Awakening the Demon's Queen Read online

  “Don’t tell me you always do everything he orders. I know that’s a lie.” Kindara pulled in a deep breath and tightened her hand on the pack over her shoulder. This was the last hurdle to her plan. “I’m going back to him. And you’re going to take me.”

  “No, I am not. I cannot.”

  “Don’t tell me you won’t. I know you can.” Kindara stared up at the giant man, shifted to block the path he stood on. “Take me to him.”

  He started to speak. “I cannot.”

  “Yes, you can. You will.”

  “No, pet. He said he cannot. Not that he will not.” A voice came from behind Kindara and she stiffened. This had not been a part of her plan. For all her bravado, turning to face him felt like one of the hardest things she had ever done.

  Rathan stood between her brother and his, dressed in his customary black. His horns were proudly displayed, his stance arrogant. But he was unsure. She could see it in his eyes. She stepped toward him. “Demon.”

  “Pet. Is that all you have to say to me after these long weeks?”

  “What do you want me to say?” Kindara kept walking until she stood less than a yard from him. She was so focused on him it barely registered when Cormac and Renakletos slipped away.

  “That you have missed me some? That you dreamed of me every night? That you need my touch and so much more?” He lifted his arms to her, but still Kindara hesitated. “Kindara?”

  “All of those things.” She lifted her right hand, wrapped it around his left wrist. Her fingers twisted in the black silk. She just touched him. “I have missed you.”

  “Not nearly as much as I missed you.” He jerked her off her feet, lifting her until her mouth was level with his. “It was pure hell to be in another realm without you.”

  Kindara wove her fingers through the dark hair wild around his head. “You shouldn’t have sent me away, then. You should have trusted me by your side. That’s what’s going to have to happen, demon. If we are to make a go of this. None of this over-protective ridiculousness. Not anymore. I’m an equal partner in this, got me?”

  “I have got you, pet. And I will not be letting you go.” His lips met hers.

  Kindara wrapped her legs around his waist and held on as he carried her into the resort. He carried her past her brother and his where they waited inside the lobby; past Dhar Rydere and his Emily. Passed Jierra and Mickey. Theo and Bronwen. Face buried in his shoulder, against his racing pulse, Kindara barely saw those watching them.

  They did not matter all that mattered was that the damned demon had returned for her.

  Together they could begin living again.

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  Lost River Lit and Calle J. Brookes…

  Cormac Jareth despised the human Leo Taniss; hated him for the pain he had called his sister and family...how, then, could he introduce his destined mate to those he loved, knowing she was Taniss’s granddaughter?

  Chapter One

  Her hand trailed through the warm water, stirring the raspberry bath beads in until they foamed. Raspberry was her favorite smell, tart and tangy and strong. The water was a bit on the hot side. Good. A hot, fragrant bath was what she needed after the day she had had. Her grandfather was a thief. He’d stolen billions of dollars from the family company and invested in a secret laboratory on the outskirts of Denver. He’d stolen from the family. How could he do that? And now the funding for her research was in serious jeopardy. Funding for everything was in serious jeopardy.

  She and her cousins Mal, Mickey, and Emily had spent the last two days trying to salvage the budget before tomorrow’s family meeting.

  It was her job as a physician to review Grandfather’s research to determine what about the lab in Denver was so vital that he’d funnel sixteen billion dollars there over a period of twenty years.

  A furry head nudged her hand and Josey rubbed the silky black and white fur. Free sensed her unease. The Border collie always did. Her fingers sank into the thick fur and Josey murmured reassuring words to the dog that she herself couldn’t hear. The dog made a noise against her hand, a sound Josey felt rather than heard. What would it be like to hear the sound of a dog barking again? She thought she remembered what it sounded like, but she’d lost ninety percent of her hearing at the age of six. There were many sounds she’d forgotten.

  That was one reason why she felt other sensations so strongly. Sensations like hot, raspberry-scented bathwater soaking into her skin. Such things provided her solace on nights like this one. She felt the thunder as it shook the small two-bedroom bungalow she shared with her younger sister on the north edge of her grandfather’s property. They all lived there on the land somewhere—her, her sister, her cousins, aunts and uncles. And Josey enjoyed it, though the family tended to be a bit smothering where she was concerned.

  Steam rose from the bath and Josey closed her eyes as she inhaled. She released the zipper on the trousers she wore and dropped them to the rug beside the tub. The blouse took seconds to remove. She dropped it next to the trousers; she’d pick them up when she was done. Now she just needed to relax and forget of things for a while.

  ****

  Cormac Jareth watched the woman for several long moments from his place in the shadows as she soaked in the tub, eyes closed and head thrown back. Despite her ancestry, despite them being of different species, his body reacted quickly to the sight of platinum blonde hair and a delicate feminine body. She was tall for a human woman, but still short for his kind. Her curves were smaller than he normally preferred, but her breasts looked sweet. Her ass was just rounded enough to say female. Her hair was completely straight and long, but she’d pulled it up off her neck before sinking into the water.

  He’d never envied water before, but this sweet-smelling bath got to touch her everywhere.

  It was almost a pity he’d come to kidnap her. To take her back with him and kill her. He would far rather take the time to savor this little human morsel. He smiled as he stepped from the shadows and spoke. “Hello, little one. Pity I cannot join you in that tub.”

  He expected a scream, a rush to cover herself with a towel. Even demands to know who he was and what he wanted.

  He got nothing. He’d taken easy control of the canine in the corner. The small dog sat watching him with a glazed, if unworried, expression. It was an ability he’d held for nearly six hundred years—as well as the ability to cloak his presence from humans, the capturing of creatures’ minds and he did so effortlessly. He tried speaking again. “Ignoring me will not make me leave you be. I am taking you with me. Then we shall feast together.”

  Her eyes didn’t open. It gave him pause. Had she not heard him? He snapped his fingers, the sound cracking in the silence. Still nothing.

  He slipped into her head effortlessly, getting tangled in a complex feminine brain within half a second. There were no sounds, just stillness that he had encountered before. Deaf, then.

  Interesting.

  He settled in her mind for a few moments, learning of her what he could. She was Jocelyn, daughter of the youngest son Jason. A doctor, educated at Johns Hopkins. She worked for Taniss Industries like all the rest of the Taniss filth.

  He’d never despised anyone the way he did Leo Taniss and his issue. The older human was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Dardaptoans. The ancient vampiric race had few enemies amongst the humans, but those with the name Taniss topped that list.

  Leo Taniss had taken Dardaptoans to his lab in Denver and ran horrific and deadly experiments on them. Most died; only three out of the known thousands taken had survived—Cormac’s only sister, her brother-in-law, and his adopted niece, Jierra. Ji had been only a three-week-old babe when Cormac had found her lying among the rest of her dead family. Two years after he’d found his sister Kindara rocking the dead body of her Rajni, or mate, Iavius. Iavius’s teenaged sister lay beside him, gone forever. Erastine had been a beautiful child with a bright future. No more. />
  And it was all that sociopath Leo Taniss’s doing.

  Tonight Cormac would wreak his vengeance upon the man’s granddaughter. His friends—Rydere, Aodhan, and Theodoric—were doing the same against three other Taniss grandchildren. The women would disappear forever, and then they would take Leo Taniss to show him the tortures the women would have endured before finally being drained dry at Dardaptoan hands.

  Taniss blood feeding Dardaptoan. It was only fitting.

  He sank deeper into her mind as he stepped closer to the tub. He reached for her, his hand settling atop thick, soft blonde hair. He pushed her head beneath the water and held her there…