The Darkest Craving. Gena Showalter
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Praise for New York Times and USA Today bestselling author GENA SHOWALTER’S
LORDS OF THE UNDERWORLD
The Darkest Night
‘The Darkest Night is Showalter at her finest and a fabulous start to an imaginative new series.’
—New York Times bestselling author Karen Marie Moning
‘Amazing! Stupendous! Extraordinary!’
—Fallen Angels reviews
The Darkest Kiss
‘Talk about one dark read … If there is one book you must read this year, pick up The Darkest Kiss … a Gena Showalter book is the best of the best.’
—Romance Junkies
The Darkest Pleasure
‘You will not be sorry if you add this to your collection.’
—Mists and Stars
The Darkest Whisper
‘If you like your paranormal dark and passionately flavoured, this is the series for you.’
—RT Book Reviews, 4 stars
The Darkest Passion
‘Showalter gives her fans another treat, sure to satisfy!’
—RT Book Reviews, 4 stars
The Darkest Secret
‘It is difficult to keep a long-running series compelling, but Showalter manages it wonderfully!’
—RT Book Reviews, 4 stars
The Darkest Seduction
‘Showalter shows her skill, and redeems the irredeemable, by crafting a beautiful love story that is both humorous and touching.’
—RT Book Reviews, 4 stars
Lords of the Underworld
In a remote fortress in Budapest, immortal warriors—each more dangerously seductive than the last—are bound by an ancient curse none has been able to break.
When a powerful enemy returns, they will travel the world in search of a sacred relic of the gods—one that threatens to destroy them all.
Gena Showalter’s
LORDS OF THE UNDERWORLD
continues with
THE DARKEST CRAVING
Also available in this series
THE DARKEST NIGHT
THE DARKEST KISS
THE DARKEST PLEASURE
THE DARKEST WHISPER
DARK BEGINNINGS
THE DARKEST PASSION
THE DARKEST LIE
THE DARKEST SECRET
THE DARKEST SURRENDER
THE DARKEST SEDUCTION
The Darkest Craving
Gena Showalter
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, to my editor, Emily Ohanjanians. Your insight never ceases to amaze me. Thank you so much for all your hard work and dedication.
Second, to my agent, Deidre Knight. I am so blessed to have you in my corner. No matter what I throw at you, you’re always there to help me!
To Carla Gallway, for all that you do! You are generous with your time and resources and so wonderfully kind, and I’m so thankful to know you!
To the winners of the blog contest: Sabrina Collazo, Lizabel Rivera-Coriano, Charlayne Elizabeth Denney, Seemone Washington and Joni Payne. I hope you love Kane’s story as much as I do.
To Michelle Renaud and Lisa Wray. You’re my girls and I couldn’t ask for a better team!
To my favourite restaurant, The Stuffed Olive, for feeding me while I was on deadline!
No dedication would be complete without mentioning my beloved Jill Monroe. You’re stuck with me, because I won’t ever let you go!
“I’ve been told I’m almost as dangerous as a tsunami.”
—Kane, Lord of the Underworld
“I’ve been told I’m a tsunami.”
—Josephina Aisling
CHAPTER ONE
New York City
Present day
JOSEPHINA AISLING PEERED down at the male splayed across the motel room bed. He was an immortal warrior, beautiful in a way no mortal could ever hope to be. Silky hair of jet, chestnut and flax spilled over the pillow, the multicolored strands forming a flawless tapestry, inviting the eye to linger a minute, then a minute more … sweet mercy, why not forever?
His name was Kane. He had long, boyish lashes, a strong nose and a stubborn chin. At six feet four, he was cut with the kind of muscle only earned on the bloodiest of battlefields. Though he wore stained and dirty pants, she knew a large butterfly tattoo dominated the right side of his hip, the ink thick and black, a little jagged. The tops of the wings stretched over the material and every so often tiny waves rippled through them, as though the insect struggled to lift from his skin—or burrow deeper.
Either was possible. The tattoo was a mark of absolute, utter evil, a visible sign of the demon contained inside Kane’s body.
Demon … she shuddered. Rulers of hell. Liars, thieves. Murderers. They were darkness without any hint of light. They lured and tempted. They ruined, tortured and destroyed.
But Kane wasn’t the demon.
Like all of her race, the mighty Fae, she had spent a good portion of her life studying Kane and his friends—the Lords of the Underworld. In fact, at the command of the Fae king, spies had spent countless centuries following the warriors, watching and reporting back. Scribes had then printed books with stories and pictures of what they’d witnessed. Mothers had bought those books and read them to their children. Then, when those children had grown up, they had made their own purchases, the need to know what happened next too strong to ignore.
The Lords of the Underworld had become the stars of the best and the worst soap opera in Séduire, the realm of the Fae.
Josephina always ate up every detail. Especially those about the ultra sexy Paris and the devastatingly lonely Torin. Kane, the beautiful tragedy, was a close third. She could probably recite his life history better than she could her own.
He was thousands of years old. He’d only had four serious girlfriends in his lifetime. Although, for a while, he’d had a string of meaningless one-night stands. He’d fought in bloody battle after bloody battle with his enemy, the Hunters. Three times, they’d managed to capture and torture him—and she’d waited, breathless, to hear of his escape.
Going back even further, to the beginning, he and his friends had stolen and opened Pandora’s box, unleashing the demons from inside. The Greeks had been in power at the time, and they’d decided to punish the warriors by turning their bodies into receptacles