Dark & Dangerous: A Collection of Paranormal Treats Read online

  Dark & Dangerous: A Collection of Paranormal Treats

  Wild Thing

  Touch Me

  Surrender

  Kiss of the Wolf

  Shadow Kissing

  The Devil She Knew

  Soul of the Wolf

  Forever Mine

  Her Best Enemy

  Dancers in the Dark

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  Table of Contents

  Wild Thing

  By Julie Kenner

  Touch Me

  By Susan Kearney

  Surrender

  By Julie Leto

  Kiss of the Wolf

  By Susan Krinard

  Shadow Kissing

  By Tanith Lee

  The Devil She Knew

  By Evelyn Vaughn

  Soul of the Wolf

  By Karen Whiddon

  Forever Mine

  By Linda Winstead Jones

  Her Best Enemy

  By Maggie Shayne

  Dancers in the Dark

  By Charlaine Harris

  Wild Thing

  Julie Kenner

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

  PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CAITLYN RAINE SAT on the hard concrete bench and watched, mesmerized by the great cat’s regal beauty. Muscles rippled under the midnight-black coat as the beast stalked behind the fencing, its copper-colored eyes never leaving her own.

  This section of the Audubon Zoo had been her favorite place to escape since she’d moved to New Orleans nineteen months ago. How many times had she come here, walking alone through the famous Garden District to get to this solitary spot? The zoo provided a peace she couldn’t find in her job or in herself. The cages and habitats, each specifically designed for a unique species, provided an ordered respite from a world that never quite made sense. A world where Cate just never quite fit in.

  But the world would provide no cage for Caitlyn. She’d find no safe haven, and there were no easy answers. She’d spent her whole life stalking demons, the kind on the street and the kind that lived inside her. But still they came. Night after night she hit the streets, hunting down the killers and the rapists and the vandals. And day after day she testified in court. The stalwart detective. Just the facts, ma’am. No need to get emotional. No need to let the jury know you saved their children by getting that monster off the street. Why bother? There would just be another monster to take his place tomorrow.

  But no matter how futile, Cate did her job. And she did it well. She had to. How else could she prove that the voice in her head was wrong? That familiar low whisper with her mother’s southern drawl. You’re a bad girl, Caitlyn. A cursed girl. You shouldn’t never have been born.

  Amazing that the voice could persist even after the woman was gone. The day Cate had graduated from high school, her mother had walked away, taking her anger and her superstitions with her, and leaving seventeen-year-old Cate to fend for herself.

  It hurt, yes. But it was also a relief.

  The woman herself was gone.

  But the voice in her head remained, and so Cate came here to the zoo to escape that proclamation, to silence that persistent voice. And hour after hour she’d lose herself in the sweet pleasure of doing nothing but watching the great cats move about. Their lives were her escape, and she loved them for it. But it was the one called Midnight that she loved the most. Even more aloof than his counterparts, and certainly more violent, the cat had been relegated to private quarters—a smaller habitat off the main panther area. And Cate had kept silent vigil, watching the cat, feeling absurdly, pathetically, as if there was a bond between them.

  Today, she’d once again succumbed to the urge to come here, ignoring Adam’s offer to buy her a beer and his protest that it wasn’t right to spend her birthday alone. She sighed. He was probably right. She probably should have accepted her partner’s offer, but she just couldn’t handle company or the false camaraderie. Not now. Not when she was alone and turning thirty.

  With a tug, she hefted her backpack into her lap, then pulled out a package wrapped in gold paper. It was from Kimberly, the only person in the world Cate might actually call a close friend. They’d met in Los Angeles, and for some reason Kimberly had taken a liking to Cate, managing during the years Cate worked for the LAPD to break through one or two of Cate’s thick stone walls.

  Cate twisted the package, examining its sides and corners, and imagining that it held something fabulous. Unlike Cate, who’d happily shop at Goodwill for the rest of her life, Kimberly had good taste and knew how to wield it.

  With a little sigh, Cate allowed herself to wish that Kimberly was at home by her telephone. But her friend was out of reach, happily tripping through Europe, and Cate had no idea how to locate her. And despite her law-enforcement connections, using Interpol to track down a girlfriend for a birthday-blues chat seemed a little extreme. Even for a thirtieth birthday.

  “Besides,” she said, looking once again toward the panther, “I’ve got you.”

  The cat stopped stalking and cocked his head, those copper eyes peering at her over the wide, flat nose. Cate shivered, suddenly certain the beast had understood her. She licked her lips. “I hope it’s okay if I spend my birthday with you.”

  A few more seconds passed, and the cat’s gaze never wavered. Then he blinked—a gesture Cate took as acquiescence—and resumed pacing the habitat. Cate scowled, shaking her head at her own foolishness as she turned her attention from the cat back to the package in her lap.

