Beyond the Darkness Read online

  “You aren’t being held against your will?”

  “No one holds me against my will.” She flicked a dismissive gaze over his less than pristine suit. “Especially not a man.”

  Salvatore growled low in his throat. He didn’t get dismissive glances from women. Women drooled and panted and sometimes fainted when he entered a room.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he rasped. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Very smooth, Romeo.” Levet moved to stand at his side. “It’s no wonder the Weres are nearly extinct.”

  Salvatore glared at the gargoyle. It didn’t improve his mood to know the miniature demon was right. He could seduce a woman with a mere glance, so why was he barely restraining his urge to snap and snarl?

  Because the female was his, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. And she was damned well going to admit it.

  “Levet,” he warned as the demon waddled forward.

  “Shh. Allow the master to work.” With a flick of his tail, Levet halted directly in front of Harley, and performed an awkward bow. “Please forgive my oafish companion, beautiful Harley. He is never troubled by the need to display good manners.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “Royalty, you cannot live with them, cannot slice off their heads. Well, not without a great deal of stupid fuss.” The delicate wings fluttered. “What Salvatore intended to say was that we would be deeply honored to have your company so we can converse with you over a lovely meal.” He licked his lips. “Perhaps a roasted ox. Or two.”

  A reluctant smile curved Harley’s lips and Salvatore swallowed a sigh. Men wanted to drown the gargoyle on sight, women inevitably found him charming. It was as unfathomable as black holes.

  “I like you,” she murmured.

  “But of course you do, ma belle. I am quite irresistible to the opposite sex. It is a blessing…and a curse.”

  “Enough.” Salvatore scowled. “I have been searching for you for a long time, Harley. You’re not going to escape me now.”

  “Oh, yeah?” A slow, taunting smile curved her lips. “Then come and get me.”

  She whirled on her heel and with startling speed, was headed toward the side of the house.

  In less than a heartbeat, Salvatore was giving chase, his brain shutting down as his predatory nature took over.

  He didn’t know what he intended to do when he caught her. Bite her, bed her, or toss her over his shoulder and lock her in his lair. But it was going to be deeply satisfying.

  “Salvatore…” Levet called, his voice nothing but a distant annoyance.

  His only thought was catching the slender form that was rounding the corner of the house.

  Had he been in his right mind, he would never have given chase. Madre del dio, it had trap written all over it. As it was, his only thought was sweet vanilla and warm woman.

  Cutting the corner around the house, he had a nanosecond to realize that Harley had come to a halt and was standing with a smug grin on her lips. Then the earth beneath his feet began to shift and he was falling through empty air.

  “Sucker,” the woman called, adding insult to injury as Salvatore hit the paved floor and the top of the silver cage slammed shut above him.

  Harley’s heart was thundering in her chest as she paused at the entrance to the basement.

  A part of her was damned proud of herself.

  After years of having Salvatore Giuliani’s name used as her personal boogeyman, she hadn’t panicked when he’d suddenly appeared. In fact, she’d coolly stood her ground, and even lured the mighty King of Weres into her trap.

  Piece of cake.

  Harley blew out a sigh and wiped the sweat from her brow.

  Liar, liar.

  Her seeming composure had been nothing more than shock and temporary insanity.

  The shock had been a result of the realization that the powerful Were who wanted her dead had finally tracked her down, and was standing just a few feet away.

  The insanity was the raw, undeniable reaction to Salvatore’s presence.

  Frigging hell.

  Caine had warned her that Salvatore was a powerful beast. Werewolves didn’t have hereditary royalty. They fought and schemed and bullied their way to the top. Like Top Model, only with a lot more blood and less boobs.

  What Caine hadn’t mentioned was that Salvatore was drop-dead, mouthwateringly gorgeous.

  A shudder shook her at the thought of his lean, darkly handsome face and eyes like liquid gold. His features were pure Latin, with a long aquiline nose and full lips. His hair was a rich wave of raven satin that flowed just past his shoulders. And his body…yum. Even beneath the filthy suit, she could tell it was lean and hard in all the right places.

  Still, she’d seen handsome men before.

  Caine was no slouch in the looks department.

  So why hadn’t any of them made her blood sizzle and her palms sweat?

  It was like he possessed some sort of electric charge that was the precise current to push her buttons.

  All her buttons.

  She knocked her head against the wall, telling herself to stop being an idiot.

  So, Salvatore had an animal magnetism. No doubt being the king gave him an extra umph or something. That didn’t mean she was about to forget the fact that the bastard had killed her sisters.

  Or that he’d been hunting her for years.

  Damn his black soul.

  She wished he’d never shown up, she told herself sternly. But now that she had him caged, she wanted answers.

  Hiding her unease behind a mocking smile, Harley pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  The basement was divided in half, one side being a high-tech lab where Caine practiced his scientific voodoo, and this side being an equally high-tech prison. Usually the three silver cages were used for curs who were stupid enough to piss off Caine, but over the past months Caine had installed the triggered traps in the yard to discourage intruders.

  Her mouth went dry as she spotted Salvatore standing in the middle of the closest silver cage.

