesday by Mari Carr

Dear Austin by Elvira Woodruff

Dead Pigeon by William Campbell Gault

Wide Eyed by Trinie Dalton

Ana Karenina by León Tolstói

We Were Never Here by Jennifer Gilmore

Evidence of Passion by Cynthia Eden