  She found an untaped section of the thick gold paper and slipped her pinkie nail—the only one she hadn’t bitten off—under, edging it along until the tape peeled up. Slowly, she urged the tape away, careful not to let any of the gold color catch on the adhesive. The box was small, but Kimberly had used a lot of tape. It took almost ten minutes, but finally Cate managed to remove the wrapping paper intact. She folded it into a square and tucked it into her purse before turning to the box.

  Her unwrapping ritual was grueling and probably a little silly, but Cate loved it. Loved the anticipation that came from peeling back layer after layer of colored paper and tape to get to the goody buried deep inside. With a present, you always knew the digging was worth it. With people, you simply couldn’t be that sure.

  Now that the paper was off, she lifted the cardboard box lid slowly, revealing an understated wooden box with tarnished hinges. The wood was polished to a high sheen, but other than that, the box was wholly unremarkable. Even so, there was something wonderful about it, as if beneath that simple lid lay the treasures of the universe.

  Ever so carefully, she plucked the box free. The wood seemed warm in her hands, and for just a moment she closed her eyes, pretending that this was the crowning gift of a fabulous birthday party and she was seated at the head of an ornately laid table, thirty or forty of her closest friends raising their flutes in a champagne toast to her, her parents sitting tall and proud at the head of the table.

  “Utter nonsense,” she whispered, her eyes straying towar
d the cat. The panther blinked, but didn’t reply.

  Cate scowled, irritated by her own foolishness, both in talking to the cat and in fantasizing about large, unwieldy parties. She didn’t like crowds. She didn’t need parents or a cadre of friends. She was doing just fine.

  She swiped the edge of her thumb under her eye, warding off the tears she simply wouldn’t shed. Hell, maybe she should have taken Adam up on his offer. But no. It wasn’t a casual drink or polite conversation she wanted. True, Adam might fix her up with one of his friends, but if she wanted to get laid she’d have to arrange it herself. In that regard, at least, New Orleans was the perfect city, and she knew how to work it.

  She was a bad girl, after all, and isn’t that what bad girls did? Had wild, hot, demanding sex with gorgeous men who never called again? Men who, no matter how much she secretly wanted them to, never bought flowers or candy or told her she was special. Why would they? She was who she was, and no man could save her any more than she could save herself.

  A tear slid down her cheek, and she roughly brushed it away. “It’s only a birthday,” she said, her soft whisper directed toward the panther.

  The great cat stared back, then settled himself on the cool stone, his regal head resting on crossed paws.

  “Well, time to see what I’ve got here,” Cate said. At midday in the summer heat, the zoo was almost empty, so no one would hear her talking foolishly to a cat. As she lifted the lid on the box, though, all thoughts of idiocy left her head, replaced with an intense sense of wonder.

  There, nestled in the velvet-lined interior of the box, lay the most beautiful glass perfume bottle Cate had ever seen. The product of fine artistry, the bottle evoked an erotic sensuality, warm silver intricately intertwined through cut, cool crystal. “Oh,” she whispered, the word little more than a sigh, as she lifted the bottle out.

  Obviously an antique, the bottle was more solid than it looked, and despite its almost ephemeral beauty, she didn’t worry that she would break it by handling it. This bottle had seen the world, probably decorating the dressing tables of royalty, holding specially commissioned perfumes or scented oils for a king’s mistress. The bottle had witnessed both grand passion and grand intrigue.

  Kimberly couldn’t have picked a better present.

  Although the bottle was empty, Cate couldn’t resist the urge to tug at the stopper but it was stuck fast. Not that it really mattered. The bottle was bone dry, and probably had been for some time. And it wasn’t as if she’d ever take the time to fill it with her favorite fragrance. That was hardly her style. Though she was happy to add the beautiful bottle to her dressing table.

  She held it up to take a closer look at the fine crystal. The facets caught the light, breaking it into a rainbow of color.

  In front of her, the cat raised itself, then stood rigid, its nose twitching and its eyes near-slits.

  “What is it,” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

  The cat didn’t answer. And Cate realized that, in fact, she’d actually expected it would. Absurd.

  Instead, it began pacing, more frenetic than before. It circled the habitat, faster and faster, as if searching for a heretofore unnoticed exit.

  Still holding the bottle, she stood, then moved to the fence. The cat stopped, turning to face her. Their eyes met, and she lost herself in the deep color of the beast’s irises. She stood, mesmerized, as the seconds turned to minutes, the minutes to hours, the hours to eternity. She’d been drawn in, and now the panther was filling her head, overwhelming her senses. She was the panther. Stalking. Caged. Anquished.

  Wanting. Needing.

  Needing her.

  Gasping, Cate jumped back, the spell broken.

  She glanced at her watch; barely a minute had passed. Had she drifted off into her own daydreams? Or had the panther called to her, reaching out to meet her mind?

  Nonsense, of course. But Cate couldn’t help the overwhelming sense of foreboding. The sense that she was not the hunter, but the hunted.

  There were demons in the dark, and they knew her name.