  If he was dangerous before, now he was nothing less than feral.

  The golden eyes glowed with a tangible heat, his lips curled to reveal the white teeth that could grow to lethal fangs in the blink of an eye.

  “Let me out of here,” he demanded, his voice thick.

  Harley forced her reluctant feet forward, refusing to be unnerved by the choking power that filled the room. God Almighty, she’d never felt anything like it.

  “But I just went to so much effort to get you in there,” she taunted. “Well, maybe it wasn’t so much effort. Like all men, you see a woman and assume you naturally have the upper hand.”

  Salvatore stilled, his fury morphing into something far more dangerous. With a slow glide, his gaze seared over her body, taking his sweet time in memorizing her every curve before lifting back to her face.

  “Let me guess, you’re a woman who likes to be on top?”

  “Always.”

  “Come in here and I can show you the benefits of being on the bottom.”

  A disturbing shiver raced through her body. “Being royalty really has gone to your head if you think a lame-ass line like that would ever work on a woman with half a brain.”

  “Then there must be thousands of women with half a brain,” he drawled.

  “The plastic blow-up kinds don’t count.”

  “Cara, I could make you roll over and beg.”

  Harley tilted her chin. Damn, what was it about this Were?

  She should be getting a gun and shooting him in the head, not imagining his precise technique of getting her to roll over and beg.

  “I’d rather do the gargoyle.”

  Salvatore tilted back his head and delicately sniffed the air. He chuckled.

  “Liar.”

  Shit. Harley abruptly turned on her heel and studied the numerous torture devises hung on the cement wall.

  “You said you’ve been searching for me,” she rasped.

  “Si.”


  “Why?”

  “Because you’re a very special Were.”

  “Special?” Her sharp bark of laughter echoed eerily through the room. “Don’t you mean defective?”

  “You’re perfect,” he smoothly countered, his voice brushing over her skin like warm velvet. “Just as you were intended to be.”

  She abruptly turned back to stab him with a furious scowl. “As my sisters were before you killed them?”

  Salvatore flinched, feeling as if he’d just taken a punch to the gut.

  He’d been accused of a number of despicable things, many of them true. But this…

  “Dio,” Salvatore breathed. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Did you think I didn’t know you hunted down my sisters and murdered them in cold blood?”

  Salvatore’s lips curled in a humorless smile, his shock being replaced by a grim comprehension. He’d wondered why Harley was treating him as the enemy rather than being desperate to flee Caine’s clutches.

  “Clever bastard,” he muttered, stepping close enough to the silver bars to feel the painful prickles crawling over his skin. Weres were deathly allergic to silver. In fact, it was one of the few things that could actually kill a pureblood. Silver through the heart, or decapitation. “I’ll admit there have been any number of occasions Darcy and Regan have inspired thoughts of homicide, but I’ve risked my life to protect them, even after they were stupid enough to choose vampires to act as their guardians. The only danger to your sisters is Caine.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”

  “If you don’t believe me, then let me go and I’ll take you to them. Darcy is in Chicago with Styx and Regan was headed there to join her, the last I heard. I’m certain by now Jagr’s hot on her trail. Besotted idiot.”

  “Yeah, right.” She folded her arms over her chest, but Salvatore didn’t miss the uncertainty that flashed through her eyes. Her faith in Caine wasn’t absolute. “I suppose you also have a bridge you’re trying to unload? I’m not buying.”

  “I have no reason to lie.”

  “Are you frigging kidding me?” She deliberately glanced over her shoulder at the splendid collection of whips, daggers, swords, and even a good old-fashioned mace. “You have every reason to lie.”

  “Use your brains, Harley. If I wanted you dead, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  Her lips tightened in annoyance. She couldn’t deny the truth. If he’d attacked to kill, she wouldn’t be standing there.

  “You murdered my sisters.”

  “Why the hell would I murder pure-blooded females I invested millions of dollars and decades of my life to produce?”

  “Because you didn’t want the Weres to know their king had failed in his Frankenstein experiments. You had to get rid of the evidence.”

  Salvatore had intended to kill Caine before ever arriving at the estate. Now he intended to kill him slowly.

  With as much pain as inhumanly possible.

  “My only failure was allowing you to be stolen from the nursery. You…” His gaze skimmed over her beautiful, heart-shaped face, his body humming with a constant awareness. “Are flawless.”

  “Bullshit.” Her expression hardened. “I can’t shift.”

  Her smoldering frustration filled the air. Ah. Now at least now he understood a portion of her thorny personality.

  “Is that why you overcompensate? Because you can’t shift?”

  Lifting her hand, she flipped him off. “Overcompensate this.”

  Salvatore chuckled. It was insanity. He’d allowed his hormones to overcome his common sense, and now he was locked in the cage of his archenemy with no immediate hope of escape. He should be infuriated. He should be using his powers to attempt to bend the female to his will.

  Instead, he was hot and bothered and barely able to think of anything beyond this female who was swiftly becoming an obsession.

