Dark Dreams: HarperImpulse Paranormal Romance. Dawn Treadway
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it hit her. The strangest thing about this situation was she could tell he wasn’t lying. She always got a feeling when someone lied to her. Almost like a sharpness at the back of her neck and behind her eyes, like a fierce headache was coming on, and she wasn’t getting it from him. So there were only two possible conclusions; one, he believed what he was saying so strongly that it didn’t come out at her as a lie, which meant her half-sarcastic comment was correct and he was insane. Or two, he was being truthful. Surprisingly to her, it wasn’t the possibility of the former, complete insanity, worrying her the most; it was the possibility of the latter, that his story could reflect the truth, causing the bubble of nervousness and trepidation to rise up from her gut.
“Well, can you get rid of it? I want to get it out of me; it is awful, to tell you the truth. You are looking at this thing as a gift, but it isn’t. This thing has made me a freak. My own parents couldn’t handle it. Or I guess it was me who found it hard to tolerate their loathing of my oddity. It wasn’t just them; try making friends when you know their every feeling and lie. It crashes into my head, and did I mention it hurts? Can you, they, who, whatever, make it go away?”
Nias was not completely surprised to see the look of pain in her eyes, but it had an effect on him he did not expect. He had an overwhelming need to make that look, the causes of that look, go away, but he knew it was impossible. He needed the part of her causing that pain.
“No, I can’t. I was asked to find you, explain the situation, and obtain your help. And to be honest, I doubt they would be willing to take away something they find useful.” He couldn’t help but place his hand on her forearm, to touch her, to soothe her. And then, as quickly as he had placed it, and felt the warmth of her skin, her eyes flickered straight towards his own, and he yanked his hand away.
He would not do this. This human would not affect him. He pulled himself together and got back to the business at hand.
“My brother has been kidnapped by some very bad individuals.”
“I feel his pain, as I seem to be in the same situation.” He appreciated her sharp wit and snappy comeback, and smirked despite himself.
“Trust me, Jade, you are not in the same situation. I will not hurt you. If you try to run, I will bring you back. But I will not ever hurt you.” And he suddenly realized he meant every word of it.
Again Jade could feel he wasn’t lying. He meant what he said, and strangely she didn’t feel like she was in any immediate danger.
“I need to get to him, and I need you to use the abilities you possess to help me do it. The place I have to take you is evil beyond your reasoning; it will be like nothing you have ever seen or imagined,” he continued to explain.
Jade shuddered at the sincerity and seriousness in his voice. “Where is this place and who are these people?”
“I cannot give you any more information right now, but we need to start with your training immediately, if I ever expect to see my brother alive again.”
“Why in the world would I get involved with this? It sounds extremely dangerous, and I’m sorry to be harsh, but it just isn’t my problem.” Even as she spoke the words, she thought of the one and only thing that could possibly make her do something so crazy; to actually have a normal life, to be rid of this blasted curse. This man might not know where the curse came from, but even if there was an infinitesimal chance she could find its origin and maybe, just maybe, find out a way to make it stop, she wanted to try.
“Unfortunately, Jade, the moment you came into contact with me you started being watched and it became your problem. The Shaitan have eyes everywhere. They have, no doubt, seen you by now, so you are involved already. You’re just not safe without me or one of the Djinn beside you anymore.” Nias looked into her eyes and she thought she saw a tiny glimmer of regret. Then she experienced a flash of anger that he had put her in this position. If what he said was true, he had already endangered her life.
All thoughts of agreeing to this madness had flown out of her mind. She clenched her teeth as she responded.
“I appreciate you want to retrieve your brother, but I don’t know anything about these … these Shaitan, or Djinn, or Daemons, or whatever they are called. I have a business to run, I have a life!” A sad and pathetic life; one where I cannot keep a relationship intact, prevent my head from erupting into spontaneous bursts of pain or even manage to stay out of dreamland long enough to cope with the madness. But right now she didn’t care, she needed some air to breathe not full of super-hot “I’m a Daemon” guy. She needed to get away and think, time to sort through this mess.
She continued her tirade getting up and taking a step toward him. The tension in the room was palpable. “I am going to go, please do not stop me, do not contact me, do not drug me or drag me across the country anymore!”
She paused for a time, looking at him, and when he made no move to stop her, she stormed past him and out the door. To her surprise, he let her go.
As Jade walked out of the flat, she wondered what kind of fiendishness was truly involved in getting her there. She had been to San Francisco before, and as she looked around she realized quickly he was telling the truth on that count. Did he take her across the country, unconscious on a plane? Surely not a public one. How long was she out? She had not felt herself go under or come out of a blackout. What she did know was she needed to find a way home.
Luckily she was a credit-card-in-the-pocket, and not a purse kind of a girl, because she was going to need a cab ride and a plane ticket before that hot but vexatious man came looking for her. She was not sure why he had let her walk out, and right now she did not give two shits about the why’s, she just wanted as far away from here as she could get.
Unfortunately, as far away as she could get was two blocks, when something metal slammed into her stomach and then hit her over the head, and this time everything did go black.
When she came to, it wasn’t in a lovely flat with a gorgeous alpha male. Instead, she was in some kind of an abandoned warehouse-looking place. It was so dark she could only see by the thin cracks of light coming through what she assumed were doors, which extended from the floor to incredibly high ceilings. Her head was pounding and a foul odor smacked her in the face. She had no idea what it was, but it was a smell one could only imagine in a nightmare. A stewed thickness wafted of feces and other body fluids. She had never smelled decaying flesh, but she could imagine it smelled exactly like this.
She tried to move and realized she was chained to a beam, which connected to the ceiling. Terrified, she struggled, but the chains did not merely shackle her wrists and ankles; she felt them wrapped around her body, rendering her practically paralyzed. She began screaming from the depths of her soul, fear producing a sound she never imagined could come out of her. As she cried out she swung her head around, violently at first, but that made her pounding headache turn into an explosion of agony. She continued screaming and crying until snot and tears mingled and dripped from her face. No one responded, and she couldn’t see anyone else there. She finally passed out, most likely from the combination of fear and pain.
Next thing she knew, someone slapped her across the face so hard it split her lip and flung the other side of her face into the beam. She would have registered immense pain, except what was in front of her stole every bit of her attention. She sensed the emotions coming off of the person joining her in the cavernous space. If pure evil were a feeling, this would be it; hatred, jealousy, rage, loathing, greed, mistrust hit her all at once, and then she tried to shut them out. She pushed against it with her mind, despite the throbbing in her head. She had minimal success, making it slightly less overwhelming. She could make out a shadow of someone hunchbacked. From what little she could make out, it looked like he, or she, had been born with some hideous deformities. It seemed lopsided. One arm appeared to be longer than the other. Its breath smelled like putrid sewage … no that wasn’t it; it smelled of death. She could