  “Do you know?” she whispered to the panther. “Do you know what’s happening?”

  And then, drifting on a wind that was surely born of imagination, Cate heard the whispered reply—I know, Caitlyn. I know that you are mine….

  SHE WAS THE ONE.

  From within his feline prison, Luc Agassou watched as the dark-haired woman fled down the path, her backpack slung over one shoulder and a wooden box clutched to her breast. He’d watched her for almost two years now, suspecting but not certain that she was the one. His mate. The one woman in all the world who could help him control his curse.

  She’d first appeared nineteen months ago, as he was beginning the second year of his self-imposed sentence. He’d noticed her sitting on the bench in a torrential rain, a yellow slicker and rain hat her only protection from the elements. For the first few months after his confinement, he’d examined each female visitor with an intensity born of desperation. Was it her? Or her? Or perhaps that lush blonde over there?

  But disappointment after disappointment had hardened his heart, and he’d quit looking, telling himself that if she came, he would certainly notice. And if she didn’t…well, then one such as he deserved this dark and solitary confinement.

  When this woman had sat on the bench, he’d noticed. That had been his first clue. The fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off her had been the second.

  He’d almost summoned the change right then, so desperate was he to take his human form again. But he couldn’t risk it. If he took this woman—if he mated with her—and she wasn’t the one…

  He’d trembled at the possibility of succumbing to the change while she was still in his bed. Could he, in the madness that took him as he changed into feline form, prevent himself from mauling that perfect specimen of female flesh? He didn’t think so. He was a killer, a beast. That was, after all, why he’d confined himself to this private hell, a majestic black panther who lived only to entertain the masses that wandered the paths of the Audubon Zoo.

  He, like all the unknown others of his family, went through life in the body of a man but with the soul of a panther. And at times, the panther fought to get out. When the curse came, it was hard and brutal, attacking both body and mind so that Luc lost all control. He would lose minutes, sometimes hours, and when his senses returned, he’d find himself in feline form, often hungry and on the prowl.

  The change could never be predicted, sometimes not coming for weeks, other times coming twice or three times in one day. But once the madness passed and self-awareness returned, he could shift back into human form at will. That was how he’d stayed at the zoo for so long. He’d simply refused to shift back and, instead, had stayed a panther.

  Before he’d come here, he’d tried to live a normal life, tried to pass as truly human. It had been easier before his parents had died. Geneticists, his parents had adopted him after his birth mother had committed suicide, leaving him and his identical twin. The infant boys had become wards of the state, and eventually, his brother had been adopted. Luc often mourned their separation, and hoped that his brother had been as fortunate as Luc. The couple that eventually took Luc into their home and their hearts truly loved him. Even more, as scientists, understood him.

  Genetics, they’d said. Not magic. But Luc knew it didn’t matter what they called it. There was only one cure: sex. And even that wasn’t a real cure. To stave off the change—and then only temporarily—he had to have sex with his life mate, a woman then unknown to him.

  A curse, he’d said.

  Science, his parents had answered. Pheromones and hormones and all controllable with time, with practice. When puberty hit, they’d put bars on his room, so that when the change came he would be out of harm’s way.

  Life had been bearable while his parents had lived. They’d tried to teach him control, to keep some shred of humanity during those first lost moments during the change. And they’d promised him t
hat a permanent “cure” did exist. They just didn’t know what or how.

  After his parents had died, his world had been turned upside down. He’d searched for his mate each night, instinct telling him that she was in New Orleans, that she would find him. But his efforts were to no avail, and he was careful to spend every night in his cage. Such precautions were insufficient, however. On one tragic day, the change had come, fast and furious, and Luc had been unable to grasp the control his father had sworn was possible.

  He’d failed. He was cursed. And he’d confined himself in this feline habitat, hoping against hope that somehow, some way, his mate would wander past his cage.

  His days had been filled with disappointment. Until, that is, he’d seen the dark-haired woman.

  He fought the urge to take human form immediately. Best to wait, to bide his time until he knew for certain that this woman could quell the fire that burned within him. That her humanity, meshed with his own, could stifle the demons in his soul.

  Today, though, his suspicions had finally been borne out. Today, he’d seen into her soul, felt her being, and somehow he had simply known.

  She was the one. His mate. His cure.

  And he would have her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE WAS ONBourbon Street, and she was all alone. No tourists, no business owners, no cops. Just Cate…and someone following her. Neon lights advertising nude girls and cheap liquor flashed around her, as if lighting a path to her damnation. She stifled a shiver and ran the other direction, into the shadows, into the dark.

  The pad of footsteps reached her ears, soft and steady, and Cate’s breath caught. She reached for her gun, wanting to turn on her stalker once and for all, but he wasn’t there. She wore a silky negligee, and though the streets were empty, golden eyes peered from windows that looked down on the alley. The wind whispered with a dozen voices. Give in, Cate. You are his. Give in…Give in…