  “To keep you from shifting was precisely the reason for my Frankenstein experiments, as you call them. Female Weres have lost their ability to suppress their shifts during the full moon. It has made it nearly impossible for pregnant Weres to carry their young to full term.” He caught and held her gaze. “We are vanishing, Harley, and you hold the hope for our future.”

  She licked her lips, caught between the urge to tell him to go to hell and a grudging need to know more.

  “So you’re saying you cooked me and my sisters up in your lab to save the Were species?”

  “You were genetically altered, si.”

  “And my sisters? Are they out producing the children you’re so desperate to have?”

  “Regan was unfortunately barren, although it hardly matters since she was busy falling in love with a leech the last time I saw her. And Darcy…” Salvatore grimaced. “She was a disappointment as well.”

  “Why?”

  “She had the same pathetic taste for the living challenged.”

  Her brows lifted. “I assume you mean a vampire?”

  “Not just any vampire.” There was an edge to his voice. That happened a lot when the walking dead entered the conversation. “She mated with the Anasso, King of Vampires. May his cold soul rot in hell.”

  Harley paced the cement floor, her expression distracted as she pondered his words.

  “Darcy.” She softly tested the name. “Regan.”

  “They are very much alive and anxious to meet you.”

  She continued pacing, refusing to meet his gaze. “Caine said there were four of us.”

  “There’s another sister who I haven’t yet found. I suspect Caine knows where she is.”

  She halted unconsciously close to the cage, her eyes troubled as she shook her head.

  “No. I don’t believe you.”

  Salvatore was a Were who firmly believed in grasping opportunity. Especially when that opportunity included a gorgeous female who set his blood on fire.

  “Then believe this.” He reached through the bars, grabbing the straps of her sports bra and yanking her close enough to kiss her. A groan rumbled deep in his throat. She tasted of exotic spices and danger. He shivered as wild lightning streaked through him. “You’re mine,” he whispered against her lips.

  For a breathless minute she softened against him, seemingly as indifferent as Salvatore to the painful silver between them. Then with a muttered curse, she pulled away, her eyes dark with alarm.

  “Caine’s right. You’re a lunatic.”

  With a glare that would have seared the skin off a lesser man, Harley stormed from the room and slammed the door behind her.

  Lunatic.

  Salvatore shoved his fingers through his hair.

  He couldn’t agree more.

  Harley reached the top of the stairs when Caine appeared in the hallway, a pair of faded denims riding low on his hips, his hair still damp from the shower.

  “I heard the alarm.” His eyes darted to the door she’d just closed behind her. “What the hell is going on?”

  Harley blocked the door, her emotions in an unpleasant jumble. And all because of that stupid Were.

  Wasn’t it bad enough that he’d managed to make her question everything that Caine had ever told her? Not that she had ever been fully on board with Caine’s smooth stories. They had changed too often over the years to be completely believable.

  But to use his kingly mojo or whatever it was to make her melt beneath his kiss.

  It was despicable.

  She lifted a hand and pressed it to her lips. They still tingled with pleasure. And they weren’t the only thing tingling.

  It had to be that damned musky smell of his. It was some sort of Were aphrodisiac or something.

  Stirring up her anger to cover the craving that still prickled through her body, Harley pointed a finger in Caine’s face.

  “I warned you that your delusions of grandeur were going to get you killed,” she snarled. “Salvatore has dropped in for a visit.”

  “Shit.” Caine’s face pal
ed. “Did you get him? Is he caged?”

  “Do you mean did I save your ass from certain death? Yes, I did.”

  Caine glanced toward the closed door to the basement, his brow furrowed.

  “I need to make a phone call.”

  A phone call? Harley narrowed her gaze. The cur was acting strangely, even for Caine.

  “Fine. I’ll keep an eye on the prisoner.”

  Like a striking snake, Caine reached out to grab her arm. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  His smile was strained. “You think I would risk you being in the same room as a rabid Were who has sworn to kill you?”

  “He’s locked in a silver cage. For the moment he’s helpless.”

  “A pureblood is never helpless.”

  Harley studied the too-handsome face. Caine didn’t want her near Salvatore. The question was, why?

  “If you’re afraid he might escape, that’s all the more reason I should keep watch on him.”

  The blue eyes glowed in the dim light of the hall. “I have curs to take care of guard duty. You have better things to do with your time.”

  She shrugged. “Not really. Besides, I want to talk with the Were.”

  “Talk to him about what?”

  “Does it matter?”

  His fingers tightened on her arm. “Of course it does.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want you exposed to the filth he’s bound to spew.”

  Harley snorted. Like most nonhumans, Caine managed to adopt the social norms that flowed and changed with the passage of time, but every so often he showed his age. The older demons were even worse.

  “Spew?”

  The glow in his eyes shimmered with blue fire, revealing he was hanging onto his wolf by a thread. Curs were always at the mercy of their emotions.

  “Salvatore is notorious for fabricating lies that hide his evil nature. The Weres would never have allowed him to stay in power otherwise.”

  She yanked her arm out of his grasp. “Do you mean lies like the fact that two of my sisters are alive and well, and currently living in Chicago?”

  Chapter Three

  Harley watched the anger ripple over Caine’s face before he clenched his jaw and studied her with a wary gaze.